Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:05 Everybody, Scotty, my, here Scott, my franchise coach.com. Another episode of All Things Considered Franchising. Do you know your why and what you know? Hey, um, I got a great guest with me today. Somebody that I have gotten to know over the last, uh, few years, uh, an entrepreneur himself has owned several businesses. Uh, we were just talking about how some of those businesses are now on autopilot, which, uh, I think, uh, as a business owner, we all would love to own a business that's on autopilot. And I think the next business we're gonna talk about, uh, may even get you to that point. Um, Haroon Ahmad, uh, Haroon, welcome to All Things Considered Franchising.
Speaker 2 00:00:48 Thank you, Scotty. My pleasure.
Speaker 1 00:00:51 Yeah, you know, you and I have connected, uh, we absolutely done some placements together. Yeah. Um, you are in the Divis business development side of what I would call a non-traditional franchise.
Speaker 2 00:01:05 Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 00:01:05 <affirmative>, that's more of a licensed product development, but not even the product development side. And the company's name is Naturals to Go a vending machine business. And, uh, who hasn't thought about a vending machine business, right. <laugh>, everywhere we go, there are vending machines.
Speaker 2 00:01:24 That's correct. Yeah. Yeah. Even if you haven't thought about it, you, you, uh, somehow you touch it one way or another,
Speaker 1 00:01:31 <laugh>. Exactly. Exactly. So be, before we get into the, the, the business model itself, I think it's important for the audience to really kind of get a clear picture of who you are, your role, kind of your background, how you got into franchising. So maybe take the next 60, 90 seconds, you know, again, just kind of give us an overview of yourself, how you got into franchising, maybe your, your thoughts on franchising in investing in a business and the franchising side, and we'll kind of go from there.
Speaker 2 00:02:03 Sure. Absolutely. So, folks, I, um, I, I actually spend 27 years in the pharmacy business. Good. That's my background. I'm not a pharmacist. I'm a a business administration side of this, uh, of the equation. Um, I spend most of my time in developing small business opportunities, uh, scaling business in the pharmacy industry. I did that for 27 years. When I left, I was a vice president operations for a very large healthcare firm. I had been with them for a couple of decades. And, uh, I was in a very unique position to leave at a very early age, <laugh> and
Speaker 1 00:02:48 Retire <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:02:50 So I took an early retirement and, um, sat home for a couple of years, didn't do anything, traveled the world. And, uh, one day, uh, David Perkins, who used to be our c e o at Naturals to go, he got hold of me. David and I had worked in the pharmacy industry together for 16, 17 years, and David said, Harun, I know you're enjoying sitting home for a few years, <laugh>, but would <laugh>, would you like to come on board and, uh, help people, you know, walk through our business model and answer questions and all that stuff? And so a couple of years ago, I got back in the workforce. Uh,
Speaker 1 00:03:31 Wow. That's great.
Speaker 2 00:03:32 Yeah, a lot of you can probably relate to that <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:03:34 Yes, yes, we can. Yes, we can. It's, uh, yeah,
Speaker 2 00:03:37 That's, that's a little bit of my background. What I do today is I am the primary contact for your candidates if you bring any candidates to me, uh, and I walk them through our process, our timeline, uh, answer any questions, help them validate the business model, provide any information they'd need to validate or invalidate anything, and, uh, then, you know, start up and hand them over to the implementation team. So that's a model. Oh,
Speaker 1 00:04:10 That's great. That's what, what a background, what a background. Um, let's talk about, um, naturals to Go, and as I said, said initially in my intro that Naturals to Go is not what we would call a traditional franchise. Now that, that is a not a negative connotation, and I wanna make sure the audience makes the make makes that understands that, that just because it's a non-traditional franchise, um, it doesn't mean it has a negative connotation as far as the business model. Basically what it means is, is that Naturals to go as an organization is not collecting royalties and not collecting any marketing fees as part of the financial structure of the responsibilities for what we would call the franchisees in Return Naturals to Go is selling and maintaining the vending machines for its franchisees, helping with placement servicing and that kind of thing. So that's just a little bit of a scale here, but I want you to go more into what the business model is about and maybe touch on in our audience, if you're considering a business ownership, we talk about semi absentee, passive, I mean, all the kind of the wishlists that people have in opening a business.
Speaker 1 00:05:29 How does this business model, cause I know it does, you can explain to people how this business model fits into that, um, uh, that square box of being semi absentee, a passive type business.
Speaker 2 00:05:43 Sure. So let me first start with, um, who we, who are we and what do we do for you? Right. Uh, we offer a turnkey, very comprehensive business opportunity in the vending space that comes with all the benefits of a franchise. But we're not a franchise, so you'll never pay us a royalty, a fee, uh, ever. Um, it is a semi absentee ownership. You can do it full-time, part-time or flextime. It's a great, uh, um, side gig business opportunity, side hustle opportunity for a lot of people. For majority of our owners, it is a diversification play. Okay? They already have, they already have their corporate jobs, and they're looking for a secondary line of income that doesn't require a lot of time investment. Right? So this business requires very little time that you will spend on it. Most people, uh, will spend no more than, uh, an average owner spends about one day a week running this
Speaker 1 00:06:48 Business. Okay, great. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that's interesting. One day a week. So one of the other aspects that I think that has always caught my attention about Naturals to Go is that you don't necessarily have a product line that someone has to buy from you to put into the machines. There's a lot of flexibility here as far as what that product line or where they get that product to put into the machine. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 00:07:18 That is correct. So because we are not a franchise, we are not selling you any product either. We will train, you, teach you coach, you assign you a mentor for Lifetime. Once we find the locations for your machines, which is part of your investment, by the way, uh, your candidate gets into business and you, we will tell you where to buy it, where to buy the product, how much to price it for. We will even help you planogram the machine with the top hundred, the top 200 items. But we aren't, we're not selling you product. We will tell you what products will make you best margins, what will make you the best revenue, and so on. So people, our owners are very creative. If you have a machine in a travel related location, you can sell iPhone EarPods from it if you choose. Um, people don't think about that from winning machines generally, you know, lending Machine, but most people is snacks and beverages. But you can sell hand sanitizers if you wish, or a gallon of milk if you wish, which tells you that our equipment is very customizable that can take any size, any kind of product.
Speaker 1 00:08:29 That's interesting. So the first question I typically get when we talk about a, a business opportunity and franchising that doesn't have what we call royalties and marketing fees, the first question that people typically ask is, well then how does Naturals to go make money? Because we're not even buying product from them. There are certain business models that are license agreements where they're buying the product from you, and that's how they make their money. So how does Naturals to go support itself and, and become a leader in this industry to this point? Because I think you are a national company, if I remember correctly.
Speaker 2 00:09:05 Yes. So, uh, we are a national company. We are a leader in the industry. Scott, we are the most awarded company in the space. Um, bar none. So great question, by the way, because that question comes up. Short answer is we are in a reorder business. Long answer is, we believe so much in our program that it has made so many owners, successful operators over the years. We, we've been business for 35 years, by the way. And once we get you in business and you're successful, we find you strong locations, you will grow your business. Majority of our owners, which is 85% of our owners come back to us in about two years. And they're ordering, they're ordering additional machines from us at that point as they scale their business upwards. And that is when we grow with them. So our, our goals are actually aligned with you in a sense that when we make you successful is when we become successful.
Speaker 1 00:10:11 That's interesting. Um, you mentioned the, the m o, the, the, the, the characteristics of your franchisees owners of these, uh, vending machines are, are, are diversified, you know, uh, people that are coming outta corporate America, still in corporate America, we talked about one day a week, typically, uh, obviously they could probably hire somebody to check the machines or service the machines, but let's play in the day in the life of a someone who owns naturals to go vending machines. I would think, and correct me if I'm wrong, Harun, that technology plays a very important part in the role of supporting the franchisee because, you know, I'm dating myself here, you know, 25, 30 years ago, if he went to a vendor own a bunch of vending machines, you, uh, you took out the quarters, but you also had to replace, I mean, you still have to replace product, but you had to go check the inventory. Where does technology fit into all this now as far as payment and also as far as inventory control, as far as utilizing whether a machine needs to be refilled or not?
Speaker 2 00:11:18 Yes. So great. We, we do provide you with remote access to our machines. Uh, you will have an application on your smartphone or at home on your desktop or laptop, or a tablet, which allows you to see realtime sales. So it is not only a time saver for you, it really makes you e extremely efficient and ma helps you make better decisions, right? So you are sitting home and before you go fill the machine, which is generally once a week, you will know in advance before you even left your home office, that what items are missing, how many do you need to take with you, which saves you a lot of trouble in, you know, first going to the machine and figuring out what to fill. Uh, so it's a time saver. It makes you extremely efficient and effective. And, uh, the, um, payment system in our machines allows you to accept credit cards, debit cards, apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Google Pay, just about everything short of Bitcoins, <laugh>. And, uh, and so what it does is, um, you know, when you remember you mentioned the, the coin operated machines. Do we still accept coins? Yes, absolutely we do. But very few people use cash these days, as you can imagine, right? And what, what happens is when you have a machine that accepts all forms of payments, uh, versus just cash, your sales in our experience, go up by at least 30%. So that is the reason why we choose to do the way we do
Speaker 1 00:12:58 It. Is there a leader in that category? I mean, are more people using debit cards and credit cards, apple pay than cash? It would seem to me that if you can eliminate the cash aspect or of accepting cash, that eliminates some of your headaches and also maybe that trip to the machine to collect the cash.
Speaker 2 00:13:18 Yeah. So yes, if you can, if you are in a, uh, in a location where, uh, you know, majority of your owners are u uh, your consumers are using other than cash payment form of payment, yes, you can eliminate the cash part completely, but that is entirely up to our owners how they want to operate. We tell them what are the best practices we teach you with that? Uh, but yes, you can eliminate cash if you want to. You can choose to do that. Uh, national average is about, I'm gonna say 30% of our consumers are still using cash.
Speaker 1 00:13:56 Okay. All right. That's, that's interesting. Nope. That, that's still good. No, that, that, that's great. Now, one of the things that, um, I I, I wanna kind of take a, a, a, a dive into a little bit about the brand is, is that there are people out there that are looking for that semi absentee that one day a week, you know, four or five hours a day, uh, kind of diversifying their income, uh, maybe building this into something bigger, starting out small, building it in. But a lot of people, not a lot, but there are people who, certain people that don't have what I call the sales aptitude, go talk to that office manager, go talk to the person who owns the, a specific location or office building or a, you know, whatever, to be able to make the presentation, uh, or knock on a door and say, Hey, I'd like to talk to you about putting a vending machine or something in here. The vending machine you offer naturals to go offers a service as part of the program where you will, will help them make those calls and help them place the, the machines. Talk a little bit more about that, because I think that's an integral part of, well, it's probably the most important part of the business, because if you're not placing the machines, you're not making any money. <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:15:06 Absolutely. Right, Scotty. So that is an integral part of our program, and not only, it's an integral part of it, it is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle, because if you ask people who used to get in business themselves, you know, decades ago, they would tell you that the hardest part in this business is finding and securing your location. Right? We do it for you. Uh, and when we say we do it for you, we're not outsourcing it to a third party. That doesn't work for us, you know? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> are, we have 24 plus locators nationwide. That's all they do for our owners. They physically go out to the locations where you live in, and they secured the locations for you. Once you get in business with us, they do it for you. So once they are secure, they have secured the location you to that business to form up the agreement with that business and how long you wanna be there, and whatever other details you need to iron out. But that is part of your investment, and we do it faster and better than anybody else in the industry. I can interesting guarantee you that. Um, and, and one of the reason is our locators don't get paid until your machines are secured. Your
Speaker 1 00:16:27 Located. Interesting, interesting. So the locators help you find the locations, talk to the ne to the, to the appropriate location, the person in charge mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they contact you, the owner of those machines goes over, meets them, introduces themselves, kind of takes out the selling point, just kind of introduces, brings the contract, maybe takes a physical look of whereabout, where the machines are gonna go, or suggestions. And then they say, okay, so now you have to get the machines into the location. So what happens next? How does that take place? What service do you have to help get those locations to the, uh, to, uh, machines in place?
Speaker 2 00:17:07 Yes. So, uh, by the way, let me step back. One, one half a step. When our locator is on the ground securing locations for you, they are also going to spend time with you so that you can learn some of those aspects of locating from our locator. They, uh, majority of our locators are also owners. So they understand what you need, what process you need, what information you need to, uh, educate you about how to do that yourself in the future if you so choose to do so. Um, so once a location is secured, um, the machines arrive at those locations. So our delivery, our white glove delivery service will deliver the machine. Let's say you have a location secured at a hospital near you. The machine will arrive at that hospital in the specific area that you and the, you and the hospital agreed to place the machine, our delivery person were ungraded, bring the machine in, set it up, and uh, uh, our coach will help you, uh, through the rest of the process at the setup.
Speaker 1 00:18:26 Okay, great. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Now, just to make sure that with all these services, there is no additional management fee on a monthly basis for the locator. It's the purchase of the machines, the investment level purchase machines product, and you're helping the, the, the business owner, the, we re define them as franchisees. In this case, it's not a franchise, traditional franchise, but for our, for conversation, we'll talk about as it a franchisee that you're supporting the franchisee and there are no, what we call management fees on top of that, correct?
Speaker 2 00:19:05 That is correct. There's no manage fee management fee to us, to anybody else either. The only fee you pay in this business on an ongoing basis is the credit card terminal transaction fee. Right? Okay. And you don't pay that to us either. You pay it to, to the company that provides the credit card
Speaker 1 00:19:25 Terminal. So you'll help set that up. So if you're accepting credit cards in the machine, there's obviously a fee. Sure. Uh, transaction fee as any credit card company will charge you, but you'll help them. You have source vendors that will do that?
Speaker 2 00:19:39 Uh, yeah, we have a, we have a primary, uh, a preferred vendor that we use, uh, on our machines. Uh, and we have been using it for a decade, so,
Speaker 1 00:19:48 Okay. Great. Now let's talk about product, because that's important. We wanna make sure that somebody gets the right product in there that's selling, uh, reoccurring revenue. It's, you know, the machine's turning over, as we call it. Uh, products turning over, not the machine turning over, but the products turning over. Um, is there a assist, assistance and guidance as far as the different products or suggestions helping secure products, uh, you know, for people that are initially getting into this business?
Speaker 2 00:20:15 Yeah, so we generally, anybody who has less than 25 machines, we will tell you to go to some of these membership clubs, such as Costco and BJ's and Sam's Club and so on, because that's where you will generally find the best value. However, we do have small little operators in the, in different parts of the country that we suggest sometimes to certain owners who are in those parts of the country. Uh, we tell you what price or how to price your product, because we wanna make sure you're, you, you, uh, you know, you're successful in, in, um, the retail part of it, right? Right, right. Merchandising part and how to price it and how, uh, what margins you should be producing on certain items. We have data that we utilize, we share some of that information with you when you get in business and what are the top hundred, top 200 items.
Speaker 2 00:21:17 We help you make better decisions on the product side. Now, as an owner, if you, one day you were out and about and you found a product that you thought was even better than better price, right. Than anywhere else that we suggested, yes, you should certainly buy it. That's one of the advantages of not being a franchise, right? Because we're not shoving it. We are not like telling you exactly where to go, and you can make those decisions and customize it for your own needs as well. Okay. So, and one little thing about, let, let's step back on one thing. When we said earlier, you know, an average owner spends about a day running their business, uh, there's an assumption built into that, and that is you will spend about an hour just an over an hour per machine per week on running the business.
Speaker 1 00:22:12 So if you have 10 machines, 10 hours Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:22:14 If you have 10 machines,
Speaker 1 00:22:15 That's pretty simple. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:22:16 Which is average ownership, uh, for us. Yeah. We do have owners who have over a hundred machines, uh, different parts of the country, and then we have owners who start with five and six and grow at up to 15, 20, or 25.
Speaker 1 00:22:28 Okay? And again, an average is typically a high and a low. So again, it doesn't, you know, it, it, it averages out. It doesn't necessarily mean that that's what you're gonna do. So let's talk financials for a second. You're not a traditional franchise, so you don't have what's called an item 19, uh, that, you know, discloses certain revenue drivers or approximate sales. Obviously this has to be financially rewarding because, uh, in that discretionary income category, because otherwise you wouldn't be doing this for as long as you've been doing it. So, talked about the investment level, what type of financials, you know, uh, validation, do people, uh, get the opportunity, uh, to go through before they make a decision? Yes or no? Um, talk about the investment level. You mentioned that some people have 25, 50 machines. Where is your recommendation where somebody starts? How do you grow? Maybe just kind of walk us through that a little bit.
Speaker 2 00:23:21 So I always, if I'm talk to a candidate, um, my recommendation is based on their goals, right? So if you tell me, look, my goals are to achieve x I'm going to make a recommendation to you, but in this industry, um, 10 is a good starting point. You can start with higher, you can start with lower, but 10 gets you to your financial goal in a, a reasonable fashion, right? The ROI in this industry is a little less than two years. So, you know, 10 machines or 25 machines, you'll, uh, pay off your, your investment in about 22 months. That's generally, that's generally the, um, the timeline. Um, investment level starts with, we don't do less than four machines because we believe less than four is a hobby and not a business, right? We don't start with more than 25 in the initial investment, Scotty, because there is a learning curve like in any industry, and we want to make sure our owners successfully scale their business upwards when the time comes.
Speaker 2 00:24:29 So we help with that. Uh, we have owners who have more than 25 machines, uh, but they grew to that point, right? We have many who have over 100 machines. So, um, the dollar investment level for four machines is 52,000. All in dollar in for 25 machines is 260,000 all in. That includes everything you will ever pay us. Um, so if you, you know, you're smart enough to do the math right away, and you will know that we have a motivation built into that pricing <laugh>, that, that the larger the package, the less you will pay per machine.
Speaker 1 00:25:10 Per machine. Right. Now you, you were talking about, uh, ROI number of years, return on investment and everything. If somebody was going to go out and buy 10 machines or invest in 10 machines, let's say, how soon, or what's usually the timing to have those 10 machines kind of out in locations? I mean, what, what's the rollout period? I would guess? Uh, you know, on average, again, nothing's written in stone because everything, there are certain variables, but 10 machines, what can someone anticipate having, uh, you know, running, uh, 10 machines? What kind of timeframe?
Speaker 2 00:25:47 So from the day you make the payment, um, to the day your machines are generating revenues, Scott, it can be anywhere between three and five months. That is about okay, the timeline. Uh, that also depends on, you know, even if you came to me today and said, look, here's my $122,000, what's my next step? We cannot send you to training this month because this month's training is already full. We only take 30 new owners, okay. Every 45 days.
Speaker 1 00:26:23 Okay?
Speaker 2 00:26:23 So, so that's something that goes into the equation of making a decision for, for our owners. When do they make the payment? If they really want to be in business quickly, they should pay up now, because those who pay go to training first.
Speaker 1 00:26:38 And I think it's safe to say that if somebody did buy 10, 25 machines, they don't necessarily have to have those 10 or 25 machines shipped back next week to a location in warehousing. You're gonna store warehouse. Those manage the distribution of those machines, whether it takes one month, two month, or three months, correct?
Speaker 2 00:26:57 Well, yes. So the, the timeline kind kind of works like this. You make the payment, uh, we will send you to our training class. Our training is comprehensive. Two full days. You come out of the training and about roughly two to three weeks after your training, a locator will be on the ground in the area that you choose to be in business in, and he or she will find the locations and secure them for you. The locator leaves, and then the machines start arriving in those locations. So, you know, there's, there's a couple of weeks lag between each,
Speaker 1 00:27:36 Right? Well, its no different than if you, the brick and mortar location, there's a lag. There's, you know,
Speaker 2 00:27:42 So, but, but on an average, anywhere between three and five months from the day you make your full payment, you are up and running and, and generating revenue.
Speaker 1 00:27:52 Okay? One of the things that I like to talk to my clients about, uh, Haroon is, uh, and a lot of people don't think about this when they're going to business. And that's the exit strategy. You know, where, where, what's your exit strategy, you know, uh, you know, whether you're, even if it's passing it on to family, children mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, but let's just say I, somebody has gotten into your business and has been in the business for five years, has done very well on the r o I has gotten back their money, made money, and now you and I were talking about retirement before we got live on, you know, started recording the podcast nav. They say, Hey, you know what? I just wanna play more golf. I want to dissolve all of my business interests. I wanna get out of the business. Walk us through how someone would exit, naturals to go, do they sell the bus? Do they sell the machines? Do they sell the business? How does that work? And do part play any part in assisting someone on the exit strategy?
Speaker 2 00:28:50 Yes. So, um, let me start with one number first, less than 4% of our owners got leave the business. And those who are leaving the business are not leaving because they failed. They're leaving because there's a lifestyle change, you know? Right? Somebody got sick, somebody's retiring from Michigan and moving to Florida, and so on and so forth. Um, when you do decide that, look, I'm, I'm gonna exit this business, we're not in a buyback program. However, we can help you in the following way. One, we'll put you in touch with local owners and regional owners who are always interested in growing their business. And sometimes when they look at your business and you have very strong locations that we found for you, they may, may buy your business outright as is, meaning not just the machines, but the entire route.
Speaker 1 00:29:48 Okay?
Speaker 2 00:29:49 Yeah. And so that's something you negotiate directly with the new, with that owner, um, but we're obviously, we're not buying it back from you.
Speaker 1 00:29:58 Okay? No, I completely understand. Yep. But you can, but you can set it up as if you are building a retail type business and in 10 years, five years you decided you wanted to exit the business. You could quote, sell the business. So it is an asset to sell, uh, you know, uh, if you wanted to.
Speaker 2 00:30:17 Yeah. If you have strong locations that are doing extremely well, yes. Then it's a business entity that you can sell as a business rather than just equipment.
Speaker 1 00:30:26 Okay. Because of the, and let's just go back to locations for one second. Be as we wrap up here, uh, locations are the most important part of the business. I mean, let's face it. I mean, so is it, is it a a step-by-step process to get into quote an airport or a hot location or, because Naturals to Go has the background and understanding of how to get into these locations? I, I'm not gonna call it easy, but there, there's, there's, there's the know-it-all, the know it all that knowing how of and the knowledge of being able to get into those locations.
Speaker 2 00:31:06 Yes. So we do consider ourselves an expert at this, right? But it is, it is a very difficult part for a lot of owners who, uh, try to do it themselves. And that's why we offer this service as part of the investment. You know, it's, let's face it, that is the most complicated part of this business. We, um, uh, we will find the location, but we will always ask an owner if they have relationships in the marketplace or if they already know businesses in the area that they would like us to target. And if the answer is yes, our locator will target those businesses. So if you are an owner and you said, look, I know this, uh, location that I think will do extremely well, I'm not sure if they have winning machines or not. Our locator will definitely target that business for you.
Speaker 2 00:32:02 Uh, okay. Yeah. And obviously there's no guarantee that that location can be secured for you because that location may already be secured for somebody else, right? Uh, or it's not a business that is interested in bending machines at all. They are businesses like that. We do follow a methodology in the type of business we target and the size of business we target. So there's a method to this madness, right. Works well and we do it extremely well. And you don't have to worry about, uh, that we will not find locations for you. Uh, we will have any struggle with that because we will always find it for
Speaker 1 00:32:41 You. Okay? But the, the objective is to turn over the inventory, cuz you don't wanna have to go there, take inventory out and then toss it because it's expired. I mean, it's kind like the supermarket mentality, right? I mean, yeah, exactly. It's, you have a shelf life and you really wanna push the shelf life.
Speaker 2 00:32:57 Right? But I'll, I'll put you at ease by saying, because we find the locations for you, guess what we guarantee the location, the guarantee we provide is written into our disclosure. It is also written into your agreement, and that is, if your machine ever does less than 100 items per week per machine, we will find a new location for
Speaker 1 00:33:21 Your machine. Interesting.
Speaker 2 00:33:23 Interesting. Yeah. So you, you know, you, it's a, it's a no brainer, right? Right. Could ever fall if we're underperforms, we'll be securing a new location for you.
Speaker 1 00:33:32 So again, I mean, just, I mean, if, if, if anyone's listening to this and you're starting to run the math through your head, so if there's a hundred items and the average price is X
Speaker 2 00:33:42 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you can do the math. Yeah. Average,
Speaker 1 00:33:44 You could do the, yeah.
Speaker 2 00:33:45 Average price, by the way, is about a dollar 85 nationwide. The margin in this business runs, if you don't produce less than, uh, at least more than 65% product margin, you should reconsider your buying decision or your pricing decision. And we help. Okay. Yep.
Speaker 1 00:34:04 Okay. Good, good, good. Harun, this has been a, a, a wealth of information. Um, I, I, I certainly know that, uh, uh, you know, uh, people who are looking to diversify a business portfolio, but are looking to, uh, you know, stay away from businesses that don't have a lot of moving parts, a lot of employees, um, this is definitely something to consider. How would, what's the best way for somebody to reach out to you if they wanna learn more about Naturals to Go? Obviously they can come through me, I can make the intro, but, uh, saving some steps here for our clients and people and listeners. If someone wanted to reach out to you directly, what is the best way for someone to get ahold of you?
Speaker 2 00:34:45 So, uh, for, we will always tell your clients, Scotty, the best way to reach out to us is through you. Okay. That is the best way. But if they must reach out to us directly, they can, um, um, call all, uh, they can email us, call us, go to our website, naturals to go.com and register themselves. And, uh, we, we will reach out to them very quickly. Uh, my email is haroon naturals to go.com. H a r o n. Uh, my direct number is 3 1 7 3 1 3 8 0 8 7. And, uh, um, but the best way really is your clients should reach out to you, so you can share some of the initial information and then hand them over to us.
Speaker 1 00:35:39 Okay. And just real quickly, um, typical minimum requirements as far as liquidity net worth, and are you on the S B A registry as far as offering or being able to obtain financing for a business like this?
Speaker 2 00:35:54 Yes. So I'll start with the last, last part of the question. We are on the S B A registry since its inception. Wow. Uh, we have zero default rate on our S B A owners, which is says something about the strength of our program. Um, we help with that process as well. If your client needs, uh, help in s sba, uh, process, our lending specialists will, will, will assist with that. The, um, um, what was the initial part of the question, Scotty?
Speaker 1 00:36:26 As, as, as far as, um, minimum net worth liquidity, you know, where really should somebody be sitting financially to be, to put this in the plate of considerations?
Speaker 2 00:36:36 Sure. So I always, since you know what the minimum investment is, uh, starts at 52, goes up to two 60, I always tell people, look, you gotta have at least 20 plus thousand in liquid. You, your, your assets should be 150 plus. And if you are looking for a loan from any lender to get into business, you, most lenders are looking for a credit score of about six 90 or
Speaker 1 00:37:01 Above or better. Yep. Yep. Great. Great. Harun, anything else you wanna share before we, uh, we, we, we end this, this has been great. Very, uh, a wealth of information. You obviously, uh, know the business well, you know, the product line. I think you represent naturals to go, uh, extremely well. Um, and I think you're gonna provide and definitely can provide people a lot of information to make a validated decision on whether this meets what they're looking for and, uh, meet their financial goals.
Speaker 2 00:37:30 Sure. So yeah, it is, you know, uh, I will tell you that we have owners that are single women, retired couples. Um, we have a diverse, uh, list of ownership. You can do this part-time, full-time absence, semi absent, whatever, right? There's no employees needed in this business or required in this business. I mean, you can always employ somebody if you wish to, but guess what is the number one challenge people are facing in today's business world? Right? You can't find employees. Uh, and this requires so little time from you, um, that it doesn't really require you to have an employee unless you are at that 20, 30, 40 machine mark and you wish to employ somebody. You can. Uh, so it's a great side hustle. It is a great first business. It is a great second, third, or fourth business for a lot of people. And for that reason, majority of our owners are not. Um, you know, the, the 3, 4, 5, the four five machine owners, majority of owners are doctors and dentists and engineers. And lawyers. Interesting. Yeah. And they're in the corporate world, and this is their second or third line of revenue.
Speaker 1 00:38:46 Interesting. As far as territory is concerned, you know, uh, being a snowbird myself, trying to get down to Florida for some time during the, uh, winter, I mean, do you necessarily have to be in the area where your machines are all the time? Or is this something that, you know, I would imagine if you're not in the area, you're gonna have to find somebody who can restock the machines for you. I mean, that's common sense, but I mean, do you have owners that are necessarily, you know, not, not necessarily in the territory there, or the logistically where they live?
Speaker 2 00:39:18 We have owners who are not in the territory where the machines are, but they have somebody taking care of them, right? Yeah. You have physically you have to have somebody there, obviously, because you need to work at least, you know, you have to go empty out the, the cash. You have to restock the machines, make sure your product is fresh and clean, and all you need is about an hour per machine, per week. So you can literally teach a high school kid or a college kid on how to do that in your neighborhood. Okay. If you were, yeah, if you're moving down to Florida for a couple of months, um, somebody in your family member or friends' kids or somebody can take care of it for you. Very easy business bond.
Speaker 1 00:39:58 Great. Haroon, this has been wonderful. Uh, I appreciate your time. Uh, w w we've been speaking to Haroon, Ahed, uh, business development for naturals to go, uh, leading vending machine business, not a traditional franchise in the sense that there's no franchise fees, ongoing royalties, but all the support, uh, and uh, assistance to be successful is there. Uh, you'll see the contact information to reach Ahmad direct, uh, Harun, uh, directly or reach out to myself to get more information on Naturals to go. Harun, this has been great. Uh, I look forward working, continue. We are working with you and, uh, have a great day.
Speaker 2 00:40:38 My pleasure, Scotty. Thank you. You have a great day.
Speaker 1 00:40:41 You too. Bye-bye.
Speaker 2 00:40:42 Take care.
