Operator Profile: The Right Team Makes the Difference

Larger companies have certain advantages over smaller competitors in today’s vending industry: volume-based buying discounts, more services to offer, more opportunities for employee advancement, and more capital for investment. But that doesn’t mean the small independents can’t win their share of the business.

Case in point: Colonial Vendors Inc., a 5-route operation serving a 30-mile radius in Danville, Va., a city of 50,000 in Southern Virginia. The company, founded in 1949, has held onto many of the area’s largest accounts and remains a formidable competitor in today’s volatile vending market.

Under the leadership of Pamela Martel, whose family has owned the company since 1983, Colonial Vendors has been able to fight larger competitors by providing good customer service. Maintaining top quality service requires ongoing investment in personnel, equipment and an aggressive focus on profitability.

Martel, a 47-year-old woman with the energy of a teenager, believes the small independent vendor with the right organization and a commitment to good service has a solid future. “There’s a need for small independent vending,” she said. “You need the independents out there to keep the large ones honest.”

Having the right organization begins at the top, and in Martel’s case, this consists of a first-hand understanding of every job in the organization, a willingness to set an example for others, a genuine concern for her co-workers’ happiness, and ongoing education in the business. She gained these qualifications through experience, driven by self motivation.

Martel has proven that a determined individual, armed with the right resources and a little bit of luck, can still succeed in automatic merchandising.

An unlikely career

Vending was not the most likely career for Martel, a Southern California native who relocated to Virginia as a youngster and majored in marketing at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. While she grew up in a family of high achievers, her parents did not become business owners until later in life.

Martel’s exposure to the foodservice industry began several years after her parents purchased a restaurant in Richmond, Va. while she was still in college. Her parents bought the restaurant when her father left his executive position and the corporate world.

After graduating from college, Martel worked in sales for some big companies, including Procter & Gamble Inc. and Otis Spunkmeyer. In 1983, her parents decided to buy Danville Vending when the founder of that company was looking to retire. At that time, her parents asked her to manage their restaurant for them so they could move to Danville and run their newly-acquired vending business.

Martel welcomed the chance to work in the restaurant. While she was successful in her previous sales positions, she was never completely happy with the corporate business world. “I’m a physical person,” said the self-described tomboy, who is more comfortable in blue jeans and sneakers than business suits and high heels.

Learning from the ground up

Three and a half years later, her parents needed her help with the vending business. The vending industry was growing in the early 1990s, but Danville Vending wasn’t keeping pace with the competition. Her parents changed the name to Colonial Vendors, hoping to expand beyond the Danville market.

Martel knew very little about vending when she came on board with the newly created position of sales and marketing manager. Her parents wanted her to bring in new business, so to prepare herself, she began learning the operation from the bottom up. She rode with the drivers and spent time in the service department learning about equipment.

Martel realized quickly that the operation wasn’t being run efficiently. While the drivers were all long-time veterans, there was little oversight of what they were doing. There was little route accountability. Her parents had also made it a practice of buying used equipment to save money.