Operators wanted: With an end to end sales solution, VendVue is offering customized growth programs

0:00Hi everybody, it's Bob Tulio. Welcome to Automatic Merchandiser's Vending in OCS Nation, the podcast for the convenience services industry, produced by Endeavor Business Media, a division of Endeavor B2B. On this episode of Automatic Merchandiser's Vending in OCS Nation podcast, presented in cooperation with VenVue, I sat down with Patrick McGinty, founder of VenVue, his message is simple, operators want it, to serve the many locations that his end-to-end sale solution is generating. He'll talk about customized solutions that he's put together for operators to accommodate different growth strategies. Patrick, for listeners who may not be familiar with VenVue, and that's hard to believe because you've been out there. Give us a quick overview. What exactly does VenVue do? I know what it does, end-to-end sale solution, which is

1:03pretty impressive. What gap were you trying to fill in the convenience services industry? Yeah Bob, great question. So VenVue is essentially a national sales engine for convenience service industry. Most Vending in micro market operators are incredible at service logistics and operations, but sales has always been a weak put in the industry. So operators grow slowly, a typical way of getting accounts is waiting for referrals or just seeing what's out there, maybe knocking on a few doors and kind of producing some results here and there, but VenVue really solves that problem. And what we've built, Bob, is a national prospecting infrastructure that identifies workplaces already looking for break room solutions. So we qualify these opportunities, present the solution and then connect them directly with a local operator ready to service them. So instead of operators kind of waiting for opportunities to present themselves, maybe knocking on a few doors here and there and chasing some deals, we're going to deliver qualified opportunities directly to your route so you could stay focused on service and growth. That's pretty much what we

2:08do in a nutshell. So we put ourselves in a hunter role to identify quality break room solutions and connect them directly with operators. So you connect them, but you go a little further than that, don't you? In the sense that you make the connection and then ultimately your team closes the deal and the operator is brought in on the tail end really at the site survey to meet the client and go over some specific details. Isn't that absolutely? Yeah, absolutely. So that's what's really unique about our situation. So unlike some of the people out there that are promising things like endless leads or solutions, we're really diving in there and managing the Dale solution from really start to finish. So imagine a situation where we source the opportunity through relentless outbound prospecting. Then we do a needs assessment, understand exactly what they're looking for and then present a solution that is desirable for the operator. So we're not going out there and promising things or over promising and under delivering, delivering low pricing.

3:11We're trying to put together a meaningful opportunity for the operator while satisfying their goal. So all of that is done prior to the operator even getting there. So when our partner or our local operator shows up at the site survey, they essentially just assume the sale and work on coordinating and facilitating the installation of the new equipment. Getting an email or a call from one of my team members and say, show up here at this specific place, talk to this specific person at this specific time. Here's what we presented. And if you want the account, then let us know and we'll bring it across the finisher client for you. So that's that's pretty much it in a nutshell. So we're not just we're not just calling in saying we got a hot lead in the area. We're we're really bringing it home. So end and sale solution. So obviously you can see the gap that was there is it's pretty hard to have a sales organization. If you're a small medium size vendor, especially it's great challenge when you're wearing a lot of hats, isn't it? Yeah, it's incredible. So a lot

4:14of operators of all sizes approach growth from a lot of different standpoints. So some operators they want to grow their existing route. They want to add additional service to an invoice and grow their existing route and their existing customers. Other operators want to get out there and really grow at a slower pace. They want to take it slow and grow one account a month. And we have a program for that that I want to talk about a little later. You know, the operators that are really embracing growth or getting out there using their our sales engine and producing account after account after account on a consistent basis. And that is all a result of outbound prospecting. So why this program works for operators of all sizes is sales has always been a gap in the industry bit of a challenge. So what we do is we come in with my industry experience and our team that's been trained by my industry experience. And we just go all in for that operator. So instead of an operator either hiring their own sales team or doing the prospecting and closing

5:16themselves. We just get in there and make sure that there's a daily effort on your behalf to gather those opportunities in your in your area. So that's that's a that's what we're doing Bob. And a lot of this really is is driven off of your years obviously as a vending operator before launching the venue. What did you learn about the sales side of the business that convinced you the industry needed a dedicated sales engine? We were a very very very fast growing vending operation. We grew substantially from zero machines all the way up to the to the max before before we required. So you know when I looked at growth you know my mindset at a time was always be growing grow or die. You know now is that necessary that the mindset of a sophisticated vending operator in this market? I'm not sure everybody looks at growth a little differently and I'm sure we'll talk about that later. But you know when I identified this need in the industry I thought about what I needed when I was an operator. I needed daily effort in the market. We were in one of the

6:18most competitive markets in the in the industry. We were surrounded by major players. We were in the remanufacturing capital of the country and Cleveland. We had two major remanufactures. So everybody's cousin had 10 vending machines you know because they were buying them direct from there. So we had so many different levels of competition. And the one thing I noticed that how we were able to gain a competitive advantage is because we worked on our sales efforts daily. So it was a non-negotiable. I spent three hours every day prospecting whether that was over the phone whether it was going door to door whether it was riding with the route drivers and stopping at the council next door. It was a non-negotiable unless you have a dedicated sales rep hub three hours a day for for an operator may may be challenging. So when I thought about that I thought about how can I deliver that massive consistency at scale to operators across the country Bob and that's that's why venue was created is because a lot of people wanted growth didn't have the time or the they

7:21didn't want to take away from their existing routes or there was gaps in their existing sales teams. Quite frankly maybe the third-party operators that call them up those opportunities weren't profitable or weren't as desirable after commissions low price and structure and things like that. So when you take control of your growth whether you join our network hub and wait for us to call you in an opportunity presents itself in your area or whether you take advantage of one of our growth plans put you in a position to become a profitable company. So once someone signs on with a venue program the big thing that they're getting is just consistency a day after day consistent sales effort which quite frankly is difficult to achieve even when you have a dedicated salesperson who has so many different things distracting him like existing customers operational issues so many different things and of course if you're an operator trying to do it on your own wearing multiple hats forget about the consistency. Yeah, bottom line how how we are successful at all

8:28levels whether it's a massive success where we deliver a huge account or whether it's a stepping stone or we deliver a bread and butter account you know the bottom line is it all happens based on consistency based on the fact that when we enter a market we are working on a daily basis in an outbound capacity to identify quality opportunities. So we are consistently delivering opportunities on a daily basis. So if we stop the engine then we're not going to produce and then you're going to fire us. So we need the engine running and we need to consistently produce results. That's the bottom line but the success from consistency shows up in various levels in some markets we get in and we are able to crack the code immediately and start producing accounts and in other markets it's difficult. The level of success is determined on a lot of factors but some markets are tough to crack and there's some legacy operators that have been that have been chipping away and

9:29really dominating that market. So we make inroads best we can and in other markets it happens very quickly. Just keep that in mind when you think about growth and when we develop a strategy to capture the desired market share in your market. It all boils down to how quickly we can get that done. How long has Ben view been functioning? We're approaching like the middle of our second year so we spent a lot of time piloting this program building infrastructure and really testing it before we roll it out. To say that we're a company that's two and a half years old to me it sounds like a lifetime. I've been working relentlessly for the last two and a half years to build this massive sales engine but we're still early in the game. We're positioning ourselves to be to be a relied upon resource for operators of all sizes for decades. We're here to stay. We're disruptors Bob but it's not a we're not a disruptor overnight. One of the surprising things you've shared is that Ben view is actually generating more accounts than operators are willing

10:31or able to service. Now that's really the opposite of what most people expect to hear. What's going on with that? Bob it's incredibly interesting. You know every day people that are in need of break room services are contacting us and they're contacting us across the country in almost every single market. So every day there's an opportunity that reaches out to Ben view just based on our massive marketing efforts. So not only are we experts at sales you know we do I think we do a bankup job in marketing as well and attracting companies that need break room services to our ecosystem. So imagine the surprise we get when we open our dashboard and see these opportunities that are coming in and we don't have an operator. So our biggest challenge is the fact that we have this nationwide coverage and we haven't invited we know we've spent it we've spent the last two and a half years building this sales engine. In this year we call it the year the partner we need partners.

11:32We have opportunities on a daily basis and we're inviting everybody whether it's on a membership program or whether you just want to be notified when an opportunity presents itself in your market. Visit our partner page put your name in the hat so that when we have an opportunity that comes to us in your market we know who to call to connect them with. So you know what does it cost to join our network? You know there's really no monthly fee if you wanted exclusivity if you wanted all the opportunities that's a different conversation but I'm encouraging all operators of all sizes to visit vendviewpartners.com and apply to just be in our network so when we have an opportunity that presents itself in your area we know who to call. That's the bottom line Bob every day we're getting opportunities and we need operators who are committed to world class service who share our same core values in our commitment to service and that can deliver great service and we will connect you with the opportunity. So another crazy thing that's happening Bob is since we're across 300

12:37different markets we can pull up that dashboard and I can start to see where the opportunities are starting to come in based on who is underperforming in that market. So for example if you have an operator that's underperforming in a Midwestern market I will start to see accounts in that market start to reach out to us then what we do is we identify those accounts to a little research pull the data we might see that that account is on a industrial parkway so then we know that most likely that account is on a route and most likely the accounts nearby are being under service as well so that's when we start to hunt down the rest of the opportunity so not only made that operator in that market get the call for the account that contacted us they might get the call for two or three other accounts and that are experiencing the same troubles that we were able to uncover just based on our outbound sales engine. So Bob in a long version of what you asked me every day we have opportunities that are contacting us and this year is the year of the partner reach out to us put your name in the

13:41hat so when we have an opportunity in your area we will call you to discuss it and add that opportunity to your route. That's the biggest challenge right now for us Bob we've built this massive infrastructure and sales engine and we need operators and maybe I'm revealing too much of my hand Bob but the reality of the situation is we have the opportunities and we need operators in every market across the country to deliver world class service to these opportunities. So I guess I have to ask you the why? Why do you think operators from what you've seen are turning down and end opportunities? I mean there's a cost to every sale whether you go out and sell it yourself whether you have a sales rep who goes out and sell it there's a cost associated with it you're not doing it for free obviously so you've got more opportunity than operators. How in the world does that happen? What's the why associated with that? Is it have to do with people's different growth needs? Every day I speak to operators of all sizes about growth so we have operators that

14:46want to grow at a very rapid pace we have operators that think they want to grow at a rapid pace and then we have slow and steady wins the race they just want consistent wins month after month after month. So the operators that kind of want to grow at a rapid pace are in expansion mode they are looking to to replace loss revenue they're looking to capture market share they're looking to build their route up enough to become desirable for potential acquisition so those types of operators need growth fast they may be startup operators they may be operators that are looking to exit they may just be operators that have had a few bad years and need a beef that are route back up to get to meet their numbers then we have the the larger operators there there's the operators with the sales teams that are looking to fill the gaps where their sales reps are produce a win a quarter maybe a winner to a quarter but they focus on retention mostly in growing their existing routes but the bottom line is about every day we're talking about growth and every day

15:49operators have approached us and need growth for a variety of different reasons you know again calling all operators visit our partner page apply and let us know that you want to be notified of opportunities because quite frankly we are in your marketplace and we are producing opportunities on daily basis kind of amazing to me when you think about it as a former operator you spent all of this money on search engines and now AI awareness and referral programs and community networking and even advertising in many cases and optimizing your website so that you absolutely get every lead that comes in and then of course there's sales people and sales training and sales management and sometimes third-party companies that are throwing leads that about 20 percent of the time have some value but you've still got to go out there and sell them you've got this alternative on the table that bypasses all of those costs that bypasses all of that effort did you think that

16:53operators would simply be jumping head over heels to grab as much business as possible from you yeah it's very interesting so imagine a situation where you could essentially plug in to an infrastructure that delivers everything you just described the search engine optimization the sales solution you could just plug right into it for a percentage of what it would cost you to do all of that yourself and then just start receiving the benefits immediately and Bob if you're looking for exclusivity in the market and you're not looking to grow at a massive rate you could sign up just to get all of the inquiries in that market for I think we're doing it for $9.95 a month basically operators of all sizes whether you're a local just getting started whether you're a three to five route operation that needs a boost or whether you're a national company you could literally plug right in today with to our sales engine start benefit I'm here to answer the phone when you call we have four different programs that you could literally plug into immediately and start

18:00producing results so I'll go from from our entry level program all the way up to our enterprise program so the first program I'd like to discuss and this is one we really haven't talked too much about because we've been really focusing on the daily outbound prospecting efforts but that might not be a need for every operator and that is our launch plan so this is ideal for operators that are looking just to receive notification of opportunities in their market on an exclusive basis so if you are in a metropolitan area and you want to know of every single opportunity that comes into our ecosystem and you want exclusive access to those opportunities then that is our launch program and that's $9.95 a month so for $9.95 a month you have access to all of the opportunities in your market in our ecosystem so we don't necessarily fire up the outbound engine for our launch program but that positions you as the exclusive provider in our network for that area and you'll benefit from

19:01consistent inbound lead so we're not in a hunter role in that area but that is more designed for people that are looking to grow at a little bit more of a structured organic pace rather than massive outbound growth and just to be clear at $9.95 a month is for the end-to-end sale solution but just inbound leads coming in absolutely so Bob that's a great point so we are still offering the end-to-end sale solution so by the time the opportunity gets to you you are assuming the sale and we are going to bring it across the finish line together at the site survey so we are still running that end-to-end solution but this is not a hunter role we are it's more of a people contact us so that's a bargain in itself we've done all the heavy lifting to position ourselves to be top of the mind at the search engine and you can plug right into that for $9.95 so bottom line Bob $9.95 you secure all the opportunities in your marketplace on a pace that you're comfortable with

20:06we have a one-time placement fee per employee so we calculate the number of on-site employees and then we calculate that and determine a one-time placement fee there's no ongoing fee there's no monthly commission there's no management fee it's a one-time fee and you own that relationship and account from that point forward and if that account reaches out to me and says it was you take over my zone office I'm not paying for that correct no you're you're not paying for that and if that employee account changes from 100 to 200 employees next year I'm not paying an additional per employee fee correct you're not paying an additional employee fee so we're not chiseling or nickling diamond Bob it's these accounts we know how they work they grow but at the time of placement we're gonna calculate the amount of on-site employees and then we're gonna we're gonna charge a one-time fee based on that and then again as you grow and develop and potentially

21:07add more services that's that's your business we're we're not interfering with that relationship that's great what else do you have so now the next one this is where we really fire up the sales so that's our grow program that's a 1495 a month and this is designed for operators that are kind of looking to expand in a very targeted market so this would give you targeted outreach to about 500 desirable locations in your area so we're gonna pull the data we're gonna assemble a list of 500 or so businesses that meet your criteria and we're gonna work on a daily basis in that market to secure those 500 businesses again it gives you exclusivity to all the opportunities that contact us it prevents anybody from from growing in that market under our program as well but for 1495 you're gonna fire up the sales engine and the end-to-end sales solution and we're gonna work to deliver targeted outreach to about 500 businesses or so the grow plan is great

22:09to fire up the sales engine in a very targeted approach what's next after that what's the next level the next level is our most popular plan and that's called our scale plan and that's 1995 a month and basically this is for operators that are looking for a little bit more of rapid growth and they're looking for more targeted outreach so with the scale plan you get everything in the grow and launch plan except you get targeted outreach to about a thousand plus businesses so again on a daily basis we're in that market we're reaching out to those businesses we have a whole outbound sales engine designed to target the specific types of accounts in your exclusive territory is there a program beyond that plan the scale plan yeah absolutely now this is our enterprise program and this is designed for for regional or national vending companies or somebody that's looking to really dominate in an entire market so one of our operators is a

23:12multi-state operator they're on the enterprise program where they've they've chosen to participate in several cities so we're running much larger scale but you know when we pull the data and if you're looking for a little bit massive growth then an enterprise program is really more of a custom pricing solutions you know major metropolitan areas maybe LA New York City Austin these major markets are going to require an enterprise plan to really to really capture it so what I'm hearing then is you've got an end-to-end sales solution you've got an opportunity for exclusivity in a market you have customized growth plans that are available for operators do you have some success stories you could share with us so Bob the success stories are incredible so every day we surprise ourselves on the opportunities that we're able to bring across the finish line but the one thing Bob is I don't want to sound like we're boasting you know and talk only about the massive

24:12wins so we've had massive educational wins community colleges coming on board we've had massive manufacturing facilities 375 employees multiple break rooms we've had flagship brands national companies reach out to us and work to facilitate brands that you would recognize brands that you're using every day we're starting to to become a trusted resource for those opportunities we've been invited to participate in large scale opportunities like three state hospital systems you know but again when we talk about what's happening in a in a local market let's talk about a market like Cleveland Ohio if we have a partner in that area you know we're going to deliver those 150 employee manufacturing facilities the ones that you know aren't grand slams but still still get the job done we're going to deliver regional chains of healthcare communities we're going to work to deliver a car dealership chain so in a situation Bob recently we secured one dealership and then next

25:13thing you know we roll out at the existing other 14 dealerships so those are the types of wins that we're delivering on a daily basis I know if we get into any market in the country big small midwestern big big company that we're going to be able to deliver results that are oppressive or that are satisfying at scale because we do the work every day we're building the pipeline Patrick it looks like you've got some great solutions for operators in terms of business obviously need more operators on board I trust you're going to be at the NAMA show in Los Angeles absolutely Bob so we're I will be walking the floor at NAMA looking to build relationships with operators of all sizes I will be inviting operators at NAMA to join our network now am I looking to sign you up on one of our growth plans or one of our growth plans right at the spot no I'd like to build a relationship with you understand the types of accounts you're looking for and I'd

26:15like to invite you into our networks so when those types of accounts in your market present themselves you're the first person I call so at NAMA I will be walking the floor we feel that these relationships are built on a personal basis and I'm looking to connect with operators to discuss ways that you could take advantage of our entire massive ecosystem to grow your business at a pace that makes sense for you and let's connect at NAMA and build something together Patrick says that he typically hears operators say this sounds a little too good to be true well find out for yourself go to venbuepartner.com that's v-e-n-d-v-u-e partner.com or call Patrick McGinty directly at 216 393 07 3 3 that's it for now on the next episode of automatic merchandisers vending and OCS nation podcast

27:22presented in cooperation with 365 retail markets I sat down with Michael Wood manager of product management at 365 retail markets to discuss the evolution of vision smart stores and how their modular design empowers operators to build customized smart retail experiences for virtually any location what began as a single product the pico cooler vision has grown into a modular smart store ecosystem designed to meet the diverse needs of operators and their customers automatic merchandisers vending and OCS nation is produced by endeavor business media a division of endeavor b2b and it is available on your favorite podcast platform subscribe and you will never miss an episode give us a like leave a comment or give us a review thanks for listening until next time I'm Bob Tulio