Michael Guthrie have successfully owned and operated a multimillion-dollar automated teller machine distributorship, Automated ATM Solutions, Inc., for more than 25 years, and currently run over 8000 ATMs nationwide, providing a residual income stream used for multifamily investing. They have 23 years of real estate investment experience in single family, multi-family and commercial real estate. Their additional experience includes real estate sales, mortgage brokering, and property management of apartments and single-family homes. After realizing the advantages of multifamily investing for themselves, they have made it their mission to provide others with an avenue to passive income.
Episode Highlights Here:
Michael
Your word is your bond. And it doesn’t matter if you have a contract or not your word and you’re doing what you say you’re going to do on a day in and day out basis, that’s what actually helps really start to grow the business.
Brett
What’s the number one secret to building an ATM cash flow business?
Michael
I think it’s the same thing within any business, it is customer service, because I think anybody can sell you a ATM, or they could sell you a car. But it’s what happens after the sale that really matters. You want to make sure that you’re taking care of their cash, because they’re trusting you, when they put their cash in that machine that you’re going to make sure it gets back to their bank account on a daily or monthly basis, depending on how they decide to set up their operation. So you’re building trust, and your word is your bond. And it doesn’t matter if you have a contract or not your word and you doing what you say you’re going to do on a day in and day out basis. That’s what actually helps really start to grow the business. And one of the that’s been one of our biggest pieces of our success is the more we’ve done well for others, the more they introduce us to more people.
Brett
Excellent. So customer service delivering on what you what you said you were going to do. Regardless if it’s in the contract or not basically living up to what the expectations have been set. I think I’m sort of hearing between the lines there. And then and the folks that are they’re trusting that what they put into the machine or where they put it into the business is going to actually come back to their bank account with the return. Right. And is that a fair summary? That is a very fair summary. Okay, excellent. Mike, what is the number two Secret to Building an ATM cash flow business
Michael
tenacity, you have got, you have got to get out there and actually do it. This is not a job that you can do sitting behind a desk, you have to get in front of people face to face, show what you’re sharing your offering, and show how it’s going to actually be profitable for the place you’re going to put the machine into. So that they understand this isn’t just about you getting a commission off a one off sale, it’s about you creating a relationship and helping them grow their business, one for you one machine at a time. For them. It’s one more ancillary service that they can add to their already large book of business. 90% of our clients are convenient store slash gas stations. And they have so many different vendors, they don’t want to be dealing with every vendor. But if they know that you’ll come in, you’ll place the ATM machine, you’ll take care of it, and they get a paycheck at the end of every month. Without without hassle. You’ve actually created a profit center inside their business to help them continue to grow what they’re doing. So I believe just ensuring that you’re bringing a solution to a business and not another issue.
Brett
Excellent. So number two secret is tenacity. You have to get in front of people, you have to show the offering to show them what’s in it for them, how it’s going to be profitable for them how it’s going to grow their business, how to be a long term, turnkey, without hassle a little householders to get their check. Not going to be bothering them, it’s going to take them a distraction for them. Is that a fair summary to secret number 200%? All right. And so we’ve secret number one is customer service. And then number seven opportunities to tenacity to I guess maybe even execute on that customer service. What is secret number three, Mike when it comes to building an ATM cash flow business?
Michael
Oh, that’s a great one. Making sure the machine that you sell them is operable. And if it’s not operable, that you’re available to either repair it, troubleshoot it, to ensure that it has the maximum uptime. So the last thing, the last thing you want is a machine in there with an error code on the screen and the customer comes up to it to use it. And they want to pay you 234 dollars a transaction. And it’s out of service. So secret number three is making sure the machines are operable, and they have the maximum uptime.
Brett
maximum uptime, which means I guess it’s the ability to transact right versus just, you know, absolutely away and then your $2 is gone forever, right? So you want to make sure that it’s up and operating. However you find, especially in this economy right now, right? Maybe good technicians even you know, workers, perhaps that’s a challenge for you, or others, right. But how have you found the ability to make sure you can call and have somebody, you know, fix it quickly.
Michael
There’s back when we started this business in 1986 97. There were no technicians for you were the technician. So if you had a like we started out in the Bay area of California I couldn’t be in San Francisco and Sacramento and San Jose and the That same day, so you started to learn efficiencies on walking your merchant through actually fixing it. So you didn’t and then once we got once the industry started to bloom, if you will, or mature technician started popping up all over the place, and they would solicit you for business, which was even better, because when we would train somebody, and then they would leave to go start their own business, now we have training that another person, but we decided literally about 10 years into the business, we would outsource all of our service to companies that specialize in the service, and we’d give them a guaranteed monthly income regarding servicing ATM machines, so that they would prioritize our stuff. That way, customers are always happy because you nothing is worse than Friday night at like six o’clock when that’s the maximum transaction time your machine goes down and you don’t get a technician till Monday, but the national companies would provide that’s the kind of service they did. We would come out Friday afternoon Friday at seven o’clock and we would fix it so then you would be up all weekend but you have to you have to train people. And then once we got people trained, and the industry matured, there were technicians all over the place, begging for work from you so that you could actually provide that service for your clients.
Watch the episode here:
Important Links:
About Michael Guthrie
Michael Guthrie have successfully owned and operated a multimillion-dollar automated teller machine distributorship, Automated ATM Solutions, Inc., for more than 25 years, and currently run over 8000 ATMs nationwide, providing a residual income stream used for multifamily investing.
They have 23 years of real estate investment experience in single family, multi-family and commercial real estate.
Their additional experience includes real estate sales, mortgage brokering, and property management of apartments and single-family homes.
After realizing the advantages of multifamily investing for themselves, they have made it their mission to provide others with an avenue to passive income.
- capitalgainstaxsolutions.com
- Capital Gains Tax Solutions Facebook
- Capital Gains Tax Solutions Twitter
- Capital Gains Tax Solutions Tiktok