"Superfans are loyal, engaged customers who are going to advocate on your behalf. They're more likely to go back and tell their friends about you. But here's the thing about superfans: you don't buy them. This is not about if you can run the right ad or find the right people online and target them with the right thing. You create them. 

Superfans are created one experience at a time."

Brittany Hodak is an award-winning entrepreneur, keynote speaker, and the bestselling author of Creating Superfans: How To Turn Your Customers Into Lifelong Advocates. This week, Hodak joins Matt DeWolf to discuss how you can use engaging experiences to create customers who market for you. 

Hodak was a keynote speaker at The CAR WASH Show™ 2024 in Nashville. For more information visit: brittanyhodak.com

License Plate Recognition (LPR) technology is used broadly across industries, from loss mitigation for lenders to recognizing the vehicles of wash members in the car wash space. 

In 2009, DRN Data entered the loss mitigation space working with lenders, banks, credit unions, and insurance agencies to find cars that needed to be repossessed. Soon they realized that LPR could be used for lead generation in the car wash space as well. 

Pointing cameras at the street, DRN Data's technology recognizes license plates that drive past the wash and matches that information to the VIN of the car. This data provides the wash owner with more than one hundred marketing attributes for each person zooming by.

Senior Executive Director for DRN Data, Noel Peña, sat down with Shaneen Calvo, Director of Media & Editorial for International Carwash Association (ICA), at The Car Wash Show 2024 in Nashville. In this episode, you’ll hear the story of DRN Data's 180-degree repositioning and entry into the car wash industry. 

At The Car Wash Show 2024, Claire Moore, Chief Learning Officer for International Carwash Association, interviewed several learning and development leaders in the car wash industry. We look forward to sharing these conversations throughout our 2024 podcast season.

In the first interview of our learning and development series featuring training experts, Destiny Baker, Director of Training for Mammoth Holdings, tells us about her path to a learning and development (L&D) role in the car wash space. She shares excellent insight into the importance of training programs for car wash organizations and highlights Mammoth Holding's leadership training program.

Doug Cross, Business Manager for the Australian Car Wash Association, joins Eric Wulf, CEO, International Carwash Association (ICA), and Kendra Johnson, VP of Business Development, ICA, for a conversation about the upcoming opportunities at the Car Wash Show Australia 2024. 

Cross breaks down what is happening in the vibrant and evolving Australian Car Wash market, and he highlights what you can expect from the Car Wash Show Australia happening August 13-15, 2024. 

It might be time to plan your trip to Australia. If nothing else, Doug Cross said your drinks are on him. See you in Sydney!

For more information, visit carwashshowaustralia.com.au.

The Car Wash Show 2024 in Nashville was a huge success! With record-breaking attendance and a sold-out exhibition floor, the event exceeded expectations. This year’s show featured engaging events including live presentations at the Pitch theater, the Hall of Fame celebration, The Big Bash, Innovation Alley, and much more. 

With all these amazing things happening throughout the show, it’s sometimes easy to overlook some of the small and wonderful stories happening at the same time. 

In this episode, Mark Bell, producer for CAR WASH the Podcast, takes a mic onto the show floor to hear a few stories from people who have been coming to the show for a very long time. He also catches up with show first-timers to hear about their experiences. Additionally, we’ll share two stories focused on the ways in which the show and the car washing industry have changed lives. 

For a full recap of the Car Wash Show 2024, visit: thecarwashshow.com.

The Car Wash Show 2024 in Nashville is just ten days away! It will feature the most exhibitors we've ever had, the largest square footage, and it is sold out! 

Claire Moore, ICA's chief learning officer, is here this week to reveal some of the opportunities you may not know about along with a few tips and tricks to stay organized and get the most out of the show. 

This year we are also excited to have a podcast studio built into the LEAD booth on the show floor. We are inviting you, our listeners, to come and share your stories. Our theme is “Stories of Impact,” so we are gathering stories about how organizations have made an impact on you or your community or what has made an impact on your organization. Come visit us in booth #823!

We are going behind the brand with Qual Chem. Joseph Moldovan, founder and managing director, and Ryan Molinelli, VP of Sales, join us to pull back the curtain on the company's history and to discuss their new graphene product: NanoHex. 

We discuss the story of Qual Chem's founding, how they maintain company culture now, and the reasons for adding this new offering to their lineup. NanoHex also represents a new approach to research and development. We explore the unique methods they employed to hone NanoHex and how it will affect their product development moving forward. 

"The most important thing on a remodel is that you go big .... it's really important that you don't just put lipstick on the pig."

If you are considering remodelling your wash, there are many questions you need to answer before you begin. What amenities do you want to add? What is your budget? Is a remodel going to be less expensive than starting over?

John Roush, CEO of Express Wash Concepts, has remodelled countless washes since the ’90s. He joins us to talk about the do's and don'ts of revitalizing your wash.

When it comes to investing in your people, staff training is where it’s at. It even took the top spot in the Q1 ICA Pulse survey. In fact, 49% of those surveyed shared that they are planning on spending more on training in 2024 and 50% about the same as last year – leaving only 1% that were planning on decreasing their spending in this category.

While we've seen an influx of learning and development professionals in this industry, there are a few companies that have made training a priority for many years. 

Hoffman Car Wash in New York is a great example. Today we are talking with Walt Hartl, Vice President of Learning, about Hoffman's training history, their culture of learning, and advice for bolstering new training programs. 

Could understanding the trends of the U.S. economy make you a better car washer? It might.

In this episode, Eric Wulf, CEO of International Carwash Association, and Alex Chausovsky check in on the current state of the U.S. economy and how to understand, define and interpret it to make more strategic business decisions. Chausovsky delves into three metrics — the health of the consumer, the cost of inputs and the cost of capital — and gives his advice on economic indicators we should be watching in the short term and free resources to do so.

Chausovsky is an economist by trade and for several years he has spoken at The Car Wash Show on topics ranging from economic cycles to workforce development. He is also a contributor to the International Carwash Association's quarterly research paper, The Pulse Report.

To hear more from Alex Chausovsky, join us at The Car Wash Show 2024 in Nashville, on May 13-15: ⁠https://thecarwashshow.com/