Fernald Business Association

One great way to avoid having to pay commissions for placing machines is to associate your vending business to a charity. It’s easier to convince a decision maker to forego a commission when you can honestly say that your vending machines benefit a charity. This will also allow you a higher profit than if you were obligated to pay a commission and you will be doing some good for your community as well. Contributing some proceeds to charity doesn’t mean you can’t make a profit. You are a business, after all. The key to placing machines in the name of charity is to imply to the decision maker that by allowing your machine on their premises they will really be making a difference to the cause, even though the money you give to the charity will not be a large amount per machine. Everyone wins with this model but the trick is to let the decision maker feel as if they are doing a great deal when they are actually doing just a little.

Register with a charity first so that everything is official. It’s easy to find a charity that would like a small part of the profit of your vending machine business and many of them will be happy to be represented by you. Some charities will let you represent them for only a few dollars a month per machine but other more well known causes will expect more. Make sure, at all times that you are not deceiving people. If asked about your role in the charity, explain that you are not an employee of the organization but are only working with them.

Bring your official charity authorization with you at all times and wear any badges or other insignia they provide. When marketing your machines you should include information about the charity. Some vendors even incorporate the charity into their business name. Be sure to pick a charity that you would support anyway. If you’re not interested in the charity, it will come across in your conversation and drive away potential decision makers. If possible, choose a local community charity or local branch of a national charity that is directly tied to benefiting your community.

Sometimes you’ll be asked directly how much of your profits go to charity. Some vendors give a percentage while some pay a fixed monthly donation per machine. Rather than tell them the exact percentage or amount per machine, which may seem miserly, you could state that you raised over $3000 last year in total. If you’re a new business, state a goal, perhaps $6000 in the next year and emphasize that to achieve that number you have to place a certain number of machines. In other words let them know what your business contributes in total rather than their individual contribution or they may feel like their efforts will not make a difference. Emphasize that the decision maker’s machine, combined with all your others, will help you make your goal. If you let them do a mental calculation of profits vs. contributions and they realise that their location won’t be contributing much at all they may press for a commission on a non-charity machine. Be sure to put the charity’s brand on your machines so that people know they are helping out a good cause.