In this episode of Automatic Merchandiser & VendingMarketWatch's Vending & OCS Nation Podcast, presented in cooperation with VendVue, Bob Tullio sits down with Patrick McGinty, founder of VendVue, to talk about the company’s evolution from an ambitious idea into an end-to-end sales solution with nationwide operator coverage.

VendVue once had more opportunities than operators available to serve them. McGuinty notes that that challenge has changed as the company has secured coverage across more than 300 markets.

McGuinty explains why VendVue has moved from the “build phase” to the “scale phase” and discusses his very public “Path to 5,000” a five-year effort to build 5,000 profitable accounts while openly sharing the victories, setbacks and realities of aggressive growth.

The conversation also explores one of the biggest questions facing operators: What does it really cost to acquire a new account? McGuinty and Tullio discuss why some operators embrace outsourced sales while others resist it, the true cost of maintaining an internal sales infrastructure and why evaluating customer acquisition cost belongs in every operator’s pro forma.

Key Takeaway: Growth has a cost. Whether an operator employs an internal sales team, relies on ownership to sell or uses an outside resource, accounts are never truly acquired for free. The bigger question is whether the acquisition cost produces profitable, sustainable business.

For McGuinty, the objective is clear: 5,000 profitable accounts and a public record of what it takes to get there. He closes with a simple message for operators: Build as many effective channels for new business as possible and make sure every one of those roads leads back to your company.

To learn more: https://vendvuevending.com/partner/

Prefer to read the interview? See the episode's transcript below!

Bob Tullio: Hi, everybody, it's Bob Tullio. Welcome to Automatic Merchandiser & VendingMarketWatch’s Vending & OCS Nation, the podcast for the convenience services industry produced by Endeavor Business Media, a division of endeavor B2B. Today's podcast is presented in cooperation with VendVue. My guest is Patrick McGinty, founder of VendVue and a long time operator who has taken his passion for business development and turned it into an end to end sales solution for convenience services operators around the country. Patrick has never been shy about setting ambitious goals and being transparent about them. In fact, the VendVue team is celebrating the reality that they now have national operator coverage.

When Patrick first appeared on the show, he had more opportunities being generated by his outbound sales engine than operators to serve them. Now, with the exception of operators seeking aggressive growth in select markets, there's an operator waitlist forming today. Patrick is pursuing what he calls path to five thousand, a very public effort to build five thousand profitable accounts while sharing the wins, the losses, and the realities of what it takes to get there. We'll talk about what VendVue has learned along the way, what types of locations are producing results, and why. Patrick believes that if you're an operator in a market, all sales roads should lead to you. It's an interesting conversation about selling, scaling, and the relentless pursuit of growth. There's that word again. Here's my conversation with Patrick McGinty of VendVue. 

Patrick McGinty: I've been in the industry for over twenty years. As you mentioned, I built a company that I'm very proud of it, but I built it in private. I didn't attend Nama. I didn't get out there and build the a relationship, so I was too busy building my company. So we exited that company and I started to think about what I'm really passionate about, what really moves the needle for me and where I can contribute to the industry at a much larger scale. And I always had a passion or an idea of becoming a nationwide vending company or nationwide unattended retail provider. That's how VendVue was born. The thing that I'm truly passionate about to this day, and I love it so much, is growing vending operations. What was my favorite part about being operator is looking at a report that shows massive, massive, massive amounts of growth. And that's where I wanted to be. So I wanted to take that skill set that I learned as an operator. We've spent the last three years in the build phase. We built the network to get people to attract to us. We built the systems, we built the outbound sales engine, and we built some partnerships. And now we're in the scale phase, Bob. We've taken everything that we've built over the last three years. We came on the map before I started doing these podcasts with you, Bob. People had no idea who I was, and some people still don't have any idea who I am. But the fact of the matter is, we've established ourselves nationwide as somebody that's a resource for convenience services, and now we've secured nationwide coverage, and we are growing operators in most markets across the country. So we went from a little idea and a passion for scaling vending operations. We built the infrastructure, and now we are growing rapidly and we are on the path to five thousand accounts. 

Bob Tullio: We're going to talk about that path to five thousand. But the one observation that I've made, and I talked to a lot of operators out there, there seems to be two types of operators when it comes to their view of VendVue. There are some that embrace the program. They love the whole concept. And there's others just just completely reject the idea that you're going to do the selling for them, that you're going to get it done, and that all they have to do is show up at the site survey and arrange for the installation. And I have to think the one defining characteristic of people who really categorically reject it is they've never considered the cost of putting together a sales infrastructure. 

Patrick McGinty: Yeah, that's that's the reality. There's, there's two things about the people that haven't embraced our end to end sales solution, our company in general. And it really boils down to the true cost of operating a sales team. That's number one. So really analyzing what that truly costs. And then number two, in my opinion, it's a little bit of a control thing. A lot of people want to control the entire process from start to finish. They want to put their cook in the kitchen. They want to make make the soup. They want to do everything Bob. They want to rearrange it. So they see us as a lead generation company when we're really that end to end sales solution also. And I think that's part of it. My inability to educate the market on my experience in convenience services. It's like, who is this guy? How is he going to make sure that this account is profitable? How is he going to make sure that this is a desirable account? And he's not just putting a number on the board to get commission. So it boils down to not analyzing the entire cost associated with running a sales department from everything, from every little minor cost in software, all the way up to car allowance management, and then all the way up to controlling the process from start to finish. 

Bob Tullio: Yeah, it's definitely a concept that some people just can't wrap their head around, but obviously many have. So how many market areas are now being served by VendVue? 

Patrick McGinty: We are actively serving. We have all three hundred plus markets that we are currently live in are currently being serviced by a partner. Now are we actively growing the three hundred market? No, but we have nationwide coverage. So Bob, we are essentially sold out. There are certain areas in the country that we're still on growth plans, but we have a partner that's able to cover every single market in the country. And that's due to a recent partnership with Efn United. So anybody that's in the Efn United network is now benefiting from VendVue locations. But, Bob, the biggest challenge we would face in the past is we would get opportunities and we wouldn't have a vendor. I've been talking about that. We have no shortage of opportunities. We had a shortage of partners, but now we are completely covered. We have every market that we currently are live in with a campaign has an operator able to cover it. So now we're identifying areas in the country that need campaigns that we can really add some fuel to the fire. So we're a nationwide unattended retail provider. 

Bob Tullio: Some people are a little amazed by your level of See you. Don't hesitate to talk about successes as you should, but you also talk about the failures. And there's some tough, tough failures along the way, aren't there? 

Patrick McGinty: Well, that's the reality of building a company, Bob. And I think there's the disconnect, especially in in a lot of industries, there's a lot of gurus. And the last thing, Bob, I want to be is a vending guru. I don't want to be the guy that comes out and tells everybody how great I am and buy my course, and I'm the smartest thing in the industry. I want accountability, I want to show people what it's really like to build a unattended retail business in twenty twenty six, and moving forward. We have a lot of wins, Bob and I love talking about them, but the reality is there's a lot of times that we just get absolutely destroyed. And that's the reality of building a company, is one day we can drop the ball and get fired before we even enter the location over a scheduling conflict. And then three hours later, we get a contract for a new account. That's the reality. There is some highs and lows, and in order to maintain complete transparency. That's why I make those posts on LinkedIn. That's why I want everybody to understand what it actually takes to build an unattended retail business. And it all boils down to accountability. I've talked to a lot of seasoned operators and even some of my customers. I've had customers that I've produced for. And when we go to scale up, they, they use the word social proof. I want social proof, you know. And so this is the ultimate social proof is because I'm literally posting the wins, the big wins, we have the little wins. And then the times that we get absolutely destroyed. And all of that is my commitment to transparency. So, you know, I could have quietly said, Bob. We're building a big company. I could have said it's impossible for everybody else to measure. Instead, I wanted to put a specific number on it, a specific scoreboard, and I intentionally started it from zero. Last month, I decided everything that we did before July first is not important. We are going to build in public from zero and we're on the path to five thousand accounts. So I wanted to build a big company and I wanted to do it in the most transparent way possible. 

Bob Tullio: Tell me, is it a sprint or a marathon? 

Patrick McGinty: Well, that's the craziest part. In my opinion. It's a sprint and a marathon at the same time. We've been sprinting for the last three years to build this infrastructure, to build this, this ecosystem. Now we're on the path to five thousand, which is a marathon. But there are short bursts where you got to run for your life to get to get going. To build some momentum, you have to sprint. But burnout is real and burnout is real. Sales team effort. Burnout is real. On the path to five thousand, we're going to talk about all those things. It's both a sprint and a marathon. 

Bob Tullio: Yeah. It's incredible. We know it's a roller coaster ride. Like you say, lots of highs and lows. Let's discuss the scope of services you're selling for operator clients. It's way beyond unattended retail, isn't it? 

Patrick McGinty: Yeah. It is the full plethora of, as the industry calls unattended retail. So when I approach a situation, I'm looking for everything in the break room. I'm looking for the micro-market. I'm looking for the AI Smart cooler. I'm looking for the old school vending machines. I'm looking for the ox. I'm looking to elevate to bean to cup. I'm looking for janitorial products in certain markets. I'm looking for water coolers. So the conversation I had today. They need vending service. We went for the upsell and and now we have six water coolers that are going in there as well. We sell the whole plethora of products from start to finish. So when we approach a customer, Acme Manufacturing Company, we're going in there and looking for every possible service that we could potentially add. 

Bob Tullio: You've been very transparent also about your cost structure. And that's important to operators obviously. Give us a rundown on that aspect of the program. 

Patrick McGinty: We recently updated our cost to reflect the the value of our services. It's pretty straightforward. We have two cross structures and our company now is broken down into a few different channels. Bob. So we have our traditional management channel that's operated based on a percentage of the gross sales, and that's how the majority of the markets are covered now through a traditional management sense. And then we have our growth programs as well in a different channel, and that requires a monthly fee and a one time cost per employee. What's interesting, Bob, is imagine a situation like this, an eight hundred employee distribution center, and we're charging thirty two dollars an employee. That's an invoice of twenty five thousand six hundred dollars. So in certain aspects that would be limiting operators, you know, having to shell out twenty twenty five, twenty six thousand dollars for one account, although, you know, it's a one time fee and the contract is several years. And when you work it into your proforma, the numbers work. But having to shell out that one time fee in certain operators has become a challenge. So our pricing structure has evolved a little bit into a percentage of gross sales in certain aspects. So every market where we're not having to grow partner that's committed to our growth engine in the one time placement, you know, anything that goes through the management channel is tied to gross sales. A lot of the operators love us for the one time placement fee per employee, but sometimes it does create that challenge. Like I just mentioned, it's a dream account, but you have to have the right operator that's able to take on a project that size. And sometimes we're pretty flexible. We don't necessarily finance growth, Bob. But if we need to spread that over a couple months, we're trying to make everything work. From a pricing standpoint, we feel that we're bringing a tremendous amount of value for that price. So our pricing is laid out, again, very transparent on our partner page. You can go, anybody in the industry can go to our partner page and map that out. Bob. I have conversations with companies of all sizes. Some people think our price is extremely low, and then other people think our price is extremely high. It is daily outbound execution, a full on blitz in your market. And sometimes we strike gold and sometimes we have to keep pushing and pushing and pushing daily to put wins on the board. 

Bob Tullio: I think your pricing makes a lot of sense, especially now that you've added the more traditional management program structure, because cost outlays, people are trying to avoid them. Always. You look though, at the people who reject your program. It clearly has to do with with having not considered the cost of a sales program. I tell people there's a cost to every account you put out. I don't care if you are putting it out yourself or you have a sales rep. There's always a cost. And the bottom line is if it's reasonable and it makes sense at the end of the day in your proforma, there's a cost of acquisition. You just have to pay. Some people just don't. 

Patrick McGinty: The reality, both models, the management model and the one time fee oftentimes make sense in the proforma. It basically just boils down to what the capability of the operator is. I made a post the other day about an account we took on, and I wanted to make it clear that this account had a two thousand five hundred dollars monthly minimum for us. It's not just about putting out accounts by putting wins on the scoreboard. Another account on the path to five thousand. We want profitable, sustainable accounts. We want our operators and partners and our relationships in the industry to flourish. We don't just want a crowbar, a set of machines into a location. So I can look good on social media. I want to look good on a P and L for everybody. That's what we're focused on, is how do we get to five thousand profitable accounts? We have some operators that love smart coolers. The talk of the town, they're putting smart coolers everywhere. And then we have some operators that haven't evolved into smart coolers yet. So our program for that territory is completely different than an operator that has embraced a new piece of technology. And that's obviously what separates us from everybody else. It's clearly understanding how a vending operations work. Based on my experience as an operator, here's an example. We have a fifty employee manufacturing facility at one of our partners. Now, is that something to move the needle, Bob. It's a manufacturing facility. It's on the route. It moves the needle a little bit. But then we get in there. Now we we go for the upsell, we go for the office coffee, we go for the water coolers, we go for first aid. We try to take that account and go from there. But there's a tremendous amount of communication up front when we onboard the operator to really understand what their capabilities are and what a desirable account looks like for them, and then we go out there and get it. That's the bottom line. There's just a process and a methodology for each one. 

Without toot my own horn, I think I have a clear understanding of what a desirable account looks like for the majority of operators. I think like an operator, because I used to be an operator, I still consider myself an operator. I just focused on the growth part. Now I focus on the easy part from a VendVue standpoint. 

Bob Tullio: When it comes to selling, is there a particular type of location that really seems to be a sweet spot for the VendVue team? 

Patrick McGinty: There are specific verticals that we absolutely just destroy on, and manufacturing is one of them. Warehouse distribution. We do very well in in healthcare car dealerships, but those are the types of verticals that as an operator, I wanted. And now that AI is coming out, we focus heavily on healthcare because it's not getting replaced by a robot. We're focusing on manufacturing facilities anywhere in the country. That's our bread and butter. I want every single nursing home not assisted living per se, but skilled nursing, one hundred plus beds, one hundred plus employees. I want car dealership chains. It's just as easy in those environments to put out one account as it is to put out thirty, because typically they're managed by a management group, or they're managed by a management company that manages thirty or so skilled nursing homes. Actually made tremendous inroads in residential apartment communities. We are a go to resource anywhere in the country for those. And we get a lot of inquiries and some of our operators in our network love it. I think there are great accounts. 

Bob Tullio: I'd love you to name names on some of the operators you're working with. Are you willing to do that? If you want to focus on testimonials, focus on the path to five thousand. I'm literally posting every day of the installation. I'm going to show you every day the wins and the losses. But really for you, the testimonial is the transparency on the path to five thousand, isn't it? 

Patrick McGinty: That's the reality. You know, I don't want to say that I'm reluctant to name names. Some of my customers don't want to be public. They don't they don't want people to know that they're using my services, which is completely fine for a variety of different reasons. I wanted the real life display and the reality and transparency of what it's like to build a company. I want to post the wins, and people can clearly see them publicly on LinkedIn on the path to five thousand. Transparency and accountability is extremely important to me, and that's why I really built the path to five thousand. 

Also, putting the systems out there, doing that three part mini series on prospecting, that's the playbook. It's literally the VendVue playbook. It's right out there. It's transparency for the industry to see in your market. The only thing I can promise is that we're going to work on it daily. You know, we're going to deploy that outbound engine. We're going to go all in. And that's what the path to five thousand is. It's to show the wins. It's to show the losses. It's to show what it takes to build a company. It's to show our understanding of the industry. It's a public scoreboard.

And I talk to my boys all the time at dinner and I tell them, like, guys, I literally just announced to the entire industry that we're going to have five thousand accounts in five years. And I'm feeling a little nervous about it because in five years, people are going to think that I'm either a Titan or whatever you want to call it, or an absolute failure because I put it out there. I shared that with my boys at the table. We talk about that, but that's what the reality is a clear path that's intentionally showing exactly what it takes to get wins on the board. And that's what we're doing. And I think that much more powerful, in my opinion, than a curated testimonial of a market that we just absolutely destroyed. We're not handing out our customer list. We're just putting it all out there in a very transparent way for the industry to see. 

Bob Tullio: What do you say to an operator who's trying to make a decision? Do I use VendVue? Do I keep doing it on my own? Do I give it a try? What do you tell them? 

Patrick McGinty: Why it makes sense to use VendVue boils down to one simple thing. We are an end to end sales solution. Bob. If I'm an operator in any market in the country, I want all sales roads to lead to me. And there's so many different avenues to get accounts in this industry, including VendVue. And I want every single one of those roads to lead directly to me. And VendVue is another road that just feeds business directly to you. So that's what I look at when I'm an operator. And when I think as an operator, how do we get all roads sales channels to lead directly to me? And that's what we're offering. 

Bob Tullio: Patrick, thank you for joining me. And once again, today's podcast was presented in cooperation with VendVue. That's it for now. On the next episode of Automatic Merchandiser & VendingMarketWatch’s Vending & OCS Nation podcast, we shift from organic growth to another powerful growth strategy that is reshaping the convenience services industry. Acquisition, consolidation, and the power of scale. I'll be talking with Greg Michalek, CEO of Alliance Markets and Vending, about a business model that brings successful operators together on one platform and gives founders an opportunity to participate in the future growth of the organization they're helping to build. It's a fascinating look at consolidation from the operator's point of view, and what happens when founders don't simply sell and walk away, but remain invested in what comes next.

Automatic Merchandiser & VendingMarketWatch’s Vending & OCS Nation is produced by Endeavor Business Media, a division of EndeavorB2B, 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 joining us. Until next time, I'm Bob Tullio.