by: AskPat 672 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 672 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. We have a very cool question today from Jasmine.
But before we get to her question, I do want to thank and let you know about today's sponsor, which is iubenda.com. You know, if you own a website or developing apps or websites or anything for others, you need to be sure you have the right privacy policies in place, and actually it's the law. So, iubenda takes the hassle out of trying to create one of your own, and it only takes a minute or two to build your own privacy policy statement for your site or app. So go to iubenda, that's iubenda.com and create your own easy to read privacy policy today. So, again iubenda.com.
All right now, here's today's question from Jasmine.
Jasmine: Hi, Pat. My name is Jasmine. Love your show, absolute godsend. Wanted to know your opinion on vending machines. If they're smart passive income. Thanks.
Pat Flynn: Hey, Jasmine. What's up? Thanks so much for the question. You know what's funny? I have always thought about just setting up a vending machine and just seeing what happens. Because it is in a way passive income, and I know a lot of who actually manage vending machines on their own and every once in a while they go in and replenish the stock. Sometimes it's soda and water, sometimes it's candy and snacks and sandwiches and other things like that, and other times it's bigger and more expensive items. You may have seen some vending machines at the airport that sell Beats headphones and even iPads and things like that.
So, is it smart passive income? I think if it works for you and you don't mind managing your own machines, which is a whole different world, again one that I am not experienced with myself, but it's something I've always been interested in. Because yeah, you're making money without you having to be there. But there's a lot more cost that's needed up front. That's another thing that you have to worry about and make note about here.
A couple other things to say about this. There are a few other models that are similar to this. ATM machines—you could buy your own ATM machine and have it set up, and for every fee that you collect or every fee that's collected, that goes directly in your pocket, typically. There are video games; I know one guy who put up one of those machines that you see at the arcade sometimes, like at a Dave & Buster's, which is a punching bag, and people go and they see how strong they are. It's a dollar to play or whatever, and they go in and cash out every once in a while. There's upkeep there, and you typically with vending machines have to split the profits with the venue that you are putting it in. There's also foot traffic that you have to worry about and other things. It's like setting up your own website but in a physical space and you have to keep product there. It's not entirely hands off and neither is doing online business but it is something where you don't have to trade your time for money. You can even hire people to help do the things like replenish it and taking the money out and that kind of thing.
Now, I do want to give a big shout out to Matt Miller over at SchoolSpiritVending.com. Somebody who I've got to know very well. Actually, he and his family and I had lunch in San Diego not too long ago. He has one of the most successful vending businesses I've ever seen, and he actually runs franchises of his own model there. Check it out, because it's really cool. SchoolSpiritVending.com. It's the vending machine model, but at schools, which is really cool, because instead of selling candy and things like that he sells school spirit-related things, and so the schools go buck wild for any of that kind of stuff, especially come game time for things. So, check it out. It's really awesome. SchoolSpritVending.com. Actually, Matt is somebody that I've wanted to have on the show for a while. We're just still trying to figure out the scheduling. He's awesome. Great guy. Family man. I love him. You can check him out one more time at SchoolSpiritVending.com to see what he does. It's really cool. Not necessarily a business for everybody, but I know a lot of people who are doing it and doing it very well. For many people, it's just a side thing, but it does have a cost upfront to buy the equipment and all that kind of stuff.
Actually, there's another kind of “vending machine” model that I've seen recently at a number of co-working spaces I've been to here in San Diego. I've noticed that there's a non-attended snack area. Even at Bluehost, when I went to Bluehost's headquarters—Bluehost is the hosting company that I promote and recommend and they're great—in their snack bar it looked like a market almost, but it was unattended. It was based on the honor system, where people if they want to buy want snacks or drinks, they get it, they scan their own drinks on the iPad, there's a credit card swiper there and it's all done automatically … and just imagining how awesome that is of a business to run in a business situation. People are always buying snacks on their breaks and whatnot. The computer, and having it all done on the iPad without having anybody having to attend that is great. You would know based off of the sales if nobody stole anything just how much of each particular item you have left, and you can just resend everything to the business and they'd replenish it for you.
So, a lot of different ways to go about it. Yes, I think it's passive income, but again, like all kinds of passive income I talk about, it's not ever completely hands-off. There's always going to be upkeep involved, but you could also have other human beings there to help you with a lot of the stuff that is going to require hands-on. Yeah.
So, thank you, Jasmine. Appreciate it. I think this is a really interesting conversation that we're having, and I'm curious to know if anybody else out there has a vending machine or ATM machine or video game machine or anything like that building a passive income for you. So if you do, use the hash tag #AskPat672 on Twitter. I'm just curious to know if you have a vending machine business of yourself, or you own any. That would be pretty interesting to know. We could follow up and have a conversation on Twitter there.
So, hashtag #AskPat672, and Jasmine, thank you so much for the question. I appreciate you. We're going to send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show. For everybody else out there listening, if you have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to askpat.com and you can ask right there on that page.
Thanks so much. I appreciate you, and here's a quote to finish off the day by Walt Disney. He said, “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” So I'm going to quit talking, because I've got a lot of stuff to do right now, and I know you do too. Keep working. Keep working hard. Keep working toward that goal of yours. Cheers, take care, see you tomorrow. Bye.