Episode 114: How to Launch a Vending Machine Business with Blake Bozeman

Acquania Escarne 0:01

Welcome back y'all to the Purpose of Money podcast. We are in season six and today we are going to do something special to honour one of my first clients, Blake Anthony Bozeman. What's up y'all? My name is Acquania Escarne a, I'm the host of the purpose of my new podcast. And I am both sad and excited to start off this season. For one, we are going to dive into everything that's been going on since the end of season five. And it was a very busy summer and quite an adventurous stick fall. So there's tonnes to talk about. But I'm also going to share a special dedication to Blake Bozeman, one of my first life insurance clients, who was recently shot and killed in Washington, DC. And now I want to not only honour his legacy, but talk about why it's so important to get life insurance outside of work.

Acquania Escarne 0:59

I've been a full time entrepreneur for 21 weeks now, maybe 22 This week, and it's been a roller coaster. I've enjoyed more free time being able to do staycations with the kids work from anywhere, and I've been building the business. But I've also had to deal with the realities of being a life insurance producer, and what that means when the worst happens. So on the evening of September 23 2023, a couple of people were in a DC club that someone decided to start shooting and shot four people, Blake Bozeman, my client was the only one who did not survive his injuries. And on September 24, his family was informed that he passed away. I was also informed that day, and I must say it was not only a shock, because he was a friend. He was also a client who had recently talked to a member of my team. So we had just talked to Blake and we knew he was alive and well last week, and now he's gone. But one of the things that I'm forever grateful for is that when we met when he was 28, he trusted me, he trusted me to help him with his finances, and to work with him on creating a legacy that his family could benefit from God forbid something happened. I know I've been selling life insurance since 2016. And I know that in order for families to receive the death benefit, someone normally has to die.

Acquania Escarne 2:42

I just never imagined that I would have to file my first death claim so soon. Most of my clients are my age or around my age. And Blake was only 31 years old. At the time of his death. I attended his memorial recently, and I was overwhelmed by the number of people that he's touched and blessed in his life of only 31 years, I swear there were over 200 people who gathered at Morgan State University to honour his legacy, and to share their thoughts and prayers on what he did to them in their lives. Blake was an amazing father, a role model in the black community, a husband, and a true serial entrepreneur. He's someone who was constantly grinding to build for the community and his people. And he spent a lot of his time outside of work. And when he wasn't running his businesses to help black youth who were talented athletes who he wanted to inspire to pursue life outside of sports after their athletic careers were over. Blake was also a very good basketball player himself. He actually played for four years in college at Morgan State University, and was even under the coach coaching of his father, Mr. Bozeman, who is one of the most won games for Morgan State University, and left a legacy and a mark on the university as well. But it really hurt my heart to hear that Blake was not only shot and killed, but left behind. recently married wife, they married in July, and we're looking forward to spending the rest of their lives together. And I had the pleasure to be a part of Blake's life for many years. You know, I remember when he bought the ring and needed to fit in in his budget and we worked on that. I remember him just asking all the right questions to see how could he set up his investments in a way that would benefit his family. And I'm just grateful to know that He took my advice, he listened.

Acquania Escarne 5:02

He started his vending machine business, he started a nonprofit organisation, pivot group where he did help black youth learn financial literacy. And I even have the pleasure of speaking to that group a couple of times, using fun games to teach budgeting and money principles, and also to teach them the importance of saving and investing for themselves. I am glad that I had the opportunity to get to know Blake, I'm glad he let me help him with his finances, he took my advice, and his family will be financially okay. But I realised that life insurance and investments won't bring Blake back. And they but they will help his family maintain the life he worked so hard to give them. And it'll give his wife and his children an ability to grieve and to take the time they need to remember their dad but also not have to struggle financially while they heal. I want to know that this is a great time to do a financial checkup. I offer financial analysis to anyone who's willing to do the checkup, go over their numbers and do a deep dive and I will leave a link to that in the show notes. So if you're interested, you can take advantage of the opportunity. I also want to take the time to remind you that it's super important to have insurance outside of work because you never know what's going to happen to your job. But when you have insurance outside of work, you are protected, you are able to change jobs and not be at risk of not having the coverage you need. Because we never know what's going to happen.

Acquania Escarne 6:41

I also want to remind you to update your beneficiaries on all of your assets. Without doing so you may be leaving money to the wrong person, or requiring your family to go through a very costly and lengthy probate process just to access the items that you've left for them. So it's important to do what you need to do to get your affairs in order. I want to also remind you to communicate communicate with your family or at least someone in your family that you trust to handle your final affairs. Let them know where the documents are, who to contact. I'm still grateful that although I feared having that first conversation with his wife, and having to extend my condolences, and also I explained what happens next, I'm glad that she knew who to contact and what to do. And I could help her along the way. And also I could help his family. Parents and others deal with what happens next. I know that now it's even more important that I continue to be an educational source for anyone who's curious about life insurance, or wants to know how it can be used to create a legacy for their family. He just reminded me that I have so many more people to help because I'm grateful that I didn't see a GoFundMe for Blake Bozeman. And I didn't have to see that because he got his affairs in order. If you need help, please seek professional assistance, either from a financial advisor, financial coach, life insurance producer, someone who can help you, I'd be more than happy to be a resource for you as well. I wanted to take this opportunity to share some of the wisdom that Blake previously shared on the Purpose of Money podcast. I interviewed him before about being a dad, a serial entrepreneur, a realtor and starting a vending machine business. And I wanted to take this opportunity to share that episode again so that it can bless you guys. You can also hear some of the words of Blake Bozeman from his past and may this episode inspire you to pursue your entrepreneurial journey. Get your affairs in order and contact me today if you need help. I hope you enjoy this episode. Hope you enjoy season six because I have so much to share. I will be sharing my full time entrepreneurship journey, more stories from entrepreneurs out there who are killing it and so much more. I really hope that you enjoy this episode and get so much value out of it. Until next time, guys keep building generational wealth and make sure to share this episode with anyone who needs to hear it. Enjoy. You are listening to the Purpose of Money podcast, a podcast where we talk about ways to build wealth and create more freedom in your life today. I am your host Acquania Escarne.

Acquania Escarne 9:59

Hey guys, welcome back to the Purpose of Money podcast today I'm super excited to have on the show, one of my clients best realtors in the DC, Maryland, Virginia area, Blake Bozeman. He is a realtor who loves to talk so and buy real estate. But he's also the new up and coming vending machine mogul. So I say he's here today because I want to talk about how to build multiple streams of income, specifically in the space of vending machines. And then we'll talk about some of the other stuff Blake has going on. So hi, Blake, welcome to the show.

Blake Bozeman 10:40

Hey, thank you for having me, a cornea. I am excited and happy to be here.

Acquania Escarne 10:45

I am too. It's not that often I get to interview some of my clients on the show. But I remember when we first met, we just started out talking about finances. You had a nine to five job and our family. Tell the audience for me what has happened since then? Because I feel like you've been on a roller coaster.

Blake Bozeman 11:07

Yes. So much has happened since then. So yeah, I don't even remember the Organising platform or how I came about the meeting that you all had scheduled. I've always been curious and interested in finance, just from the perspective of how can we make our money work for ourselves? And how can we multiply it in sync? It was great that we were able to connect that way. At that time. I was doing contracting. I was doing procurement and acquisition for Department of Defence DoD agencies. And I don't I'm not even sure I had even had my real estate licence yet. If I did, I certainly wasn't I hadn't quite gotten started.

Acquania Escarne 11:48

No, you didn't have it, because that was a part of our discussions is how to transition into full time on

Blake Bozeman 11:56

one income w two. And yeah, I was just I wasn't happy with with my career, I'll be frank and say I was getting paid pretty well. But it just it wasn't fulfilling. And I was just uneasy about showing up to work five days a week and my work commute and everything like that. And so that's where I was then how many years ago was the was that? Maybe

Acquania Escarne 12:23

four or five years? Yeah.

Blake Bozeman 12:26

Four years ago, NBS, since then, I guess we can fast track to now I am. I don't have any w two income at the moment. So I've vacated my position and that entire history, doing consulting work for the federal government. And I'm a full time realtor and entrepreneur.

Acquania Escarne 12:49

That's excellent. And what is it that prompted you to change why real estate, you could have gone into a different career, you could have transitioned into a different type of business. Why did you choose to become a realtor?

Blake Bozeman 13:04

It's interesting. Knowing what I know. Now, I wish I was more interested in real estate when I was younger, just hearing and listening to different things and learning how many real estate has produced a number of millionaires, I believe most of the Self Made Millionaires are millionaires earned that reality through real estate. But even if it's not becoming a millionaire, I just think there are so many different avenues through real estate where you can obtain and achieve financial freedom. Because ultimately, I mean, to me money off affords and offers you the freedom at least that's how I see it the freedom to really enjoy what life has to offer. And from my perspective, it's pretty hard to do so without money. And so I say all that to say, I wish I knew earlier. You know what I know now about real estate. And so it wasn't necessarily that I got into real estate because I knew those things. I didn't quite know those things. At that time. I had just been encouraged by my realtor. My realtor ended up being my mentor, the realtor that I used to buy my first house. And when we were going through the process when he was representing me as my agent, he was impressed by some of the questions that I asked and how I just stayed on top of things. Being an active realtor now and dealing with so many different clients, I can I just assume that based on his interaction with me, compared to some of his other clients, he just saw something in me. And so he encouraged me to go ahead and get into real estate. And at that time, though, I just I was just looking for additional money. I was aware of multiple streams of income, but I hadn't actively pursued or engaged a means by which I could earn additional income. And so with that desire, I said let me just go ahead and get my real estate licence. So I can just make some extra extra money and then slowly but surely, became pretty good at it. And I was really interested in it and developed a passion for it to the point where I was doing so much business as a realtor, that I did begin to entertain the idea of doing real estate and being a realtor full time. But initially, I had no intentions or no plans of being a 100%, commission based type of guy that has no w two consistent income, I had all the same concerns about what about health insurance? And what about 401k. And I need consistent paychecks. And so I had no intent on becoming a realtor. But I guess life had other plans.

Acquania Escarne 15:28

I love that. And I like how you started out part time you saw how it was for you. And you adapted to the idea of going full time. But you did transition into I think wisely, we had a couple of meetings, kind of looked at your budget and all the expenses you had and trying to eliminate it too before going full time. So now that you are a full time realtor, full commission based person, I've also seen that youth branched out into additional income streams that are slightly more Passover, those listening, active income is the income that you do some work to get the return by going to work every day and then getting a paycheck every two weeks. But passive income might involve some setup, but then it's just money that comes in your sleep. A lot of people have been talking about vending machines as the best passive income stream because you set up the machine once and the money keeps coming. What encouraged you to specifically choose vending machines? And do you think that's actually how it's working out for you.

Blake Bozeman 16:38

Let me if you don't mind, let me give some background to this. So in addition to me, becoming a realtor, I I've just always been the type to I always believed in multiple streams of income and passive income, my introduction to passive income was through, it was through there was some like multi level marketing that was going on when I was in college. So there was Wake Up Now, there was Vemma, there were these, I forget exactly what they call them. Some people call them Ponzi schemes or whatever, they're legit, and they're legal. But it really introduced me to and taught me passive income. And so once I graduate graduated beyond that level of thinking of like the multilevel marketing, some of the things that I like, I was always trying to think of different ways to earn more money. One of the things I even did was I bred my dogs, I had two dogs, I bred them, I tried to sell puppies, and I was just like, This is not for me, this is too much work. This is too much work cleaning up after the mess, and they stink. And it was just a lot. And so I tried different things. Real Estate being one of them, I was going to develop a whole business breeding these dogs, it took one round of that to realise that wasn't for me. And then I was listening to different ideas, and I came across the vending machine idea. And so like anything that I'm going to commit myself to, I did a tonne of research first. One thing that I would like I stand strong behind is man, if you're going to really pursue something, then take the necessary steps to do it the right way so that you're not winging it. So the vending machine business, for example, I paid for a few different ebooks. And I probably did a course or two, to learn the ins and outs and the nuances and just to basically make sure that I did my due diligence beforehand. I just look at how we pay for so many different things. I'll easily go out and spend money on a dinner or lunch or entertainment or vacation or whatever the case may be. And so if I can do that, then I can surely spend money educating myself and learning a new skill. And I got into the I did all my homework and made sure that I knew what I was getting myself into. And it's been really good. It's been really good. I stand firm behind the vending machine business, if done the right way. If I can go into some of the pros and cons or some of the obstacles to answer your question. Yes, it's absolutely passive income. Ironically, I just came from refilling a few of my vending machines that took me 30 minutes or so. And now I'll be making money over the next few days before I have to return to the vending machines to refill them again. And so in that sense, it is passive. I do a little bit of work by refilling the machines. I'd laugh and joke with people and something when they asked me about the machines, I say I could do this hung over if I needed to. And so that part of the business is easy. You're putting snacks in a machine you're putting sodas in a machine, that part is easy. The tough part of the business is actually securing the locations. Your homework in your research is where you'll learn which locations to pursue, how to introduce yourself to them and build those sorts of relationships and What sort of things you want to negotiate what sort of factors you want to consider what what things make a location, a good location to put a vending machine in.

Blake Bozeman 17:25

That's all the homework. And then some of it, of course, will be osmosis and trial and error. But the hard part is actually getting the locations. And I tell people, you have to be comfortable or step out of your comfort zone and be willing to talk to people, I'm sure we've all answered a doorbell at one point or another. And on the other side of our front door was a salesman, they were either selling home security service are one of those utility companies that promise that they can lower your electric bill or something like that. And so it's not the same as that, but it's not too far off. If you're going to be successful in the vending machine business, you've got to be willing to park in the parking lot, walk through the front door of any old establishment and talked to the decision makers and sell yourself and your business. And so most times, it'll be a no. And so that's the second layer behind the challenge in that in this pursuit and in this endeavour is that you have to be willing to talk to people. And they have and you have to be able to convey yourself in a manner with which they all believe in you and your business. And to you have to be willing to take the ELLs on the chin and keep it moving. Because it's a numbers game I've been able to successfully get, we've got eight machines at seven different locations, and about six months. So we've experienced some rapid growth. But out of the six locations we have, I've tried 60 It's one of those things where most times an establishment whether it's an apartment, or whether it's a gym, or whether it's like an auto shop, most times, they're either going to say no, they're not interested, they have a machine already. Or they'll at least entertain and engage the discussion. But quite frankly, it doesn't lead to an agreement and you bringing a machine to their place. So you have to you got to follow up, and you can't allow the nose and the rejections to convince you to quit, and that you can't be successful at it. It's one of those things, if you don't have the personality, to go out and talk to people and be able to deal with the rejection, then it won't be for you because you'll absolutely have to, you'll have to overcome that. But once you do, like I said, you can do the work hung over that the rest of it is easy.

Acquania Escarne 22:42

Oh, I love it. I love it. So really, location is key. Real Estate vending machines is where you put it matters. And I love how you're saying

Blake Bozeman 22:56

the location is key, I can say I've got an apartment right now that consistently does 2500 a month in revenue. Gross 2500 a month. That's one machine. That's one apartment, one machine does 2500 a month. And when you talk about passive income that I look at, that's why I just I love the business because I'm far better than most any traditional rental that you'll have. Most times when you rent out a property. And again, I'm in real estate. Most times when you rent out a property you're in, you've got you've got a golden property if you've got $1,000 profit margin on a rental, where your mortgage is one amount, and what you're renting the house out is another and your profit margin there after paying the mortgage is $1,000. You've got a pretty solid rental there. And so if I've got a vending machine that's doing $1,000 $2,000 a month, that's damn good, that's really good. Most times rental properties, that margin isn't even $1,000. And everything comes with its with its challenges and drawbacks. a rental property is pretty passive too. But you and I have had the discussion about toilets and tenants and that sort of thing. Everything is going to have it it's hurdles, the hurdles with the vending machines is just on the front end of actually getting the location.

Acquania Escarne 24:18

Do you think that once you secure a location for your first machine, it gets easier from there.

Blake Bozeman 24:25

It doesn't get easier. I'd say it's it's whatever the scientific term is for whatever that does for your brain, where it's just where you realise that it's possible and that it can be done. And then when you start to win that first few times that you go to the machine and you collect cash. Or when you're checking your mobile app and you're seeing the sales I remember the first few sales I remember the first few sales were like wow, this is really working. We're really making money off of this machine that we set up and all we set up the machine filled the machine, locked it up and left it alone and everything was making money. So it doesn't get easier, but I think it's healthy encouragement to keep going. It's just like working out. And when you get on that scale, after you've committed yourself and stay disciplined, and you've worked out consistently for two weeks, and you get back on that scale, and you can see that you've lost some weight, it registers. Okay, the work and the commitment, and the sacrifice that I'm making is reaping rewards. So I'd say it's the same thing with a vending machine. But it doesn't get easier to scale, because you still deal with. It's interesting to me, a lot of times some of these these apartment complexes, the management companies, they want nothing to do with vending machines, they either have a stigma, or they believe that it's going to draw like loitering and crowds and potential vandalism, sometimes it's just they don't care, because it's not something that's a part of their profit model and their business. And so if they can't really make money off of it, or money that they deem worth it, then they just they don't care. And then sometimes they some establishments, they'd rather operate their own machine, as opposed to allowing someone else to come in and prop and make money.

Blake Bozeman 26:08

So you're going to always encounter that. But you've just got to keep going and find the locations that are open to it. And then like I said, You've got to your follow up, game has to be good. I've got a location, the location, the newest location, I actually had this location, sign a contract, it's probably been two months since they first signed the contract. And then I received a phone call yesterday saying that they were finally ready for us to come bring in the machine, a different location. I still don't have a signed contract yet. But I've literally been massaging that relationship for a year, the first time that I reached out to that, to that particular property manager was last year. Now I didn't hit her up every month or every week or anything like that. That's harassment. But I did follow up with her a few months later. And asked if I had just touched base, again, because I have a few locations nearby. And then sometimes it might be a location where it might take you weeks, or it might take you three months or so before your proposal gets up the chain of command, the property manager working at the location, then they're the gatekeeper, if you will. And so then they've got to send that up to the regional. And then I'm sure it's not the top priority for the regional. And it's probably not the top priority for your for the property manager on site either. And so they may not answer the phone, or you may call and they may have forgotten about you. Or they may say, Hey, I'm gonna send you an email, and then they never send you the email. But you've got to follow up. And you've got to say, Hey, it's me again, I know you asked me to do such and such, or remember, you told me to call you back, it'd be a better time, if you call me after the new year. So then you got to make sure that you set a reminder and you call them after the new year that that whole sort of thing. But once you get in there, you're golden.

Acquania Escarne 27:59

That's really interesting. Follow up is key. And there's a sameness. The fortune is in the follow up. Have you ever heard that time?

Blake Bozeman 28:06

I haven't heard that, but it is true. That's where all the money was made? Yeah, I follow up series.

Acquania Escarne 28:14

And so the fortunes in the follow up is really to inspire entrepreneurs to keep following up, because that's normally the hardest people to stay on top of that you follow up the most end up being potentially your most lucrative sales or your best client, you just need to continue to follow up. So I love that all the gyms that you dropped, and then just the idea of perseverance in the vending machine space. And yeah, understanding that you may not be talking to the person that's in charge. And I think that's important. So many people think I'm supposed to communicate to this person, because that's the person I see it as person I know, not realising they have a boss or they're not the boss, right. And sometimes they may not say that in the initial conversation. So those are good questions to ask to, hey, is there anyone else that I should reach out to to explain how this business relationship could work and benefit the both of us, giving them an opportunity to let you know who may be in that chain of command? So that's really good. So give me just I know you have a book on this. And we're going to drop the book in the show notes so that my listeners can get a copy of your book where you really break down to how to get into the vending machine business. I want to understand realistically, what is the startup costs for someone who's really thinking about doing this? I'm glad you

Blake Bozeman 29:37

asked. That's the that's one of the other things that really attracted me to the vending machines. And while I'm a big proponent of them because relatively speaking, the startup cost is low. There's no real barrier to entry there in terms of startup costs. So a snack machine is the most affordable one. A snack machine will run you like around $1,000 1000 No more than $1,500 for snack machine. And it'll depend, right, because you've got different sizes and quantities, you might have a location where there's 15 employees there, 20 employees there, and maybe a three row snack machine is appropriate for that location. Whereas you might get a government office building where there are 50 plus employees, and now you need it, and you need a five row snack machine. And so keep in mind that depending on the size, you'll pay more for your machine, okay, and the prices that I'm referring to are for our refurbished machine. That's the recommendation that I have your startup costs increases significantly if you buy a brand new machine. And you might be able to find cheaper machines if you purchase a machine on Facebook marketplace or offer up or Craigslist. But in my opinion, there's risk with that, that I don't want to take in terms of not knowing the condition, not having any sort of warranty. And then I have to physically go get the machine and transport the machine and everything like that I'd rather pay for a machine refurbished. Yeah, that has been worked on and that seller or manufacturer or wholesaler can guarantee that this machine works. And 1000 to 1200 or so would be like the cost of your snack machine. Next in line would be your drink machine.

Blake Bozeman 31:26

If you had a drink machine, like at a gym, for example, a drink machine will cost you like 1900 $2,000. For a drink machine, your most expensive machine would be your combo machine, your combo machine is one machine that has both drinks and snacks in it, that is my most commonly used machine, these different locations, they consider basically how much size or how much space they may have in their facility to house a machine. And so it's a lot easier to accommodate one combo machine than it is to account to accommodate one snack plus one drink. When you're just speaking floor space and where on the wall, you're going to put the machine etc. And oftentimes, one combo machine is enough to handle the volume and the traffic of a location anyways, and so it just makes more sense. But your combo machine can run you anywhere from 3000 to $3,500. And so that's the tear of prices right? Now, technically, all you really need is the machine plus your inventory, which would be you getting your snacks and your drinks, whether that's Sam's, Costco, BJs, restaurant depot, etc, we'll say ballparking anywhere from three to $500, right for your inventory for you to go purchase the things that you're going to put in your machine. And then on top of that, technically, that's all you really need. Now you'll have to, you'll have to in order for your machines will work you need coins, to dispense change for people. So you might spend $20 for your quarters, nickels, dimes, but at a bear. So if you go with the bare necessities where you've just got machine inventory coins, you can be in business for that 2500 $3,000. If you're putting up a snack machine somewhere, you're doing a combo machine and you're in business for $5,000 or less. So it's low cost entry. And as I said, if you've got a, if you've got a if you've got the right location with a good amount of foot traffic, your your ROI will you'll make you'll make your initial investment back in a month and a half. And then everything is profit from there. And so I love it from that standpoint, it costs a lot more to try to buy an investment property. So there's other other avenues through which you can generate an additional income source or passive income, but the vending machine business, it doesn't cost much to get in.

Blake Bozeman 34:07

Now, of course, I elaborate on other suggested components of your business in order to be successful. Like of course, eventually, you'll want to LLC and make sure that you have a business, you might want a landing page, you might want an email account so that when you are reaching out to these business owners, and these property managers and whoever the owner of the gym is, et cetera, et cetera, that you're not sending them an email from Blake, Lakers. fan@gmail.com you're sending them an email from Blake dot Bozeman at Vital fending.co Because again, we're talking follow up we're talking they've got to believe in you. They want to believe that you're a legitimate business and they want to you want them to take you seriously. And so there's different ancillary costs there. You'll likely need some storage bins you'll likely need a dolly to help you transport you've got cases of water cases of Gatorade, etc, etc. My business partner and I, we recently got a storage unit, because we've scaled to that point where we've got, I have a garage, but I've got cases of Gatorade and sodas and stuff in my garage. So now we went ahead and committed to getting a storage unit costs us just under $60 a month. So even that itself, it's not expensive. We have insurance, a lot like liability insurance. So some locations, they may require, hey, we want to make sure that you've got liability insurance just in case this place burns down. We know that your business in your machine is insured. I know for schools, typically, they'll require that you have insurance before they agree to place a vending one of your vending machines. And in their school, you have to have insurance. So there's different costs there. But technically, you don't necessarily need those things to get started, you could start to generate some profit first, and then start grab yourself some storage bins, grab yourself a dolly, get one of the other things that I recommend. And one of the things that we did from the jump, we went and I got on fiverr.com and I created a logo. And so after creating the logo, I then reached out to a guy knew to get some polos made. So now when I'm entering these, these potential locations, I'm walking in with a folder. And I've got a printout of like, I've got a one pager, that speaks a little bit about my business, I've got a logo on there, I've got a business card with my logo on the back, my name, my business email, I've got a polo on with my logo. So I'm a legitimate business, I'm not just some guy that woke up three days ago and decided I was going to try to get some vending machines, which is fine, sometimes you got to get it, you know how you can get it. But if you've got the means and when you get the means after your first profitable machine, those are some of the other expenses that you'll want to consider as you scale your business.

Acquania Escarne 37:03

Okay, and that's really good. I have a quick question. Now, do you buy the machine before or after you find your first location,

Blake Bozeman 37:10

you don't buy that machine until you've got a signed agreement from the location that they want that machine. And that would be a critical mistake to buy the machine first, because then where are you going to keep it until you get a location. Once you get the location, they may say we want a combo machine. But you went and bought a snack machine from somebody on Instagram already. And so you can't even put that machine in that location because you got a snack machine and they want a combo. Or you just always have to get the location first and clarify what sort of machine they want. You might you might float around and buy a machine you might come across something that seems like a great deal, they've got a three row drink machine. And then the location you get might be it could be it'd be a gym. And they've got so many people coming in the gym on a regular basis, that that they'll wipe your three row drink machine out in half a day. So now you've got a three row drink machine in there and you're hustling back and forth to refill the machine more than you would really need to if you had an adequate machine that could handle the sales, the appropriate sales volume. So you always have to get the location first and then you get the machine. That's also a key part of this business. The same way, a key parts of my business is having a reputable, experienced capable lender to connect my buyers with so that they are in the best hands possible when it comes to financing. And conveying and submitting strong offers against other competing offers in this market. I success in the vending machine business is heavily dependent upon where I can source my machines from. I've got to be able to commit to a location and say hey, I can get this machine to you in a week. Or I can get this machine to you in two weeks.

Blake Bozeman 39:17

Like I've got I got a plug I got my plug I don't have to when you when you agree of hey, like we've thought about it, we're gonna go with you. We want your machine, it's a lot tougher if I've got to then get online and start trying to find out where I'm gonna get my machine from if I've got to scroll through offer up and let go and scroll through Facebook marketplace and make a bunch of different phone calls to try and figure out where I can get a machine from. Whereas if I've got a wholesaler I just call my guy hey, I need a four row drink machine. Hey, I need a five row combo machine hey, I need a three row snack machine. What do you have? And that person has to be reliable as well. When you're dealing with these different locations, they'll say hey, I Thursday would be a bad day for you to come bring that machine that's not going to work for us. Can you bring it on Friday? Bring it Friday? And can you bring it what time? Where can you bring it at 10am, I've got to trust that my guy that I'm getting my machines from, that he's dependable and reliable that he's going to be there on time with the right machine. And he knows what he's doing. And that's something that I pay for I pay the extra fee to have it delivered, as opposed to me going to get a U haul and trying to deliver this machine myself because I can't afford to drop it or do something wrong. And let me go pay the guys that have been doing this for 20 years, and they want a well oiled machine. And so that's key, having a wholesaler for where you get your machines from and see that that's something that that's information that I offer. And one of the resources because it makes your life so much easier when you've got a reliable when you've got a plug, because you got to know where to get your product from.

Acquania Escarne 40:59

This has been super fun. The name of the show was called the Purpose of Money. And I asked all my guests, this is my signature question, what is your purpose for money?

Blake Bozeman 41:10

My purpose for money is for freedom. My purpose for money is for freedom, I probably don't hold, I probably don't hold on to slash save money as best as you would probably like and as you advise me to. I do. However, disclaimer. But the Purpose of Money to me is freedom. When it comes to exposure, like one of the things that I value is travelling, I love to travel. And I think that there's value in travel beyond nice Instagram pictures. And so if I can expose my kids to life outside of the DMV, I need money to take my sons to New York, and to take them to Florida to the beach, to for me to experience different cultures and different lifestyles out of the country. And this is just me, I like to travel. And so I need money. To do that money. The purpose is to have the freedom to enjoy different things in life, we all have responsibilities and obligations that we have to meet. And I think without an adequate or surplus amount of money. Sometimes we get caught in a rat race, where we're just we're working to meet our obligations, and our handle our responsibilities. But I don't view that as freedom. At this point, I'm a slave to the money and I'm a slave to my job. Because this is all it's affording me to do meet my responsibilities. But I want to do other things I want to, I want to I want to go somewhere nice. I want to be able to go to true Lux, I see this restaurant Trulock that just opened up, I want to be able to go there and eat that and I want to I want to be able to go to the to the new hotel that just opened up wherever I want to be able to do these sorts of things. And so money the Purpose of Money to me is the freedom to be able to truly enjoy life.

Acquania Escarne 43:15

I love it. Thank you so much Blake and give yourself more credit because you have come a long way I always watch your growth and I love to see you grinding

Blake Bozeman 43:24

you featuring me on your show. I tune in and I keep keep up to date and abreast with the different guests that you have on here. So it's absolutely an honour to be in this space and amongst such company.

Acquania Escarne 43:36

This has been really great. I look forward to hearing who starts their own vending machine business episode. Thanks so much again, Blake. And so next time keep building generational wealth.

Blake Bozeman 43:51

Yes, thank you, you too.

Acquania Escarne 43:56

Thank you for listening to the Purpose of Money podcast. For more resources and information, check out my website, the purposeofmoney.com and while you're there, please sign up for our newsletter, so you'll have all the latest information on new episodes and blog posts. Until next time, keep building generational wealth

Transcribed by https://otter.ai