ELEVA, Wisc. - LOBO VENDING has prepared a comprehensive training program for use by people interested in addressing the fast-growing small-location vending market.

The course, based on the highly-successful United Vending Group three-day training sessions, is built around seven videotapes made at one of those sessions and a spiral-bound Video Workbook that reinforces the material presented visually. Three additional videotapes on specific subjects, three audio tapes, and a Sales & Marketing Manual round out the course materials. For organizations conducting in-house training, supplemental manuals for Sales trainer and Sales Trainee are also available, as is a sample Telemarketing Script.

Topics covered by the course begin with an introduction to small-location vending, a "how-to" guide to telemarketing as a prospecting and sales technique, follow-up methods to "cement" the sale, personal selling skills, basic management principles, and sales training. Also included is an in-depth guide to customer service, and detailed information on recruiting, hiring and training new sales personnel.

LOBO VENDING president Bob Purdy, a long-time observer of and participant in the vending industry, defines small-location vending services as those designed for locations, primarily businesses, with 50 or fewer employees on premises. Prior to the rise of full-line vending in the 1960s, most vending machines were simple mechanical devices with limited selectivity, and vending operators could serve this kind of account profitably. But the larger workplaces that had become vending's core market in the immediate postwar years exhibited a demand for wider range of selections, and fast-evolving electronic technology was applied to developing larger, more complex machines. These were sales powerhouses in the large sites for which they were designed; but the cost of acquiring and maintaining them "marginalized" many accounts that formerly had been good vending stops.

Purdy points out that the first response to this was the emergence of service concepts offering "snacks on the honor system." The concept was not inherently unworkable, but it was a lot more difficult than it appeared.

Around 1980, Purdy recalls, several small manufacturers set out to address those difficulties with a new generation of small vending machines. "Most of them were real 'tin cans'," he said.

But there is a market there, Purdy emphasizes. As long ago as 1993, more than 95 percent of U.S. businesses had fewer than 50 employees, and more than 600,000 had 20 to 50. Purdy does not consider vending practical in locations with fewer than 20 people on the premises, if it must pay for itself and provide adequate profit.

And some manufacturers have worked steadily to develop improved equipment that is sufficiently durable, reliable and versatile to meet the needs of contemporary workplaces. Moreover, a number of existing service organizations are well-positioned to go after this market, and it is an attractive field for the endeavors of individuals with good human-relations skills and a strong willingness to work. It is those organizations and individuals at whom the LoBo small-site vending course materials are aimed.

LoBo will exhibit at the National Automatic Merchandising Association in Orlando, Fla., October 16-18, in booth 1155. Information on the small-site vending course materials may be had from LoBo at S458 Hovey Valley Road, Mondovi, WI 54755, tel. (800) 279-6633.