I am sure you have seen a gas station or two that are closed up in your area and wonder why did someone close it or if you should buy it, or would it do great business if you start it up? Listen and find out as I answer 6 burning questions from our listeners in this episode.

Welcome to Gas station business 101 podcast, I am Shabbir Hossain, and this is episode 58. This is the show where we discuss how to start, run and grow a gas station business successfully and give you an inside look at many real life case studies so you can follow and be successful in this business.

First my apology for coming up with an episode sooner, I was little under the weather at first then got busy with a few projects and had to put the blog and the podcast on the backburner for just a bit. Well, we all have to make money to survive right? I was doing just that too. But I am back, and hopefully, I won’t take much breaks anymore. Even though I told you in the last episode that this next one will be about the update and P&L of the story I helped some investors buy back in December 2015, but I am still analyzing and sorting out those P&L numbers, so hopefully it will be in the next episode.

As I said I have been busy so I didn’t even get to answer some of yours email yet, and if I haven’t, my apology. But I picked out 6 questions out of 30 or so email I looked at in last two days and decided to answer them on this episode this way everyone gets to benefit from the answers.

In this 3rd Q&A episode, I answer 6 questions

1. I am looking to buy a closed up gas station with the property, what do I need to worry about in this process?

1. In one of the podcasts, you had mentioned that one of the reasons someone could sell their gas station is because some competitor is crushing them on fuel prices. How can we figure out if this reason why a seller is selling his gas station.
2.  
3. I am buying a gas station, but the seller wants to sell the tanks, canopy, and pumps for $1.00. What I want to know is if I leave the business at the end of the lease term due to not finding any buyer then what should I do if it is in my name? What if the landlord doesn’t want to buy it for a $1 like I did 
4. I have been meaning to tell you how much I enjoyed the gas station/c-store development podcast you did. Thank you! One point I was not clear on was about reselling or leasing the property. Let’s say I stabilized the business in 3 years and it does: 

1. 120,000 Gallons/Month on fuel sales
2. 22,000 gallons of Diesel sales
3. $75,000 on inside merchandise sales
4. $90,000 in Fast food sales

My question is what should my resale value be after 3 years of operation?

How much can I sell and/or lease the business for which will not include the R/E

How much can I sell the business with R/E

5. First of all, thanks for your podcast and for all the resources you share with us. It's great to learn from someone with all your experience. Keep it up! The public restroom at my gas station is located outside, meaning people have to ask for the key at the counter to use it. Normally we give the key to customers (people who actually buy) and people we know (customers from the past who might not be buying anything on that day) but sometimes people get very mad when we don't give the keys out if they are not buying anything (people who only stop at the station to use the restroom). That being said, the cashier is many times "forced" to give out the keys to non-customers in order to avoid headaches. The problem is that people don't care about the restroom. They pee on the floor, misuse the toilet paper, soap and paper towels and write graffiti on the walls. Some others use it to consume drugs and have other illegal activities. The main problem is that once every week the toilet gets clogged, sometimes so badly that I've had to actually replace the toilet 3-4 times a year as it is impossible to unclog it. I've been trying to find the best solution for this. It is mandatory to have public restroom according to Florida laws so I can't close it. I am also forced to offer toilet paper, soap, and paper towels even if people misuse them and it represents a high cost to my business. Some people have suggested installing a coin lock, so I charge something small to use the restroom, but I'm afraid this would make me lose real customers. While I know the coin lock does not fully solve the problem, at least it would generate me some cash to keep the restroom neat. Have you had this problem in your stations? What is the best way to tackle this, so the restroom does not become a drain of my profit? Thanks for any hints you might share to help me out. (Andres sorry for the delayed response to your question)

 6. I have noticed in 3 of my dispensers the regular unleaded runs very slow but other two grades are fine, it has been happening on and off, what should I do?

If you have any question, feel free to send me an email at shabbir@gasstationbusiness101.com, or you can post it on my Facebook group page by going to shabbirhossain.net

Don't forget to sign up for my very important newsletter; you can simply sign up for it by going to http://gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe

In the meantime, if you haven't subscribed to this podcast, feel free to do so, and if you like this show, I would love to see a review from you on iTunes or where ever you download this episode from.

Here is a link to my podcast page on iTunes, if you follow this link you can give me a review right on that page. Trust me it will make my day and won't cost you anything other than maybe 30 seconds of your time.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/gas-station-business-101-podcast/

Thank you once again for joining me in this episode; I will see you in the next one.

Cheers!

A common question I get asked a lot, how do gas stations make money, especially when they hear the gasoline does not make much then how do we make money? Would you like to know too? Let's do some calculation

GSB-38: How do Gas Stations Make Money?

Welcome to Gas station business 101 podcast, I am Shabbir Hossain, and this is episode 38. This is the only show of its kind where we discuss how to start, run and grow a gas station business successfully, and I give you an inside look at many real life case studies so you can follow and become successful in this business.

There are 3 ways a typical gas station/convenience store generates profit.

1. From Fuel Sales

• Regular unleaded
• Midgrade
• Premium
• Diesel

2. From Merchandise sales

• Cigarettes
• Tobacco
• Beer and wine
• Soda
• Coffee and Fountain
• Deli Food
• Automotive supplies/oil
• Candy
• Snacks, cookies, and cakes
• Other grocery items ketchup, rice, beans, can foods

3. From Other Sources of Revenue

• ATM
• Air/Vac
• Phone cards
• Lottery
• Game Machines
• Pay at the pump video ads

In this Episode, I discuss the 4th 'P' of the marketing mix -Product which in our business is merchandise. There no "one size fits all" in this business. You have to differentiate your store/business from the next store to stand out in the crowd. Product selection is the differentiator that can make you a successful as oppose to a not so good product selection can tank your business to the ground.

There are 4 very important things you need to find out about your store, about your customer base and the demographics of your store first, before you can decide what and how to merchandise your business with the right products.

1. Median income level of your customer base

2. Race and ethnicity of the customer base

3. Age of the population or your customer base

4.   Location of your store

I also discuss how to calculate your store's sales per square feet monthly and how to increase and track that number.

The book I mentioned in this episode is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change, This best-selling book is by Stephen R Covey. It is a book about personal change and growth. This book goes deep into how we can have a paradigm shift first in order to be able to accept and welcome those seven great habits.

In this episode and the very next one I will be addressing again how to generate extra income. Especially how to add income to our bottom line by simply adding some extra income generating mini businesses to our existing business. The ideas I will be talking about today does not only apply to gas stations but most other brick and mortar retail businesses can try these and see some extra monthly income in their pocket. So stay tuned.

The 4 Mini Businesses I mention in this episode are:

1. How to open a Mini Vape Shop
2. How to Find and carry highly profitable Novelty and Health related Products
3. How to Carry Premium Cigars in your store
4. How to have a Mini Wine store inside your store
5. Red Box Video Rental

Today's episode is different than any other episode as I have decided to share a real life business details with you so you can see the due diligence first hand and share your input as well. In this episode I discuss:

1. The store and its location
2. Demographics
3. Age and brand
4. Physical inspection of the store Talk about the issues we noticed
5. Recommended upgrades and how much those upgrades would cost
6. Indoor Issues
7. Outdoor Issues
8. Sales and financials
9. Projected P&L vs. Real P&L

Welcome to Gas station business 101 podcast, I am Shabbir Hossain, and this is episode 47. This is the show where we discuss how to start, run and grow a gas station business successfully and give you an inside look at many real life case studies so you can follow and be successful in this business.

Today's' episode is a rather interesting one, and this idea came from Moe. Moe sent me an email about a month ago asking about this very topic as he found an opportunity to take over a store for very little money. I did answer his questions via email but I figured this is a topic that can benefit most of my other listeners. So here it is.

As I said, we all know someone who flips home to make a living, and often they make good money doing so. But there is a growing market where people buy and sell gas stations for a big profit. But if you want to do this business there are few very key points you need to measure first and make sure you fulfill all those requirements. It can be a risky business, it can even be a money pit, so you have to be extra careful to do this business. But if you do it right the payout can be huge.

6 Key factors to consider and analyze before deciding to get into this business

• What type of gas stations are better for flipping
• Where and how to find them
• Who can flip gas station
• capital requirements
• Manpower requirements
• Management skill requirement

Once you have fulfilled the requirements and bought your first store to flip, your real work begins.

Find out the causes of failure of the business.

5 Main Reasons Businesses Fail

1. Mismanagement
2. Lack of competitive pricing and promotion
3. Lack of merchandising
4. Store outlook and maintenance issues
5. Change in demographics or change in regulations

Once you know what cause this business to fail, you need to take a comprehensive approach to fixing not only that single issue but all the other factors as well. It will be like opening a new store where you touch and improve on every part of the process.

6 Key Improvement areas

• Fix any and all maintenance issues
• Updated fresh outlook on a budget
• Remerchandise the store
• Innovative/aggressive marketing and promotion
• Well trained employees
• Install a good bookkeeping and store operation procedure

Once you successfully implemented each of the above improvement measures, it's time to wait and see the results. On an average, it takes anywhere from 4-6 months for a dying store to come back to life and show growth. In my opinion, a flip from start to finish should take no less than four months and no more than 12 months. Once you see the sales are at a point where the store became profitable, it is time to put it on the market. But don't try to hide the fact as to why you bought this business when buyers ask you why you are selling the business.

Once again a big thanks goes to Moe as he is the one who came up with this topic, so this episode is fully dedicated to him.

If you have any question, feel free to send me an email at shabbir@gasstationbusiness101.com, or you can post it on my Facebook group page by going to shabbirhossain.net

Lastly, If you are about to buy a gas station for the first time, make sure to read my book "Gas Station Business Smart Start-up" How to measure profitability, how to come up with a valuation, how to calculate ROI, how to write a business plan and how to get financing for your new venture. You can find this book on most all retailers including Amazon, Apple iTunes, Kobo, Smashwords and Barnes and Noble.

Don't forget to sign up for my very important newsletter, you can simply sign up for it by going to http://gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe

Thank you once again for joining me in this episode, I will see you in the next one.

Take care

In this episode I discuss the most important part of buying a business which is how to write a business plan. If you are looking to obtain financing from a bank, this is one document you cannot do without. This is truly the blue print of your business. A great business not only helps you to get the bank to finance your business but it also gives you a clear outline of what and how your business need to function and operate. It should also outline how you will be able to improve the business in the near future and generate more profit from it.

 A great business plan should have these following items and I will touch on every one of them, so let's go through the list first:

A well written cover page and a cover letter where you outline your objectives such as what business you are looking to buy, how much money are you needing as form of loan and what if any you are offering as collateral to secure the loan. Address that letter to the person in charge of lending.

1. A mission Statement
2. Executive summery

1. Who you are
2. Start Up summery
3. Objectives

3. Company Overview

1. Name and location of Business
2. Owners
3. Legal Structure
4. Experience and History of the company
5. Management team
6. Products and services

 
4. Operation Plan

1. Location
2. Competition
3. Target Market
4. Market Needs

5. Marketing Plan

1. Competitive position
2. Pricing Strategy
3. Promotion Strategy
4. Sales Forecast

6. Labor Plan

1. Management team
2. Labor budget and forecast

 
7. 3 year Store Budget
8. Profit and Loss statement for 3 years
9. End Summery and conclusion

 You can find my own business plan that I have used for my businesses under the resource tab on the top of my site at http://GasStationBusiness101.com. You can also see a business plan done by Angelo State University in Texas on Gas station business under the show note for this episode on my blog.

 The book this week is Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters

 If you enjoy listening my show, I would love to see a review on iTunes from you. Lastly don't forget to sign up for my Newsletter by clicking below.

Cheers!
 

 Imagine for a second,  just by making a few changes in appearance you make a business go from loss to profit, well minus the legacy cost off course. So yes that is the very reason I have decided to share this topic with you and do a separate episode just on this. I do think all of you can benefit from this episode. Honestly, it opened my eyes, and I too realize the power of great appearance and how powerful it can be for a business's success or failure for that matter.

 I discuss a 10 step process that anyone can follow and see a positive result in his or her business in a very short period of time.

First, an important announcement, Almost in every episode ask my listeners to go on my site and post a question on under "Ask Shabbir" tab where you have to register first, and many of you told me that you have had issues registering for it. So I decided to make it easier for everyone.

I just started a Facebook group where you can go and start a conversation, ask questions and just engage in conversations. It's called the GSB Community. Since everyone uses Facebook anyway, I figured this is the best and easiest way to solve the issue and get everyone in one place. Now to find my Facebook group, simply go to ShabbirOnFacebook and it will take you straight to my group, off course if you have to ask to join the group just once but after that you can invite your friends, and you can get them approved. Sounds fun? Let's try and see how this will work.

Now to the show.....

On Episode 23, I brought you a real life store sales data and analysis, where I was helping a group of buyers decide if they should buy a location or not. If you recall, in that episode I published the real sales figures of the store and some projected ones as well. Based on their sales data I created some P&L's of my own and it showed for the month of October the seller had lost about $2500. But despite the fact that the store was losing money, I did go ahead and recommended that they buy the store based on few factors which I discussed in that episode 23 as well.  If you recall, in that episode I discussed few issues, and few opportunities of the store and we covered 9 points:

1. The store and its location
2. Demographics
3. Age and brand
4. Physical inspection of the store and the issues we noticed
5. Recommended upgrades and how much those upgrades would cost
6. Indoor Issues
7. Outdoor Issues
8. Sales and financials
9. Projected P&L vs. Real P&L

So time now to report on the actual progress report of that store and how it is doing actually. I am happy to report that the store has done truly well, and to my surprise after implementing some of the suggestions I made, the store's performance passed my imagination to a degree.

To have a clear understanding of what this business is currently doing, I urge you to go to my blog and download the March sales data along with the actual March P&L so you can see what I will be talking about. Here are the links to all the spreadsheets

March Sales

March P&L

Difference in profit

To get the actual picture, I will be comparing both last October's and this March's P&L side by side so I can address what and how the store is making money and went from Red to black.

Strategies we implemented:

1. Address all maintenance issues
2. Upgrade all lighting and put a fresh coat of paint
3. Clean up the store
4. Remerchandising the store based on its traffic flow
5. Bringing in products that sell in the area
6. Advertise heavily via reader board, pump toppers and on the front door
7. Bringing in EBT and money order
8. Implementation of new fuel and merchandise pricing strategy
9. Full on marketing and promotional campaign

As you can see it was not one single strategy that made the business profitable but a combination of many factors. It was not an easy task, but the credit goes to the management team of the store who were able to follow directions and implement everything we suggested for the store.

I will have another update from this store in about couple of months again so we can all see how the store is performing and if the sales and profit hikes are short-lived or not.

Good luck to the buyers and I am positive if they continue to do what they are doing now, this store will perform even better.

Okay now as for answering emails, I have decided to dedicate one episode every so often to just answering email questions this way I can separate them from the rest of the shows. Soon I will have a Q&A episode all dedicated to answering your email questions so stay tuned.

The book I want to recommend today is call Work Rules! By Laszlo Bock. It is a New York times bestseller as well as Wall Street Journal best seller

Laszlo is the head of people operations in Google, and if you know anything about Google you know they have the best work environment where no one bosses them around about what to do, but most employees are self-motivated to do the wonders they do every day. There is a lot to learn about people and how to motivate and transform them into self-driven unique individuals. I think it is a great read, and I know you will learn a lot from it. So enjoy it.

Lastly do not forget to sign up for my newsletter by clicking the sign-up button on my blog. I will see you on the next episode.

Cheers

Welcome to Gas station business 101 podcast, I am Shabbir Hossain, This is only podcast show of its kind where I discuss every aspect of gas station business from how to find and buy the right location, how to market your business, how to do bookkeeping, how to minimize theft to what type of insurance do you need to have for your business. So it is a one stop shopping for any of you that are in this line of business. You may ask how does he know it all? Well I don't and that is why I go and ask the experts sometimes, and I also want your participation in this, because I know some of you out there may be great at something that I am not, so together we can share our knowledge and empower the rest of our community for a better future for our business. Sounds good?

Let's get started

In Episode 17(click HERE to listen to that episode or to see the show notes) I touched on this very topic briefly, but I wanted to make an episode out of it as I have had many email requesting more information on this very topic.

There are two ways to setup a deli in your store.

Fist, you can have limited deli food. This applies to stores that have limited space and small; the other way is opening up a full deli where you offer a full menu from Breakfast to dinner.

But before you open up a deli in your store, there is a certain degree of due diligence you need to do to find out if deli will generate enough business to make it viable for your store. Deli is not for everyone; deli tends to thrive in rural and blue collar neighborhoods, So some research needs to be done to find out if your store should benefit from having a deli business.

Looking at the demographics of the immediate area of your store can tell you if it will be a good idea or not.

Look at data like:

• Age of the population
• Income level of the population
• Housing (median prices for houses and if there are rental apartments around you)
• Are there other stores with Deli within 1.5-mile radius
• Ask your customers if they want to see food in your store
•  

After doing the research, if you are still not sure, smart a small limited menu deli.

Limited menu deli is essentially what you see when you walk into a 7-11 or Circle K type corporate stores, where they carry cold sandwiches, hot dogs, and other pre-packaged ready to eat meals.

Once you decide you will want to start a deli business these are the next steps to carry out:

• Health dept requirements
• Equipment requirements
• Space requirements
• modification requirements
• What food to sell
• How to price your food items

The benefits of having a deli inside your store:

• Extra income stream
• Increase in sales of other products
• Increase sales of fuel
• Lunch hour rush
• Loyal customer base

One small announcement, I recently published a book call How to Master 13 Negotiating Skills and Win in Business, it is a soft launch, but any of you are interested in seeing it, just click on the book title and you will get to see it. This book is one of the three that I have been working for a long while; I was finally able to finish it recently. As of now, I am putting the finishing touches on a book that I co-authored, and that book is all about the various types of investment visas for people that are interested in investing in the USA.

If you would like for me cover a topic I haven't yet, feel free to email me or post it on the Facebook group, and I will try my best to have an episode on that topic, but remember if I pick your topic I will dedicate that episode to your name.

Don't forget to sign up for my newsletter; you can sign up for it by going to http://gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe or you can directly go to my site and at the bottom of every page there is a subscribe button.

Cheers!

Remember the store I helped some investors buy in 2015 that was losing money? I shared two updates so far and now here is the 3rd one about how that store is doing now. This is a long awaited episode, but here it is. Enjoy!

Welcome to Gas station business 101 podcast, I am Shabbir Hossain, and this is episode 61. This is the show where we discuss everything under the sun about the gas station and convenience store business, how to buy these businesses, how to operate them and how to grow them to be a million dollar success.

Now on to the show.....

On Episode 23, I brought you a real life store sales data and analysis, where I was helping a group of buyers decide if they should buy a location or not. If you recall, in that episode I published the real sales figures of the store and some projected ones as well. Based on their sales data I created some P&L's of my own and it showed for the month of October the seller had lost about $2500. But despite the fact that the store was losing money, I did go ahead and recommended that they buy the store based on few factors which I discussed in that episode 23 as well. If you recall, in that episode (episode 23) I discussed few issues, and few opportunities of the store and we covered 9 points:

1. The store and its location
2. Demographics
3. Age and brand
4. Physical inspection of the store and the issues we noticed
5. Recommended upgrades and how much those upgrades would cost
6. Indoor Issues
7. Outdoor Issues
8. Sales and financials
9. Projected P&L vs. Real P&L

If you have time, please go back and listen to Episode 23 and 29 this way you will know the whole story.

In episode 29 I shared some P&L for March 2016, in that episode, I did compare P&L’s from October 2015 which the sellers provided us to what the new owners did in March 2016, and if you recall there was a drastic difference between those two. The new owners increased the business and made it a very profitable one. But to get to that increase, the new owners implemented these nine strategies that I proposed.

Strategies we implemented:

1. Address all maintenance issues
2. Upgrade all lighting and put a fresh coat of paint
3. Clean up the store
4. Remerchandising the store based on its traffic flow
5. Bringing in products that sell in the area
6. Advertise heavily via reader board, pump toppers and on the front door
7. Bringing in EBT and money order
8. Implementation of new fuel and merchandise pricing strategy
9. Full on marketing and promotional campaign

As you can see it was not one single strategy that made the business profitable but a combination of many factors. It was not an easy task, but the credit goes to the management team of the store who were able to follow directions and implement everything we suggested for the store.

Now let’s take a look what and how the store has done since March 2016 until December 2016, instead of showing you month by month P&L, I can tell you that the new owners have seen a gradual increase in business and enjoyed a positive growth each month. Let’s now take a look at the P&L from this last December.

But remind you in most areas, November through February are usually the slowest winter months. Business usually slows down quite a bit compare to the summer months. So I figured if we can see something positive even in December then we can be assured that the business will make more sales and show more profit during the summer months.

Here is the P&L for the same month of December 2016

 (If the Excel Spreadsheet is not viewable, please visit my blog at GasStationBusiness101.com to view them)

Let’s look at the Profit and Loss history of this store. If you remember in October 2015 right before the new owners took over the store lost $2574.51, then the new owners took over in December, and by March the store became profitable which I shared in episode 29, the P&L then showed a profit of $5193.33.

Now fast forward to December 2016, which is a slower month for most gas station business, and with less fuel sales, the store generated $6,875.46. It is important to share that in this past one year, their best month was August 2016, and for that month the net profit was $9,612.90., But I wanted to give you a full year’s snapshot so I brought December and not August in this calculation.

What have they done differently? Well, nothing other than keeping up with the proper inventory, making sure the pricing is right and superior customer service. That’s the secret sauce of success in this line of business.

If you have any question, feel free to send me an email at shabbir@gasstationbusiness101.com, or you can post it on my Facebook group page by going to shabbirhossain.net

Don't forget to sign up for my very important newsletter; you can simply sign up for it by going to http://gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe

In the meantime, if you haven't subscribed to this podcast, feel free to do so, and if you like this show, I would love to see a review from you on iTunes or where ever you download this episode from.

Here is a link to my podcast page on iTunes, if you follow this link you can give me a review right on that page. Trust me it will make my day and won't cost you anything other than maybe 30 seconds of your time.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/gas-station-business-101-podcast/

Thank you once again for joining me in this episode; I will see you in the next one.

Cheers!

Would you like to know how to build a gas station from ground up? Do you wonder what all it takes to build one of those? Let's discuss what it takes to build a gas station from start to finish. Stay tuned...

Welcome to Gas station business 101 podcast, I am your host Shabbir Hossain, and this is episode 53. This is the show where we discuss how to start, run and grow a gas station business successfully and give you an inside look at many real life case studies so you can follow and be successful in this business.

Today's episode is the second part of How to build a gas station from start to finish. The idea for this topic came from a long time listener name Shahnawaz so this episode too is dedicated to him. A big thanks goes to Shahnawaz for bringing such a wonderful and important topic to the forefront.

If you recall in the last episode we spoke about:

Site Selection Basic Market research Market study done by oil companies)

• Zoning
• Traffic count
• Demographics
• # of Competitors

What size to build

• How many MPD's
• Actual size of the store
• Deli or no Deli

Sales Projection

• Fuel
• Merchandise

In today's episode we will cover:

• Land development
• Drawing up the plans
• Applying for various permits

• Pitching to the oil companies
• Deciding on a Brand
• Hiring the Right Contractor or build it yourself(how much can you save)
• How to Save money in the process (installing one tank with compartments instead of 3 or 4 tanks)
• Cost to build per SQF

If you have any question, feel free to send me an email at shabbir@gasstationbusiness101.com, or you can post it on my Facebook group page by going to shabbirhossain.net

Don't forget to sign up for my very important newsletter; you can simply sign up for it by going to http://gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe

Good news is the email transition process ahs started, so in about a week or so we will be able to start sending out emails that many of you have been waiting for.

In the mean time if you haven't subscribed to this podcast, feel free to do so, and if you like this show, I would love to see a review from you on iTunes or where ever you download this episode from.

Thank you once again for joining me in this episode; I will see you in the next one.

Welcome to episode 17, this is the 2nd part of 'adding 5 mini businesses to your existing gas station business' series. In episode number 16 I touched on how to add income by adding mini business such as Vape shop, novelty, wine, and cigar or movie rental to your existing business and generate extra sales and profit.

Today I want to add 5 other avenues to that theme so all together you will have 10 ideas, but please understand you are not limited to this 10 ideas, there are many other avenues and ways that you can do this. What I am offering here are some ideas that I have tried in our business and seen some positive results and at times great success. You can spin some of these ideas and come up with something better, bigger and or more innovative and creative ways to increase your business.

So let's get started here, in today's' episode I want to cover 5 more mini business models all of which can add extra revenue to your existing sales and make you more money at the end of the day.

1. Deli (fresh food)

• Health dept requirements
• Equipment requirements
• Space requirements
• modification requirements
• What food to sell
• How to price your food items

2. Fresh Fruit
3. ATM
4. Money Order
5. Check Cashing

The book I want to mention today is called "How to win friends and influence people" by Dale Carnegie

This grandfather of all people-skills books was first published in 1937. It was an overnight hit, eventually selling 15 million copies. Since people and human nature do not change, this book is still just as popular as it was 60 years ago.

Remember to subscribe to my newsletter for any and all important updates that I mail out time to time

In this episode I discuss the basics of gas station book keeping practices and how to get it done with an ease. How to understand and analyze the numbers, How do you calculate profit and how to figure out what your breakeven point is for your business. I break is down to 5 parts and discuss each part in depth. So enjoy.

The book I want to recommend today is call Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet and Stephen Covey

I want to tell you about five proven marketing strategies that have worked for me for last 18 years. But remind you they will sound silly at first, but I want you to hear them out in their entirety before you knock any of them out.  After you hear me out then maybe you can go try them in your business and see how your business rises to the top.

Welcome to Gas station business 101 podcast, I am your host Shabbir Hossain, and this is episode 56. This is the show where we discuss how to start, run and grow a gas station business successfully and give you an inside look at many real life case studies so you can follow and be successful in this business.

Here are five silly sounding strategies you can take and become a unique retailer in your area. Trust me they work; I have tried and tested them for last 18 years. Just trust me on this okay? Before you knock these proven ideas, hear me out, let me explain each and you will see and hopefully agree with me. So here we go...

1. Know your Customer
2. Give them something for Free
3. Feed them Free
4. Support your local community
5. Give out Candy to Kids

(Listen to the episode for all the details)

If you have any question, feel free to send me an email at shabbir@gasstationbusiness101.com, or you can post it on my Facebook group page by going to shabbirhossain.net

Don't forget to sign up for my very important newsletter; you can simply sign up for it by going to http://gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe

For all our international listeners, if you are interested in learning about the investment category visas and how to get one of those by investing in a gas station business, do check out my new book USA Investment Visa to Green Card, How to Qualify, Apply and Obtain EB-5, E-2 and L-1 Visa. You can find this book on most online retailers like Amazon, Apple iTunes store, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and most other online booksellers.

In the meantime, if you haven't subscribed to this podcast, feel free to do so, and if you like this show, I would love to see a review from you on iTunes or where ever you download this episode from.

Here is a link to my podcast page on iTunes, if you follow this link you can give me a review right on that page. Trust me it will make my day and won't cost you anything other than maybe 30 seconds of your time.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/gas-station-business-101-podcast/

Thank you once again for joining me in this episode; I will see you in the next one.

Cheers!

Welcome to episode 13 of GSB 101 podcast. I have decided to do another episode on the 1k profit theme since the feedback I have received so far has been overwhelming, so I am on a roll can you tell? I have had the idea that I would want to do a podcast on how to increase bottom line profit by a certain dollar figure without increasing the sales. But didn't think I would be doing it so soon.

In this episode, I discuss how we can all save again another 1k by focusing and tweaking some of your pricing strategies. Sounds too simple to be true? Well sometimes the simplest things can bring you great results so stay with me, and I will go step by step and show you how you can do it.

In this 2nd part of our last Q&A episode, I answer remaining 5 questions all related to buying gas stations and how to understand the numbers and if the stores are really making money or losing money. I also answer questions about how to grow your business with financing and how to take on a new partnership. I think you may find this episode helpful if you are in the market to buy a business. Here I analyze some sales numbers and see which ones are making money and which ones are not. Stay tuned.

Welcome to Gas station business 101 podcast, I am Shabbir Hossain, and this is episode 60. This is the show where we discuss everything under the sun about gas station and convenience store business, how to buy these businesses, how to operate them and how to grow them to be a million dollar success.

Question #4

Hope this email finds you and your family well.

I personally want to thank you for writing a book about Gas Station Business. You have explained very well process of how to buy and what to keep in mind before purchasing store.

I am in Gas Station with C-Store business since The year 2005. I have been thru many challenges similar to yours which you have explained in your book. I am currently looking for something to understand how to get finance to expand like big national corporations? Can you explore few points of financial strategies in order to expand in gas station business?

Your help will be highly appreciated.

Question #5

Dear Shabbir,

I will be running a gas station from April 1st. Let me give you the picture; the store owner still has 3.4 million volume of gas volume under contract. He splits his profit, expenses, credit card fees, and maintenance fees with a small oil company.

If I take his contract, I have to split the fuel profit 50/50, but I get 3 cents cheaper than other gas store. If I don't take his contract, I have to pay 3 cents more than his contract price. Which deal will generate more profit for me? Being a 1st-time business runner, I would appreciate your suggestions.

Question #6

Hi Shabbir

Thanks for the great article, it helps a lot. One question, though: when a seller say his store sales are 37k, does that figure normally including lotto and scratch off sales?

I am asking because one of the stores I looked at treated lotto, scratch off tickets and prepaid phone cards separate, so inside sales were more than what they were saying.

Thanks and keep it up

Question #7

Thanks for the great info. I had limited fund like around 100k, and most money making gas stations as I saw on websites are expensive. Do you think it is a good idea to go in partnership with a stranger? I have posted on cl for partnership and got responses, but I am curious about it.

Answer: Check out episode #21 where I spoke in details about how to create effective partnerships.

Question #8

Andres sent me this question, he is a long time listener and contributor of this show, he asked

Hi Shabbir I hope you are fine. Do you have a good template to control cigarettes in your stores? I would imagine your employee has to count the cigarette boxes when he starts the shift and also at shift end to reconcile the daily sales, right? If not, how do you do it?

Tune in and listen to this episode for all the answers.

If you have any question, feel free to send me an email at shabbir@gasstationbusiness101.com, or you can post it on my Facebook group page by going to shabbirhossain.net

Don't forget to sign up for my very important newsletter; you can simply sign up for it by going to http://gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe

In the meantime, if you haven't subscribed to this podcast, feel free to do so, and if you like this show, I would love to see a review from you on iTunes or where ever you download this episode from.

Here is a link to my podcast page on iTunes, if you follow this link you can give me a review right on that page. Trust me it will make my day and won't cost you anything other than maybe 30 seconds of your time.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/gas-station-business-101-podcast/

Thank you once again for joining me in this episode; I will see you in the next one.

Cheers!

This podcast is and will be all about gas station business, where I will discuss why and how to start a gas station business, how we can manage, market and operate them the most effective and innovative ways so we all can make more money, my goal is to show you how you can increase profitability and improve your bottom line. If you are new and looking to get started in this line of retail business then this is the show for you, if you are already a seasoned gas station business owner, this show is also for you, as I will discuss many ways to improve your business and add extra revenue so your bottom line numbers look better than before.

If you are not yet a gas station business owner, then you may want to listen to this episode, as I discuss what is like to be a owner or an operator of a gas station business, what are the daily challenges, and issues we face every day, and if you are already in this business, stay tuned and see if the challenges and issues I talk about matches what you face every day.

Welcome to Gas station business 101 podcast, I am Shabbir Hossain, and this is episode 48. This is the show where we discuss how to start, run and grow a gas station business successfully and give you an inside look at many real life case studies so you can follow and be successful in this business.

The idea for this very episode came from David, he sent me an email asking me to explain the day to day life of a gas station owner, so David here it is..

As a business owner we all get up every morning and hurry over to our business to start our day. Every business comes with its own sets of challenges, similarly gas station business comes with its own as well. today I want to discuss some of these daily issues and challenges and how we can manage them properly so they don't become a big burden on your shoulder.

Here are the 8 issues we will discuss today

1. Cash shortage/Overage
2. Error in daily paperwork
3. Merchandising issues
4. Vendor issues
5. Theft - Internal & External
6. Maintenance issues
7. Employee/Schedule issues
8. Various Inspections

If you are like me, the very first thing I do when I walk in to a store, I pick the daily close out report to see how much business we did the day before. Then I sit down and go through each shift report to see if there were any issues there. Next I will count money from all shifts and do my sales data entry in my bookkeeping system and balance the cash and the credit. Next, I check on any vendor and merchandising issues. Every store has some degree of theft, I try to analyze and see if there is any other safety measures that can be taken to minimize it. I then check on any issues related to maintenance either outdoor or indoor. Next comes the employee and scheduling issues, again every store has some degree of employee and or scheduling issues that needs to be resolved. Lastly I check on various compliance issues that we may have either from the local health department or from the brand inspectors.

Once again a big thanks goes to David as he is the one who came up with this topic, so this episode is fully dedicated to him.

If you have any question, feel free to send me an email at shabbir@gasstationbusiness101.com, or you can post it on my Facebook group page by going to shabbirhossain.net

Lastly, If you are about to buy a gas station for the first time, make sure to read my book "Gas Station Business Smart Start-up" How to measure profitability, how to come up with a valuation, how to calculate ROI, how to write a business plan and how to get financing for your new venture. You can find this book on most all retailers including Amazon, Apple iTunes, Kobo, Smashwords and Barnes and Noble.

For all our foreign listeners, if you are interested in learning about investment category visas and how to get one of those by investing in a gas station business, do check out my new book USA Investment Visa to Green Card, How to Qualify, Apply and Obtain EB-5, E-2 and L-1 Visa. You can find this book exclusively on Amazon for now.

Don't forget to sign up for my very important newsletter, you can simply sign up for it by going to http://gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe

Thank you once again for joining me in this episode, I will see you in the next one.

Cheers!

This is the very first episode where I will just answer all the email questions and comments I have received recently, as some of you may recall I stopped answering email questions few episodes ago so I can have the whole time to dedicate to the topic of each episode. But didn't want to ignore anyone's questions, so from now on this how I will be answering email questions.

Sometimes I get similar questions from a few people, and in those cases, I will just answer one where I will try to cover most all angles so everyone will have their answers.

Feel free to send me email questions at shabbir@gasstationbusiness101.com or you can post your question on my Facebook Group by going to shabbirhossain.net This a domain name that is forwarded to my Facebook group.

Let's get started...

The first question is from K. Patel, and he wrote: Shabbir, I love your podcast show, I am getting a lot of new ideas from you, but one question I have after listening to your episode 23 and 29, I was wondering how easy is it to duplicate that kind of success? Thanks a lot."

2nd question is from Neil; he asked what should be the idea salary for a store manager of a gas station

3rd question is from CJ and Ahmed, both asked similar questions, but the gist of it is they both want to know when looking to find a gas station to buy should they try to find FSBO or FSBB, as one of them is suspicious about going to a broker, he is afraid they will steer him in the wrong direction or wrong business.

The 4th question came from Jenny; she asked: " I enjoy your podcast show, one quick question as we are trying to decide what brand of station we should look for, We like both Exxon and Shell brand but is one better than the other and if so why?"

The 5th question came from David he writes " After looking at your sample business plan from your site, I noticed you showed moderate profit increase in your projected P&L, I want to show a much higher profit, but wanted to verify, is higher the better or am I wrong?"

Time to talk about the survey I ran in two different small business forums recently. I didn't get many replies, but again I am new to both of those forums, but they are truly great for all small business owners to visit and interact with other. I will link the forums on the show note so you can visit both.

Okay I asked these 5 questions:

1. Do you think Gas Station business is a good business to get into? If the answer is "No" then can you suggest a type of business you think people should get into
2.  How much money do you think it takes to get into a gas station business?
3.  Do you think the life expectancy of a gas station business is longer than many other retail businesses?
4. What do you think is the biggest obstacle to getting into a gas station business?
5. If you have the funds and are looking to get into a business, would you consider buying a Gas Station Business? If the answer is "No", what business would you buy?

 One again thanks for sending me the questions, I know I didn't get to answer everyone, but I will answer more in the next Q&A session I promise. In the meantime if you need a quick answer to a burning question, send it to my Facebook group.

 I haven't had a chance to read much of anything lately, so no book this week.

 Once again, if you haven't signed up for my very important newsletter yet, please feel free to do so by going to http://gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe.

Take care everyone; I will see you in the next episode.

Cheers!

In this episode, we discuss first 2 of the 6 P's of marketing mixes and how they can effect your business. We dive deep into "Place" and "Process" and their importance in the marketing effort of your business.

When it comes to a retail business, the "Place" or the location is the key factor to success, and we discuss 10 key points of a successful location, which are:

• Indoor lighting

• Outdoor Lighting

• Cleanliness

• Restroom

• Clutter Free Checkout Counter

• Parking Lot

• Ambience

• Effective layout

• Appealing Beverage Station

• Signage

• Operating hours

• Pricing Visibility

In the "process" mix, there are two types of process that takes place in any business.

• Inner Process
• Outer Process

We discuss both of these processes in depth.

In this episode, I discuss how you can get bank financing to buy a gas station business.  I discuss how to find the right bank that fits your needs. I discuss the difference between typical commerical loan Vs. SBA loans, what is LTV(Loan to Value).

 I also discuss the items/documents you need both from yourself and from the seller to furnish to your bank as part of the loan package.

Did you just buy a gas station business and now finding out that even with high sales volume the business is not generating enough profit for you? Are you struggling to just meet your basic business expenses? Or are you about to buy a business that will put you in the red? Some of our listeners have just found themselves in that exact situation, so stay tuned and let's analyze all that in this episode.

Welcome to Gas station business 101 podcast, I am Shabbir Hossain, and this is episode 49. This is the show where we discuss how to start, run and grow a gas station business successfully and give you an inside look at many real life case studies so you can follow and be successful in this business.

This episode is a direct response to 3 of our podcast listeners and the issues they are facing about their new business venture. I won't mention them by name since I didn't ask for permission ahead of time, so I will just refer to them as person A, B, and C.

Here is the situation, Person A recently sent me an email where he mentioned he recently bought a business but now a month and a half later he is still putting money into the bank just to meet his expenses. Person B sent me an email with a lot of sales data from a store he is thinking about buying and asked for my advice, and lastly person C just sent me an email which said he followed my advice that I gave on various podcast and bought a business but now he sees two of the categories in his new business has less profit margin than what I suggested. The two categories are automotive and cigarettes, where he said my suggestion was 15-17% on cigarettes but he found out his new business has only 5% margin, in the automotive category my suggestion was around 50%, but he sees around 18% margin. But what is alarming is that his cigarette sales are around 37% of his total merchandise sales while the automotive is only 3%

Do any of you remember listening to episode #1 and #33, in these two episodes, I shared my own life story and how I failed miserably in my first gas station business venture, and how I was taken for a fool by the sellers. I am not suggesting that this is what is happening to this three gentleman, but as buyers, we do have to be aware and be very careful, so this does not happen to any of us, right?

Let's start with Person A first, in his case, he is not sure why he is not making any money, in last two weeks we have shared a lot of sales and purchase data with me along with some of the selling prices on some of the products. Here are his numbers and since I am not sharing his name, I will share the numbers this way his privacy won't be compromised.

Last month these were his sales:

Fuel: 67,457.23 gallons

Merchandise $71239.05

Out of the 67K gallons, he sold 61900 gallons of regular fuel and 5100 gallons of premium and plus grade fuel.

The breakdown on merchandise were (I rounded the sales figure off)

Cigarette $27,000 X 15% = $4050

Beer         $16000 X 23% =  $3680

Soda         $12000 X 33% =  $3960

Grocery   $9000 X 35% =   $3150

Tobacco   $3000 X 23% =   $690

Novelty   $2500 X 40% =   $1000

Auto         $1000 X 50% =   $500

Deli         $500 X 35% =   $175

__________________________________

Sales $71,000 Estimated Gross Profit $17,205. The gross profit margin here is $24%

For the same month, he purchased $62,500 merchandise, which seems high for 71K total sales.

If inventory level remained the same both at the beginning of the month and at the end of the month, then he should have ideally only replaced what he sold at cost right? If so then his purchase should have been$71,000 - $17,205 = $53,795, but he bought $62,500 which was $8705 more. But this is not always bad; this can also mean he may have $9,000 worth of extra inventory sitting on his shelves, but to find that out it is a good idea to have your inventory counted on the 1st day of every month. In his case, he hasn't but he told me he doesn't think he has that much extra inventory. Instead, he thinks he has less than what he started with.

Now if his inventory has decreased compared to what he started with while he bought extra $9,000 worth of inventory, which can mean three things:

1. His profit margins are lower than we estimated
2. His having massive amount of theft
3. Or a combination of both

After I had concluded these 3 outcomes, I asked him to investigate and to tell me what are his profit margin by each department/category, he came back a few days later and informed me that his cigarettes were off by 4%, Beer was off by 3%, tobacco was off by 5%, auto was off by 6% and novelty was off by 10%. Only deli margin was higher than my estimated, and it was at 45% instead of estimated 35% and rest of the categories were pretty much same as predicted.

So, the new calculation looks like this now

Cigarette $27,000 X 11% = $2970

Beer         $16000 X 20% =  $3200

Soda         $12000 X 33% =  $3960

Grocery   $9000 X 35% =   $3150

Tobacco   $3000 X 18% =   $540

Novelty   $2500 X 30% =   $750

Auto         $1000 X 44% =   $440

Deli           $500 X  40% =   $200

__________________________________

Sales $71,000 Actual gross profit $15,210; the gross margin for him here is around 21%.

The difference between my estimate and the actual gross profit was $17,205 - $15,210 = $1,995.

Remember the difference of $8705 in inventory? Well that amount can now be reduced by $1985, so actually it should be $8705 - $1995 = $6710. He is still missing this much inventory in his store and now since we know the real profit margin, I can safely predict that he is having a serious case of theft in his store.

Person B sent me a lot of sales data, and since he hasn't bought his store yet, I have decided not to share any of that here, but what I want to share with you is that he found a good store and the sales and profit margins both look great, the store is selling around 80,000 gallons a month while the merchandise sales are right around $75,000 with combined gross profit margin is around 26% and he has done some hard work analyzing numbers and the spreadsheet he shared showed the purchase is very much in line with the sales and as Is aid the store has great profit margin both in and outside. So I advised him to go forward with the purchase.

Now, let's talk about person C, in his case he already bought the store, and he too analyzed his profit margin in each category and compared them to my suggestions and noticed that there are only two categories where he was off by big numbers compare to what I suggested.

1. Cigarettes my suggested margin is 15-17% he found out his was only 5%
2. Automotive category my suggestion is 40-50%, but his is 18%

The problem is Cigarettes represent 37% of total store sales while automotive at just 3%.

Do you see the problem here? Typically cigarettes carry anywhere from 20-40% of the total merchandise sales, but the since this is typically a low-profit margin category so if your store has lower sales in this category like 20-25% you are doing better than people with stores where they are having 40% of their sales coming from only cigarettes.

In his case, this is very unfortunate because let's assume his store sales are at $70,000, if you take 37% of that sales which is $25,900 is cigarettes only, and at 5% margin he is making $1295. This is a serious problem, let's assume he is making 30% combined gross profit on the rest of categories

$70,000 - $25,900 = $44,100 at 30% = $13,230 + $1295 = $14,525

But now let's look at if his cigarette margin was at 15%, how this number would change

$70,000 - $25,900 = $44,100 at 30% = $13,230 + ($25,900 X 15% = $3885) = $17,115

The difference is $17,115 - $14,525 = $2,590

Typically when gross profit is this low, it is hard to meet all your fixed and variable expenses and still make a profit.

So once again before you buy a business make sure to check episode 40 and 41 where I spoke at length about doing proper due diligence. In a nutshell remember to always check their sales vs purchase, if the seller tells you they are doing $70,000 merchandise sales and 50,000 gallons you want to check their records of actual sales documents like daily close out that comes out of the registers and not what they entered in their bookkeeping system, because when you go to buy a business you have to assume the seller may tell you lies, so I always tell people to let the seller prove to you that they are honest and truthful by showing you actual sales and purchases for at least last 2 years. This way you can draw your own conclusion. Don't look at their P&L; don't look at their balance sheet or income statement. These documents mean very little to you when it comes buying a gas station.

3 Things matter to you when doing due diligence:

1. Verifying actual sales
2. Verifying the purchases
3. Verifying their profit margin by category

Once you are satisfied, then move on to other parts of due diligence like expenses, payroll and such, but do follow the list I outline in episode 40.

Let's now talk about what if you bought a business like this person C did, how to fix this issue, how do you raise your margin so you can start making money? One advice is if you find yourself in this situation, please don't start raising prices day after you buy the business, which can harm your business beyond repair. Instead, you have to take a smart but slow yet steady approach.

Here are the six steps I would take:

1. Check on competitor's margin
2. Contact all three cigarette company reps and renegotiate the contracts
3. Raise price in at least three different increments with long intervals in between
4. Run 2 and three pack or even carton pricing special
5. Run at least two other promotion on other categories like Beer and maybe Soda
6. Start giving superior customer service and increase the WOW factor.

If you have any question, feel free to send me an email at shabbir@gasstationbusiness101.com, or you can post it on my Facebook group page by going to shabbirhossain.net

Lastly, If you are about to buy a gas station for the first time, make sure to read my book "Gas Station Business Smart Start-up" How to measure profitability, how to come up with a valuation, how to calculate ROI, how to write a business plan and how to get financing for your new venture.  You can find this book on most all retailers including Amazon, Apple iTunes, Kobo, Smashwords and Barnes and Noble.

For all our foreign listeners, if you are interested in learning about investment category visas and how to get one of those by investing in a gas station business, do check out my new book USA Investment Visa to Green Card, How to Qualify, Apply and Obtain EB-5, E-2 and L-1 Visa. You can find this book exclusively on Amazon for now.

Don't forget to sign up for my very important newsletter; you can simply sign up for it by going to http://gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe

Thank you once again for joining me in this episode; I will see you in the next one.

Cheers!           

Welcome to Gas Station business 101 podcast, I am Shabbir Hossain, and this is episode 42. For those of you who are joining me for the very first time, this is a show where we discuss from how to start, run and grow a gas station/convenience store business successfully and make money. In each and every episode we discuss a new topic that is targeted towards improving your business one step at a time.

Topics could vary from marketing ideas, to fuel management to bookkeeping and many more just like these topics, if you want me to cover a topic in a future episode, feel free to email me, and I will try my best to cover it in a future episode. Now here is the fun part, if you send me a topic that is valuable enough for everyone, and I make an episode out of it, that episode will be dedicated to you. Sounds good?

Let's get started.

Q1. How to use Facebook for gas station marketing? (Reference Episode#10)

Q2. Can leasing a gas station get me an E2 Visa? ( Reference Episode#31)

For answer also read my blog post by clicking HERE

Q3. I have ATM, should I start selling money orders too?

Q4. How to do I find out about previous contamination of a gas station that I am buying?

Q5. How do I know if the tanks of a Gas station I am buying has fiberglass tanks and not metal tanks like you said some stations have?

Q6. What kind of insurance do I need to get that can protect me from various loss and theft?

Q7. At closing the seller wants me to pay a percentage of the retail inventory, what should I do?

Q8. Should I change from selling diesel to selling E85 as E85 is much cheaper, and I am in a very competitive neighborhood

The announcement about the '" Ask Me Forum".

Since I have had issues after issues with the forum sign up and posting, I have deiced to take the discussion to my Facebook Group. So any of you that have signed up for my forum, my sincere apology, instead please sign up to my newsletter this way I will have you on my mailing list to notify any and all important updates. Also to ask me any question, please join my Facebook group and to do so just type http://shabbirhossain.net on your browser and it will take you to my Facebook Group.

If you haven't signed up for my newsletter where I send many valuable information through every couple of weeks, by all means, do so. This way you will be notified of any and all changes that affect our business. Just hit Subscribe below this page and you will be on the list.

If you need to ask me any question, you can do so by either sending me an email at shabbir@gasstationbusiness101.com, or you can join my Facebook group by going to http:.//shabbirhossain.net. It's a domain redirect; it will take you to my Facebook group page.

Cheers!

First, I want to rectify something I said in the last episode. Remember I spoke about a Facebook group I started, to make it easier for everyone I bought a domain that is easy to remember, which was Shabbir on facebook.com, and then I redirected that domain to my Facebook group. But three days later I received an email from Face book's legal dept. Asking me to stop and remove that domain for copyright infringement. So I had to cancel that domain.  Now here is a new one for you, type in ShabbirHossain.net and it will take you to my Facebook Group.

This episode is all about passive income ideas. But first, let me define what is really passive income. Well, passive income is a way to earn money where you are not actively working every day like you are in your gas station business. It is something that set it up once and see that work produce fruit every so often without you doing anything more. So it is more like a hands-off approach. You do work hard at first but then just let it set free and see it produce income which is in my book truly passive since you are not actively involved at the time it is producing that income.

I want to talk all about 8 ideas and theories that I have tried since 2012 and started making some money; I will talk about other businesses I am Involved in and how you can do the same and make money On and offline too.

1. Book Publishing

I got involved in book publishing back in 2012 when I was working on my own book, I started learning the fascinating world of book publishing and realized that many people like you and I are already making good money by publishing books.

If you have a creative writing side in you, use it, follow your passion, if you are always passionate about a topic or subject, and put your mind to the paper. There are many writing tools out there that can help you write that book you always thought about writing.

I am not a writer, never was one, I was terrified about writing essays in school and colleges, and so if I can write a book, I know you can too. I am sure most of you are afraid of making mistakes too. Well, that is why there are editors you can hire to fix your errors, and I did too. But it is still your book and your thoughts.

Once you write the book, you can then hire an editor, cover designer, even if you need someone to do the layout of the book for you, all from online. There are many websites where you can go and hire qualified professionals for very little money that will do all these jobs for you.

Once the book is ready, go to Amazon, Smashwords, Draft to Digital and on ACX and publish it by publishing in all three sites you will have the book available everywhere.

(Talk about where to go for book cover, where to go for editors, what programs that can use to help them write, lastly talk about Amazon, Smashwords, Draft to Digital and ACX)

2. Buy & sell websites

This may sound strange but just go to Flippa.com and you will see a big market place where people are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy or sell websites. It has become like buying actual real estate or homes; people even buy them just to flip, like some people do house and another real estate for profit. I have done it a few times but realized it takes a lot of time and money to buy the good ones. There are websites that can earn you thousands of dollars each month in ad revenue.

But be aware not all sites are money-making ones, some may look great on paper but in reality, they are not very good, just remember if it is too good to be true it probably is. If you see a site is making hundreds of dollars but only been established for a few months, then be aware, as some people can bring in paid traffic to a site and make you believe this is really happening naturally.  A site that has been around for a while is usually always a better buy even if you have to pay more for it upfront. One good indication is google page rank, for example, Google ranks CNN at 9 out of ten, so CNN's page rank is 9, now if you build a site today, Google will show it as an NR or 0 for next many months till Google sees it as a site where people come and visit often. And as you keep publishing content, you will see it rise up in ranking but slowly. So any site with page rank of 1,2 and higher shows that the site has been there for a while

3. Buy sell domains

Similar to Websites people do buy and sell domain names too, and some people even rent out a name for monthly income. Some people have made millions of dollars doing just this business; they got in back in late 90's when domain names were just coming up for sale. To give you an example, say you registered the name finance.com or food.com or health.com. How much do you think you would be able to sell them today? My guess is hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some people did just that. There are many sites you can go and see and try to buy them; there are auction houses that sell expired domains too.  

Food for thought, the smaller the word count is in a domain, the better off you are, as they are more brandable. For example, health .com is unique and says a lot about what it is right? But if you buy a domain like BestHealthAdvice4You.com may not be as desired as it is a long tail keyword and may not be as brandable.

4. Affiliate income (Amazon and Google Adsense blue host American Express)

This is the best and easiest way to make money in my opinion without investing a lot of money from your own pocket. Affiliate income is like referral commission but done online. There are many ways you can earn commission online by referring people to various products or services.

First, let's talk about what you need to make some affiliate income.  As I said affiliate income is done online, means you will need some kind of online presence like a blog or a website to be able to utilize this money making method. Now you can recommend a product or services to your readers, and if they buy those products or services, you get a commission. Sounds easy right? It is easy.

The most common way people make money with this is by building something call Niche sites, what is a niche site? Well, niche sites are websites in a very targeted and specific niche that is somewhat untapped or unsaturated. A website on body building or how to lose weight will not be considered niche sites because the topics are very popular and broad. Now if you build a site on how to build and tone triceps then yes you are getting closer to a niche, but again since bodybuilding is such a hot topic, you may still have to do some more research to see if that is niche enough or not. Maybe you can create a site on "how to build triceps for men over 50" now that maybe a niche enough topic. I am sure you get the idea. Similarly with diet, you can try a specific diet, but again as hot of a topic as they are you may have come up with a niche within that niche.

Once you know, you found a niche that people search for but has relatively low competition; then you can build a site with good information that people are looking for. Only then you can monetize the site either with Google ads or some relevant Amazon or other products that you can make affiliate commission from. A good niche site can make money many different ways, for example, say you have a site where you rate and compare home loans or consumer credit cards, if anyone clicks any of the credit card links and applies for that credit card, you can make anywhere from $10-$50 just from that one click.

But to be successful in the niche site market, it takes some good research first. You have to find a good keyword that has some search volume but also has low competition. The best way to search for keyword is by using a keyword tool like Long tail Pro. This tool does everything for you, just look at the snapshot of a result. It tells you how competitive the keyword is, what type of ad revenue you can make from that, what are the top sites that are ranking for that specific keyword. Once you have that keyword, rest are usually simple; you buy a domain name that matches the keyword and then get a hosting account and build a site. Sounds foreign? Well, it is really quite simple, buying a domain, a hosting account and installing your first site on that hosting account can be done in about 15 minutes. Let me explain these steps more in detail as we talk about #5 on the list which is Blogging, as both #4 and #5 both ideas both have the same requirements.

5. Blogging

This is another way to earn money online. If you have a blog or want to start one, by all means do so, it doesn't cost much to get started. The difference between a blog and a niche site is simple. A blog is typically a website where you discuss something that you are passionate and knowledgeable about, whereas a niche site is a niche that has not been properly filled yet, so you are filling that void with some good quality information even though you are not very knowledgeable about that topic. For example, my gasstationbusiness101.com is a blog site, since it is an ongoing site, meaning I am adding different content to it often, and as you can see I do not run advertisements on my site either. But if it were a niche site, it would not be as large, and there would be some type of advertisements displayed on the site.

Let's talk about the cost; you can buy a domain for around $10/year and a hosting account for around $30-$50/year, and you are done. Nowadays most good hosting companies like Blue Host where I host my sites,  are one of the easiest ones to deal with and offers great prices. If you think you want to try this,  you first need to find a niche that you want to build a site on, or if you want to start a  blog on a passion that you have, then this may be the best time for you to do so. Simply go to www.Name.com as they are usually the cheapest to buy domains from, then go to www.Bluehost.com and buy the lowest priced shared hosting account you can buy. Once you do that, you are almost there, now go to YouTube and watch this video to learn how to set up your site in 5 minutes then start blogging, whatever your passion is, and it could be anything really.

The best thing about affiliate income is that it is a win-win situation for you and your readers, often your readers will get a better deal like some percentage of the sale and you, on the other hand, make a commission from that same sale. 

The key is to gather enough readers, and once you get enough people coming to reads your blog, you can then start to monetize the blog in few ways and start seeing some cash.

Best and fastest way to monetize your blog is by Google Adsense; it is one of the easiest ways to get started.

6. Apps

Apps on both Apple and Android platforms are and have been very popular for last few years, people that got in early made a lot of money as the field was not as crowded as it is now, but there is always room for more. If you have an innovative idea for a new App, even if you are not an App developer or a programmer, you can still get an app developed. You can always hire a developer from one of the freelancer sites and explain to the person what you are trying to get done and let them do the work.

But before you do any of that, some in-depth research needs to be done, first, you need to find out if there is enough demand for the idea, second you need to find out how many apps are there, thirds if there are apps out there in the same market/niche, how will yours be different. Once you know the answers to all that time for you to hire a developer and get the ball rolling. No worry if you are not a programmer, as I said it is very easy to hire a professional and have it all done in just a couple of weeks. But for a good app development you need a clear idea and vision as to what the app should do and how it should look, if you are good with drawing, then you can draw it all up on paper as to how the app should look and then write up all the functionality it should have. Pass all that on to the developer and see them come up with the final product. Once they hand you a prototype, test it, ask them to tweak whatever you think needs tweaking. After they deliver you the final version, just simply upload it on Itunes or Android and watch it make money.  It is that simple.

7. Youtube

If you are like me, you go to YouTbe often, I use youtube like a search engine, anytime I need to know how to do some specific task I go there, I am sure you do too, but you don't realize that the videos we watch are made my people and often they are making money each time we watch their video. Yes, it is a huge business. If you are good at creating video and want to show off a talent that you have, by all means create a free Youtube account and start putting up videos, and soon you will see people are subscribing to your channel, and once you hit a certain number of views, Youtube will start sending you money.

8. Prescription card

This is an offline way to make money; it is a very old MLM method but still works like a charm. I use this myself; Let me explain what it is first. It is a business card shaped prescription savings card that you can sue when buying prescription drugs from a pharmacy and get good discount especially if you do not have health insurance. I got into it about a year ago. It was rather simple and easy to open an account, and I think I paid around $70 for all the business cards, flyers, business card holders- the whole deal. I then started to display few cards in a holder and placed them in many of our stores at the checkout counters. Then forgot all about it, about 3 months later I logged on to my account and noticed I made $72 the previous month and $37 the month before, it's not a lot of fo money but I was delighted to see the result since I really didn't do much other than putting a few business cards in 4 stores.

The prescription discount card saves an average of 15% on brand-name medication and 55% on generic medication. The bearer of this card will always receive the lowest price available for any particular FDA-approved medication at the chosen participating pharmacy. The card is accepted at over 80% of pharmacies in the U.S. and its territories, including both major chains and independent pharmacies and the card never expires.

Not only will you receive 7,500 cards when you sign up, but you will get two free websites. The first website, your .org site or cardholder site, enables you to direct people to a place where they can compare pharmacies and drug pricing to make sure they receive the best discount available with the card. The second website, your .info site, enables you, the Rep, to share this opportunity with others so you can start growing a successful downline

You can check it out by following the link below.

http://AmericasDrugCard.org/ASPI

Remember it has to be a niche, as they say, "riches are in the niches."

This week the book I want to recommend is a book that is my own if you recall two episodes ago I mentioned that I was putting the finishing touches on a retail marketing book call Sales Genie, Retail Marketing 101. Well, it has finally been published!!! You can find it on Amazon, B&N, Apple Kobo and few other online retailers.

This book is all about how to increase your retail sales by 25% in just 60 days, in previous episodes I covered a lot of what I talk about in this book. I took a broader approach and talked about what issues most retail businesses are facing now a days, I detailed out a 5 step plan if followed well one can boost their retail sales by as much as 25% in just two months. Some of the examples I gave are from my gas station business, but most of them can be applied to any other type of retail businesses too. Hopefully, you will enjoy reading this book. I did put in some hard work into it for last few months.

Once again don't forget to join my Facebook group where we can discuss and chat about business. I will be mailing out my Free EBook all about affiliate income to every subscriber of my newsletter, so if you haven't subscribed to my newsletter yet, please go to http://GasStationBusiness101.com/subscribe and sign up.

Cheers!

Useful Links and Resources

 Domain and Website Hosting

Name.com for Cheapest Domains

Bluehost.com For hosting account

Hire editor, designer, logo designer or any other work online

Freelancer.com

Upwork.com

Fiverr.com

Publish Books on

kdp.amazon.com

Createspace.com

Smashwords.com

Prescription Card

http://AmericasDrugCard.org/ASPI

Affiliate Market Place

cj.com

clickbank.com

Amazon.com

In this episode I discuss a 8 point checklist that one should follow as the pre closing checklist to ensure the closing transaction is done smoothly and without any unnecessary hiccups. Not to mention following these 8 points property can save thousands of dollar.

1. Check the merchandise pricing to make sure they are not out or range
2. Negotiate the retail to cost percentage of the inventory you will be paying to the seller
3. Meet with the employees and explain to them what is taking place
4. Plan with seller for transfer of all regulatory licenses
5. Transferring all utilities under your company
6. Notifying all vendors about the change
7. Identifying all unsalable merchandise at the closing day
8. Follow proper Inventory counting process

The book I mention in this episode is The School of Greatness: A Real-World Guide to Living Bigger, Loving Deeper, and Leaving a Legacy by Lewis Howes

In this week's episode I talk about how to create effective working partnerships to grow your business rapidly.

I discuss 3 key ways you can build an effective partnership:

1, Working Partnership

2. Equal Partnership
3. Multiple Partnership with One Key Operation Person

I also discuss what are the key characteristics you need to look for when looking to build a partnership and why and how they can be successful.

Would you like to know how to build a gas station from scratch? Do you wonder what all it takes to build one of those? Let's discuss what it takes to build a gas station from start to finish. Stay tuned...

Welcome to Gas station business 101 podcast, I am Shabbir Hossain, and this is episode 51. This is the show where we discuss how to start, run and grow a gas station business successfully and give you an inside look at many real life case studies so you can follow and be successful in this business.

Today's episode idea came from a long time listener name Shahnawaz so this episode is dedicated to him and thank you Shahnawaz for bringing such a wonderful and important topic to the forefront.

He sent me a list of questions to answer, and these questions are:

1. What are good traffic count #s that make a profitable gas station site?
2. What are good income level demographics that make a profitable gas station site?
3. What are good population density demographics that make a profitable gas station site?
4. How far away from the site should other gas stations and hypermarkets be in order not to pose a threat to business?
5. What are some good design characteristics of a gas station/c-store?                  1. How many MPD and fueling positions should I put?                  2. Should I do a 4,000 sqf store with 2,000 sqf branded fast food? Advantages and Disadvantages for doing so?                 3. How many signs?  What's the cost vs. benefit for them?                 4. How many coolers, freezers, cashier stations, etc?                 5. Any other design mistakes that developers make?  Maybe have more expensive glass so people can see into store or have high ceilings and better modern design?     F. Based on the traffic counts, income levels, population, competition, and design characteristics, how do you forecast the following revenue?                 1. Fuel volume - # of gallons sold per month                 2. C-store sales - gross sales per month                 3. Fast food sales - gross sales per month

Since "how to build a Gas Station from start to finish" is a vast topic, I have decided to break it up in to two parts. In this first part we will cover:

Site selection, basic market research, demographics research, deciding what size to build and sales projection . On the next episode we will cover the actual planning, brand selection, hiring the right contractor, How to save money in the building process, cost to build, pre opening and grand opening.

Site Selection Basic Market research Market study done by oil companies)

• Zoning
• Traffic count
• Demographics
• # of Competitors

Here are the criteria for most major brand duel companies:

Not every site is suitable for retail fuel sales, and major oil companies such as Chevron, Shell, and ExxonMobil have established minimum criteria that must be met before sites can carry their brands. These site selection criteria are established to help retail operators select economically viable sites.

Brand identity and protecting their brand's public image are important to oil companies. The specific site selection criteria used by ExxonMobil are listed here to provide an example of how oil companies evaluate potential sites:

* Exclusivity of trade area--A trade area's supply and demand profile is a key factor in site selection.

* High traffic counts--There should be 18,000-20,000 vehicles passing by the convenience store each day.

* +56,000 net usable square feet--The company will consider less square footage for stores in metropolitan markets.

* Residential density--There should be 15,000 existing or planned residences within a 1.5-mile radius.

* Excellent visibility--The site must be visible from one-third of a mile away.

* Excellent accessibility--There should be convenient ingress and egress from both primary and secondary streets.

* Signalized corner intersections--Ideally, stores should be located at four-corner sites.

What size to build

• How many MPD's
• Actual size of the store
• Deli or no Deli

Sales Projection

• Fuel
• Merchandise

If you have any question, feel free to send me an email at shabbir@gasstationbusiness101.com, or you can post it on my Facebook group page by going to shabbirhossain.net

Lastly, If you are about to buy a gas station for the first time, make sure to read my book "Gas Station Business Smart Start-up" How to measure profitability, how to come up with a valuation, how to calculate ROI, how to write a business plan and how to get financing for your new venture. You can find this book on most all retailers including Amazon, Apple iTunes, Kobo, Smashwords and Barnes and Noble.

Don't forget to sign up for my very important newsletter; you can simply sign up for it by going to http://gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe

Don't forget to tune in to listen the 2nd part of this episode which will be out in about a week or so. In the mean time if you haven't subscribed to this podcast, feel free to do so, and if you like this show, I would love to see a review from you on iTunes or where ever you download this episode from.

Thank you once again for joining me in this episode; I will see you in the next one.

Cheers!        

How to Promote a Gas Station Business effectively both on and offline

In this 10th episode I cover the last P (promotion) of the 6P's of Marketing mix. Here we talk about how to promote your Gas station business both online and offline.

We start with offline promotions like in store and local area marketing in which there are 3 types of promotions you can do:

1. Promotion via products

2. Promotion via Pricing

3. Promotion via People or Employees

We also talk about how to split test each promotion and see which one of the marketing efforts are brining you better success

Lastly we talk about how to promote a store online via Facebook.

In this episode I shared some of my very own marketing successes most of which you can take and implement in your business right away.

The book I want to recommend today is The power of habit, why we do what we do in life and business by Charles Duhigg

In this episode I outline the complete 15 step prosess to buying a Gas Station/Convenience store successfully.

GSB-39: Why Gas Station Business is a Good and Solid Long-Term Investment

Welcome to Gas station business 101 podcast, I am Shabbir Hossain, and this is episode 39. This is the only show of its kind where we discuss how to start, run and grow a gas station business successfully, and I give you an inside look at many real life case studies so you can follow and become successful in this business.

There are many great business and investment opportunities out there if you ever read the Entrepreneur magazine or the franchise magazine you will see they have a list of 10-20 great names of franchise businesses that you can invest and make money with.

Back around 2005-2006 one of the leading magazines named  Quiznos as the number one franchise to buy in the US,  look at it today, from around 5500 stores in 2008 now they are barely surviving with just a few.

The same analogy can go for other similar fast food businesses; there are new ones popping up every day, but the number of customers in any given city is not growing at the same rate, so the pie is getting thinner and smaller every day.

Then some say why not invest in a retail mini strip mall and build a few retail spaces and rent them out. Well, good idea but what if you can't rent all the spaces? Did you notice how mini strip malls are being built everywhere? It's the old analogy of supply and demand. If the supply is abundant, then the demand will go down thus driving the price down. In this case, the required rent per square feet will be less. But to build and make a profit from it,  you would need certain $ per square feet of space that you lease out.

On the other hand, how many gas stations do you see that are being built every day? Not many I know, not to mention you don't see too many vacant gas stations around you either right? Why? There is a good reason for it; it's not as easy as opening up a Quiznos or any other franchise nor it is easy to open build one. So the demand for this type of business has never gone down.

Let's look at

7 Undeniable Reasons why Gas Station Business is the Best Long-Term Investment.

1. Recession proof business model
2. Comparatively low competition
3. Selling basic Necessities
4. High Profitability
5. Low Interest rate
6. Longer life cycle than most other retail businesses
7. High ROI

 If you haven't signed up for my newsletter, feel free to do so by going to

http://www.gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe/

and you will be receiving many valuable tools that you can use in your business everyday.

Cheers!

What is a Branded Gas Station?

Branded stations are what we see around us the chevrons, the shells, the marathons, the Bps the Mobil stations, all these are examples of branded stations.

On the other hand, the unbranded stations are the one that you also see around you like the quick stop, the express mart, where you will see names like that but no sign of a branded logo anywhere.

The primary difference between a branded and unbranded is the fuel additive most every brand use. Most brands use millions of dollars in advertising their brand and about their fuel quality due to the additive they sue.

I am sure you have seen words like Chevron with Techron, or similar type of advertisements

These additives are mostly designed to improve fuel economy and clean your fuel system and reduce carbon emission.  Naturally you should ask what about the people that buy unbranded fuel? What happens to them? Do they all suffer from lower fuel economy and dirty fuel system?

Well no, they are not, The government has a lot to say about the quality of fuel, such as the octane, sulfur content, vapor pressure, quality, lead content, ethanol content, etc.

There is a very specific standard that ALL fuel must meet before it may be legally distributed and sold in most countries.

So in reality, the ONLY difference in quality between branded and unbranded fuel is the additive that branded suppliers add. They also add a massive amount of marketing for that additive, trying to convince the consumer that the additive is worth the extra 5 to 25 cents per gallon. Chevron with Techron, Shell Nitrogen Enriched gasoline, Conoco and Phillips 66 add twice the amount of detergent, as just a few examples.

You may also ask then why buy branded when we can save money by buying unbranded. Well again you can do that, but most people with expensive new cars tend to stay with branded fuel as they want that extra additive, it gives them a mental peace, not to mention typically the branded stations are cleaner, brighter, and they all have to maintain a certain standard to remain branded.

Just remember the chemical standards set by the federal government for gasoline are more than sufficient for your car. In fact, car engines are designed to operate on gasoline refined to meet those basic standards. To be honest, purchasing the more expensive, branded gasoline is an unnecessary expense that is marketed as a “must have” for higher end vehicles.

However, many consumers see branded fuels to be more trustworthy and are often willing to pay a little more for that peace of mind. From a retail perspective, it’s important to consider your customer's comfort level in this regard.

Let's identify few of the top brands for the US market.

Shell

Also known as Royal Dutch Petroleum Corp. Shell is based out of the Netherlands. It is the 7th largest company in the world and the 2nd largest oil company in the world. They have a very strong presence in the US also not to mention a very strong credit card base.

Chevron Texaco

Chevron is an American company; it has active businesses in more than 180 countries in the world. It too has a very strong presence throughout the US.

Exxon Mobil

Exxon Mobil is by far the largest oil company in the world. Especially after the merger of Exxon and Mobil in late 90's they truly became the largest of all oil companies. Naturally they are the strongest brand as well with a very strong credit card base

Conoco Phillips

Conoco merged with Phillips in early 2000. Lately they are establishing a brand call Phillips 66, but when it comes to strong brand recognition and a strong credit card base they fall short when you compare them to the other brands like Exxon or Chevron

Valero

Valero is also a fortune 500 company like all other names I mentioned beforehand. Valero has one of the largest retail operation in the US with almost 7000 retail and wholesale outlets.

Marathon

Marathon also owns Speedway and thus they are the nation's second-largest chain of company-owned and operated gas stations.

BP

Also known as British Petroleum headquartered in London, England. It is also the 6th largest oil company in the world. BP has a very large presence in the gas station and retail sector. They have over 7,000 gas stations in the US and little over 17,000 worldwide. So they too have a very strong credit card base in the US.

Advantages of having a branded business:

The image

The support

The credit card base

The Marketing

Disadvantages of Having a Branded business:

The Price Difference

The cost of Image

The upgrade cost

The quarterly inspection

Advantages and disadvantages of having a nonbrand business:

Lower price vs. higher price

Freedom to do whatever vs. following branded company guidelines.

Bottom line:

If you are in the market for a gas station, don't try to find a specific brand, instead, try to find a good and profitable business first. Your focus should be on the profitability of the business and not on what brand the business is carrying. 

But if your heart is set on brands, then look and see what are the two strongest brands in your city or locality, then figure out which one of those is not nearby where you are looking to start your business.

If you are building a gas station from scratch, then things become little different. As most jobbers that represent these branded oil companies offer some incentives to brand with their company.

For example, if you are building a new station, and the projection says your business will pump around 70,000 gallons a month then some of the local jobbers may offer you a good amount of money up front to brand with them.

Don't forget they are offering you the money to offset the branding cost you would have to pay to erect their price sign, to wrapping the canopy and the building according to their image guidelines.

Typically you would have to sign a 10 year fuel supply contract to get that money also. It is a good idea to ask and get offers from 2-3 brands and see who is offering you the best deal.

Hope I was able to clarify the questions some of you have asked before. If you have any other question, please feel free to send me an email at shabbir@gasstationbusiness101.com. You can also join my new Facebook group by going to http://ShabbirHossain.net

Also, don't forget to sign up for our newsletter as I will be sending out some valuable information again very soon. So don't miss out on that, and again it is all free, and I will not try to sell you anything. Just go to http://GasStationBusiness101.com/subscribe

Cheers!

GSB-24: How to Negotiate Vendor's Contracts to Your Advantage and Win- The Pain and the Gain

Pain: If you are in c-store business already then you know how much pain it can be to negotiate vendor's contracts to your advantage. Just remember one thing, the contracts are often written by their legal dept and it is always to benefit them and not YOU. They are always looking out for them and not YOU. Unless you have a big legal dept with a few high paying attorney's on board, it is hard to negotiate with them, it is usually their way or the highway. But as a small business owner most of us do not have access to big law firms or a legal dept, not to mention if we even try to hire an attorney to negotiate on our behalf, we can go bankrupt just by going back and forth and paying their legal bills. So I know most of us often the sensible approach and read these contracts, talk to the vendors and ask other retailers about how they handled their contracts and then try to find comfortable ground and that is in my opinion  is the most sensible approach to dealing with these legal contacts.

Gain: There are benefits to having contracts too, say just for signing you can get rebate back to you or get to sell their products cheaper and they reimburse you the difference, sure why not. But have to read them carefully to make sure it makes sense for your business.

Type of Contracts:

There are mainly 4 types of contracts in a gas station business

1. Brand contracts these are the hardest one to deal with, typically given by your fuel suppliers, soda companies, and Cigarette and tobacco companies
2. Supply contracts or I call them mini contracts typically given by your janitorial and other service related companies
3. Service contracts, typically given by your phone, internet companies to ATM, vacuum and similar type of companies.

4.Certain product or brand placement contract, often given by candy companies like Hershey's and such

Which Vendors offer you contracts? Before we jump to high on this issue, let's first see which of our vendors usually offer us contracts. A typical gas station/c-store usually have anywhere from 10-20 vendors that supply you from fuel to all your restroom supplies, your beer, soda and all your grocery and store supplies. Now not all of them offer or ask you to sign something, and that is a good thing, because if we have to sign 15 or 20 of them just to stay in business, we won't get much done, as we would be too busy to read and negotiate these legal documents for a long time.

Most often you will see contracts are offered by your tobacco and cigarette companies, then you will see contracts are offered by your soft drinks such as coke and Pepsi company, then you have your general grocery company who may also offer you some type of contracts based on what you buy from them. Then there are mini supply contracts by some service vendors, like Cintas or similar service companies that offer and sell you all the paper and janitorial supplies. But there is a big difference between these mini supply contracts and the big tobacco or soda contracts. The mini supply contracts are simple, they mostly make you aware that since they will install various dispensers in your store for free you should honor that free of charge service and buy their products only. To me these are reasonable contracts and yes since they have invested interest you really should buy from them

Then there are contracts from your local phone, internet or cable companies, ATM contracts, vacuum machine, pay phone and such contracts.

1. Now let's dive right in and talk about the first and the biggest one of all, the brand contracts

Fuel contract

Cigarette/Tobacco Contracts

Soft drinks contracts

2. Next is Supply contracts, which are as I said before, much simpler to handle and understand.

Grocery company

Janitorial company

3. Next comes the service contract, often offered by your internet or phone companies to trash pickup service to ATM machine, to Vacuum machine you have at your store. You have to be careful about some of these contracts as well.
4. Product and or brand placement contract. These are often the simplest and easiest contracts to handle, and often they come with some money too without much of hassles. see I saved the best for last?

Well yes they are easy compare to what we just talked about, typically a candy company can come and offer you couple of hundred bucks to display a mini racks with some of their candy either on the checkout counter or someplace visible and just for that hey offer to pay you certain amount of money every year.

Last word:

Just remember the contract has to be beneficial to your business , because you have to look at your best interest, and not theirs, you are in business to make money and not to make sure they make their money regardless if you do or not.

In this episode I address and answer many questions on a very important topic of EMV upgrade for which I have received many emails for. If you own a gas station business or any other retail outlet, you need to listen to this episode so you know what you need to do to comply with the new requirements.

The questions I answer in this show:

1. What is EMV update?
2. Why is it required?
3. When is the deadline?
4. What's the cost?
5. What are the pros?
6. What are the cons?
7. What should I do?

The book I mention in this episode is Secrets of a Master Closer: A Simpler, Easier, and Faster Way to Sell Anything to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere By Mike Kaplan

In this episode I discuss how you can get started in Gas Station Buisness even when you are short on Cash. I outline 3 ways you can get started which are:

1. Crowd funding
2. Getting Investors
3. Getting Partnership

I outline how you can achieve success with your funding issue. I discuss every tools and documents you need to get it done properly and right the very first time. So enjoy!

There are risk factors associated with buying any new businesses, I am sure you all know that but when it comes to buying a gas station, last week I spoke about 9 factors to check as part of your normal due diligence for your business. This week I want to address 7 hidden risk factors that can also literality make or break your business even before you get started with your new business, so you need to check and verify that will not be the case ...stay tuned and I will tell you all about them...

Let's get started.

As you are aware that most every new business has its own sets of challenges and risk factors. I spoke about many business risks and challenges in episode 32, if you have not heard that episode, I strongly advise you do so as I discussed many of the legal issues your business can face and how to mitigate them the proper and cost-effective way.

As you recall this is part of the two part due diligence series I wanted to cover. In part-1 which was episode 40 we covered the usual 9 due diligence factors like

1. The store location
2. Demographics
3. Age and brand
4. Physical inspection of the store Talk about the issues we noticed
5. Recommended upgrades and how much those upgrades would cost
6. Indoor Issues
7. Outdoor Issues
8. Sales and financials
9. Projected P&L vs. Real P&L

But today I want to discuss something that is a different kind of risk your business may face but you can again mitigate them by checking on them before you buy the business. It is similar to buying a used car, and before you buy that far, you should take it to a great mechanic and have them check the car to the bottom to make sure there are no serious issues with the car and that it is in good condition.

Similarly in business, you can do the same thing, but instead of taking to a mechanic, get help from a profession who knows and understands what needs to be done. But you can also do the same thing if you spend a few days you too can do this task all by yourself and find out if the business you are about to buy is in good health or not.

These 7 risk factors are something that are very easy to overlook specially if you are not familiar with this line of business. It is not easy to detect an issue specially if you don't see it with your eyes.

Let's dive right in

Okay here are the 7 risk factors you need to check on:

1. Tanks (UST)
2. City Planning Commission
3. Upcoming mandatory upgrades
4. Profitability of the business
5. Fair market Price
6. Competition
7. Health, age and condition of the equipment and structure of the facility

If you haven't signed up for my newsletter where I send many valuable information through every couple of weeks, by all means do so. This way you will be notified of any and all changes that effects our business. Just hit subscribe below this page and you will be in the list.

If you need to ask me any question, you can do so by either sending me an email at shabbir@gasstationbusiness101.com or you can join my Facebook group by going to http:.//shabbirhossain.net. It's a domain redirect, it will take you to my Facebook group page.

Cheers!                       

I get asked this question often, and I have tried to answer them before as well, but let’s answer it once again in very much details so we can clear up any and all the confusion, let’s discuss how you can figure out how to calculate your fuel profit precisely and accurately.

Welcome to Gas station business 101 podcast, I am Shabbir Hossain, and this is episode 57. This is the show where we discuss how to start, run and grow a gas station business successfully and give you an inside look at many real life case studies so you can follow and be successful in this business.

Before we start, one important announcement, my new email server is working beautifully now, so if you are on my email newsletter list, I am sure you already noticed you are receiving my seven very important how to find and buy a gas station email series. If any of you are not receiving these emails, please sign up again, and that should solve the issue, you can simply go to http://gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe or go to my blog at http://gasstationbusiness101.com and sign on the landing page. You will also receive my free eBook 9 Passive income idea book for signing up.

Okay now on to the show… 

First take a look at the attached daily fuel price notification that we all receive from our jobber/suppliers. This is the price we pay to buy our fuel. Remember it will vary city to city, state to state and country to country. What I pay for a gallon of regular in Alabama may not be the same as someone buying the same brand fuel in NY City. But a couple of things to consider here, if you look at this fuel prices you will notice there is a difference in price between the regular, Mid-grade and premium right?

Well, typically, your mid-grade price should be around 15 cents higher than your regular price, the same way your premium price should be around 50 cents higher than your regular price. So, you need to price your fuel accordingly.

Let me show you how.

Price       Regular         Mid-Grade             Premium

Cost        $1.89             $2.04                   $2.39

1. Profit:   $.10               $.35                     $.50

(Listen to the show for details on how we price our fuel)

Now let’s look at the Excel image of the fuel margin calculation, it will be easier for you to understand this episode if you can see the excel sheet. You can also download this and use it for your business as well.

(Listen to show for full discussion on this)

To download the Fuel Profit Calculator please click below (In Microsoft Excel Format)

http://www.gasstationbusiness101.com/Fuel-Profit-Calculator

If you have any question, feel free to send me an email at shabbir@gasstationbusiness101.com, or you can post it on my Facebook group page by going to shabbirhossain.net

Don't forget to sign up for my very important newsletter; you can simply sign up for it by going to http://gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe

In the meantime, if you haven't subscribed to this podcast, feel free to do so, and if you like this show, I would love to see a review from you on iTunes or where ever you download this episode from.

Here is a link to my podcast page on iTunes, if you follow this link you can give me a review right on that page. Trust me it will make my day and won't cost you anything other than maybe 30 seconds of your time.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/gas-station-business-101-podcast/

Thank you once again for joining me in this episode; I will see you in the next one.

Cheers!

Once again I answer few more burning questions I have received from my newsletter subscribers when I asked via a survey about their biggest struggle in business. So here it is, I talk in depth about why and how gas station business model is still a viable business model and why people should invest in it, and why it is still so lucrative.

I look closely at issues like:

Why and how it is good business:

If you read my book, then you most likely know I spoke at length about how Gas station is truly one of the very few recession proof businesses out there. I am sure everyone remembers the big financial meltdown of 2008; we lost something in that disaster right? I know I lost a lot, I still remember that pain and heartache of losing so much that I worked so hard for over many years. I am sure all of you still remember that time; l am sure you all have seen businesses closing down around you, from restaurants to big name retailers at the mall. But honestly, how many gas stations have you seen closing down during that time? Most likely none zero. Even when we are broke and without a job, we still need fuel for our cars; we still need that gallon of milk for our kids, and if we are smokers we still need that cigarette and that beer right? Chances are we go the neighborhood store for all that.

During the recession this industry was one of the very few that have seen growth, meaning we actually have seen sales increased in some parts of the country.  Now fast forward to 2015, according to Wall Street Journal US automakers sold 17.5 million new cars last year. An increase of almost 6% over the previous year. Last time this happened in the US was 15 years ago. We also sold around 40 million used cars at the same time. Not to mention fuel prices are the lowest in many years.

All these cars and trucks need fuel to run, and we are at the front line to provide them with that need. Good news is you can not order gasoline on Amazon, or any other place online, for fuel you need to go to a local gas station. Similarly, You can not order tobacco, beer or cigarettes or milk online you have to buy them locally.

In this ever changing the world of internet, many retailers are truly suffering from losing sales to online retailers, take a look at any of the office supply chains, you hardly see cars in their parking lots anymore as Amazon and other big online retailers took a lot of business from them. I am sure you also remember the death of Circuit City, as big as they were, they still had to go, simply because they were losing way too much revenue to the online competitors. But luckily we don't have that issue, GAs stations are unique we thankfully yet do not have to compete with online companies.

Why you should get into it

Well, you should get into it simply to make a living. But more importantly, a life expectancy of a gas station business is over 50 years or more, look around you, I am sure you will find stations that have been in that exact same location for decades, yes they may have gone through a few facelifts and remodeling, but they are still there.

Anytime we look into a new business. First, we often consider the viability of that business and that industry, and as you can see the viability of this industry is very solid and strong. Depending on location and state and city you are located at, often the investment is still not too high, especially if you are looking to lease rather than buy. Best of all you usually see a cash flow the very next day.

But don't get me wrong, not every gas station you come across makes money, so don't just go and buy the very first station you see for sale. I outlined a detailed gas station buying process that you should follow and see if a specific business is worth investing.

What it takes to get into it

If you guessed CASH, you are right! Yes, it takes some cash to get into the business. But along with cash, it takes few more things, like decent enough credit, good negotiation skill and lot of common sense.

Do Gas Stations Make money?

That is the biggest question I get asked more than any other question. To answer it simply, Yes gas stations generally speaking make decent money. I have made a decent living out of them for many years now. But again as I just mentioned not all gas stations are created equal, so not everyone is making money. It is your job to find out which one does before you buy one.

Let's now talk about a real life example and some basic calculation to figure out if a station that is for sale makes money or not.

I recently came across a station for sale by an oil company; they gave me some sales volume for the last three years. Now talk about this gas station and see if I should go forward with it or say no to the seller.

Okay I am better at calculating figured monthly, but most sellers provide yearly numbers, so I just broke them down by month,  so for 2015 they had an average monthly merchandise sales of $37k I just took the average, even though they did less in the winter months and higher in the summer months. Monthly fuel sales were 63000 gallons. All other monthly income was $860 (ATM, Air, Vacuum, etc.) monthly.

Let's now first figure out their gross profit for each month. At 37k/Month Sale with 26% profit margin their gross profit is $37,000 X 0.26 = $9620

On fuel, I noticed they average around 7-9 cents on Regular grade, 12-15 cents on Plus grade and around 20-25 cents on premium grade fuel. I asked for a breakdown of their fuel sales, and this is how the calculation looked

Average monthly regular gallon sold 54,000 X.07 (cents) = $3,780

Average monthly Plus gallon Sold 4,000 X .12 (cents) = $480

Average monthly Premium gallon sold 5,000 X .20(cents) = $1,000

So monthly fuel gross profit is $5,260

Let's now add both fuel and merchandise profit $9,620 + $5,260 = $14,880

Next step let's figure out their expenses:

I calculated the mortgage/rent to be $3,500 (The price is $350,000) in any of these type of investments it is safe to calculate the rent to be 1% of the total investment

Next we have Payroll is $5,000 (the store is open 18 hours a day 365 days a year, single employee coverage so the math looks like this 18 X30 (Days) X 9 ($9/hour which includes payroll taxes) =$4,860, I just rounded it off to $5,000 (but there is no management salary in this payroll)

Next, all utility bills together are around $2,750

Tax and insurance are right at $975

Credit card fees are around $2,450

Then I added all the rest like license fees, shortage and loss, store supplies and maintenance together came to $1,116

I know I am mentioning a lot of numbers, and it can be confusing, so head on over to my blog and go to podcast #26 and see the attached Excel sheet where I did this exact P&L so that you will have a much clearer understanding.

Okay adding up all these expenses the total is $15,791

Now let's subtract the expenses from the gross profit so we can get to the net monthly profit dollar

$15,740 - $15,791 = ($51)

As you can see the store is doing little less than break, even point.

Now if I were new to this business and willing to work 10-12 hour days behind the counter and have limited funds, I would definitely buy this store. Because I know by working in the store I can build up the business and make it a profitable store, but for people who will run with hired help, this is not a business they should buy. I politely notified the sellers that I will not be moving forward with this store.

Lastly, let's talk about ROI or Return On Investment. Typically if you are leasing a business where there is not real estate involved your investment should come back within the first 3-4 years. I have seen stores that returned the investments in just two years. Say you leased a running gas station business for $200,000, and your monthly net profit is $8,500, in this case, you get your investment back in little less than two years; remember not to add the money you paid for the inventory into this investment calculation.

Now if you are buying a business with real estate, then the calculation is very different. Say you bought the same business like we just talked about but instead of leasing you bought it outright for $800,000, Now your calculation will be different, to buy the property you had to put some down payment towards the purchase price, so your loan payment will be lower than your rent payment, so, in this case, your monthly net will be higher. You will also get to write off the depreciation cost on equipment, fixtures and building every year which will give you a nice savings amount every year.

Once again as I mentioned in my episode 25 two identical stores with identical sales volume in two different cities can show a very different net profit or loss even. If you recall the two examples, I spoke about where one in Chicago and one in a small town in Mississippi. I just wanted to mention that again, so everyone is clear. In bigger cities the rent or mortgage is much higher, the property taxes are higher the employee cost is higher. So if you do the same math as we just did, both stores may look same when you take the merchandise and fuel profit, but will look very different when you calculate the expense part, and that can make all the difference in the world.

Since this episode again is answers to many emails I have gotten, I will not be answering any other email. But I would like to recommend a book this week again. I had a chance to catch up on my reading and here is a book Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street by John Brooks. I know you will enjoy reading this book because it is a financial thriller based on true story. I really enjoyed reading it, and I know you will too. Bill Gates said this is the best business book he had ever read.

Don't forget to sign up for my newsletter by clicking below, and if you like my podcast, I sure would love to see a review from you on the iTunes, this way I can reach more listeners and will be able to help more people.

Cheers!

In this episode I discuss both sides of pricing, the price you pay to buy your merchandise and fuel and then the price you sell that same merchandise and fuel for also known as your selling price. I outline how to have a creative and effective pricing strategy that makes a retail business stand out in this crowded and competitive market.

After listening to this podcast, you will learn how to creatively price each category:

• Cigarettes

• Tobacco

• Drinks

• Soda

• Alcoholic beverages

• Auto Accessories & Oil

• Fuel

I also talk about how to negotiate with vendors and buy at the lowest possible price so you can sell with a competitive price and still make a great profit margin.

In this Episode I discuss all the security threats that we face as small business owners, then I discuss the business legal liability and how we can manage them properly.

Most businesses especially retail come with a few security threats, and there is a certain degree of risk management that every entrepreneur has to do. This is part of doing business. There is no way around it. Every business has its own set of challenges, security threats and a certain degree of risk management. That is how business works. Remember the old saying "No Risk, No Gain"? Well, it is true to some degree when it comes to business.

Don't let challenges like this deter you from getting into business but in my opinion, you should embrace these challenges and manage them properly and thus become a very successful business owner.

Let's first look at some of the security threats we as small retail business owners face daily.

Business Security Threats:

1. Theft
   1. External
   2. Internal
2. Burglary
3. Robbery
4. Vandalism
5. Accidental Damages
6. Act of God

Risk Management:

• Lawsuit from Employees
  1. Unlawful termination
  2. Bad Hiring practice (lack of disclosure or work expectation)
  3. Discrimination
  4. Sexual harassment
  5. Bad or substandard Work environment

• Lawsuit from Customers
  1. Product liability (Fuel or non-fuel)
  2. Performance liability (Fuel or non-fuel)
  3. Premises liability lawsuit ( Gross negligence)
  4. "Failed to protect" liability suits

• Lawsuit from Vendors
  1. Breach of Contract
  2. Unfair Competitor Advantage
  3. Financial dispute

 The Book I want to recommend today is called The Third Wave by Steve Case, the co-founder of AOL who later became the chairman of Time Warner after the two giants merged. This book is about the waves we have been experiencing in technology over the years. According to him the first wave was from AOL itself, then the 2nd wave came with Google and Facebook, and now the third wave is which is by far the biggest and longest lasting one, this wave is transforming not just the internet but our everyday life, from healthcare, education, food to just about anything and everything.

If you enjoy this podcast, I would love to see a review from you on iTunes or wherever you download this from. It will help me reach more listeners and help out more people.

Lastly, if you haven't signed up for my newsletter, you can do that by going to http://GasStationBusiness101.com/subscribe

To join my new Facebook group go to http://ShabbirHossain.net

Cheers!

How can you tell if an employee or customers are stealing from you? How do you know someone is not stealing your beer, cigarettes or other merchandise? Is your business losing money every day and you just don't know about it? Let's see how a great inventory management system can help you stop the leaks, stay tuned..

Welcome to Gas station business 101 podcast, I am your host Shabbir Hossain, and this is episode 55. This is the show where we discuss how to start, run and grow a gas station business successfully and give you an inside look at many real life case studies so you can follow and be successful in this business.

The topic today is How to have an effective Inventory management system. Sounds complicated? It is really not, I will not be talking about any complicated computer program or any such things. Instead, I will take a very simple decade old method that business owners used for years.

If you recall from my previous episode where I talked about various types of theft, then you may recall there are two different ways theft takes place in our business

1. External
2. Internal

External is where your vendors and customers are walking away with your money or products without paying, and internal theft is where your employees are walking away with your money and merchandise.

Since stealing cash is typically harder than stealing merchandise, and we did address the cash issue in the previous episode, let's discuss how we can have a great yet very simple inventory management system to check and see if you are losing your merchandise due to either kind of theft.

First, I need to tell you how big chain stores and companies do their inventory management then I will talk about how we do it.

There are two ways you can do inventory management

1. Item level inventory tracking
2. Department level inventory tracking

Big corporations like Circle K, 7-11, Wawa food and many other regional, local and national chains practice Item level inventory while small business owners like us typically practice department level inventory. Item level inventory tracking is more cost and labor intensive; this system requires more labor and dedicated managers on duty on every shift. Which is usually not cost-effective for most of us small business owners.

First, let's recall your typical merchandise categories and see which ones are more prone to theft.

Typical product categories:

• Cigarettes
• Beer
• Tobacco
• Soda/Drinks
• Grocery
• Automotive
• Fountain/Coffee
• Novelty

Let's discuss each category and see which ones are an easy target and which ones are not, also which ones are easy to track and which ones are not.

(Listen to the episode for the whole story)

If you have any question, feel free to send me an email at shabbir@gasstationbusiness101.com, or you can post it on my Facebook group page by going to shabbirhossain.net

Don't forget to sign up for my very important newsletter; you can simply sign up for it by going to http://gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe

In the meantime, if you haven't subscribed to this podcast, feel free to do so, and if you like this show, I would love to see a review from you on iTunes or where ever you download this episode from.

Here is a link to my podcast page on iTunes, if you follow this link you can give me a review right on that page. Trust me it will make my day and won't cost you anything other than maybe 30 seconds of your time.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/gas-station-business-101-podcast/

Thank you once again for joining me in this episode; I will see you in the next one.

Cheers!

This is the first of a two part series episode all about due diligence. In this episode I will be discussing everything under the sun about each of the 9 steps of due diligence before buying a gas station business.  In the next episode which is part 2 of this series, will be all about the other hidden risk factors that you need to check and verify before buying a gas station. The risk factors I will be talking about in the next episode do not actually fall into a typical due diligence check list. So it is important to pay attention.

Let's get started

The store location
Demographics
Age and brand
Physical inspection of the store Talk about the issues we noticed
Recommended upgrades and how much those upgrades would cost
Indoor Issues
Outdoor Issues
Sales and financials
Projected P&L vs. Real P&L
 

This episode is for people that are still thinking about getting into the business but haven't actually taken the plunge. You can read and listen to as many books or podcast as you want but if you don't take the plunge to actually getting into one it will just get harder as time goes by. Remember the opportunities are being taken every day and time and tide waits for none right?

Steps you can take to get into a business now.

1. First is soul searching?
2. Look at your financial situation and come up with a budget
3. Find that business
4. Do your due diligence
5. Buy the business
6. Work hard at the business learn everything you can learn for at least 6 months
7. Grow your business and enjoy the fruit

The book I have this week is called 4-hour chef by Tim Ferris, remember when I recommended his first best seller the 4-hour work week? I was fascinated by his work, he is the one who first said as long as you know little more than the average person on any topic, and you can be an expert on it. Well in this book he talks about how a person who has no interest in cooking can get into it and create some awesome things, the best thing in this book in my opinion is where he talks about META-LEARNING. Well read the book and you will know what I am talking about.

One quick announcement, I am putting the finishing touches on my new book that I have been working for last few months, it has been a long drawn process for sure but a very rewarding one to say the least. This book is about how to increase 25% sales in retail business in just 60 days. I spoke a lot about how to increase sales in various episodes here but this is truly a summary of all that. I will let you know once the book goes live on Amazon.

If you enjoy my show and think I am adding value to your business, please leave a review on iTunes and I will appreciate it a whole lot. Lastly don't forget to sign up for my newsletter by clicking on Subscribe now on my blog.

Generally speaking, in life we all want to hear about success and how others became successful, and we all want to be successful in our own life. Not to mention hearing about success motivates us makes us want to follow the same footsteps so we can get some taste of the similar type of success in our own life.  We hardly ever want to hear about how someone failed in something because deep down we all know it is easier to fail than to succeed. In this episode, I want to share some of my biggest failure in business life. This way you may take a lesson in heart and know what not to do in business.

My very first failure was when I first started in Tampa; most of you may recall I shared that story on the very first episode. It was a much needed one, by not doing well, I had to learn the very basics of the gas station business, and I believe that is what gave me the strength, knowledge and confidence to go forward later in my business life.

The second one was not a good one; it came like a freight train and knocked me down. Okay, this is how it happened, back in 2000 I had a few stores, and I was doing really well. I was also the go-to guy with a local jobber, where they called me for help with any stores that were not doing well; I would go in take over the operation. I had a proven and tested marketing and merchandising plan, a great team of employees and the know-how to make a business profitable again. It usually took me about 6 months to get things handled and once I was done; we would then sell or lease that store.

One day the CEO of the company called and asked me to meet with them, at the meeting I found out due to two big oil company mergers, one of the companies have to sell out all their locations in Alabama (FTC requirement) and this jobber found a great deal to buy 2 stores in a city which is about 200 miles from where we live. One of the stores is a big truck stop with a gas station, and the other one is a decent size gas station.

I was reluctant at first due to the fact that these stores are 3 hours away from home, and I already had 5 businesses I was operating locally. But once I saw the sales volume of the truck stop I was sold. If I remember correctly the truck stop was selling around 350,000-gallon diesel fuel and about 100,000-gallon gasoline, they also showed good numbers for the merchandise sales. A quick calculation showed even if we pay what they were asking, after paying all the expenses including rent, utility and payroll we should make around $35,000 or more easily each month just from the truck stop operation alone. Well, to be fair the 2nd store was a marginal one, it wasn’t losing money but wasn’t making any either. My first thought was if I implement some of the marketing and merchandising strategies I use locally I should be able to make the 2nd store a profitable business.

I knew I won’t be able to manage all these stores just with a manager in each location; I needed to partner up with someone, so I found my childhood friend who at the time was working for a national chain of gas stations and offered him to join me. After two trips and some hard negotiation, he agreed to join me and move to that city to handle the two stores. We then started to negotiate with the seller and finally were able to make a good deal, and we took over the stores.

Once we took over the operation, I started noticing 60% of the truckers were bringing in credit cards(commercial fleet cards) that were issued by the previous company, but we were unable to process their in-house credit cards as we were no longer that national brand store. So I reached out to the seller and asked them to give me a list of all their in-house charge account holders' information. A week later I received that list of names, I then sat down with my CPA and set up a way where we will be able to accept in-house charge account for each of those accounts. So essentially we were opening up our own in-House credit accounts. As soon as our set up was done, I started to call all those trucking companies and offered them a free in-house charge account with better terms and no interest for 45 days. The list had 87 trucking company’s name on them, I contacted each, and every one of their managers or their accounting departments explained them the new system and told them we are offering much better terms. Ask them to tell their drivers to keep stopping by, all they have to do is show their ID, and they would be able to charge on the company account like they did before. For this to work each company has to sign an agreement with our company agreeing to this in-house account deal.

With that, I faxed each company a letter explaining the deal, the terms, which was better than what the previous company had offered them and lastly a one-page document my CPA prepared where one of the owners or managers have to sign it agreeing to the terms. Once the documents were sent I was finally able to relax thinking the drop we saw in sales volume will pick back up in a week as I will have all the companies accepting our offer and why wouldn’t they, our offer had 15 extra days and no interest.

Sadly in next two weeks, I only received 7 signed agreements out of the 87 I sent out. I waited another week and received 6 more, and that’s it. I then got on the phone once again and started to call every company that didn’t return the signed agreement. After about 5 calls one of the ladies from a big trucking company’s accounting dept broke the news, she told me around the same time as I was contacting them, they also received a letter from the previous company (the company that sold us the stores) telling them to ask their drivers to go to another truck stop 2 miles from us which was a different brand but they said those credit cards will be honored at this other branded stores everywhere since they just reached an agreement with this other brand to accept each other’s credit cards!!!!

I was spellbound; I was shell shocked and angry all at the same time. I called the sellers and notified them of this unethical business practice and asked them to stop immediately, but nothing happened!

In the meantime the very first month we took over, our diesel volume went from 350,000 gallons to 275,000 gallons and was declining at a steady pace. With the help of our jobber’s company we again reached out to the seller but this time we had 2 attorneys that represented us but again after about $11,000 attorney fees I found out there was not much legal action we can take against them as there was no such agreement between us to transfer their credit card based clients.

Now let’s fast forward 6 months, our sales went down to 75,000-gallon diesel and about 40,000-gallon gasoline while the inside merchandise sales just dropped to half of what we did the very first month.

As for the 2nd store, it was doing little better than before, but the loss we were taking in each month at the truck stop was climbing in the 10’s of thousands, and I knew we won’t survive there much longer.

With the help from the jobber, we were finally able to find a group of buyers who were willing to take over the stores for 60% discount on rent, we were desperate, so we agreed to their offer. We were there for only 9 months, but in that short period of time, we lost little over $150,000 from our pocket, not counting the price we paid to buy those two locations.

By the time we go out, my partners and I lost all our savings, and one of my partners had to file for bankruptcy protection. But just 10 months ago he had a very good life, he was the area manager for this large oil company, making good money, driving a company car, and now following my bad advice he lost everything. I felt personally responsible and I should because I should have done more thorough due diligence, so it was my fault entirely.

One good news is, after that he moved to our city and became a partner is my other businesses and was able to get things back to normal in a couple of years.

Lessons learned:

1. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
2. When negotiating, look at each deal from all different angles.
3. Always think about what the worst that can happen and then have a backup plan

Now the 3rd lesson came just 6 years later; it was 2006 when I started thinking about diversifying my business and started looking into other businesses but not gas stations or convenience store businesses. I started looking into dry cleaners, coin Laundromats, fast food restaurants even looked at a fresh fruit and vegetable market.

Every business I looked at, I asked for their financials and then analyzed them, then did a thorough area and market research, talked to local people as I was not ready to make another mistake again. But after all the research I was turning down most of what I found other than one fast food sandwich shop call Quiznos, this was the only Quiznos in Mobile at the time.

I never ate at a Quiznos till I found this one for sale. At my first visit, I was impressed with their food quality. But I was more impressed with their sales numbers and most times if you ever find a franchise restaurant for sale, you will see they have a very good bookkeeping system that is hard to fake, as every day all the sales data gets pulled from the registers and goes directly to the home office. So it is hard to fudge or make fake sales figures, again I analyzed everything and spend time researching the area, the customers and came to the decision that the asking price of $180,000 was very reasonable for the business as it was generating around 5,000-6,000 profit each month.

After some negotiation with the seller, I bought the business with a loan from a local bank at a very good rate, not a bad deal at all. Unlike the disaster we faced 6 years ago, this time in just 3 months with some of my marketing efforts the sales increased by 33% which according to Quiznos Corp. Was not seen often, so some of the big bosses including the CEO came to congratulate me and to see my operation. In a one to one meeting the CEO asked me what exactly I was doing to increase sales that rapidly so he can share the story with all other franchisees. 

For next one year, I was enjoying the huge increase in business; things were just booming, then in one meeting Quiznos asked me if I was interested in more stores, seeing what I saw back then I readily agreed and said yes I want to open more locations. I went and talked to my banker; they assured me loans won’t be an issue, so I went ahead and signed up for two new locations. One would be in the heart of downtown and another one in the new outdoor mall across the bay they were building back then. The ball started rolling, and we were in the process of building two more stores, and right around that time, Quiznos offered me a closed down a store in south Mississippi area which was about an hour from me. It was closed due to Hurricane Katrina and never opened up afterward as the owner got ill and never recovered. It was a deal I could not refuse so I went ahead and opened up that store as well. But since it was an hour away from me, I took in a partner who was running another Quiznos nearby and made the deal where he would run the day to day operation.

Right when all this was going on, Quiznos Corporation started facing lawsuits from franchisees, and they were also having some serious internal management and financial issues and in next 3 years, they replaced their CEO at least 5/6 times.

After opening the Mississippi Gulf Coast store we realized the whole demographics have shifted after Hurricane Katrina, the store that was doing $50,000 monthly sales before the hurricane now only does around $28,000 despite all our marketing and merchandising efforts. Even 6 months after opening the store was not at the breakeven point, so we were losing money every month. Now to make matters worse the new mall location I signed up for, half way through our construction, I found out Circuit City had filed for Bankruptcy, you may wonder why that would affect me, well in this new mall I chose a location which was directly across from the new Circuit City store, and since they closed their doors, 9 other retail stores that were going to open around me, all but one backed out of the deal. But my case was different; I was already neck deep into it. But I knew if open the store where I was; no one would see me, so I stopped the construction and asked my landlord to relocate me to the front of the mall. After 2 months of hard negotiation, I was able to move to the front, and again started the construction from scratch, in this process, I again lost $70,000. But as we neared the finish line we started finding out some of the other big name retail chains that were supposed to come and open up near me, all were backing out of their deal, and it was 2008, and the recession finally hit me big time.

Since I had bank loans to worry about, I had no other choice but to open all by myself in that huge mall and I went out every day spent 4-5 hours marketing to all local homes and businesses, I bought radio and TV ad spots, ran weekly ads in the local newspaper. Even with all those efforts, my sale never went over $900 a day; I was devastated. The only bright light was my first store which was still doing decent but being in the worst recession since the 1930’s I lost 35% sales in that store too.

As for the downtown store, it was barely surviving on its own; it too never reached 50% of its projected sales figures. I knew I was sinking but wasn’t sure how fast.

Fast forward again to 2011, I ended up closing the store in Mississippi; next, I closed the store at the mall just 2 years after opening. I still kept my first store and the downtown store open, but then I read news that the Carnival cruise line was moving away from Mobile. It was big news for me because most of the cruise ship passengers were staying within 2 blocks of my restaurant in downtown. Once they left our sales in the downtown store went down about 25% and put us in the red all the way. By then I had no extra money to add to the business, so I closed that store as well.

Another 6 months later my wife who operated our first Quiznos, started complaining that our sales were declining steadily due to no advertisement from the Quiznos corp., and at one point it too went below the breakeven point, but it was our baby, so I borrowed funds and kept it alive till I could not anymore. My hope was that things will get better, and the store will come back strong. But in the last 6 months, I noticed two more fast food restaurants come within a block of us, and the sales went down even more. So with a heavy heart, we closed the last one as well.

Looking back, I wished I never looked to diversify my business and should have just stayed with what I know. But it is always live and learn I suppose. I lost everything I ever worked for, but we are building it all back up again. My theory is and always will be to look forward and not backward.

One word of advice, stick with what you know, don’t jump into every shiny object you come across.

Enough sad stories for one day, hope I didn't make you scared about getting into the business. My goal for sharing this stories with you is not to create fear in your mind but to create caution, so you look and examine everything twice before signing on any dotted line.

Lessons learned:

1. Don't try to duplicate success too fast
2. Don't bite off more than you can chew
3. During economic slow down go to survival mode and not expansion mode

Okay, time to tell you about a book, I am still reading this book call The Coaching Habit: Say, Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever by Michael Bungay Stanier, I am little more than half way through it now, but so far it is one great read. I believe the name of the book explains it all. Read it and you will thank me for recommending it.

Lastly, one humble request, if you enjoy listening to this show, please give me a review on iTunes as it will help me gain more listeners and reach more people. If you haven't signed up for my newsletter yet, you can do so by following this link http://www.gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe/

To join my new Facebook group, go here https://www.facebook.com/groups/GSB101/

Take care and I will see you soon.

Welcome to gas station business 101 podcast. This is episode number 44. This is the only show of its kind where we focus on all aspects of gas station business and we discuss, analyze and try to improve the process by trying to see what works and what doesn't.

Today's topic a very important one and it is all about commercial lease and how to read and understand this complex document. What to look for as potential problem in these leases.

The idea for this episode came from two people, Yash and Jasmine, so thanks to both of you for bringing up such a good topic out front for everyone else.

Most commercial leases are complex by nature as it is a legal document but it gets even more complex when it is prepared for a gas station because there are two parts of a gas station business, a convenience store part and then there is the fuel part.

To understand this document fully I am attaching a full commercial lease as a sample which you should be able to download from my blog site, by going to the show notes for this episode or you can go under the resource tab and find it there.

In this episode I will not read every word of a lease because that would not only take a long time to do but it will be not worth your time as you can just download that copy and read it yourself. Instead what I will do is explain few important points of a commercial lease and some potential issues that maybe be hidden in a commercial lease.

Below is a link you can download and view a Commercial Lease for a Gas Station

Commercial Gas Station lease

So let's get started..

These are the followings 18 important parts of a commercial lease agreement

1. Identify each party
2. What is for lease
3. Term of the lease
4. Rent
5. Additional rent (taxes, fuel rent)
6. Payment methods and due dates
7. Insurance
8. Indemnity
9. Assignment(Sublease)
10. Maintenance
11. Casualty
12. Right to Entry
13. Default
14. Remedies
15. Personal guaranty
16. Brand identification and minimum Standard
17. Additional Exhibits or attachments
18. Potential risk factors to look for

Couple of quick announcements before we finish here..

I am still seeing people registering for my forum on my site, as I mentioned before, that forum is not working properly, so please join my Facebook group instead and there you can post questions, get quick answer to any question you may have. To join my Facebook group simply go to shabbirhossain.net and it will take you straight to my group.

If you would like for me cover a topic I haven't yet, feel free to email me or post it on Facebook group and I will try my best to have an episode on that topic, but remember if I pick your topic I will dedicate that episode to your name.

Lastly I want to send a big thanks to Nitin Gangwani, for his kind words as he gave me a 5 star review on iTunes, Nitin if you are listening I sure do appreciate your kind words and that sure makes my day.

Don't forget to sign up for my newsletter, you can sign up for it by going to gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe or you can directly go to my site and at the bottom of every page there is a subscribe button.

Next week I will have another very important episode where we will discuss everything about FSA or Fuel Supply Agreement and that episode will be dedicated to a long time listener name Yash as he is the one who gave me that topic.

Cheers!

In this episode I talk about how to find a gas station for sale,   if you should buy or lease, the advantages and disadvantages of buying vs. leasing. Then we talk about how to do due diligence and dig deep into the P&L, how to calculate profit margin and lastly what are the typical product categories in a gas station and what is the average profit margin in those product categories

Lately I have been getting a lot of emails from my international readers and listeners about investment visas and what and how to go about getting one of those. At first I was going to include them in my first Q&A episode but then when I started researching it, I have decided to dedicate an entire episode on this topic. For US listeners this episode maybe just as helpful maybe more , because either you may know someone who can benefit from it or when you go to sell your business the buyer you may find is from another country and they will be asking you for help in this matter. So it will benefit you greatly to listen to this episode.

One word of caution before we go any further, as you know I am not an attorney, not a lawyer, I am here do provide some basic information about various investment related visas and how they work. I am not offering you legal advice here, nor am I qualified to offer you legal advice. So please before you act on anything we talk about here today, please ask an immigration attorney for up to date advice. I found names of few immigration law firms, I will link their site here, but again just so you know I do not have any affiliation with any of them, but while doing research online I noticed a few names came up over and over, Go Here to read the full blog post along with all Resources I mention here.

Let's jump right in..I will discuss and cover these following 7 topics today:

1. What is an investment visa
2. What are the different types of investment visas
3. Which one is more suitable for gas station business
4. What are the requirements
5. How to apply
6. Do these visas help you get permanent residency in the US
7. 7 Safety Measures to protect your Investment

For more detail information regarding all investment visas please read my blog post that follows this episode Best Investment Visa for International Investors interested in starting a Gas Station Business.

As usual I am saving all the emails and not answering any of them in every episode like I did before. From now on every so often I will have a Q&A episode where I will be answering emails only. So if you sent me an email and I haven't answered it yet, this is why, so please be patient and stay tuned. If you have a question you need me to answer, send your email to shabbir@gasstationbusiness101.com

The book I want to mention and recommend today is How to get a Green Card: A Guide to USA investment Visas by Mateen Chaudhry

While doing research on the topic for this episode I bought and read this book and found it to be very informative. So if you are seriously thinking about it, it won't hurt to read this book.

Don't forget to join my Facebook group, as you can ask me questions and get answers rather quickly. You can join by following this link shabbirHossain.net

Lastly if you haven't signed up for my important Newsletter, please do so as I am sending out free goodies often via email. No worry I will not offer to sell you anything, so feel free to sign up. http://www.gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe/

In this episode, I answer a very common question most small businesses struggle with,  which is How to find, hire, train and retain the right people. This is also the 3rd 'P' of the famous 6 P's marketing mix.

It is a vast topic and a very important one. You can have the best location, fresh deli food and cheap fuel price but without the right people behind your register, you won't be able to see success.  The right staffing is one of the very important keys to your success.

In  this episode I discuss  the following 10 step process how to hire, train and retain employees.

• Where and how to find the right people to hire?

• Asking the right question during interview

• Providing proper training

• Employee appearance

• Motivating and empowering your employees

• Teaching them marketing 101

• Rewarding the right behavior

• How to discipline bad behavior

• Setting up Target & goal oriented incentives

• Regular employee meetings and coaching

The book I want to mention today is called rich dad poor dad. By Robert Kiyosaki

It is a New York Times bestseller sold millions of copies; it has little over 4000 Customer reviews just on Amazon I am sure you can tell how popular this book really is. Let me just mention one observation from an editor's review of this book, the poor and the middle-class work for money, but the rich have money working for them.

It is a great read; I know you will thank me after reading it.

In business we all have to do some degree of negotiation, when buying a home, a business or just with your suppliers or vendors, but we don't get to win each time, but we should win if we know and practice this 13 negotiating skills, stay tuned and let's find out what and how they work

Welcome to Gas station business 101 podcast, I am Shabbir Hossain, and this is episode 51. This is the show where we discuss how to start, run and grow a gas station business successfully and give you an inside look at many real life case studies so you can follow and be successful in this business.

This episode is also important because it is based on my new book " How to Master 13 Negotiating Skills and Win in Business" that I published a few months ago, I know I didn't mention it here before, but this is one book I have been working on for a while now and was finally able to finish it. It was a soft launch, as I wanted to get some feedback from people and see what they think of this book. Now that I got some great feedback, I am happy to announce that it is out and available on every digital and print platforms out there.

But this episode is not about my book but about the 13 skills that will help you win in business and in life

Let's dive right in and get started..

The first and most important lesson in negotiation is never to show desperation, no matter what you are buying or selling, the smell of desperation can spread really fast and ruin any chance at winning a deal.

There is some basic legwork that you need to do before each deal or negotiation, even long before you go to the table and sit down. You need to collect some data by research and discovery ahead of time so you can take the time to analyze it and then determine what your exact game plan is going to be.

I know this may sound confusing, but after I discuss all 13 skills sets I will walk you through a real-life example of a negotiation that I had done recently and how these skills sets worked in that negotiation process. I will share the details and the outcome of the negotiation so you can visualize how these 13 skills work in real life business situations.

Skill 1 - People Skill

Know how your behavior affects others.
Understand various negotiating styles and which one you're dealing with.
Change your style of meet the needs of the listener.

Skill 2 - Listening Skill

Using steps to learn the interest of others.
Three levels of listening to gain information.
How to perceive yourself while listening to win at negotiating.

Skill 3 - Develop a Full Plan Before You Go To Negotiate
What a detailed plan should include.
What alternatives should you be prepared for?
Additional planning to be prepared.

Skill 4 - Knowing What You Want

Know what you want to gain.
Know what you are willing to concede.
Know timeline and expectations.

Skill 5 - Knowing What They Want
Know their interests.
Know their walk-away alternative.
Know their authority.
Know their arguments, questions and tactics.

Skill 6 - Knowing When to Walk Away
Know your acceptable range.
Know their acceptable range.
Know your deal breakers. 

Skill 7 - Know How Much to Compromise
What is a compromise?
What can't be compromised?
The perception of compromise.

Skill 8 - Knowing the Barrier
Identifying the seven barriers
Language differences
Culture differences
Physical barriers
Personal problems
Preconceived notions
Reputation
Exhaustion
Overcoming barriers

Skill 9 - Knowing How to Control Your Emotion
How do you want to feel and why
What to do beforehand to put yourself in an emotional state.
What can through off your emotional balance in a negotiation.
How to regain emotional balance.
How you want to feel when you're finished.

Skill 10 - Using the Time (Clock) to Your Advantage
How deadlines affect negotiations
How you can use deadlines to your advantage.

Skill 11 - Finding Mutual Gain
Five principles of mutual gain.
How to negotiate for mutual gain.

Skill 12 - Make Them Look Good, Let Them Brag
Why this is important.
How to do this.

Skill 13 - The Power of Paper
Why you should put it in writing.
When you should put it in writing.

If you have any question, feel free to send me an email at shabbir@gasstationbusiness101.com, or you can post it on my Facebook group page by going to shabbirhossain.net

Lastly, If you are about to buy a gas station for the first time, make sure to read my book "Gas Station Business Smart Start-up" How to measure profitability, how to come up with a valuation, how to calculate ROI, how to write a business plan and how to get financing for your new venture.  You can find this book on most all retailers including Amazon, Apple iTunes, Kobo, Smashwords and Barnes and Noble.

If you want to see the " How to Master 13 Negotiating Skills and Win in Business" just click on the name and the link will take you to Amazon. You can also find this book on Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Apple iTunes store and many other book retailers.

Don't forget to sign up for my very important newsletter; you can simply sign up for it by going to http://gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe

I am working on a very important episode which will be our next episode, and it will be all about how to build a gas station from the ground up, the idea for this very episode came from a listener name Shanewaz, and he even sent me a breakdown of the whole episode. Thanks to Shanewaz in advance and I think it will be a great episode.

Thank you once again for joining me in this episode; I will see you in the next one.

Cheers!           

In this episode I discuss how to come up with a value of a gas station business( Business Valuation) and how much money can one make from operating this business.

When doing a valuation of a gas station business, it is usually not as simple as doing a valuation of a home.

Welcome to Gas station business 101 podcast, I am Shabbir Hossain, This is only podcast show of its kind where I discuss every aspect of gas station business from how to find and buy the right location, how to market your business, how to do bookkeeping, how to minimize theft to what type of insurance do you need to have for your business. So it is a one stop shopping for any of you that are in this line of business. You may ask how does he know it all? Well I don't and that is why I go and ask the experts sometimes, and I also want your participation in this, because I know some of you out there may be great at something that I am not, so together we can share our knowledge and empower the rest of our community for a better future for our business. Sounds good?

Let's get started

The idea of our topic today came from a gentleman name Yash, he sent me a few emails so far and in one of them he asked me to cover FSA and commercial lease, so again this episode is fully dedicated to Yash, Yash my friend, thank you for bringing such an important topic to the forefront of our discuss.

On that note, if any of you have any other topics that you think everyone can benefit from, please let me know and I will cover that one a future episode.

Before I start, let me just let every one of you know that I am attaching a sample fuel supply agreement in the resource section of my blog at http://gasstationbusiness101.com/resources for you to download and read, and see what it really looks like. This way once you listen to this episode you can go back and look at the agreement for a much better understanding.

23 Key Points of a Fuel Supply Agreement to Pay Attention to

1. Parties and Premises
2. Duration
3. Product/ Commodity Schedule
4. Quantity/Allocation (Keep an eye on the minimum quantity)
5. Methods of Payment
6. Liability/Credit
7. Credit card acceptance
8. Failure to Perform
9. Excess Quantity/ Determination of quantity or quality
10. Trademark
11. Audit/Inspection of records
12. Customer service and complaints
13. Assignment
14. Environmental compliance
15. Price regulation
16. Equipment and fixtures
17. Termination
18. Insurance
19. Law compliance
20. Guarantor
21. Key person rider
22. Survivorship
23. Choice of law/ attorney fees

Click HERE to download the Sample Fuel Supply Agreement

If you would like for me cover a topic I haven't yet, feel free to email me or post it on Facebook group and I will try my best to have an episode on that topic, but remember if I pick your topic I will dedicate that episode to your name.

Don't forget to sign up for my newsletter, you can sign up for it by going to http://gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe or you can directly go to my site and at the bottom of every page there is a subscribe button.

Cheers!

Once you finish the construction of your new gas station how do you get it open up for business? How to pass the inspections, how to merchandise, how to get everything ready, let's discuss and let's see if we can finally open your new store for business. Stay Tuned...

Welcome to Gas station business 101 podcast, I am your host Shabbir Hossain, and this is episode 54. This is the show where we discuss how to start, run and grow a gas station business successfully and give you an inside look at many real life case studies so you can follow and be successful in this business.

Today's episode is the third and final part of How to build a gas station from start to finish.

In this episode we will discuss:

The final inspections (Building, fire, electrical and most importantly the health dept. inspection and what they look for)

• How to merchandise your store for the first time
• How to hire people
• How to train them
• When to buy your first load of fuel
• How to set up your POS
• How to set up all the pricing
• The actual opening of your store
• How to do a grand opening
• Resale value of your newly build store

If you have any question, feel free to send me an email at shabbir@gasstationbusiness101.com, or you can post it on my Facebook group page by going to shabbirhossain.net

Don't forget to sign up for my very important newsletter; you can simply sign up for it by going to http://gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe

Good news is the email transition process has started, so in about a week or so we will be able to start sending out emails that many of you have been waiting for.

In the meantime, if you haven't subscribed to this podcast, feel free to do so, and if you like this show, I would love to see a review from you on iTunes or where ever you download this episode from.

Thank you once again for joining me in this episode; I will see you in the next one.

First, let's define what is passive income. Passive income a process where you earn money without being involved in the day to day business operation of the business. If any of you remember the free book, I send to everyone on my mailing list all about passive income than you know there any many ways to make money passively. It is really where you work hard at first to set something up and then sit back and watch that hard work make money for you over time.

For example, say you wrote a book two years ago, at the time of wiring the book you worked really hard, you did a lot of research, and then took months to finish the book. But once you are done writing and you publish it, you can just sit back and relax and watch that book earn money for you month after month and year after year.

But the same approach will not work when it comes to a gas station business. It will require a very different approach. It's not a book, not an affiliate income or commission that you will earn every month. It is a retail business with lots of moving parts.

One way I have seen people try this approach that can work as passive income model is if you hire good employees and managers to run the business while you just monitor their work and step in only when you need to. But to me that is not a good idea, it's not a good approach either, I have seen too many owners lose their business by depending on hired help.

Instead, my suggestion is to find a good partner or two who are willing to do the hard work for a salary and portion of the net profit, and you just stay on as a silent partner or investor and enjoy the income.

4 key points to having a successful partnership

1. Find a good hard working person or two that are willing to do the hard work
2. Draw up all the legal documents and partnership agreement(Clearly define the expectation of each partner and their role and responsibility)
3. Have a great bookkeeping system in place
4. Physically Check and verify the numbers

In order for you to take this approach, first and foremost you have to know and trust that individual fully, and then you have to install or put some safety measures in place, so there are checks and balances. It's like a having a lock on a door, as we all know locks are there to keep honest people honest. But in your case you are not installing a lock but a system of tracking sales vs. purchase and expenses.

The best approach is what I have done many times is by having a good bookkeeping system in place. I explain to my partners that they have to prepare and furnish a monthly report to all partners which should include a sales report, a P&L and or an income statement and a copy of the bank statement. This way every partner or investors know what took place the month before at the store. Each will have the detailed knowledge of the sales volume, expenses purchases and how much net profit the store has made.

In my opinion, you will still have to visit the store, meet your working partner at least once a week, just look around see what is going on and if they need your help on any issues. So even though it is more passive but you still be to around and supervise without intervening in the daily operation of the business.

I have taken this approach for many years, and so far it has worked well for me, and I am sure if you pick the right person it will work for you also. So yes as you can see gas station business can work as a passive income model if you take the right approach to it.

If you haven't signed up for my newsletter where I send many valuable information through every couple of weeks, by all means, do so. This way you will be notified of any and all changes that affect our business. Just hit Subscribe below this page and you will be on the list.

If you need to ask me any question, you can do so by either sending me an email at shabbir@gasstationbusiness101.com, or you can join my Facebook group by going to http://shabbirhossain.net. It's a domain redirect; it will take you to my Facebook group page.

The app I spoke about in this episode is call Road Spoke, and here is a link to their YouTube video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6dZ3fpPad0&feature=youtu.be

Cheers!                       

In this episode I reply to several emails, I received including one from a gentleman named Murat. So this episode along with the next two episodes are all dedicated to answering a burning question I asked all my newsletter subscribers, where the question was what is the most important issue they are facing today in their business. One of the answers I got most was How to find a suitable and profitable business in their budget.

Though in previous episodes, I touched on this subject before but I went ahead and summarized once again and talked about how you can find the right business for you that is within your budget.

I talk in depth about:

• How to pick the right location that gives you the most value
• How to find out what is the right pricing for the business
• How to use your budget to find the right city and state for your location that gives you the most value
• How to go about finding those businesses
• How to find financing when major banks say NO
• How to do a proper Due Diligence so you know the seller is telling you the truth
• How to do a proper closing so you know no one is taking advantage of you

Just remember it is hard to come up with an exact valuation of business especially when the real estate is not part of the sale. Sellers often go as high as the sky; it is your job to bring them back to the earth not by offering just a lower price but offering a lower price with facts. Facts like comparable sales in the same city with similar sales volume.

Sometimes your dollar can stretch further when you look to buy a business in a smaller city Vs in a big city. One important point to remember, if two stores have identical sales say one is in Alabama, and another one is in Chicago; the chances are that the Chicago store's asking price is 2-3 times higher than the one in Alabama. Now which one will make you more money? If you guessed Alabama, you are right. Why? Well for a starter, the property taxes are lower, the wages are lower, most of the city, state and county taxes are lower compared to the ones in Chicago. Even most of your utility bills will be lower as per unit cost of power or water is likely to be lower in Alabama than what you will pay in Chicago.

Let's continue to explore more about this two identical stores since some of the operating fixed and variable cost are lower in Alabama; chances are your bottom line profit dollars are bigger too. Don't forget the biggest difference here which is your mortgage or rent, which will most likely be 1/3 of what it is in Chicago right? Because the price was 1/3 less in Alabama remember?

The point being, sometimes you can get more for less if you can sacrifice the big city life, in smaller cities your dollar goes further and buys you more. But keep in mind not all stores in a smaller city are profitable, there are bad ones just like there are good ones, you just have to find the right one that fits your needs and budget.

Enjoy the show, and don't forget to sign up for my newsletter by going to my site at: GasStationBusiness101.com

In this episode, we will break down how to read and analyze a cash register report. This is the most important piece of paper that business produces every day. This is the report that tells you how much money came into your store and how. Not to mention it gives you break down of all the category sales and how much of each category you sold and how much revenue you generated from that sale.

If you want to see how your business is doing financially, this is the only way you can tell by reading and analyzing this report. So what's in this report? Any of you that are in this business already know what is in it, but some of you may not pay attention to some details that I will be talking about.

Most of us usually always just look at the sales figures, but don't forget this report can also offer you some very vital indications of many other factors like if there are foul play going on in your business.  it also tells you what method of payment people are using to pay you for the good and services they are buying from you..

Let's break it down so you can understand. To get a clear understanding of what I am talking about here, please visit my blog at gasstationbusiness101.com and look at the show notes for episode 36 which you will see right on the landing page,  just click on episode 36 and take a look at the show notes. I have posted three snapshots of a register report.

One important thing I need to mention, the images you will see are from a Ruby VeriFone register system, but there are few other types of registers out there, out of all of them the most popular ones are usually Ruby VeriFone, Gilbarco Passport, and Wayne nucleus. Whichever one you may have at your store, the basics of the reports are usually the same. So if you have any other type of registers, you should still be able to understand and locate the similar items in your report as well.

If you look at the very first image I have five arrows pointing to different sets of the numbers there since most of you may not be seeing the image as you listen to this show, let me just clarify what I am talking about. The top part of the report first tells you if it is a shift report or a day report, then it tells you what time the shift or the day started and when it ended. If you have dual register system, it should list both registers sales under this one report.

Always remember any gas station that is equipped with two registers, one is usually set as the master register and the other one as the slave, meaning the master will always pull the sales data from the slave, and you would always have to run all reports from the master register.

This is done so it is easier for you to see and analyze sales data in just one report and not two.

Let's go back to the report, after the shift or day details when it started and when it ended, it goes to show sales for register 1 then register 2, but at first it would only give you the net sales numbers in dollar and if there were any payout meaning if you had to pay any vendor cash out of the register. This is done at first, so when your cashier closes his or her shift, they can easily count and match the money with the report.

Next comes two important subcategory, "memo items" and "transaction timings" this is arrow number 3

Underneath those two there is something call the "Totals" here, you get to see the total fuel sales in $ and total merchandise or nonfuel sales also in dollars along with sales tax. (*arrow number 4)

Now let's look at arrow 1, this one gives you sales details for both registers combined.

Arrow 2 explains how many cash payout your register has made and for how much

Now let's go to the 2nd image and again if you are not looking at it while listening to me, no worry, I will explain it so you can look at it later.

In the 2nd image arrow 1 shows what all of us look at whenever you see a shot or close out a report, it is the department sales report. This is where you get to see how much cigarettes, how much soda how much of everything else you sold during that shift or day in each department. Now look closely at the department sales and you will see it tells you the dollar amount you sold under each category right? It also tells you few other factors for each sales, such as how many customers bought cigarettes or soda or any other category, then it tells you if there were any refunds on any department, then it tells you how many items were sold in each category.

Next is arrow 2 in this part; your report tells you how much fuel of each grade was sold at each fueling point or pump. Then at the end it tells you "product total" where it combines all the sales from all grades and all fueling point and gives you a grand total which includes the dollar amount and the gallon total.

Next category is "Hose running total" (Arrow 3); this is where your register keeps a running total of all the fuel in gallon and in a dollar each has dispensed since this register system has been installed.

Some people look at this and compare this to the actual fuel sales to make sure the register and the actual running total matches.

Last image or image number 3 is the last part of the report where it tells you all about "Network summary and Batch summery."

First network report is where the register tells you how many credit cards came through your store and gave you a breakdown of each type of cards

Next is a batch report. Batch is how network processes all the credit cards, say your store had 300 people pay with credit cards, the way the network handles the credit card is by batching a few cards together and send them to the processor as a batch to get processed, so out of the 300 cards you got, you may end up seeing 5-6 batches, and it batch will have a dollar total and how many cards are in each batch.

If you enjoy listening to my show, I would love to see a 5 star review on iTunes from you, just go to iTunes and add a few words, it will mean the world to me.

If you haven't signed up for my newsletter yet, you may want to do it today, as next week and on I will be sending a 5 part email series where I will be sharing 5 very important and valuable and well discussed topics with you.

Topics like:

• How to Find the perfect gas station business for your budget
• How to tell if a business is really making money before you buy
• The 15 step Gas Station buying checklist
• How To Calculate the ROI
• and How to get financing

Here is a link to sign up for my newsletter

http://gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe

Here is how you can go to iTunes and add a review

Log in to your iTunes account, go to the search bar on the top left, and search for Gas Station Business 101 podcast in the store. Once you find it, hit subscribe and then you can see review and ratings and just click to add yours.

Thank you once again for staying with me, let me know if there is a topic that you want me to talk about in a future episode, you can email me at shabbir@gasstatrionbuisness101.com

Last but not the least, here is the link to my YouTube video about how to do bookkeeping on Microsoft Excel. YouTube.com/Gasstationbusiness101 Bookkeeping

Today I want to discuss 7 very useful tips and ideas you should put to use immediately to improve your store's outlook and image.

Most of these ideas will cost you very little, and some will only cost 50% of the total cost as the other 50% is paid by, well not you, so stay tuned, and I will tell you who will pay the rest.

Let's get started.

There are co-op programs available from most branded oil companies like Exxon, Shell, BP, and Chevron where they share some upgrade cost with you; often it is 50% of the total cost but yes there is usually a cap as to how much you can spend. These Co-Op programs are available from your brand managers. They can tell you what and how much your brand is offering for you to do certain upgrades.

4 Upgrades your Brand May Pay up to 50%

1. LED Lights Upgrade

For Example, most all brands offer you up to 50% cost to replace and upgrade your exterior canopy lights to LED lights as long as you follow their requirements. So if replacing your 18 canopy lights cost you $8,200 you may be able to get half of that or $4,100 from your company again as long as you follow their exact guideline and submit all necessary paperwork to them. It is that simple really.

2. Pressure Washing and Painting

This upgrade falls under the Co-Op program. Just ask your brand manager what is available from your brand and how you can get the work done. The common practice is to get the work done first according to their specification then submit the invoice, but remember the work has to be done by a licensed contractor, so they know the work has been done properly.

3. Pump/Dispenser Skirt Replacement

Similarly, again this is another Co-Op program where they can pay you to upgrade the most important part of your dispensers. Skirts are the bottom metal part of your dispensers where the brand stickers are. Due to their location, they get dinged very easily, they get dirt, scratches and everything else and make your dispensers look old and worn out. But they don't cost much to replace them. Ask your brand manager to order them for you and again they may pay 50% of the cost of them, not bad huh?

4. POS Upgrade

I know I mentioned this in a couple of the episodes before that if you own a branded store, you most likely have done your POS or register system upgrade already. If you haven't, you should check into it. 50% refund on your POS upgrade, in this case, can be thousands of dollars. Just to give you an example, we upgraded a few stores, and the average dual system cost was around $, 17,000 so if you get half of it back, why not? Check into it.

The next 3 tips and ideas are very different than the Co-op ideas I just shared

These ideas are for those of you who do not have a branded store.

3 Ideas for your Unbranded Store

1. Create your Own Brand

If you are running an unbranded store, think about something unique that makes your store stands out. If your store has a deli, then try to come up with something from the deli. For example, I recently helped a store brand their BBQ sandwich, and we named it BBQ Pit- "Homemade Real Pit BBQ Sandwich" Here BBW Pit is the name of the Deli we came up with, and the 2nd part is the slogan.

In Episode 30 I shared some passive income ideas, in that episode I shared some great resources and one of them is Fiverr, where you can get anything done for around $5. So for this store, we logged on to Fiverr.com and hired a logo designer to design the BBQ Pit logo, then ordered some T-Shirt with that logo from an online store. I am not mentioning the store's name as there are hundreds of choices out there all you have to do is find the one that fits your budget.

We also hired a graphic designer from Fiverr and had him do a flyer design which the owner gave out to his customers.

So suddenly this unbranded store became a brand well not a fuel brand but something can people can identify easily and when they can relate good food with a name, it always increases business. Provided they sell good quality BBQ, which we had to make sure first before we went with this branding.

For your store, think what your strength is, what is your store known for, come up with something creative and go with it. Make sure to get T-Shirts made so every employee can wear one; it is free advertising trust me on that.

2. Collect Email Addresses and Get Paid for Them

There are companies nowadays that can set up an iPad type device next to your checkout stand where your customers can put their email address along with their name to receive some very valuable coupons based on 3-4 simple questions they answer on the screen. Once you gather enough of them, you can get paid for them. So it can be an ongoing revenue stream, not to mention you can sue the same email address to market your own store to them as well.

I am still learning about this business, so I am not going to recommend any company to you yet. But you can do your own search and see what you come up with.

3. Using LED TV as a Sign or Menu Board

I am sure you have seen McDonalds to gas stations where they all have digital menu boards. They look bright, clean and so easily changeable. If you have a store where you use menu board or any big sign, think about replacing the menu board or sign with an LED TV. A 32-40 inch LED TV cost less them $300, so it is very easily doable.

This is how you do it, either you can take a picture of your menu and hire a graphic designer from Fiverr and ask them to create a hi-res menu or sign for you, then download the image as a picture JPG format file and put it on a flash drive and put it on the TV, and it is done. Just hang it on the ceiling or wall.

If you enjoy listening to my show, I would love to see a 5-star review on iTunes from you, just go to iTunes and add a few words; it will mean the world to me.

If you haven't signed up for my newsletter yet, you may want to do it today, as next week and on I will be sending a 5 part email series where I will be sharing 5 very important and valuable and well-discussed topics with you.

Topics like:

• How to Find the Perfect gas station business for your budget
• How to tell if a business is really making money before you buy
• The 15 step Gas Station buying checklist
• How To Calculate the ROI and
• How to get financing

Here is a link to sign up for my newsletter

http://gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe

Here is how you can go to iTunes and add a review

Log in to your iTunes account, go to the search bar on the top left, and search for Gas Station Business 101 podcast in the store. Once you find it, hit subscribe and then you can see review and ratings and just click to add yours.

Thank you once again for staying with me, let me know if there is a topic that you want me to talk about in a future episode; you can email me at shabbir@gasstatrionbuisness101.com

Last but not the least, here is the link to my YouTube video about how to do bookkeeping on Microsoft Excel. YouTube.com/Gasstationbusiness101 Bookkeeping

Sites you can visit to buy high quality images for your digital menu board

http://depositphotos.com

http://istockphoto.com

http://shutterstock.com

Take care and I will talk to you in the next episode.

Cheers!

In this episode, I discuss the second part of How to save $1000 on operation cost while making your business lean, mean and a money making machine. This episode is all about theft and employee errors and how that can cost your business thousands of dollars each month. I mention a list of items you can check and follow to minimize theft and errors and at the end save at least a $1000 each month that you can add to your bottom line profit. Stopping Theft is a 3 step process:

• Detect

• Deter and ultimately

• Defend theft

In this session I outline how to successfully follow all 3 steps.

In this episode, I answer four very unique questions about the underground storage fuel tanks. Some of these are very unique problems; these problems can happen to any gas station operators. I highly recommend you listen to this episode and take notes...

Welcome to Gas station business 101 podcast, I am Shabbir Hossain, and this is episode 50. This is the show where we discuss how to start, run and grow a gas station business successfully and give you an inside look at many real life case studies so you can follow and be successful in this business.

This episode is a direct response to 4 of our podcast listeners, they all have questions regarding UST or underground storage tanks, I could have included these questions in our next Q&A episode, but I decided to keep this very important topic separated from all the rest.

Back in Episode 40 and 41, I spoke at length about some of the risk factors that come with buying a gas station business, in those episodes, I covered some of the risks associated with UST. If you haven't listened to those episodes, I highly recommend that you do so, this way you will get the complete picture. But today I will take a different angle and talk both from a tenant's point of view and from an owner's point of view.

The first question comes from Andres and he wrote:

"I own the gas station business but not the property. The landlord (fuel distributor) is responsible for the underground activity and I maintain all above ground. In case there is a soil contamination, a tank leakage or a tank replacement need, the landlord will have to take care of that. However, I would face a business interruption. Is it normal to include in the lease with the landlord that, in case such things happen, I will not pay rent during the time period when I can't operate my business? Even more, would the landlord indemnify me? How far can I push it in the contract normally?"

The second question came from Tina and she wrote:

The land is owned. The business is owned. But the tanks are leased. So...who insures the leased tanks? What kind of insurance? If the tanks are not double lined...can the leased tanks be replaced through the company which is leasing them? What should be reviewed for UST through the TCEQ website? Who registers the tanks? How much does registration cost?

The third one came from Michel, he wrote:

"Hello, I enjoy your podcast very much. Great information and useful tips. Could you do a podcast on how you manage inventory effectively? Also, what do you think is the best way to handle, record and comply with UST regulations and compliance. Thank you."

Last one came from Rakesh, and he wrote:

"I am getting complaints from customers time to time that my gas has water/dirt in it, I called a local repair company and they told me to call a tank company to wash my tanks!!! I am confused, please help"

Here is an image of how the UST sits underground and various layers of earth look.

If you have any question, feel free to send me an email at shabbir@gasstationbusiness101.com, or you can post it on my Facebook group page by going to shabbirhossain.net

Lastly, If you are about to buy a gas station for the first time, make sure to read my book "Gas Station Business Smart Start-up" How to measure profitability, how to come up with a valuation, how to calculate ROI, how to write a business plan and how to get financing for your new venture. You can find this book on most all retailers including Amazon, Apple iTunes, Kobo, Smashwords and Barnes and Noble.

If you are interested in learning more about small business and gas station marketing strategies, you should check out my book Sales Genie, Retail Marketing 101. In this book, I show you 5 Proven Ways to Increase Retail Sales and boost profit by 25% in just 60 days. You can find this book in every online bookstore from Amazon to Apple and every other one in between.

I would love to see a review from you on iTunes; this will mean a lot to me so please take a minute and put up a review for me on your app store. thanks.

Don't forget to sign up for my very important newsletter; you can simply sign up for it by going to http://gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe

Thank you once again for joining me in this episode; I will see you in the next one.

Cheers!     

Welcome to GSB 101 podcast this is episode 15. In today's episode I want to bring everybody's focus on the biggest bulk of our business which is gasoline or fuel. If you are in gas station business more than 50% of your revenue comes from selling fuel. But I know we have not talked about it at all. It is kind of like the big elephant in the room we all it's there, but no one wants to talk about it.

In this epsiode I talk about Fuel or Gasoline part of your business has many moving parts, and even being in this business for many years some of us still do not know what is rack price, or what is jobber markup or what pool margin is all about.

I discuss how to clarify and simplify all those components of fuel and everything that is associated with this part of our business.

We discuss what are:

1. Dealer-Jobber agreement
2. Fuel carrying cost
3. Demurrage fees
4. Fuel surcharge imposed by your carrier and not your jobber.
5. Credit card fees
6.  

I also explain the 5 important elements of Fuel Pricing in depth, which are:

1. Crude Oil price
2. Rack Price
3. Jobber Markup
4. Net cost
5. Pool Margin

The book I want to recommend today is written by Don Norman, and the book is called The Design of Everyday Things.

This book won't help you sell more beer or cigarettes, but it will open your mind up and think of items we sell every day and they and why they are the way they are. Make sense? No? Well, read the book.

In this episode I outline how you can save $1,000 each month by taking 10 steps I outline in this episode.  This session is all about how to be creative and reduce all your utility bills and bringing your operating cost down and making your business run lean, mean and as a money making machine it should be.

This is part 1 of the 2 part series on how to save money on various operating expenses in your business.

In this episode, I answer three questions all related to buying gas stations and how to understand the numbers and if the stores are really making money or losing money. I think you may find this episode helpful if you are in the market to buy a business. Here I analyze some sales numbers and see which ones are making money and which ones are not. Stay tuned.

Welcome to Gas station business 101 podcast, I am Shabbir Hossain, and this is episode 59. This is the show where we discuss how to start, run and grow a gas station business successfully and give you an inside look at many real life case studies so you can follow and be successful in this business.

First my apology once again for not coming up with an episode sooner, I was busy with a few projects and had to put the blog and the podcast on the backburner for just a bit, but I am back, and hopefully I will be posting new episodes sooner rather than later. I still haven’t forgotten about the episode I promised you where I would share the new P&L of the subject store I helped some investors buy about 14 months ago. I have some new updates on that store and recorded that episode halfway through already, which I will share soon I promise.

Now as for this episode, I had to do this one first because I have had way too many emails lately where many of the blog readers and podcast listeners have been asking me various due diligence questions, and it is hard to answer them via email. So I have decided to pick just 6 out of them since they are mostly all similar in nature, and I thought by sharing them with rest of you, it will benefit everyone. For various privacy reasons, I have decided not to mention any names of the people that sent me these emails here.

Let’s dive right on…

Question #1

I need your advice about the valuation for the store based on the following information.

Inside Sale# $55000/month (27% profit margin)

$55,000 x 27% = $14,850

Outside Sale# 25000 Gallon/month (10 cents per gallon)

25,000 gallon x 10cents =$2,500

Total Gross Profit $21,550

Owner absentee

Capability to open deli with grill.

Store located in small town and mostly neighborhood business.

Expense:

Rent# 5000 "NNN."

Utility# 1300

Credit# 1000

Payroll# 2400 (Two full-time employees)

Other# 500

______________________

Total Expenses: $10,200

Net profit: $21,550 – $10,200 = $11,350

Asking price is $225,000

What would be the price we should go for?

Question#2

Shabbir, here are few questions.

Please note that I do not have prior experience, so how can I convince them that I am serious and are there any training provided by gas companies?

1. When buying just the business, I mean just goodwill without R/E, how do I make sure that my investment is protected? For Example, If I buy the lease for 500k and pay 16K a month. What if the lease is for two years and after two years the owner does not want to renew the lease. How can I make sure 100% that I will not lose everything?

2. As far as tax benefits are concerned at the end of the year, which option is better buying or leasing? I would appreciate if you only focus on the tax benefits since you have already talked about pros and cons from other angles. For example, let's say that gas station A is leased with goodwill paid by on-hand cash and gas station B is bought with R/E with a bank loan. Let's say both gas stations have exactly same per month profit after all lease or loan payments.

Now at the end of the year when I will file income tax, which option will give me bigger return? What is the best way to approach companies which own multiple stations around me?

Question#3

Good Morning Shabbir,

Glad, I ran into your website. I found a gas station business for sale for

$85K. We did our due diligence to look into the traffic, etc. Mostly the sales are from Cigarettes and Beer. The other items are pretty much a stand still.

In addition, this station the gas is unbranded. They are selling like 700

Gallons per day, inside the store with the majority of sales been Cigar and

Beer. The sales is about 40K revenue and 35% profit, and expense is about

9.5K. Profit is about $2,750 is what I am estimating.

Is the goodwill they are asking outrages? Currently, the owner is not opening the store properly and wants to sell it.

If you have any question, feel free to send me an email at shabbir@gasstationbusiness101.com, or you can post it on my Facebook group page by going to shabbirhossain.net

Don't forget to sign up for my very important newsletter; you can simply sign up for it by going to http://gasstationbusiness101.com/subscribe

In the meantime, if you haven't subscribed to this podcast, feel free to do so, and if you like this show, I would love to see a review from you on iTunes or where ever you download this episode from.

Here is a link to my podcast page on iTunes, if you follow this link you can give me a review right on that page. Trust me it will make my day and won't cost you anything other than maybe 30 seconds of your time.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/gas-station-business-101-podcast/

Thank you once again for joining me in this episode; I will see you in the next one.

Cheers!