5 Simple Steps to Maximizing Your Break Room Sales

Vending Operators are given a challenge when starting into Break Room Markets. Traditional Vending has always been setting your snacks, sodas, coffee and cold food machines, then fill. And we’ve noticed that operators that try to set up their markets the same way, may fall short of their potential!

We suggest prior to setting your market, that you step into a variety of convenience stores. Look at their item placement and see how they are merchandising their products. For example, most consumers are looking for refreshments first. You will notice that generally beverages are always located at the back of the c-store, directing customers past shelves full of snacks that may catch their eye and increase their purchase.

The five basics – to achieve a high volume break room market:

– Top-Shelf Items: Highest price points and smaller, regional or gourmet brands
– Bullseye Zone: (AKA eye-level) 2nd & 3rd shelf from the top, this is your most sought after items and highest profit margin items
– Bottom Level: Less frequently purchased items (Larger bagged snacks, seasonal items)
– Near Checkout: Impulse buys such as candy, gum & mints
– Retail Items: Think outside the box and treat this as a retail shopping experience for your customer. Sundries like phone power cords, medicines, chap stick, and greeting cards provide great profit margins and easily fit into a market space vs. traditional vending.

Three Square Market has a team of professionals that can assist you with maximizing your profits by helping you to properly merchandise your store. Let us grow your business with our system’s inventory intelligence, new products and our expertise.

Call our team today at 715.386.2233

Why I went and had a booth at the National Convenience Store Convention

Today, Jim Brinton, CEO of Avanti, published a blog on Vending Market Watch that details my participation in the National Convenience Store convention last week.  His last paragraph stating “I am taking my 40 years of being in vending and being protective” I hope is his intention of posting the blog.  If that is the case, I understand it and will certainly respect that.  But it by no means paints an accurate picture of why Three Square Market (32M) was at this convention.

Jim, a very successful vending operator who has built two great companies, Evergreen Vending and Avanti (along with his Avanti Northwest brand), is well respected in our industry.  He has built a nationally recognized brand and we are going to work endlessly to catch him and our peers to grow our business.  But in reading his article, I take objection to many of his points and believe it is important to clarify why we are there and what our experiences have been with convenience store owners.

First, Jim, one of the first people I met at the show is not only a convenience store owner (has over a dozen locations), but he is a proud micromarket operator.  In fact, he was in convenience stores long before he got in to markets.  And guess who he has a bunch of stores with?  Avanti. We have several successful Three Square Market operators who are also convenience store operators.  We also have operators who are hotel owners, restaurant proprietors, investors, hair salon owners and more.  Jim, they are already in this business – let’s not try and say this is limited to just vending.

I like you Jim, love vending operators.  We covet the relationships we have with them.  But I covet the relationships I have with all of my operators.  When the healthy vending craze started did you shun them?  When OCS operators got in to arena, did we push them out the door and say this was limited to just vending?  When markets moved from just being in white collar environments to gray collar locations, factories and now one of my most successful locations, charter schools, does that mean we are violating the edict?  How about improving the customer experience by offering mobile payment options versus solely relying on a kiosk – was that also a move in the wrong direction?  The answer to all of these is no.  It is called progress, growth and more.

Acknowledging the convenience store market brings credibility to our arena.  Business owners and the general public are no longer asking “what is a micro market?”  They know what it is because it solidifies that this is no longer a fad – it is here to stay.  What it should mean is that as we bring in more players, we should continue to see improved avenues for all vending operators to enter this arena and grow their businesses.  Vending has been in a slump but as recent as this month, the Automatic Merchandiser highlighted one of our operators who took a struggling 30 year company back to a growing profitable business through markets.  Micro markets has allowed that time and time again for 100’s of vending companies and will continue to for decades to come.

But my issue with the blog doesn’t end with that.  I find some of the statements to be far off-base as would some of my clients.  To say a convenience store operator “doesn’t understand how to deal with human resource personnel or customer service requests” is off base.  Many of these convenience store owners are large corporations who have their own HR Departments and clearly understand how to deal with these leaders.  And, if the attendees of this convention didn’t understand how to deal with customer requests, how are they even in business in this ever changing world of on-line shopping, telecommuting, unstable fuel markets and more.

Jim, I admire and respect your success.  But I have to say, telling me where I should be looking to grow my business is over the line.  I am going to lead our company no different than you by adding valued clients, relationships and more.  Recently we were approached by a major player to enter in to our other business, inmate commissary.  Rather than try to “protect” my business, I approached it as an opportunity to further grow my business.  I found a way to partner with them on their ideas and together, we are going to make growing together a major joint initiative for 2016.

Which is the final reason we attended the show.  We believe that several of our operators could benefit from tying our program to a convenience store operators or chains buying power, brand, loyalty programs and more. Instead of requiring that operators paste our brand name everywhere, we allow them to customize their locations – unlike anyone else. Allowing operators to partner with national brands potentially could bring identity and credibility unmatched in the industry.  It is time to think outside the kiosk and the staple of salts and sugars to grow this industry.  Partnering with some of these chains is an untapped opportunity and 32M intends to lead the kiosk providers in doing things that further enhances the services we offer to our clients and their client sites.  So when you see “1000’s of locations in your city”, you are exactly right – we are looking for ways outside of just planting a kiosk in a breakroom to ensure all of our clients grow their businesses profitably – there are 900,000 potential locations out there, let’s go get them and make them all successful.   It goes parallel to the mission we have at 32M:  Create success at every opportunity.  This was an opportunity to create new avenues for our company, our clients and potential new clients.  It was successful.

Patrick

Let’s get some facts straight

I talked with one of our great 32M distributors today and heard something that at first ticked me off but then actually was flattering.  He told me one of our noble competitors said “32M isn’t going to be around much longer”.  REALLY?  My brother in law Todd, his brother Tim, and myself …. laughed.  We are 100% privately held, no outside investment, completely self built, self funded, company.  We have ZERO outside stockholders.  We are the decision makers and guess what?  We are not going anywhere, we are not for sale and we are in the middle of a record year.  We have a phenomenal group of employees, we just added two very large jails and have nearly 4,000 more inmates set to install between now and the end of January.  We have a new patent application pending on another new enhancement to our micro market system, we are adding three new major features to our jail system in the next 60 days, and our supply company is now launching a major new initiative with Vistar that is sure to change how people look at both our supply company and 32M.  Add to it, we have a few major game-changing features set to roll out in our market business and a major new product in our jail business coming out in early 2016.

So, when you saw “32M won’t be around” really maybe what they meant is that yes, they won’t be in our rear view mirror much longer.  Yes, two competitors are currently bigger than us in the market business.  But we are rapidly gaining on them and with some of the relationships set to launch, that gap is going to close even faster.

Here is a nugget for you: You have a great kiosk.  We like it and yes, we have duplicated some of its’ features.  Pay a compliment instead of selling smoke and mirrors.  Sell the facts of your system and if you can’t, please as an operator, don’t buy in to the nonsense.  I will say this, I saw Jim Britton today at a convention – I would work with him if you didn’t work with 32M because of his passion for his business.  Or I would spend the time with the folks at Breakroom Provisions – good people with a good product – before I would spend five seconds with people who resort to these sales tactics.

Last, we were the first with many things but we weren’t the first to market.  Kudos to Jim and Joe and others for setting the stage for others like us to jump on.  Now let’s stick to the facts as we move ahead.

We take a great deal of pride in how we built our company, who we are, our great employees, clients and more.  We are not going anywhere.  We look forward to competing for the next several decades in all of our businesses and those to come.  In the meantime, research the facts and if you have a question, ask one of our great distributors, our employees, or me.

Create success today at every opportunity.

Patrick

Change – the word we hate but need for success is really less than a minute a day of change

The late legendary coach Herb Brooks said in essence “change is something nearly everyone hates, fails to embrace but it is mandatory for success”.  I find that daily I find in both our great employees or valued clients, we are always faced with that conversation: “What do we need to change? Will it be successful? Do I want to do it?”

Well I see change a lot differently than most. If you break down your day and the decisions we make, they likely account for less than 60 seconds of our time daily. Whether we decide what to eat, when to sleep or awake, exercise, work, work smart, work hard, screw off, blow off a new process, try a new route home, listen intently to our spouses, etc., the list is very likely very long. But the amount of time spent processing the go left or right is a fraction of a second.  And this is where you as a leader, employee, spouse or aspiring “let’s get in better shape” adult succeed or don’t. 

We all know that if we wanted to have a utopia life, whatever that utopia is defined as for your individual life, it comes down to our current life is a summation of our prior decisions and our future will be determined by the sum of decisions made starting RIGHT NOW.  If you read the next sentence you purposely or subconsciously decided “I want read on – this is good stuff” or “I am going to read this as this guy is full of hot air and I want more humor”, or the last option, someone stopped reading this. 

The reality is if you want to change your path in life, you are given infinite opportunities to start changing every day.  You want to be in better shape and it is the middle of the work day?  Decide you want water right now versus Diet Coke.  Decide to stretch your legs right now and every 30 minutes so that when you get home you are ready to go for a walk rather than crash on the couch.  Want to be more productive, decide not to check Facebook right now versus making that next critical sales call.  

Reality is that there are infinite paths to walk on daily.  Your daily resting point in the journey of life tonight is controlled by you.  Don’t like your health, change it – if you have cancer that isn’t in your control but if you are out of shape, that is all you.  You don’t like your boss, look in the mirror first and ask if he/she is the problem or does your attitude have something to do it.  More specifically, is the choices you are making leading to poor performance that your “prick of a boss” is really doing you a favor? Or, is your boss or his/her boss simply an ass clown and it is time to be happy and pursue success elsewhere?  A Harvard Business School study found 54% of the time someone doesn’t succeed at a job has zero to do with the employer: it resided solely on the poor attitude and attitude skills one brought to the job. Is the boss an idiot or are you?

The reality, if you are lacking success in any aspect of your life or business or job, the opportunity to change is immediate. And when your break it all down, if you can improve the 60 seconds a day of decisions you make, you will see immediate improvement. 

Last, you may ask, how do I improve my decisions and make the change happen?

1) Slow down and breathe.  Notice I said breathe, not think.  Many bad decisions are made because people are not of a calm mindset to even think. Decisions made in this state are often influenced by anger, fatigue, being hungry or just being lazy.  So, take a deep breath first and prepare to think and analyze. 

2) Know the opposite effect of what you are about to decide. If you are seeking change, than your reality is the opposite effect you are seeking – what is the opposite of that? Know both, then make the decision based upon the desired outcome.  Case in point: You are working on growing your sales but have had a lousy day in sales.  Yet, you know your results have been slacking because you have spent more time on Facebook and fantasy football picks than working your lead management system.  So no one has answered after 24 calls: you can hit Facebook or you can make the next call.  You are at the intersection of success and not.  You can stick with your current results and Facebook routing and enjoy your current paycheck or you can knuckle down and go after the next prospect?  

The reality, achieving success and not is that simple.  60 seconds of change is not hard – make simple yet disciplined changes and you will see the results.  

Create success today at every opportunity.  

Patrick 

Our Theory When It Comes to Presentations – Whether to Say or Ask Something….or Not?

Many of you ask “how do I present this product?” when it comes to markets.  At 32M, we will provide you all of the tools and training required to be successful at selling locations.  But often, the difference maker in whether or not you nail that new account or upgrade that location to a market is how you present.  This includes asking the right questions or making bold statements, especially asking the hard questions.

So, the fair question is: “How do you know the line between asking a question or saying something that is out of bounds and not?”  Here is my theory and I call it “The Say It Triangle”.  Let me be more specific by first defining the three sides of the triangle.

1. Side One – Professional: Is the question professional?  Specifically, is it a professional topic or not and is it asked in a professional manner?
2. Side Two – Ethical:  Does the topic put anyone in a situation to have to consider their moral compass?
3. Side Three – Factual:  Is the question completely true or is seeking an answer or addressing a subject that is truthful?

So, how does it work?  If the statement or question is professional and ethical, it is factual.  If it is factual and ethical, it is professional.  If it is professional and factual, it is ethical.  If it meets this model, ASK the question or make the statement.

What is the opposite of this?  Let me give you some examples:

1. Tip toeing around issues.
2. Hiding the truth.
3. Not getting all the facts.
4. Losing the sale.
5. Losing confidence of your customer.
6. Not capturing the impulse they had when they said “come see me”.
7. The customer can’t wait for you to leave because they are bored in your presentation.

So let’s address point #7.  Based upon what I have outlined here in the Say It Triangle, would I ask the question “Sir, you don’t seem interested today thus it tells me that I have not captured what you are interested in.  Why did first want to meet with me?”  Would I say this?  YES.  Why, because the sale is not going anywhere and last I looked, zero times anything is zero.  Now, if it was a current client, I may change a word or two but the reality is, it would be no less than “We have been servicing you for a long time and to ensure I always provide you with the best solutions, I felt it was best for me to come in and show you how I can improve your work place and my solution to it.  Have you found any part of this upgrade proposal of interest?”  Failure to means that at some point, a competitor will come in and get their attention that you failed to.

You may say “I don’t want to be pushy or aggressive?”  Being truthful, factual and ethical is not being pushy or aggressive.  It is clarity, thorough, complete, decisive, etc.  Last I looked, sales often isn’t comfortable.  If you are comfortable in sales, you likely are not pushing yourself or your customers and your results reflect that.   The previous sentence is an exact example of the Say It Triangle:  It is factual – it is ethical – so those of you questioning whether or not it is professional, take note.  By failing to to either push yourself or your customers, you likely do not create value or urgency around you or your product.  And failure to create measured value or urgency, where the customer says “I want to move ahead today” means no sales.

In selling markets, to be specific, a lack of creating value means the locations say “I will stick with vending” or “I will stick with my current provider – they have done a good job”.  Vending, I stress, is not a bad business or solution….in locations that dictates vending should be the solution.  But don’t let that be pre-determined. And certainly don’t let the location say “we should only do vending”.   If there is interest, it can be a great location when presented the right way.  And the right way often includes coming in and asking tough questions to elicit the true needs of the organization so you create value around your product providing solutions to those needs.

So, ask yourself, in the last few presentations, have you created value or urgency for your market solution? Your company?  Your SELF?  If not, meaning you are not having success in selling markets, I would suggest  you look long and hard at your presentation skills and ask yourself “am I saying what needs to be said or asking what needs to be asked?”.

Make it a great day and create success at every opportunity.

Patrick

16 Easy Steps to Being a Successful Operator

You want to be successful in markets, right out of the gate, at each and every site?  Follow this plan.  It isn’t rocket science but you MUST do each step on each store.  You miss one and it likely leads to breaking down of the others.

1. Have presence during opening days at all breaks/lunches for all shifts.  Also, have give-aways such as 20 oz. sodas for depositing funds, buying an item, etc.  Having presence to ensure people understand how to use the kiosk is critical in the first few days.
2. Blast emails 10 days prior to opening, banners, payroll inserts, etc., to publicize the opening.
3. Have a sample day a few days prior to opening your store and get your clients excited about what is coming.
4. Use signage in the market that looks similar to the Barnes and Noble site that you would find in a retail store.
5. Seek someone at each location who can straighten up the market once daily in exchange for a weekly $10 credit to their account. The $10 weekly is far less than what it would cost in labor time and gas to have someone at the market keep it in order daily.
6. Set initial pars accurately based upon what products are likely to sell and space available/allocated for each product.  Typical best sellers in vending will still be best sellers in a market.  You will have a good improvement in fresh food sales, bigger packages, vegetables, yogurt, etc., but again, items that have shelf life issues should not be overstocked or have inflated pars.
7. Make sure your products in the store as you open it, are what your clients will eat.  If there is a strong segment of employees who have a taste for Mexican, Asian or other types of cuisine, ensure your product list includes this and is on the shelves when you open.
8. Use the system to create your first store order for each site.
9. Take a spot inventory on each delivery of best-selling items.
10. Receive your store order EVERY time it is delivered to the store.
11. Use the Recommend Pars function after about 3 weeks of buying history has been established.  Ensure that the system is accurate as to how frequently you fill the store on a weekly basis.  Our 32M team will work with you on this.  Make sure you have been trained how to do this.  It will take a good 6 weeks to really be accurate but it will be very close for an operator after only about 3 weeks.
12. Use the freshness tracker and make sure you are trained on this; this will also be factored in to your recommended par functionality.
13. Employ the warehouse management functionality if you can separate market inventory from vending inventory.
14. ALWAYS keep your costs accurate.
15. Reconcile your cash box using the system.
16. Use the system when you make inventory adjustments and define why inventory was removed.

Perfection – what else are you striving for

As a continuation of our Blog on Principles of our company, Perfection is next.  We are big believers in Jim Collins book, Good to Great.  He says as one of his principles “are you good at it?”  We took it a step further: can we perfect it?

While perfection is something rarely achieved, seeking it should be a constant in your life, let alone the product you produce and sell. Failure to means you are accepting average.  Seeking it means you are constantly looking to improve it, how you service it, how to stay ahead of your competitors and more.  Failure to think this way means simply that, you are likely to fail, whether sooner or later.  

As part of seeking perfection, we seek like minded business owners who strive for the same.  People who want to be the best.  Business owners who can sort through the smoke screens of marketing gimmicks and fancy displays for hard core performance facts and profit measurements.  In having like minds, we can together, seek the best avenues to provide a superior end product.  In return, we achieve jointly our profit goals, the core of each business’ ability to thrive. 

We look forward to seeing our clients in Vegas at NAMA next week in our market business.  Until then, have a great business today. Today is 20% of your work week….make it count. 

Patrick 

Read today: over 50% of companies starte

Read today: over 50% of companies started ’15 with a #wellness program. Over 50% of those already have been dropped. Go with a program that is used by nearly 90% of your employees: Breakroom Market. Better products & variety that allow employees the chance to refresh and relax and then deliver better productivity and results. Learn more: http://www.breakroomrehab.com

Principles, Who We Stand For

Over the next few weeks I am going to post blogs about the Principles we stand for.  While these are the standards we live by, we welcome the chance to learn about yours and your feedback on ours.  The term “mutual” is something we believe that these principles to be – our #1 Principle is Profits.  Some at first may say “whoa” if you are…..stop.  What it means without our business partners being profitable we don’t exist.  So, in that spirit, we have Ten Principles and our first starts with you.  

When we all started in business, we started  with a mindset we need to make money to survive.  We need to pay bills, fund babysitters, a car payment, the mortgage, and as time grew, dreams.  Making dreams become reality starts with having a bottom line number that you need to hit whether it be grow your business, add that second delivery truck, build a new bulding, buy a competitor, let alone expand, fund your retirement, provide improved benefits for your employees, build a bigger home, the list is endless.  

This starts with profit and we must provide you the impact on your business to grow it.  We stress to our staff daily we need to ensure what we do daily helps our business partners, the people and companies who buy and employ our products can deliver a profit to themselves.  Doing so ensures they continue to be our client, expand their business and more. 

We must provide you the value added service and bottom line reliability you need in daily performance of our product.  We need to deliver world class technology, service and guidance so that each penny adds to profit whether it be in incremental growth due to an enhancement, process improvement that equates to expense savings that when multiplied, equates to record profits for the client. 

In return we EARN our price that in the end funds our bottom line and allows us to continue to provide World Class products.  Our price funds our product development, employee growth and every facet of our company so that we continue to provide the best product that our clients buy again and again.  

So, we all know what we need to do to be mutually profitable and know from the get go our #1 principle starts with ensuring you reach your profit goals so that you are our client for decades to come.  

Stay tuned….more to come.  Let me know how we can help you improve your bottom line.  

Patrick 

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner …

Did you know that the average U.S. consumer is expected to spend $116.21 on Valentine’s Day gifts, meals and entertainment?

141,000,000 Valentine’s day cards are exchanged worldwide, and 52.1% will buy cards for Valentine’s day.

Men spend double what women spend on Valentine’s day $158.71 vs. $75.79.

In total, $1.7 Billion will be spend on flowers this Valentine’s day.

Chocolate and candy sales reach profits of $1,011 Billion during the Valentine’s season.

Have you thought about adding last minutes Valentine’s gifts to your market this week? Themed candies, cards or even fresh flowers for those customers who haven’t quite thought ahead on a Friday afternoon!  Claim a part of the $116.21 that individuals spend this time of year at your own location – especially if you have a higher percentage of male market-users!