There’s no getting around the fact that the location of your machine is the single biggest contributing factor to its success. We all know that getting a great location with plenty of foot traffic is a licence to print money week in, week out. I’ve found that the most successful franchisees are invariably those that pay constant attention to the quality of their locations. The nature of any coin operated business is that you’re always going to have a few underperforming sites that need relocating. Your role is not just to look after your machines, but to find them good homes. If you don’t have any poor locations, you can count yourself in the lucky few to have such a positive problem, but it probably means that there are still lots of opportunities out there for new locations. Maybe it’s time to grow yourbusiness with extra machines?

Franchisees that don’t make prospecting for new locations an integral part of their business routine are faced with a gradual downhill spiral of decreased revenue and falling profits. Some locations will perform indefinitely, while others will get tired and need a break, and of course there’s a myriad of reasons why a location may no longer want you there. When it comes to the effort put in to locating machines, I see the results of franchisees at opposite ends of the spectrum. There is one franchisee I have in mind who always has locations on the go. Whenever I talk to him he tells me excitedly about the prospects and goal sites he’s working on. True to his word he seems to secure a great new location every other week. He’s tripled the size of his route in the space of a few years. On the other hand I can think of more than one franchisee who has not found a new site in the last two years. Whenever they are asked to move a machine it either goes on to a site that already has a machine that doesn’t justify two machines, or goes into their garage or storage unit.

Businesses do not stand still. They’re either growing or they’re dying, and if you’re not regularly finding new locations the grim reaper has his eye on your business. So if you want to be a success rather than a statistic, let me encourage you to make finding new locations for your machines your number one priority.