need box vans. Instead of leaving your trucks sitting in the parking lot, you could put them to work and keep an employee at the same time. Alternately, you could start up a small, local moving service with your vans. If your vans are logoed up, you'll get additional advertising as your trucks and vans are riding around town. Lots of people are moving from apartments to homes while interest rates are low and they need more room to work from home. You most likely already have moving dollies and extra route trucks. Rent out equipment: You might consider renting out more touchless ice makers and water dispensers. This can be an easy sale if the customer still has the reach-in type of ice machine instead of an ice dispenser. A customer in Colorado told me he was replacing competitors' 4. old-fashioned ice makers with cup dispenser ice machines. He said it was an easy sell. Also, you can subsequently charge them an ongoing cleaning and filter change fee, which will be a recurring revenue source for you. Expand your service offerings: You might start an office sanitization business - and sell it to your existing customers - and even a cleaning service. This would give your clients one vendor to deal with and could bring in recurring business. 5. HOW TO GET STARTED It is easy to set up a separate limited liability company (LLC) for a side business. Some states allow you to do this process yourself, and without a lawyer. Obviously, you should discuss your options with your accountants, lawyers and insurance providers to make sure you have things covered correctly. Sometimes it can be as easy as running a "doing business as" (DBA) under your current LLC or company. Keeping things separate makes it easier if you want to divest the new or old company without it being a cloudy mess on paper. Sitting and waiting for the "normalcy" to return could cost you a lot more than thinking about new ways to use what you currently have. Thinking outside of the box may help you make money outside of this industry.■ About the author Mike Ferguson is a 32-plusyear veteran of the convenience services industry. He is an ex-owner/operator turned intermediary business broker to vending and office coffee service companies looking to sell their business. Ferguson can be reached at Mike@VMACsolutions.com or (713) 5696463 and is online at VMACsolutions.com September 2020 * VendingMarketWatch.com 11http://www.VMACsolutions.com http://www.LittleDebbieVending.com http://www.VendingMarketWatch.com