March 1, 2025 • 41 mins
Corporate executive turned entrepreneur Robert Dean takes us behind the scenes of his journey with Naturals2Go, revealing how he's transforming the outdated vending industry into a tech-forward healthy food revolution. Learn how his frustration with stale chips and broken dollar slots evolved into a multi-unit operation that's changing what consumers expect from unattended retail.
WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER
- How Robert identified a massive gap in the vending market by focusing on quality, healthy options when competitors wouldn't
- The unexpected tech revolution happening in vending—from AI-powered inventory management to cashless payment systems
- Why unattended retail is becoming one of the fastest-growing segments in the franchise industry
- The specific challenges of scaling from one machine to a multi-unit operation
- Real numbers on startup costs, time to profitability, and key performance indicators in modern vending
WHY LISTEN NOW
The unattended retail space is experiencing unprecedented growth, with healthier options and advanced technology converging to create opportunity. Robert provides the insider perspective from someone who's already succeeding in this evolving industry.
"I saw broken machines serving stale junk food everywhere I traveled in my corporate career. The opportunity wasn't just to fix a problem—it was to completely reimagine what vending could be." — Robert E. Dean
ABOUT OUR GUEST
Before becoming a multi-unit Naturals2Go owner, Robert spent decades in corporate America, experiencing firsthand the limitations of traditional vending. Now he operates a fleet of next-generation machines that serve premium, healthy options through an experience that feels more like a micro-market than old-school vending.
Share, subscribe, and leave a review to help others discover opportunities in this emerging industry!
Visit www.weboughtafranchise.com to subscribe.
Send us your questions for an upcoming episode at 305-710-0050.
From your pals in franchise ownership, Jack and Jill Johnson.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi everyone, I'm Jack Johnson.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm Jill Johnson.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
And welcome to the we Bought a Franchise podcast.
Today we've got a very uniqueguest, robert Dean, who owns I
don't know, robert, how manynaturals to go vending machines
did we just decide you owned?
Speaker 3 (00:16):
We have eight full-time routes, so I'm not
sure how many machines it is,but it would be well in excess
of 500.
And we do a lot of things otherthan vendings, self-checkout,
markets and things like that, sowe have quite a few of those as
well.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Awesome, welcome to the show.
So, robert, this is reallyinteresting because most of the
time we're talking totraditional franchise owners.
We own a window washing powerwashing franchise and now we're
doing like a ton of papersealing.
It's so weird, the things youdo in your life, that, like two
(00:47):
years ago, someone would havesaid, hey, you know what do you
see You're going to be doing allthese paper ceiling jobs in a
couple of years.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I don't even know if I knew what paper ceiling was a
year ago.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, and now it's like our favorite thing, yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yeah, I actually know what it is.
I think it's great.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Life is weird, yep.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
It's funny how that happens.
But, Robert, let's, let's startwith you.
You know, tell us your story.
How did you become a, abusiness owner?
Kind of give us, give us yourpath, if you will.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
I grew up in the corporate world.
You know, work for a for alarge insurance and financial
services company ended uprunning the Northeast United
States for them for about 15years.
Company ended up running theNortheast United States for them
for about 15 years.
And, you know, the older youget and the more employees you
get, that ended up being atopping out at about 29,000
employees.
Then things start happening inyour life.
(01:35):
I had some grandkids, sickparents, things like that.
So the constant traveling hotelroom every night, all the
employees you know it reallykind of led me into wanting to
do something entrepreneurial.
So I put a year's notice in atmy job and, you know, started
looking at, doing you know,various things.
I looked at virtually everyonebut most franchises and business
(01:56):
opportunities that I could findbefore I could find myself.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
And here you are now with this business and I see
people.
I mean it seems like every weekwe're seeing people invest in
these machines.
Right, and I get it.
I mean I think there.
I mean there's there's manyreasons why someone would invest
into the vending business.
So many benefits, not just therevenue.
A lot of people seem to thinkit's like a, a passive
(02:20):
investment.
I'm sure it's not quite that,but maybe speak to what it's
been like for work, life balance.
And maybe what would be greatto hear is you know you own so
many machines now, but I'massuming it didn't start that
way right?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
No, it didn't start that way and, interestingly
enough, you know, I think Ithink with any wannabe
entrepreneur you kind of have tofind the right fit for yourself
and in me, looking at all ofthe franchises and business
opportunities, vending was agood fit for a few reasons.
The first thing in my job isthat we would build a $20
(02:54):
million facility and someonewould bring a $200 vending
machine into the place thatnever worked At that time,
didn't have cashless payments,it was always broken and dirty
at that time, didn't havecashless payments, it was always
broken and dirty.
And the number one complaint Iwould get being at that level of
executive in our facilitieswasn't all of the things you
think it was, it wasn't thatsomeone didn't get a $10 million
(03:14):
commission check, it was thatthe vending machines never
worked and that they were alljunk food and just so many
complaints about that.
So I started thinking aboutdoing something on my own.
And just so many complaintsabout that.
So I started thinking aboutdoing something on my own.
It was a good personality fitfor a few reasons.
Firstly, I'm a foodie, food andbeverage person Italian heritage
, grandparents been cookingsince I was probably five years
(03:35):
old, so I had a love for foodand beverage to begin with.
Fairly handy, so I can, as Isay, I can turn a screwdriver
fairly well and back then I wasa little bit of a techie.
I'm not so much anymore it'sbeen a long time now but I was a
little bit of a techie and theinteresting thing that led me
into the business was thatNaturals2Go had an idea, and
(03:56):
that idea was to make a vendingmachine that was fairly dumb
this vending machine here speakto an Android device and it
didn't exist at the time.
Back then, 2012, 2013, evencashless payments were rare.
But the vending machines werekind of dumb on their own in
that they didn't have any way tocommunicate and basically the
(04:21):
technology at that time didn'twork at Naturals2Go.
But it was the right idea and Ithought, wow, if I can get a
hold of this tech, I canprobably make this work.
I'm not sure why it isn'tworking, but once again, being a
little bit of a techie andsuper handy and good at
electronics and electricity, Ikind of thought I could make
that work.
So, and I thought it wouldrevolutionize the vending
(04:42):
industry, which it really has.
And I thought it wouldrevolutionize the vending
industry which it really has.
And you know, in traditionalvending someone walks into a
vending location and they openthe door and it's interesting
They'll have a tablet in theirhand.
They still do it today.
They'll count everything in thevending machine, write it down.
They'll walk out to their bigbox truck and hope that they
have it and can pack for it, andthey hope that it's not melted
(05:03):
right.
And they hope that they have itand can pack for it and they
hope that they it's not meltedright and they hope that you
know, once again, they do havethe items, et cetera.
But this, this ability for avending machine to speak to an
Android device, you know, Ithought would change the
industry, where the vendingmachine could actually speak to
me on a consistent minute byminute basis.
And let me know what was goingon how is the vending machine,
(05:25):
how is the health of it, whatproducts are in there, what
products are empty right, andthe ability to kind of for the
lack of a better term babysit mycustomers' vending machines
created such a tremendousexperience.
In addition to that, when therewas a problem, you know, in
traditional vending everyone puta sticky note on the vending
(05:45):
machine.
You know, I'm Joe Smith, youowe me a dollar.
You sucked another $2 out of me.
You owe me a quarter.
You know, you see, you stillsee that today.
But the ability also to rectifythose situations where you would
know immediately if there wasan issue.
Someone could touch a fewbuttons on the Android device
bolted to the vending machine.
You could send the money rightback to the vending machine or a
(06:06):
coupon to their phone.
So there were so many thingsthat intrigued me about this
technology.
Once again, it didn't work, butnow, through research and
development and good technologypartners, we're on our seventh
version of these devices andthings really really work well
now.
So it really, it really changedthe industry and made this,
what we call the vending orbreak room experience, much,
(06:29):
much better for the customerthan it, you know, than it used
to be.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
So when you wake up in the morning, you've got or
anytime you want to look at it,you've got a full dashboard that
tells you everything that'sgoing on with your machines.
You've got all that data atyour fingertips.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Everything.
It's on my tablet, my notebook,my PC, my mobile phone.
You know.
It's everywhere so and it'seasily, easily accessible and,
you know, very accurate today.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
You know, I and I'm sure you're seeing what we are.
So we have a um, a CRM systemfor our our pinks window washing
um franchise and constantlysame sort of thing.
I've got my dashboard.
I'm able to see our jobs whenthey're completed, I can see the
hours, the guys that they'reworking, and I can track revenue
.
But if I really just want tomake it simple, we've got an AI
(07:14):
function in the CRM where I canjust say, hey, how much have we
billed this week?
How much are we going to bill?
How much are we going to bill?
Speaker 3 (07:25):
And it can come back to me that data very quickly,
which is super.
And if you think about thattechnology and you think about
the vending business in general,today 90% of the operators in
the United States, and globallyfor that matter, are still using
a tablet counting it, don'thave the communication with the
vending machine, so the industryitself is very backward and
most of the competition stilldoesn't use the technology to
(07:47):
even a low extent.
It really makes that thereisn't much competition in what
we do because everyone stilldoesn't have it.
The vending business is so oldthat there's just so many older
operators, antiquated equipment.
No tech can't be retrofitted totech, so it's a real
competitive advantage for us.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
I'll never forget, when I was maybe 12 years old,
my dad and I went to Costco,which at the time was called
Price Club, and they had avending machine you could buy
like your own vending machine.
Oh yeah, I've seen that and he'slike hey, you know, I've got an
idea for your first business,we're going to buy this vending
machine.
Yeah, it never came to fruition, but I'll always remember that
(08:26):
because prior to that, and youknow, in the schools we'd always
have, you know, the beat up oldvending machines like the ones
you talked about, the one, theSnickers bar would get stuck.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
It would get stuck in the little coil and you
couldn't get it.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Or you push the wrong thing Right.
That sucked, yeah, but that wasthe moment that it really
became clear to me that no, thisis a business.
And then, as we got deeper intothe business ownership world,
the advantages not only from arevenue standpoint were there,
but also from the tax savingsstandpoint with section 179.
Absolutely, I mean.
That in itself is a strategy toown vending right.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Well, it certainly is , and it's interesting, to take
a step back, that you mentionedbuying a vending machine at
Sam's Club or at Costco orwhatever, and I obviously looked
at that when I started.
But there were some significantdisadvantages to that.
First of all, someone droppinga vending machine on my front
porch.
What do I do with it?
(09:25):
I can't move it around I don'tknow where to put it, I don't
know how to program it, I don'tknow how to fix things, I don't
know how to work it right.
So the advantage I felt withNaturals To Go kind of a
business in a box was prettysimple.
Naturals To Go said look, we'vegot very good vending machines,
(09:51):
which they did.
We have tech started that wethink is going to revolutionize
the industry.
But it wasn't there yet.
But one of the biggest thingswas white glove delivery and
training.
You know, not only would theybring me into training, which I
was skeptical about, you knowthinking I'm a pretty sharp guy
who can teach me anything rightat that time, but the training
was just tremendous.
I mean it was tremendous and Icouldn't have done it without it
.
And then the ability fornaturals to go to kind of work,
the movement of these eight 900pound vending machines around
(10:13):
for me, with big guys with bigtoys they say you know, with the
big trucks right, and you knowthat training and the ability to
get those things around reallygot me started.
From a tax perspective, thevending business really is math.
I mean, to start off, you canbuy something for a dollar and
sell it for $2 in about fourdays.
So me with an accounting degree, yeah, the math works pretty
(10:34):
good with this.
But then when you get into thetax savings, it's pretty
significant because the business, as we say, requires a lot of
iron, it requires a lot ofequipment, right, and the tax
advantages and depreciation inSection 179 really enable you to
manage the taxation every year.
And it's really, you know,depreciation in these vending
machines.
They last forever.
(10:55):
I mean, I don't have onevending machine that I've ever
had to throw away and it's been15 years, so they last a long
time.
But you're able to acceleratethat depreciation with 179, of
course, to offset income.
It's a very good business fortax strategies, no question
about it.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
So you can take that 179 all in the first year if you
want right, or you can amortizeit.
Is it over seven years?
Is it doing that right?
Speaker 3 (11:21):
You can do either.
Most people like to take it allin year one, but it also
depends if you're buying vansand vehicles.
So depreciation expensemanagement is a very it's very
good benefit to the business,but it takes some care like ours
(11:45):
.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
So we're franchise consultants first.
That's our first business.
We help people become franchiseowners and buy, buy businesses
like naturals to go.
So we grow franchise insidersto a point where, okay, now
we're starting to pay a lot ofmoney in taxes, let's add
another business and then weadded our pinks windows
franchise and while it's been,you know, highly successful and
we're out of, you know we're, wehave such a good team.
We were able to be their topfranchisee last year, but it was
still a business in its firstyear that we spent a lot of
(12:06):
money on.
So, yeah, so you had a loss inthe business.
Well, the accountant says to usgreat news guys, this loss you
have in the business nowmitigates the profit you had in
Franchise Insiders.
Sure, god bless America.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Absolutely.
Hey, it is the tax law and weyou know.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Well, and the nice thing is to you know, putting
all political sides aside herefor the purpose of the podcast,
but the way the current taxstructure is written, it's in
all of our, for all of usbusiness owners.
We should be going out thereand making as much money as we
can Because, again, like yousaid, staying within the letter
of the law, it's in our favor,the, the, the right.
(12:50):
Now, the way tax laws arewritten favors the business
owner.
So to have a business likeyours, it not only is profitable
and works for your portfolio,but also comes with these tax
advantages right out of the door.
I mean, it's incredible.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
No, no question about it.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
So let's talk about your first year.
This is really where we like tobreak it down, because you know
people as they start to thinkabout investing.
You know you've got, you knowBob Smith, who's out there
listening to this podcast, andyou know he's a busy executive,
but he's got this burning desireto diversify Right.
You know, what advice would youhave to that person who maybe
isn't ready to leave theirfull-time job but wants to start
(13:27):
diversifying and adding anotherrevenue stream?
What was it like for you whenyou started?
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Well, I think the first thing that I had to
analyze, as does everyone, istime.
You know, most people seem towant an absentee business, right
, they want to continue to keeptheir job, they want something
completely absentee, and ofcourse, I looked at that as well
.
You know, I looked at a donutfranchise right before I got
into Naturals to Go.
You know, the questions came tome.
Well, if you know, susiedoesn't show up to make the
donuts in the morning at 4am, Ihave to go do that.
(13:57):
Right, and you know to thinkthat things are really absentee
and going to work.
Well, I just never believed inthat, right.
So the first is time.
You know, and some people viewthe vending business as as
absentee or semi-absentee.
Right, that it's just easy.
Right, it's only semi-absenteeand easy if you have low
performing locations.
Right, because these locationsneed replenished and the better
(14:19):
you do at securing customers,the more frequently they need
serviced, right.
So vending is not somethingthat you take every couple of
weeks I can go see a customer.
The machines are empty in threedays because of what we do.
So in looking at that initially, I knew that it was going to be
more work than people said itwas going to be, especially to
do it right and to continue todevelop business and all of that
(14:41):
.
So the first thing I thinkanyone has to determine is how
much time really, with yourfull-time job, can you put into
this on your own, or do you needsome support system or help
family friends your own, or doyou need some support system or
help family friends?
Employee, whatever it might be?
So when I got into this, Istarted fairly small, but it was
the largest thing that Naturalsto Go had ever seen, because
(15:02):
I'm one of the first people toever buy a business opportunity
from Naturals to Go and I bought30 units.
At first Naturals to Go I said,wow, 30 units, it's fairly big.
But I really knew that those 30units would take a lot of time
to do well and to try to dothings.
World-class was going to bedifferent than just you know
what the competition was doing.
(15:23):
So and and you know there are alot of mistakes that got made
along the way the biggestmistake that I made was when I
got into this.
I wanted to do healthy vendingand I took that to an extreme
right.
You know I didn't want to sellPop-Tarts and Mountain Dew, so I
ended up trying to sell organickale chips, right, and organic
candy, and I really took it tothe extreme and it failed
(15:44):
miserably.
Like it just didn't fly, youknow, as they say, the dogs
wouldn't eat it, but.
But, but the equipment was sogood and the service platform
that I call premium vending withworld-class service.
Their service was tremendous.
Everything worked, you know.
Everything was spotlessly clean, serviced, frequently monitored
.
(16:05):
So I had a lot of customers cometo me and say, can't you just
do everything?
Like, look at these othervending machines we have in here
, it's all junk food.
We know.
Everything Like, look at theseother vending machines we have
in here, it's all junk food, weknow.
But we, you know we don't wantto have a mutiny here if we just
do healthy, health food, andyou know.
So I decided and gave in on afew customers said look, why
don't we do everything and whydon't we do 50-50?
You know, can you agree on50-50?
(16:27):
If someone wants to buy aMountain Dew bottle this great,
this big, they're going to beable to do it.
But I still want healthychoices in here and got some
agreements to do that and eversince we adopted that 50-50
platform it's just beentremendous.
So the junk food is bad alone,the healthy vending alone is not
good.
But that combination of havingvery smart choices has really
(16:50):
fueled our company and Naturalsto Go.
You know all the operatorsacross the country have adopted.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
And you can make those changes fairly quickly,
right?
So you can look at your dataand see what's selling out and
what's not and then be able toswap it out.
So you can be pretty likequickly reactive but also
proactive if you need to be, and, you know, test maybe a certain
product or something like that.
So you have that data coming toyou.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
So yeah, I mean with with these, with these devices.
Now speaking to the vendingmachine, it gives us the data
that no one ever had Right.
And we don't have to guess.
So you know it takes about nineseconds to run that report
called an item movement to seewhat's moving, and run it for
the last month or two or threeand see and it tells you.
(17:34):
You know, if an item's notmoving I consider every row of a
vending machine its own store.
you know it's its own profitcenter, right?
So if that coil is not movingproduct, you've got to try
something else.
And the other thing that helpsis just listening to the
customer.
I mean most of our competition.
If you looked at all of theirvending machines, it's the same
product in row one, row two, rowthree.
(17:56):
It's the same in every location, regardless of demographics.
What customers want, it's justthe same products.
And we're a little bit crazy,you know.
We have a thousand products, we.
You know it's interesting, Itell this story.
A lot kind of change myphilosophy as to what you're
asking about putting the rightproducts in that people want
(18:17):
Early in the business.
I guess I was about four yearsinto the business and I walked
into a Starbucks.
You know I'm really a big timeguy.
I'm going to go into Starbucksand get a black coffee.
I'm probably going to get a bigblack coffee, right?
You know, bente, whatever theycall it, I'm going to get a
coffee and there's a girl infront of me.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
I always get it confused.
I always get the names confused.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there you go.
So there was a girl in front ofme, very attractive appeared to
be 24, 25 years old, maybe astudent, you know and she orders
this drink in front of me thatI have no clue what that is.
She orders a hookah juca mochalatte, two whip, no squirt,
whatever right.
And it's this long, long recipe.
(19:00):
And I had a chance to talk toher after I got my copy, while
she was waiting for hers, and Isaid, hey, you know, I'm in the
food and beverage business andI'm interested in what you
ordered.
And she said, hey, people today, especially my generation, they
want what they want and we'rewilling to pay for it, but we
want what we want and if wecan't get it in one place we'll
go somewhere else.
And you know that led onto ourcompany being now that if we
(19:21):
have a, you know, an employee ina manufacturing concern, that
once a bang cherry blade energydrink with creatine in it and
extra electrolytes, like we'regoing to put it in because
they're going to buy one everyday.
So the whole market of food andbeverage has become real custom
and it just, it just taught usto be very good listeners and we
listen to the customers.
They can do it on the machineand make requests, but really we
(19:44):
try to put in products thatpeople want.
Yeah, stay on top that quitefrequently you know it's really
interesting.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
We took my mom to a place in San Diego called Urban
Plates, and Urban Plates you goand you customize your plate.
You choose what meat you want,what salad you want, and for us
it's heaven.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
I'm a picky eater, so yeah, you are.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
You know what we mean , right, but my mom, born in
1941, 1941 walks up to thecounter and says I hate this, I
don't want to make.
I want them to tell me what Ishould have.
And it goes exactly to what yousaid is that it seems like the
further we go along eachgeneration because think about
it now we have so many choicesin what we can listen to and
(20:30):
what we can eat.
We can have so muchcustomization.
It's incredible.
My question for you is what,right now, is the?
What's the number one thingyou're selling?
What are people buying from thevending machines?
Is there one clear leader ormaybe category?
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Yeah, I mean, there's not one, there's not one clear
leader.
It's a lot, of a lot of things,and of course we're pretty good
size now, you know, I mean,still to this day, nothing sells
like water.
That's interesting that you knowbottled water.
But bottled water leads intoflavored water and sparkling
water right, and it leads intovitamin water and now it leads
into coconut water drinks right.
So you know waters are stillgood sellers.
(21:05):
Carbonated beverages, of course, on the more unhealthy side,
are still you know, still superpopular.
What's happening more, though,in the vending business for
popularity is really becomingreal food, though, and the real
food especially.
In our case, we make 700 fooditems.
Like we're crazy, you know, wedo it now.
We do once again micro marketsand some things we can get into.
(21:28):
But really, in vending forreally good installations where
you know, employees today don'twant to leave and their
employers don't want them toleave, it's inefficient to go
out for lunch in traffic in anhour and a half.
Right, they want to be at work,but they want to be home for the
soccer game right, so they wantto get finished.
But oftentimes in now vending,one of the biggest complaints
(21:49):
and threads of discontent wasthe food is assembly line,
processed, prison food Peoplecalled it rot gut, I mean, if
you can imagine the comments wegot.
But now, in taking vending andreally supplying good food that
people can use as a meal we callit so they don't have to have
Cheez-Its for lunch.
Our company now sells about38,000 meal items a month.
(22:14):
That would not be snacks.
So if you think about that,people now in the workplace want
good food.
They want custom-made food,they want good food that we can
buy and resell.
So a lot of it now has morphedfrom junk snacks into real food
and it's really taken off overthe last five or six years.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
You know I was making breakfast for our son this
morning.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Thank, you for doing that.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Of course, I made him two scrambled eggs.
We get these protein pancakesfrom Costco that have more
protein and fruit.
I put the plate in front of him.
He says Dad, you're crazed,you're obsessed with protein.
I said you're damn right, I'mobsessed with protein.
It's good for you.
You're growing, you need it tobuild strength.
My question for you is forpeople can we get heavier
(22:57):
protein items out of the vendingmachines now?
What kind of products are youselling there?
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Yeah, so we we have a whole array of protein products
, both mostly in bar form andmany different ones right,
there's a lot of popular onesthere and then also in liquid
form.
So you know, it is the proteinshakes and all of that.
When we're doing specificvending, um for athletics.
You know it's super heavy thatwe're doing when we're in
(23:21):
universities and we're in highschools and we're backed by the
sports facilities.
We have specific sports vendingthat we do.
But in most of the generalvending the marketplace still
wants protein bars, they wantprotein shakes, and the sales of
that seems to increase everymonth Once people try those as
an alternate to a candy bar, youknow, and whether it's a cliff
bar, it's a fit cruncher, it's apremier protein.
(23:43):
I mean it could go on and onwith the, with the choices that
we have, you know, and a lotmore meat snacks too.
To think that now we sell bagsof organic beef jerky that are
really big in vending machinesand they sell and they're
expensive but they really sell.
So the meat snack options andhigh protein options, once
people try them it seems likethey'll opt for that more often
(24:07):
than the candy.
So we've seen a good trend inthat.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Cool.
So I'm assuming you probably doa fair amount of validation
where prospective Naturals to Goowners talk to you.
I know we do for Pinks once amonth something like that.
We're talking to prospectivefranchise owners normally on
like a big group call.
Is that something you do too?
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Yeah, I mean, I used to do a lot more of it Now it's
just lack of time.
You know, try to get morepeople together to kind of get
to me maybe once a month on amore of a kind of a Zoom right
than a lot of individual calls.
And it's interesting, I'm sorry, go ahead.
No, no, you go ahead.
Well, and it's interesting.
You know, people that aregetting into Naturals to Go or
into vending come from alldifferent walks of life and all
(24:49):
different objectives with theirlife.
You know some want to stay verysmall and want it kind of as a
side gig we say right and somewant to know how to take it to a
major employer or a regionalpowerhouse, and you know they're
every way in between.
The business is very scalable,so it's interesting.
(25:10):
You know, when you doone-on-one conversations it's
easier to focus on that personthat's trying to fund their
child's education, but they'renot necessarily want to hire 50
people.
Then you get people that reallywant to do it.
So the business is very, veryscalable, super profitable.
When you're small, you don'thave infrastructure, employees
can do it out of your house.
It's very profitable.
When you're large, like I am,it's super profitable.
(25:31):
In the middle it's a little bittough when you're starting to
get to that spot where I have toquit my job or I have to hire
employees, buy big vans, awarehouse.
I'm in employee benefits,workers' compensation insurance,
so that middle land in vending,and I'm assuming with most of
the businesses that yourepresent as well, it's a tough
spot to be in.
So you have to blow throughthat middle.
(25:52):
You either have to stay small,you know, or or or get pretty
serious about this.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
You know, I mean again, I think it's.
It's like we bought five unitsof our franchise, right?
So we bought all of Palm beach.
We initially started with twoand then we got real nervous
right.
We were like what if somebodybuys?
We bought Boca Raton and Delraybeach and then we said what if
somebody comes along and buysPalm Beach and we're like we
want to be able to cleanMar-a-Lago one these days, right
(26:16):
?
So, we better buy the otherthree units.
So we spent a lot of money onfranchise fees, which impacted
our first year profitability andalso because of the scale of
the business.
We have a GM who he's great.
His close rate is like 80% now.
But, like you said, we're kindof growing towards the company
we want to be, because our wholevision for this was we want to
scale to 15 trucks.
(26:37):
You want your truck doing athousand bucks a day that's what
you want a window washing truckto do, right?
So?
But it means that in thebeginning, as you're growing
there, you're pumping a lot ofcash into the business to to get
it where it needs to go.
And someone sent me a messagelast night and they asked me a
very question the way peopletalk, right, when was the point?
(26:59):
When was the inflection pointwhen it all changed?
And I said I don't look at itlike that, I look at it more
like Rocky Balboa.
It's just how long can you stayin the fight and take punches
until you can finally throw thehandhanger?
Speaker 3 (27:11):
You're right about that You're right, that's just
the way it is.
I mean, anchor, you're rightabout that, you're right, that's
just the way it is, I mean.
So I think you're right aboutthat.
You have to stay in the fight.
You know, until you get to thatscale that you need to be based
on what your objectives are forsure.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Yeah, so I know if I were talking to you as a
prospective investor and I don'tknow, jill, what your thought
would be, but mine would be okayI'm curious if I'm looking at
this as someone who maybe isgoing to scale in with one or
two machines.
But what if I'm a corporateexecutive and I do okay, right,
let's say I do 100, 200k a yearand I want to make this my
(27:46):
full-time thing, understandingthat I won't get there overnight
.
Is there a path to me doingthat as a vending machine owner?
And that would be a question Iwould ask you without having to
talk about any real specificnumbers.
But do you think that's?
Is that attainable?
Is that something someone coulddo?
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Yeah, it's attainable .
You just have to know how toscale.
And when you scaleinfrastructure, you have to
scale equipment and locations atthe same time.
It just has to be the same,right?
You can't get a bunch ofinfrastructure and not get more
customers.
They have to go like this.
So, once again, when you startand you start with eight vending
machines or 10 vending machinesright, or maybe you grow to 20
(28:26):
on your own, but then you can'tgrow to 22.
You have to go 20 to 40.
If you're going to addinfrastructure, you kind of have
to double your equipment.
When you're going to add avehicle, a warehouse, employees,
etc.
And it depends on the marketyou're in.
In this business too, though, itjust really depends on the
locations that you select.
You know, when we, when we geta location, it's just very
(28:49):
important to get the rightlocations, and if you do that,
it's a lot easier to scale andget the full time.
If you really have busylocations, and if you do that,
it's a lot easier to scale andget the full time.
If you really have busylocations and if you don't, it's
just you know the equipmentcosts the same for poor location
as it does a busy location.
You don't see exact sameequipment cost, right, and you
have a choice at that.
You can select any place thatyou want, and the competition is
(29:12):
so bad that we can really getpretty much any place that we
want today.
So not only do you have toscale in equipment and
infrastructure at the same time,but you have to be able to
select the right customerrelationships Very, very, very
important in this business.
I mean, I'm sure it is with anybusiness, but in this one it's,
you know, it's especiallyimportant and everybody's got a
different path.
(29:32):
Everybody asks that samequestion Well, if I want to do
this, what do I have to do?
And every market's different.
The individual business owneris different, situations are
different, so it's really acustom answer to every
individual person.
It's not one set thing, butobviously, just like investors
or whatever you see, things haveto be done within your own
(29:54):
personality.
You know, and you have to beable to run this business and
grow and scale based on what youthink in your own personality
is, and it has to match at somepoint before you really see the
light.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
How's the support from Naturals to go?
You know you're in a placewhere there probably aren't many
operators you correct me if I'mwrong many operators at your
level within their system.
Do you feel like their supportscaled along with your needs as
you grew?
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Well, it's kind of interesting.
You know, with me being one ofthe first, I created a lot of
the support that was necessary,right, and a lot of the things
that have developed in Naturalsto Go.
Naturals to Go really today isan unattended retail company.
You know, vending is a smallpiece of what we do.
It's a big piece of what we dobut it's a small piece as far as
(30:39):
all of the offerings that wehave.
Right, you know, when you'relooking at vending into vending
markets, into significant officecoffee business or coffee
vending, we do self-checkoutmicro markets now artificial
intelligence vending and we dopantry services.
So there's just a lot ofdifferent things now that we've
(30:59):
been able to scale to do.
And it's interesting, we justhad a training class yesterday.
Naturalist to Go really takes on, meaning that for training
classes, between 30 and 40 newbusiness owners come in every
six weeks and I think there wasabout 40 there here in Savannah
over the last couple of days,right, and the initial support
(31:19):
is pretty interesting, you know,and the support changes over
time.
Originally it's I need training, I need that support of
training, then I need thesupport of finding locations
until I learn my own businessdevelopment, then I need support
of getting the machines put inplace, and then I need a coach
for a year or so to kind ofguide me along the way until I'm
(31:41):
self-sustained.
Some operators need a lot lesssupport than others.
It just depends, right.
It really depends on that old.
If it's up to me, you know, ifit is to be, it is up to me,
right.
So some operators need a lotmore support and get it, and
some operators need a lot lesssupport and start growing.
Once an operator gets to thatposition where they've been
(32:04):
coached, they've gotten throughthat first year or so all their
machines are working.
Now, when they want to go tothe next level of support, we
have another phase calledNaturals to Grow.
And now Naturals to Growconsider it something I built, I
developed it with some folks atBentec and Naturals to Go that
(32:26):
is a masterclass.
So now we're going to come tograduate school and we're going
to teach you how to do a lot ofdifferent forms of unattended
retail to expand.
And we're going to teach youhow to do a lot of different
forms of unattended retail toexpand, especially into the
self-checkout markets, which arejust a phenomenal.
Food and beverage you know,covid killed the cafeteria.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
It killed the cafeteria.
So a lot of places that hadcafeterias no longer have them.
But they have self-checkoutmarkets that are really your own
convenience store in your ownsecure business.
But it's all unattended andit's self-checkout and of course
there's security and thingslike that.
So after an operator getsthrough that initial phase, the
support they need really is nowgrowth support, new kinds of
(33:05):
tech and all of that.
So we have an entire departmentthat kind of does that.
And because it's not a franchisein this case at Naturals To Go,
when an operator buys moreequipment, we have some profit,
but if they don't, we don't.
So we really have to do a goodjob along the way to continue to
get that customer.
They can buy equipment vendingmachines from other people don't
have to buy it from us, but ourgoal is to do such a good job
(33:30):
that they continue to want tobuy from us and want to innovate
with us.
The operator base, though it'sinteresting.
Like myself, we've invented anddeveloped a lot of these things
.
You know when you're on thefront lines it doesn't matter
what mother corporate says.
You know when you're reallydoing it.
You figure a lot of things out.
Naturalist to go is interesting.
They're pretty good listeners.
They've been good listeners tome for 15 years, so a lot has
(33:53):
you know the same.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
I would say the same thing for pinks, like they
started in Austin.
Um, we were one of their firstfranchisees, and down here in
South Florida there's a heavierneed for power washing than
there is in Austin, right, andthe deeper we go into summer and
things like that where we justget torrential rains, the more
people need it.
And so we were like guys, weneed a heavier duty power
(34:14):
washing truck.
Are you okay with us testingthis for you to roll it out to
other franchisees?
We'll take the risk, we'llspend the extra money on it.
And they were like, yeah,absolutely.
And so to have a partner who'scollaborative, um, and, and
those jobs, by the way, arepaying huge dividends for us now
, because now you know we'reseeing it, we can do, do you
(34:41):
know?
Get it done faster, right?
Yeah, so I think you're right,and it's fun to be, and not
everyone wants to be atrailblazer franchisee.
A lot of times they like it when, when people like us can sort
of do that, and then by the timethey come in, everything's on a
menu.
But the thing that I love, andthe call we did right before we
did this podcast with you, isour weekly pinks sort of
franchisee call where everysingle franchise owner whether
you're two days old or you'reyou're you're the longest
tenured, like we are.
And uh no, there's two morepeople that are ahead of us,
(35:04):
that were that got in before us.
But everybody loves it becausethey throw all our numbers onto
the call and we see on a week byweek basis who's leading the
field.
And I just think that that isone of the great things about
franchise ownership is, yes, wewant to build a business, yes,
we want to help people, but ifyou're competitive, it gives you
that extra little jolt everyweek.
(35:24):
To want to go out and win too,it does.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Yeah, no question about it, no question.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Well, you've been so generous with your time.
I have one last question foryou, which is what are the
effects of AI on your businesscurrently?
What do you guys?
How do you think it's going toimpact it?
Is it making it better, easier?
Maybe tell us about that.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
Well, the interesting thing is that AI bridge is a
pretty big gap for us.
So when you have a vendingmachine, right, a vending
machine has a closed door, soyou can't have theft in that
right.
So when you do that, someoneyou know does the payment,
whatever they're going to do,and it vends and you have a
secure environment.
In the micro market business,where we have open air
(36:01):
convenience stores with insecurebusinesses right, you know, we
only do those when the penaltyfor theft would be expulsion
from school or termination ofemployment.
So you have to have thatagreement, right, and we do
monitor the security cameras,but you can't, you know you
can't watch it every singleminute of the day, especially
the bigger.
(36:21):
So we have those two ends ofthe spectrum where we have the
complete closed door and acomplete open door, and what AI
has done for us is we, you know,we waited a long time to get
the right tech going because theAI inventing didn't work.
It was the same as I talked toyou about that Android device
right, it's just, the tech was agood idea, but it didn't work
and people were trying to useweight and different things
(36:41):
where you know you could justgrab something and it would
charge you the right amount andit didn't know what you were
taking and it didn't work.
So we developed a lot with ourpartners in AI over the years
that now really bridges a gap.
What that gap is is that we'reable to do non-vending, so, I
think, a more robust servicewith artificial intelligence
(37:06):
eyes when places have publicaccess, right.
So if you have a place thatdoesn't want a vending machine,
maybe they think, hey, a vendingmachine is too tacky for my
beautiful high rise residentialRight, but we still need a store
.
But we can't have it attended.
We lose our shirts.
We can't have someone sittingin a store 24 hours.
What can you put in?
(37:27):
And in those cases is usuallywhere we do the artificial
intelligence and we havebeautiful cabinets that we call
managed stores and you know theyhave small products and big
products.
We can do not only food andbeverage, but laundry, soap and
paper towels and things that youneed, bigger things, right for
those types of installations.
(37:47):
Eyes, artificial eyes andbasically now the technology has
gotten so good that when you doa cashless payment or you scan
a card and it unlocks the doorand you're able to open it, you
can take what you want.
Look at it.
If you keep it, it charges it.
(38:07):
If you put it back and takesomething else and we've been
able to make that 99.999%-accurate.
And a lot of companies now thataren't using the tech we're
using.
You know they're 95% accurateand if you think about a
thousand men's, there are athousand people.
If you're 95% accurate, youhave 50 really upset people.
That's not a very good thing.
(38:30):
So it has to be with AI in foodand beverage and unattended
retail.
It has to be virtually 100%accurate, and now we've got
these vending machines and thetech that they're associated
with learning learning over timeas well, and learning the
absolute everything in thepackage, the exact color and
kind of what you see.
So it's made a pretty bigdifference as well.
(38:51):
So AI in our business doneright is really a part of the
future of vending.
Ai done wrong is still bad, butwe've made some very good
strides and I think over timeyou'll see more and more AI
versus vending machines.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
So could Naturals to Go eventually go, you know, like
the at the airport, where we'reable to walk into, like the
smaller sort of store, with it'sunattended but all the products
are there.
Could Naturals to Go eventuallygo to that route where it's
essentially a store, if you will?
Speaker 3 (39:20):
We're doing those now yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Sounds like they have them.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
yeah, so we're doing those now we're doing artificial
intelligence, self-checkout,markets.
We're doing a lot of that now.
The technology has just gottento the spot where we're
comfortable with it.
Yeah, so we're comfortable withit.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Yeah, it's incredible .
This is really interesting.
Thank you so much for spendingtime with us Before we let you
go.
Is there anything that wedidn't ask, that we should have
asked?
Speaker 3 (39:45):
No, I think you asked a lot of great questions.
Once again, I'll just kind offinish that this world of
unattended retail that we're inwe used to call it vending, but
this world of unattended retailthere's really no end in sight
for this and these businessesare really growing and those
that can do it in a world-classfashion and really pay attention
(40:06):
to the detail can reallysucceed.
If you're not that kind ofperson, probably not a good
business for you, but I think inthe future, doing it the right
way in every aspect is reallywhat's going to make it
successful.
And everywhere you go today,you see self-checkout.
You just see it everywhere andit's not going to go away.
It's going to get bigger.
So adding that would be a goodend to it, and I really
(40:29):
appreciate you having me on.
It's been a pleasure to be onyour podcast.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
We appreciate you.
Same as well.
Well, uh and uh.
Thank you so much for spendingtime and for everyone that wants
to get more information onnaturals to go.
You know the best way to do itText us 3 0, 5, 7, 1, 0, 0, 0, 5
0.
And for today's podcast, I'mJack Johnson.
All right, see you guys.
Thank you All right, take care.
(40:54):
Good having you.
Hi everyone, I'm Jack Johnson.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm Jill Johnson.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
And welcome to the we Bought a Franchise podcast.
Today we've got a very uniqueguest, robert Dean, who owns I
don't know, robert, how manynaturals to go vending machines
did we just decide you owned?
Speaker 3 (00:16):
We have eight full-time routes, so I'm not
sure how many machines it is,but it would be well in excess
of 500.
And we do a lot of things otherthan vendings, self-checkout,
markets and things like that, sowe have quite a few of those as
well.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Awesome, welcome to the show.
So, robert, this is reallyinteresting because most of the
time we're talking totraditional franchise owners.
We own a window washing powerwashing franchise and now we're
doing like a ton of papersealing.
It's so weird, the things youdo in your life, that, like two
(00:47):
years ago, someone would havesaid, hey, you know what do you
see You're going to be doing allthese paper ceiling jobs in a
couple of years.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I don't even know if I knew what paper ceiling was a
year ago.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, and now it's like our favorite thing, yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yeah, I actually know what it is.
I think it's great.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Life is weird, yep.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
It's funny how that happens.
But, Robert, let's, let's startwith you.
You know, tell us your story.
How did you become a, abusiness owner?
Kind of give us, give us yourpath, if you will.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
I grew up in the corporate world.
You know, work for a for alarge insurance and financial
services company ended uprunning the Northeast United
States for them for about 15years.
Company ended up running theNortheast United States for them
for about 15 years.
And, you know, the older youget and the more employees you
get, that ended up being atopping out at about 29,000
employees.
Then things start happening inyour life.
(01:35):
I had some grandkids, sickparents, things like that.
So the constant traveling hotelroom every night, all the
employees you know it reallykind of led me into wanting to
do something entrepreneurial.
So I put a year's notice in atmy job and, you know, started
looking at, doing you know,various things.
I looked at virtually everyonebut most franchises and business
(01:56):
opportunities that I could findbefore I could find myself.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
And here you are now with this business and I see
people.
I mean it seems like every weekwe're seeing people invest in
these machines.
Right, and I get it.
I mean I think there.
I mean there's there's manyreasons why someone would invest
into the vending business.
So many benefits, not just therevenue.
A lot of people seem to thinkit's like a, a passive
(02:20):
investment.
I'm sure it's not quite that,but maybe speak to what it's
been like for work, life balance.
And maybe what would be greatto hear is you know you own so
many machines now, but I'massuming it didn't start that
way right?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
No, it didn't start that way and, interestingly
enough, you know, I think Ithink with any wannabe
entrepreneur you kind of have tofind the right fit for yourself
and in me, looking at all ofthe franchises and business
opportunities, vending was agood fit for a few reasons.
The first thing in my job isthat we would build a $20
(02:54):
million facility and someonewould bring a $200 vending
machine into the place thatnever worked At that time,
didn't have cashless payments,it was always broken and dirty
at that time, didn't havecashless payments, it was always
broken and dirty.
And the number one complaint Iwould get being at that level of
executive in our facilitieswasn't all of the things you
think it was, it wasn't thatsomeone didn't get a $10 million
(03:14):
commission check, it was thatthe vending machines never
worked and that they were alljunk food and just so many
complaints about that.
So I started thinking aboutdoing something on my own.
And just so many complaintsabout that.
So I started thinking aboutdoing something on my own.
It was a good personality fitfor a few reasons.
Firstly, I'm a foodie, food andbeverage person Italian heritage
, grandparents been cookingsince I was probably five years
(03:35):
old, so I had a love for foodand beverage to begin with.
Fairly handy, so I can, as Isay, I can turn a screwdriver
fairly well and back then I wasa little bit of a techie.
I'm not so much anymore it'sbeen a long time now but I was a
little bit of a techie and theinteresting thing that led me
into the business was thatNaturals2Go had an idea, and
(03:56):
that idea was to make a vendingmachine that was fairly dumb
this vending machine here speakto an Android device and it
didn't exist at the time.
Back then, 2012, 2013, evencashless payments were rare.
But the vending machines werekind of dumb on their own in
that they didn't have any way tocommunicate and basically the
(04:21):
technology at that time didn'twork at Naturals2Go.
But it was the right idea and Ithought, wow, if I can get a
hold of this tech, I canprobably make this work.
I'm not sure why it isn'tworking, but once again, being a
little bit of a techie andsuper handy and good at
electronics and electricity, Ikind of thought I could make
that work.
So, and I thought it wouldrevolutionize the vending
(04:42):
industry, which it really has.
And I thought it wouldrevolutionize the vending
industry which it really has.
And you know, in traditionalvending someone walks into a
vending location and they openthe door and it's interesting
They'll have a tablet in theirhand.
They still do it today.
They'll count everything in thevending machine, write it down.
They'll walk out to their bigbox truck and hope that they
have it and can pack for it, andthey hope that it's not melted
(05:03):
right.
And they hope that they have itand can pack for it and they
hope that they it's not meltedright and they hope that you
know, once again, they do havethe items, et cetera.
But this, this ability for avending machine to speak to an
Android device, you know, Ithought would change the
industry, where the vendingmachine could actually speak to
me on a consistent minute byminute basis.
And let me know what was goingon how is the vending machine,
(05:25):
how is the health of it, whatproducts are in there, what
products are empty right, andthe ability to kind of for the
lack of a better term babysit mycustomers' vending machines
created such a tremendousexperience.
In addition to that, when therewas a problem, you know, in
traditional vending everyone puta sticky note on the vending
(05:45):
machine.
You know, I'm Joe Smith, youowe me a dollar.
You sucked another $2 out of me.
You owe me a quarter.
You know, you see, you stillsee that today.
But the ability also to rectifythose situations where you would
know immediately if there wasan issue.
Someone could touch a fewbuttons on the Android device
bolted to the vending machine.
You could send the money rightback to the vending machine or a
(06:06):
coupon to their phone.
So there were so many thingsthat intrigued me about this
technology.
Once again, it didn't work, butnow, through research and
development and good technologypartners, we're on our seventh
version of these devices andthings really really work well
now.
So it really, it really changedthe industry and made this,
what we call the vending orbreak room experience, much,
(06:29):
much better for the customerthan it, you know, than it used
to be.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
So when you wake up in the morning, you've got or
anytime you want to look at it,you've got a full dashboard that
tells you everything that'sgoing on with your machines.
You've got all that data atyour fingertips.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Everything.
It's on my tablet, my notebook,my PC, my mobile phone.
You know.
It's everywhere so and it'seasily, easily accessible and,
you know, very accurate today.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
You know, I and I'm sure you're seeing what we are.
So we have a um, a CRM systemfor our our pinks window washing
um franchise and constantlysame sort of thing.
I've got my dashboard.
I'm able to see our jobs whenthey're completed, I can see the
hours, the guys that they'reworking, and I can track revenue
.
But if I really just want tomake it simple, we've got an AI
(07:14):
function in the CRM where I canjust say, hey, how much have we
billed this week?
How much are we going to bill?
How much are we going to bill?
Speaker 3 (07:25):
And it can come back to me that data very quickly,
which is super.
And if you think about thattechnology and you think about
the vending business in general,today 90% of the operators in
the United States, and globallyfor that matter, are still using
a tablet counting it, don'thave the communication with the
vending machine, so the industryitself is very backward and
most of the competition stilldoesn't use the technology to
(07:47):
even a low extent.
It really makes that thereisn't much competition in what
we do because everyone stilldoesn't have it.
The vending business is so oldthat there's just so many older
operators, antiquated equipment.
No tech can't be retrofitted totech, so it's a real
competitive advantage for us.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
I'll never forget, when I was maybe 12 years old,
my dad and I went to Costco,which at the time was called
Price Club, and they had avending machine you could buy
like your own vending machine.
Oh yeah, I've seen that and he'slike hey, you know, I've got an
idea for your first business,we're going to buy this vending
machine.
Yeah, it never came to fruition, but I'll always remember that
(08:26):
because prior to that, and youknow, in the schools we'd always
have, you know, the beat up oldvending machines like the ones
you talked about, the one, theSnickers bar would get stuck.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
It would get stuck in the little coil and you
couldn't get it.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Or you push the wrong thing Right.
That sucked, yeah, but that wasthe moment that it really
became clear to me that no, thisis a business.
And then, as we got deeper intothe business ownership world,
the advantages not only from arevenue standpoint were there,
but also from the tax savingsstandpoint with section 179.
Absolutely, I mean.
That in itself is a strategy toown vending right.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Well, it certainly is , and it's interesting, to take
a step back, that you mentionedbuying a vending machine at
Sam's Club or at Costco orwhatever, and I obviously looked
at that when I started.
But there were some significantdisadvantages to that.
First of all, someone droppinga vending machine on my front
porch.
What do I do with it?
(09:25):
I can't move it around I don'tknow where to put it, I don't
know how to program it, I don'tknow how to fix things, I don't
know how to work it right.
So the advantage I felt withNaturals To Go kind of a
business in a box was prettysimple.
Naturals To Go said look, we'vegot very good vending machines,
(09:51):
which they did.
We have tech started that wethink is going to revolutionize
the industry.
But it wasn't there yet.
But one of the biggest thingswas white glove delivery and
training.
You know, not only would theybring me into training, which I
was skeptical about, you knowthinking I'm a pretty sharp guy
who can teach me anything rightat that time, but the training
was just tremendous.
I mean it was tremendous and Icouldn't have done it without it
.
And then the ability fornaturals to go to kind of work,
the movement of these eight 900pound vending machines around
(10:13):
for me, with big guys with bigtoys they say you know, with the
big trucks right, and you knowthat training and the ability to
get those things around reallygot me started.
From a tax perspective, thevending business really is math.
I mean, to start off, you canbuy something for a dollar and
sell it for $2 in about fourdays.
So me with an accounting degree, yeah, the math works pretty
(10:34):
good with this.
But then when you get into thetax savings, it's pretty
significant because the business, as we say, requires a lot of
iron, it requires a lot ofequipment, right, and the tax
advantages and depreciation inSection 179 really enable you to
manage the taxation every year.
And it's really, you know,depreciation in these vending
machines.
They last forever.
(10:55):
I mean, I don't have onevending machine that I've ever
had to throw away and it's been15 years, so they last a long
time.
But you're able to acceleratethat depreciation with 179, of
course, to offset income.
It's a very good business fortax strategies, no question
about it.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
So you can take that 179 all in the first year if you
want right, or you can amortizeit.
Is it over seven years?
Is it doing that right?
Speaker 3 (11:21):
You can do either.
Most people like to take it allin year one, but it also
depends if you're buying vansand vehicles.
So depreciation expensemanagement is a very it's very
good benefit to the business,but it takes some care like ours
(11:45):
.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
So we're franchise consultants first.
That's our first business.
We help people become franchiseowners and buy, buy businesses
like naturals to go.
So we grow franchise insidersto a point where, okay, now
we're starting to pay a lot ofmoney in taxes, let's add
another business and then weadded our pinks windows
franchise and while it's been,you know, highly successful and
we're out of, you know we're, wehave such a good team.
We were able to be their topfranchisee last year, but it was
still a business in its firstyear that we spent a lot of
(12:06):
money on.
So, yeah, so you had a loss inthe business.
Well, the accountant says to usgreat news guys, this loss you
have in the business nowmitigates the profit you had in
Franchise Insiders.
Sure, god bless America.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Absolutely.
Hey, it is the tax law and weyou know.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Well, and the nice thing is to you know, putting
all political sides aside herefor the purpose of the podcast,
but the way the current taxstructure is written, it's in
all of our, for all of usbusiness owners.
We should be going out thereand making as much money as we
can Because, again, like yousaid, staying within the letter
of the law, it's in our favor,the, the, the right.
(12:50):
Now, the way tax laws arewritten favors the business
owner.
So to have a business likeyours, it not only is profitable
and works for your portfolio,but also comes with these tax
advantages right out of the door.
I mean, it's incredible.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
No, no question about it.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
So let's talk about your first year.
This is really where we like tobreak it down, because you know
people as they start to thinkabout investing.
You know you've got, you knowBob Smith, who's out there
listening to this podcast, andyou know he's a busy executive,
but he's got this burning desireto diversify Right.
You know, what advice would youhave to that person who maybe
isn't ready to leave theirfull-time job but wants to start
(13:27):
diversifying and adding anotherrevenue stream?
What was it like for you whenyou started?
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Well, I think the first thing that I had to
analyze, as does everyone, istime.
You know, most people seem towant an absentee business, right
, they want to continue to keeptheir job, they want something
completely absentee, and ofcourse, I looked at that as well
.
You know, I looked at a donutfranchise right before I got
into Naturals to Go.
You know, the questions came tome.
Well, if you know, susiedoesn't show up to make the
donuts in the morning at 4am, Ihave to go do that.
(13:57):
Right, and you know to thinkthat things are really absentee
and going to work.
Well, I just never believed inthat, right.
So the first is time.
You know, and some people viewthe vending business as as
absentee or semi-absentee.
Right, that it's just easy.
Right, it's only semi-absenteeand easy if you have low
performing locations.
Right, because these locationsneed replenished and the better
(14:19):
you do at securing customers,the more frequently they need
serviced, right.
So vending is not somethingthat you take every couple of
weeks I can go see a customer.
The machines are empty in threedays because of what we do.
So in looking at that initially, I knew that it was going to be
more work than people said itwas going to be, especially to
do it right and to continue todevelop business and all of that
(14:41):
.
So the first thing I thinkanyone has to determine is how
much time really, with yourfull-time job, can you put into
this on your own, or do you needsome support system or help
family friends your own, or doyou need some support system or
help family friends?
Employee, whatever it might be?
So when I got into this, Istarted fairly small, but it was
the largest thing that Naturalsto Go had ever seen, because
(15:02):
I'm one of the first people toever buy a business opportunity
from Naturals to Go and I bought30 units.
At first Naturals to Go I said,wow, 30 units, it's fairly big.
But I really knew that those 30units would take a lot of time
to do well and to try to dothings.
World-class was going to bedifferent than just you know
what the competition was doing.
(15:23):
So and and you know there are alot of mistakes that got made
along the way the biggestmistake that I made was when I
got into this.
I wanted to do healthy vendingand I took that to an extreme
right.
You know I didn't want to sellPop-Tarts and Mountain Dew, so I
ended up trying to sell organickale chips, right, and organic
candy, and I really took it tothe extreme and it failed
(15:44):
miserably.
Like it just didn't fly, youknow, as they say, the dogs
wouldn't eat it, but.
But, but the equipment was sogood and the service platform
that I call premium vending withworld-class service.
Their service was tremendous.
Everything worked, you know.
Everything was spotlessly clean, serviced, frequently monitored
.
(16:05):
So I had a lot of customers cometo me and say, can't you just
do everything?
Like, look at these othervending machines we have in here
, it's all junk food.
We know.
Everything Like, look at theseother vending machines we have
in here, it's all junk food, weknow.
But we, you know we don't wantto have a mutiny here if we just
do healthy, health food, andyou know.
So I decided and gave in on afew customers said look, why
don't we do everything and whydon't we do 50-50?
You know, can you agree on50-50?
(16:27):
If someone wants to buy aMountain Dew bottle this great,
this big, they're going to beable to do it.
But I still want healthychoices in here and got some
agreements to do that and eversince we adopted that 50-50
platform it's just beentremendous.
So the junk food is bad alone,the healthy vending alone is not
good.
But that combination of havingvery smart choices has really
(16:50):
fueled our company and Naturalsto Go.
You know all the operatorsacross the country have adopted.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
And you can make those changes fairly quickly,
right?
So you can look at your dataand see what's selling out and
what's not and then be able toswap it out.
So you can be pretty likequickly reactive but also
proactive if you need to be, and, you know, test maybe a certain
product or something like that.
So you have that data coming toyou.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
So yeah, I mean with with these, with these devices.
Now speaking to the vendingmachine, it gives us the data
that no one ever had Right.
And we don't have to guess.
So you know it takes about nineseconds to run that report
called an item movement to seewhat's moving, and run it for
the last month or two or threeand see and it tells you.
(17:34):
You know, if an item's notmoving I consider every row of a
vending machine its own store.
you know it's its own profitcenter, right?
So if that coil is not movingproduct, you've got to try
something else.
And the other thing that helpsis just listening to the
customer.
I mean most of our competition.
If you looked at all of theirvending machines, it's the same
product in row one, row two, rowthree.
(17:56):
It's the same in every location, regardless of demographics.
What customers want, it's justthe same products.
And we're a little bit crazy,you know.
We have a thousand products, we.
You know it's interesting, Itell this story.
A lot kind of change myphilosophy as to what you're
asking about putting the rightproducts in that people want
(18:17):
Early in the business.
I guess I was about four yearsinto the business and I walked
into a Starbucks.
You know I'm really a big timeguy.
I'm going to go into Starbucksand get a black coffee.
I'm probably going to get a bigblack coffee, right?
You know, bente, whatever theycall it, I'm going to get a
coffee and there's a girl infront of me.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
I always get it confused.
I always get the names confused.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there you go.
So there was a girl in front ofme, very attractive appeared to
be 24, 25 years old, maybe astudent, you know and she orders
this drink in front of me thatI have no clue what that is.
She orders a hookah juca mochalatte, two whip, no squirt,
whatever right.
And it's this long, long recipe.
(19:00):
And I had a chance to talk toher after I got my copy, while
she was waiting for hers, and Isaid, hey, you know, I'm in the
food and beverage business andI'm interested in what you
ordered.
And she said, hey, people today, especially my generation, they
want what they want and we'rewilling to pay for it, but we
want what we want and if wecan't get it in one place we'll
go somewhere else.
And you know that led onto ourcompany being now that if we
(19:21):
have a, you know, an employee ina manufacturing concern, that
once a bang cherry blade energydrink with creatine in it and
extra electrolytes, like we'regoing to put it in because
they're going to buy one everyday.
So the whole market of food andbeverage has become real custom
and it just, it just taught usto be very good listeners and we
listen to the customers.
They can do it on the machineand make requests, but really we
(19:44):
try to put in products thatpeople want.
Yeah, stay on top that quitefrequently you know it's really
interesting.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
We took my mom to a place in San Diego called Urban
Plates, and Urban Plates you goand you customize your plate.
You choose what meat you want,what salad you want, and for us
it's heaven.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
I'm a picky eater, so yeah, you are.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
You know what we mean , right, but my mom, born in
1941, 1941 walks up to thecounter and says I hate this, I
don't want to make.
I want them to tell me what Ishould have.
And it goes exactly to what yousaid is that it seems like the
further we go along eachgeneration because think about
it now we have so many choicesin what we can listen to and
(20:30):
what we can eat.
We can have so muchcustomization.
It's incredible.
My question for you is what,right now, is the?
What's the number one thingyou're selling?
What are people buying from thevending machines?
Is there one clear leader ormaybe category?
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Yeah, I mean, there's not one, there's not one clear
leader.
It's a lot, of a lot of things,and of course we're pretty good
size now, you know, I mean,still to this day, nothing sells
like water.
That's interesting that you knowbottled water.
But bottled water leads intoflavored water and sparkling
water right, and it leads intovitamin water and now it leads
into coconut water drinks right.
So you know waters are stillgood sellers.
(21:05):
Carbonated beverages, of course, on the more unhealthy side,
are still you know, still superpopular.
What's happening more, though,in the vending business for
popularity is really becomingreal food, though, and the real
food especially.
In our case, we make 700 fooditems.
Like we're crazy, you know, wedo it now.
We do once again micro marketsand some things we can get into.
(21:28):
But really, in vending forreally good installations where
you know, employees today don'twant to leave and their
employers don't want them toleave, it's inefficient to go
out for lunch in traffic in anhour and a half.
Right, they want to be at work,but they want to be home for the
soccer game right, so they wantto get finished.
But oftentimes in now vending,one of the biggest complaints
(21:49):
and threads of discontent wasthe food is assembly line,
processed, prison food Peoplecalled it rot gut, I mean, if
you can imagine the comments wegot.
But now, in taking vending andreally supplying good food that
people can use as a meal we callit so they don't have to have
Cheez-Its for lunch.
Our company now sells about38,000 meal items a month.
(22:14):
That would not be snacks.
So if you think about that,people now in the workplace want
good food.
They want custom-made food,they want good food that we can
buy and resell.
So a lot of it now has morphedfrom junk snacks into real food
and it's really taken off overthe last five or six years.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
You know I was making breakfast for our son this
morning.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Thank, you for doing that.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Of course, I made him two scrambled eggs.
We get these protein pancakesfrom Costco that have more
protein and fruit.
I put the plate in front of him.
He says Dad, you're crazed,you're obsessed with protein.
I said you're damn right, I'mobsessed with protein.
It's good for you.
You're growing, you need it tobuild strength.
My question for you is forpeople can we get heavier
(22:57):
protein items out of the vendingmachines now?
What kind of products are youselling there?
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Yeah, so we we have a whole array of protein products
, both mostly in bar form andmany different ones right,
there's a lot of popular onesthere and then also in liquid
form.
So you know, it is the proteinshakes and all of that.
When we're doing specificvending, um for athletics.
You know it's super heavy thatwe're doing when we're in
(23:21):
universities and we're in highschools and we're backed by the
sports facilities.
We have specific sports vendingthat we do.
But in most of the generalvending the marketplace still
wants protein bars, they wantprotein shakes, and the sales of
that seems to increase everymonth Once people try those as
an alternate to a candy bar, youknow, and whether it's a cliff
bar, it's a fit cruncher, it's apremier protein.
(23:43):
I mean it could go on and onwith the, with the choices that
we have, you know, and a lotmore meat snacks too.
To think that now we sell bagsof organic beef jerky that are
really big in vending machinesand they sell and they're
expensive but they really sell.
So the meat snack options andhigh protein options, once
people try them it seems likethey'll opt for that more often
(24:07):
than the candy.
So we've seen a good trend inthat.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Cool.
So I'm assuming you probably doa fair amount of validation
where prospective Naturals to Goowners talk to you.
I know we do for Pinks once amonth something like that.
We're talking to prospectivefranchise owners normally on
like a big group call.
Is that something you do too?
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Yeah, I mean, I used to do a lot more of it Now it's
just lack of time.
You know, try to get morepeople together to kind of get
to me maybe once a month on amore of a kind of a Zoom right
than a lot of individual calls.
And it's interesting, I'm sorry, go ahead.
No, no, you go ahead.
Well, and it's interesting.
You know, people that aregetting into Naturals to Go or
into vending come from alldifferent walks of life and all
(24:49):
different objectives with theirlife.
You know some want to stay verysmall and want it kind of as a
side gig we say right and somewant to know how to take it to a
major employer or a regionalpowerhouse, and you know they're
every way in between.
The business is very scalable,so it's interesting.
(25:10):
You know, when you doone-on-one conversations it's
easier to focus on that personthat's trying to fund their
child's education, but they'renot necessarily want to hire 50
people.
Then you get people that reallywant to do it.
So the business is very, veryscalable, super profitable.
When you're small, you don'thave infrastructure, employees
can do it out of your house.
It's very profitable.
When you're large, like I am,it's super profitable.
(25:31):
In the middle it's a little bittough when you're starting to
get to that spot where I have toquit my job or I have to hire
employees, buy big vans, awarehouse.
I'm in employee benefits,workers' compensation insurance,
so that middle land in vending,and I'm assuming with most of
the businesses that yourepresent as well, it's a tough
spot to be in.
So you have to blow throughthat middle.
(25:52):
You either have to stay small,you know, or or or get pretty
serious about this.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
You know, I mean again, I think it's.
It's like we bought five unitsof our franchise, right?
So we bought all of Palm beach.
We initially started with twoand then we got real nervous
right.
We were like what if somebodybuys?
We bought Boca Raton and Delraybeach and then we said what if
somebody comes along and buysPalm Beach and we're like we
want to be able to cleanMar-a-Lago one these days, right
(26:16):
?
So, we better buy the otherthree units.
So we spent a lot of money onfranchise fees, which impacted
our first year profitability andalso because of the scale of
the business.
We have a GM who he's great.
His close rate is like 80% now.
But, like you said, we're kindof growing towards the company
we want to be, because our wholevision for this was we want to
scale to 15 trucks.
(26:37):
You want your truck doing athousand bucks a day that's what
you want a window washing truckto do, right?
So?
But it means that in thebeginning, as you're growing
there, you're pumping a lot ofcash into the business to to get
it where it needs to go.
And someone sent me a messagelast night and they asked me a
very question the way peopletalk, right, when was the point?
(26:59):
When was the inflection pointwhen it all changed?
And I said I don't look at itlike that, I look at it more
like Rocky Balboa.
It's just how long can you stayin the fight and take punches
until you can finally throw thehandhanger?
Speaker 3 (27:11):
You're right about that You're right, that's just
the way it is.
I mean, anchor, you're rightabout that, you're right, that's
just the way it is, I mean.
So I think you're right aboutthat.
You have to stay in the fight.
You know, until you get to thatscale that you need to be based
on what your objectives are forsure.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Yeah, so I know if I were talking to you as a
prospective investor and I don'tknow, jill, what your thought
would be, but mine would be okayI'm curious if I'm looking at
this as someone who maybe isgoing to scale in with one or
two machines.
But what if I'm a corporateexecutive and I do okay, right,
let's say I do 100, 200k a yearand I want to make this my
(27:46):
full-time thing, understandingthat I won't get there overnight
.
Is there a path to me doingthat as a vending machine owner?
And that would be a question Iwould ask you without having to
talk about any real specificnumbers.
But do you think that's?
Is that attainable?
Is that something someone coulddo?
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Yeah, it's attainable .
You just have to know how toscale.
And when you scaleinfrastructure, you have to
scale equipment and locations atthe same time.
It just has to be the same,right?
You can't get a bunch ofinfrastructure and not get more
customers.
They have to go like this.
So, once again, when you startand you start with eight vending
machines or 10 vending machinesright, or maybe you grow to 20
(28:26):
on your own, but then you can'tgrow to 22.
You have to go 20 to 40.
If you're going to addinfrastructure, you kind of have
to double your equipment.
When you're going to add avehicle, a warehouse, employees,
etc.
And it depends on the marketyou're in.
In this business too, though, itjust really depends on the
locations that you select.
You know, when we, when we geta location, it's just very
(28:49):
important to get the rightlocations, and if you do that,
it's a lot easier to scale andget the full time.
If you really have busylocations, and if you do that,
it's a lot easier to scale andget the full time.
If you really have busylocations and if you don't, it's
just you know the equipmentcosts the same for poor location
as it does a busy location.
You don't see exact sameequipment cost, right, and you
have a choice at that.
You can select any place thatyou want, and the competition is
(29:12):
so bad that we can really getpretty much any place that we
want today.
So not only do you have toscale in equipment and
infrastructure at the same time,but you have to be able to
select the right customerrelationships Very, very, very
important in this business.
I mean, I'm sure it is with anybusiness, but in this one it's,
you know, it's especiallyimportant and everybody's got a
different path.
(29:32):
Everybody asks that samequestion Well, if I want to do
this, what do I have to do?
And every market's different.
The individual business owneris different, situations are
different, so it's really acustom answer to every
individual person.
It's not one set thing, butobviously, just like investors
or whatever you see, things haveto be done within your own
(29:54):
personality.
You know, and you have to beable to run this business and
grow and scale based on what youthink in your own personality
is, and it has to match at somepoint before you really see the
light.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
How's the support from Naturals to go?
You know you're in a placewhere there probably aren't many
operators you correct me if I'mwrong many operators at your
level within their system.
Do you feel like their supportscaled along with your needs as
you grew?
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Well, it's kind of interesting.
You know, with me being one ofthe first, I created a lot of
the support that was necessary,right, and a lot of the things
that have developed in Naturalsto Go.
Naturals to Go really today isan unattended retail company.
You know, vending is a smallpiece of what we do.
It's a big piece of what we dobut it's a small piece as far as
(30:39):
all of the offerings that wehave.
Right, you know, when you'relooking at vending into vending
markets, into significant officecoffee business or coffee
vending, we do self-checkoutmicro markets now artificial
intelligence vending and we dopantry services.
So there's just a lot ofdifferent things now that we've
(30:59):
been able to scale to do.
And it's interesting, we justhad a training class yesterday.
Naturalist to Go really takes on, meaning that for training
classes, between 30 and 40 newbusiness owners come in every
six weeks and I think there wasabout 40 there here in Savannah
over the last couple of days,right, and the initial support
(31:19):
is pretty interesting, you know,and the support changes over
time.
Originally it's I need training, I need that support of
training, then I need thesupport of finding locations
until I learn my own businessdevelopment, then I need support
of getting the machines put inplace, and then I need a coach
for a year or so to kind ofguide me along the way until I'm
(31:41):
self-sustained.
Some operators need a lot lesssupport than others.
It just depends, right.
It really depends on that old.
If it's up to me, you know, ifit is to be, it is up to me,
right.
So some operators need a lotmore support and get it, and
some operators need a lot lesssupport and start growing.
Once an operator gets to thatposition where they've been
(32:04):
coached, they've gotten throughthat first year or so all their
machines are working.
Now, when they want to go tothe next level of support, we
have another phase calledNaturals to Grow.
And now Naturals to Growconsider it something I built, I
developed it with some folks atBentec and Naturals to Go that
(32:26):
is a masterclass.
So now we're going to come tograduate school and we're going
to teach you how to do a lot ofdifferent forms of unattended
retail to expand.
And we're going to teach youhow to do a lot of different
forms of unattended retail toexpand, especially into the
self-checkout markets, which arejust a phenomenal.
Food and beverage you know,covid killed the cafeteria.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
It killed the cafeteria.
So a lot of places that hadcafeterias no longer have them.
But they have self-checkoutmarkets that are really your own
convenience store in your ownsecure business.
But it's all unattended andit's self-checkout and of course
there's security and thingslike that.
So after an operator getsthrough that initial phase, the
support they need really is nowgrowth support, new kinds of
(33:05):
tech and all of that.
So we have an entire departmentthat kind of does that.
And because it's not a franchisein this case at Naturals To Go,
when an operator buys moreequipment, we have some profit,
but if they don't, we don't.
So we really have to do a goodjob along the way to continue to
get that customer.
They can buy equipment vendingmachines from other people don't
have to buy it from us, but ourgoal is to do such a good job
(33:30):
that they continue to want tobuy from us and want to innovate
with us.
The operator base, though it'sinteresting.
Like myself, we've invented anddeveloped a lot of these things
.
You know when you're on thefront lines it doesn't matter
what mother corporate says.
You know when you're reallydoing it.
You figure a lot of things out.
Naturalist to go is interesting.
They're pretty good listeners.
They've been good listeners tome for 15 years, so a lot has
(33:53):
you know the same.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
I would say the same thing for pinks, like they
started in Austin.
Um, we were one of their firstfranchisees, and down here in
South Florida there's a heavierneed for power washing than
there is in Austin, right, andthe deeper we go into summer and
things like that where we justget torrential rains, the more
people need it.
And so we were like guys, weneed a heavier duty power
(34:14):
washing truck.
Are you okay with us testingthis for you to roll it out to
other franchisees?
We'll take the risk, we'llspend the extra money on it.
And they were like, yeah,absolutely.
And so to have a partner who'scollaborative, um, and, and
those jobs, by the way, arepaying huge dividends for us now
, because now you know we'reseeing it, we can do, do you
(34:41):
know?
Get it done faster, right?
Yeah, so I think you're right,and it's fun to be, and not
everyone wants to be atrailblazer franchisee.
A lot of times they like it when, when people like us can sort
of do that, and then by the timethey come in, everything's on a
menu.
But the thing that I love, andthe call we did right before we
did this podcast with you, isour weekly pinks sort of
franchisee call where everysingle franchise owner whether
you're two days old or you'reyou're you're the longest
tenured, like we are.
And uh no, there's two morepeople that are ahead of us,
(35:04):
that were that got in before us.
But everybody loves it becausethey throw all our numbers onto
the call and we see on a week byweek basis who's leading the
field.
And I just think that that isone of the great things about
franchise ownership is, yes, wewant to build a business, yes,
we want to help people, but ifyou're competitive, it gives you
that extra little jolt everyweek.
(35:24):
To want to go out and win too,it does.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Yeah, no question about it, no question.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Well, you've been so generous with your time.
I have one last question foryou, which is what are the
effects of AI on your businesscurrently?
What do you guys?
How do you think it's going toimpact it?
Is it making it better, easier?
Maybe tell us about that.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
Well, the interesting thing is that AI bridge is a
pretty big gap for us.
So when you have a vendingmachine, right, a vending
machine has a closed door, soyou can't have theft in that
right.
So when you do that, someoneyou know does the payment,
whatever they're going to do,and it vends and you have a
secure environment.
In the micro market business,where we have open air
(36:01):
convenience stores with insecurebusinesses right, you know, we
only do those when the penaltyfor theft would be expulsion
from school or termination ofemployment.
So you have to have thatagreement, right, and we do
monitor the security cameras,but you can't, you know you
can't watch it every singleminute of the day, especially
the bigger.
(36:21):
So we have those two ends ofthe spectrum where we have the
complete closed door and acomplete open door, and what AI
has done for us is we, you know,we waited a long time to get
the right tech going because theAI inventing didn't work.
It was the same as I talked toyou about that Android device
right, it's just, the tech was agood idea, but it didn't work
and people were trying to useweight and different things
(36:41):
where you know you could justgrab something and it would
charge you the right amount andit didn't know what you were
taking and it didn't work.
So we developed a lot with ourpartners in AI over the years
that now really bridges a gap.
What that gap is is that we'reable to do non-vending, so, I
think, a more robust servicewith artificial intelligence
(37:06):
eyes when places have publicaccess, right.
So if you have a place thatdoesn't want a vending machine,
maybe they think, hey, a vendingmachine is too tacky for my
beautiful high rise residentialRight, but we still need a store
.
But we can't have it attended.
We lose our shirts.
We can't have someone sittingin a store 24 hours.
What can you put in?
(37:27):
And in those cases is usuallywhere we do the artificial
intelligence and we havebeautiful cabinets that we call
managed stores and you know theyhave small products and big
products.
We can do not only food andbeverage, but laundry, soap and
paper towels and things that youneed, bigger things, right for
those types of installations.
(37:47):
Eyes, artificial eyes andbasically now the technology has
gotten so good that when you doa cashless payment or you scan
a card and it unlocks the doorand you're able to open it, you
can take what you want.
Look at it.
If you keep it, it charges it.
(38:07):
If you put it back and takesomething else and we've been
able to make that 99.999%-accurate.
And a lot of companies now thataren't using the tech we're
using.
You know they're 95% accurateand if you think about a
thousand men's, there are athousand people.
If you're 95% accurate, youhave 50 really upset people.
That's not a very good thing.
(38:30):
So it has to be with AI in foodand beverage and unattended
retail.
It has to be virtually 100%accurate, and now we've got
these vending machines and thetech that they're associated
with learning learning over timeas well, and learning the
absolute everything in thepackage, the exact color and
kind of what you see.
So it's made a pretty bigdifference as well.
(38:51):
So AI in our business doneright is really a part of the
future of vending.
Ai done wrong is still bad, butwe've made some very good
strides and I think over timeyou'll see more and more AI
versus vending machines.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
So could Naturals to Go eventually go, you know, like
the at the airport, where we'reable to walk into, like the
smaller sort of store, with it'sunattended but all the products
are there.
Could Naturals to Go eventuallygo to that route where it's
essentially a store, if you will?
Speaker 3 (39:20):
We're doing those now yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Sounds like they have them.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
yeah, so we're doing those now we're doing artificial
intelligence, self-checkout,markets.
We're doing a lot of that now.
The technology has just gottento the spot where we're
comfortable with it.
Yeah, so we're comfortable withit.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Yeah, it's incredible .
This is really interesting.
Thank you so much for spendingtime with us Before we let you
go.
Is there anything that wedidn't ask, that we should have
asked?
Speaker 3 (39:45):
No, I think you asked a lot of great questions.
Once again, I'll just kind offinish that this world of
unattended retail that we're inwe used to call it vending, but
this world of unattended retailthere's really no end in sight
for this and these businessesare really growing and those
that can do it in a world-classfashion and really pay attention
(40:06):
to the detail can reallysucceed.
If you're not that kind ofperson, probably not a good
business for you, but I think inthe future, doing it the right
way in every aspect is reallywhat's going to make it
successful.
And everywhere you go today,you see self-checkout.
You just see it everywhere andit's not going to go away.
It's going to get bigger.
So adding that would be a goodend to it, and I really
(40:29):
appreciate you having me on.
It's been a pleasure to be onyour podcast.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
We appreciate you.
Same as well.
Well, uh and uh.
Thank you so much for spendingtime and for everyone that wants
to get more information onnaturals to go.
You know the best way to do itText us 3 0, 5, 7, 1, 0, 0, 0, 5
0.
And for today's podcast, I'mJack Johnson.
All right, see you guys.
Thank you All right, take care.
(40:54):
Good having you.
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