Convenience Matters

Technology makes everything move faster, even customer visits. Forward-thinking retailers are focusing on self-checkout and mobile payment options with the goal of increasing customer traffic.

Related Links:

NACS Convenience Retail Technology Implementation & Benchmarks J & H Family Stores Gilbarco Veeder-Root

Hosted by:

Carolyn Schnare, Director Strategic Initiatives, NACS

About our Guests:

Patrick Loftus, Survey Research and Data Visualization Manager, NACS

Patrick Loftus manages a robust portfolio of quantitative and qualitative research solutions designed to meet the unique needs of the convenience and fuel retail industry, including the NACS State of the Industry Report and NACS State of the Industry Compensation Report, as well as the NACS CSX benchmarking database and annual NACS State of the Industry Summit.

Chris Whitley, Vice President of Marketing and Sales, Gilbarco Veeder-Root

Chris Whitley is the Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Gilbarco Veeder-Root, the global producer of retail fueling solutions, electric vehicle chargers and point-of-sale (POS) systems.

Karen Meyer is the Retail Operations Manager for J&H Family Stores.

Over the past fifty years, J & H Oil Company has grown to supply hundreds of commercial customers, over 120 retail locations, 60 of which are company-owned and operated convenience stores spanning from East Lansing to Holland, Cadillac to Kalamazoo. Karen is responsible for retail fuel pricing, store technology and store operations.

Learn how to better handle and react to change with easy-to-remember, life-changing tools in this fun and uplifting episode.

Related Links:

Being Better with Jennifer Powers Website

Hosted by:

Carolyn Schnare, Director Strategic Initiatives, NACS and Rose Johnson, Audience Development and Production Manager, NACS

About our Guest:

Jennifer Powers, Master Certified Coach, Powerhouse, Inc.

In 2009, Jennifer Powers published the best-selling book, Oh, shift! and a few years later Oh, shift! for Teens and its accompanying curriculum. Good shift! How to deal with change before it deals with you was released in 2020.

Investing in new store equipment and lights can save thousands of dollars per year. How does your store measure up?

Related Links:

NACS Convenience Store Energy Use Survey NACS/Energy Star Tools NACS Energy Star Survey

Hosted by:

Carolyn Schnare, Director Strategic Initiatives, NACS and Paige Anderson, Director of Government Relations, NACS

About our Guest:

Patrick Loftus, Survey Research and Data Visualization Manager, NACS

Patrick Loftus manages a robust portfolio of quantitative and qualitative research solutions designed to meet the unique needs of the convenience and fuel retail industry, including the NACS State of the Industry Report and NACS State of the Industry Compensation Report, as well as the NACS CSX benchmarking database and annual NACS State of the Industry Summit.

Loftus worked at Gartner and its former subsidiary CEB for more than a decade in a series of increasingly responsible positions, most recently as senior principal of data science and benchmarking. In this role, he directed more than 20 diagnostic survey and benchmarking initiatives with participation from approximately 1,000 clients across sectors annually.

Good leaders appreciate that employee experience is critical to the delivery of a great customer experience.

Related Links:

The Michelli Experience

Hosted by:

Carolyn Schnare, Director Strategic Initiatives, NACS and Rose Johnson, Audience Development and Production Manager, NACS

About our Guest:

Joseph Michelli, CEO, The Michelli Experience

Joseph A. Michelli, Ph.D., C.S.P., is a speaker, author, and organizational consultant who transfers his knowledge of exceptional business practices in ways that develop joyful and productive workplaces with a focus on customer experience. His insights encourage leaders and frontline workers to grow and invest passionately in all aspects of their lives.

Dr. Michelli is a Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, Nielson BookScan, and New York Times #1 bestselling author. His latest book is Stronger Through Adversity: World-Class Leaders Share Pandemic-Tested Lessons on Thriving During the Toughest Challenges.

Two things stand out in great c-stores around the world: friendly customer service and tidy, clean stores.

Related Links:

Insight Research Website CAF European 2021 C-Store Shopper Insights Survey

Hosted by:

Carolyn Schnare, Director Strategic Initiatives, NACS and Chris Blasinsky, Content Strategist, NACS

About our Guests:

Nick Scherzer, Director, Insight Research

Insight Director, Nick Scherzer joined the business over a decade ago and is a recognized expert on the European and international convenience and fuel retail markets. Nick has led Insight's global strategic store visit program for many years, building a strong network of relationships with retailers across the globe.

Prior to joining Insight, Nick spent 12 years in a variety of operational roles with SPAR South Africa, one of the most sophisticated operators of the SPAR brand globally.

Mike G. Zahajko, Executive Vice President, CAF

Mike Zahajko is an insight leader and teacher in the retail petroleum industry with experience as a fuel retailer at Tesoro, an industry supplier and speaker. In his current role as Executive Vice President of Sales for CAF Outdoor Cleaning, Mike works closely with over 50 of the top 100 largest c-store retailers and grocery stores in the U.S.

Convenience stores sell a lot of food, but finding a destination for unused food is important. Donating leftover food is easy with Feeding America for both small and large c-store operators.

Related Links:

Feeding America Corporate Donations MealConnect NACS Information on Donations

Hosted by:

Carolyn Schnare, Director Strategic Initiatives, NACS and Jeff Lenard, VP Strategic Industry Initiatives, NACS

About our Guest:

Danielle Lawson, Account Manager, Feeding America

Danielle Lawson is an account manager for Feeding America's Retail Partnerships team, managing a portfolio of national donors that collectively helped provide over 119 million meals to people in need, in 2020. Danielle has been doing work to eliminate food insecurity for 9 years, first at Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin, and now at the national level, on behalf of 200 (Feeding America) member food banks. Prior to this work, she immersed herself in the clothing and toy industries, as a buyer for companies like Lands' End, American Girl, and Target. She also spent time as a cooking class instructor, and a personal chef. Danielle lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with her husband of 32 years, and their 9-year-old rescue mutt, Murray.

High-quality, effective, and well-designed digital content is important, especially when the goal is to enhance the customer experience.

Related Links:

Abierto Sample Content LG Business Solutions Episode #248 The Future of Forecourt Communication is in Pixels

Hosted by:

Carolyn Schnare, Director Strategic Initiatives, NACS

About our Guests:

Rick Sales, President, Abierto

Enrique (Rick) Sales has served as the President of Abierto since it was founded in 2005. He has an extensive background in the Convenience and Fueling industry, working as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Intelligent Controls before starting Abierto. As technology changes, Rick continues to evolve the company and adapt to new industry trends and problems. Rick has a black belt in Taekwondo, enjoys fishing, and is a rabid Celtics fan.

Abierto Networks is a Digital Engagement Solutions provider focused on the Convenience Store and Convenience Foodservice Retail industries. Their digital marketing solutions integrate in-store digital signage, digital menu, engagement kiosks, mobile coupons and mobile engagement technologies to help retailers increase sales by maximizing consumer upsell, cross-sell and revisit opportunities.

Dan Smith, U.S. Vice President of Business Development, LG Electronics.

Dan Smith is the U.S. vice president of business development for LG Electronics. Dan has led sales and engineering teams to develop new markets and customers by combining technical, academic and practical knowledge with decades of market knowledge.

Testing, learning, analyzing and ruffling some feathers are some of the keys to success for launching new ideas.

Related Links:

Andy Ellwood's website

Hosted by:

Chris Blasinsky, Content Strategist, NACS and Britt Brewer, Marketing Manager, NACS

About our Guest:

Andy Ellwood, Founder, Basket

Andy Ellwood is an Executive Coach based in NYC and serves coaching partners worldwide. Andy partners with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and corporate executives to tackle the challenges of leadership, fundraising, and growth. Andy spent over a decade as a startup operator. First leading partnerships and sales for companies acquired by Google (Waze) and Facebook (Gowalla) before then going on to found three companies of his own.

The inaugural 2020 Fuel Leaders report, published by Fuels Market News and NACS and compiled by OPIS, tracks the performance of over 250 fuel retailers with a solid overview of the industry's top 50 fuel operators. In this episode, we'll talk about the methodology and analysis behind the rankings.

Related Links:

2020 Fuel Leaders, Fuels Market News Magazine

OPIS Brand Power Ranking Report

OPIS RetailSuite

Hosted by:

Jeff Lenard, VP Strategic Industry Initiatives, NACS

About our Guests:

Keith Reid, Editor, Fuels Market News

Keith Reid founded Fuels Market News, a multifaceted digital and print media company in 2013 to focus on the needs of petroleum marketers, retailers and commercial fuel buyers. The company was acquired by NACS in 2020.

Brian Norris, Executive Director of Retail Fuels, OPIS

Brian joined OPIS in 2005, working in a variety of sales and marketing roles before joining the OPIS Retail division. Over the last 10 years, Brian has worked to ensure the accuracy and integrity of OPIS retail pricing, margin, market share, and volume data and helping to develop the OPIS retail database. He graduated from Washington College in 2005 with a degree in Business Management.

Having an app is not a strategy, it's just one step in building a cohesive digital strategy to enhance the customer's experience. Find out what else makes up a digitally sophisticated brand.

Related Links:

Hathway Website

Hosted by:

Donovan Woods, Director of Operations, Fuels Institute and Chris Blasinsky, Content Strategist, NACS

About our Guests:

Matt Carinio, VP, Strategy, Hathway

With 20 years of operations, R&D, product and marketing experience in the online and mobile space, Matt Carinio thrives on formulating executable solutions to complex problems. With proven methods that allow organizational leaders to successfully uncover challenges that they were unaware of or to just clarify ones that are already known, Matt's goal is always to make their business and them as individuals successful through the process of strategic planning and execution.

Sam Herro, Director of Business Development, Hathway

Sam Herro is the Director of Business Development at Hathway. In his role, he's tasked with growing Hathway's presence in the convenience store industry, working across Hathway's current convenience store clients. Prior to Hathway, Herro served as Director of Member Development at Study Groups and as Director of Retail at Kum & Go. For the past decade, he has sought innovative ways to change the how, what, and where of convenience. In his most recent roles, he has facilitated mastermind groups of top executives in the convenience industry in addition to leading the fueling innovation for one of the largest convenience retailers in the US.