"PLEASE COME IN! FINDING AND GETTING THE ATTENTION OF NEW CUSTOMERS"
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CONVENIENCE STORES CONVENTION
LAS VEGAS CONVENTION CENTER, LAS VEGAS, NEVADA, OCTOBER 21, 2009

There are three ways to grow a retail business. You can increase basket size or increase visits. Both of these are with existing customers. The real challenge we're all facing is attracting new customers. It could be someone who travels or lives near your store or buys gas from you but doesn't shop at your store.

Advertising is not the only way to attract new customers. Sometimes it's not even the best way. Look at Starbucks. They started by doing very little advertising. What they did was create an environment that people would enjoy and talk to their friends about and want to come back.

There will always be a competitor who has deeper pockets. You can't outspend them. Your attention should be on what you can control. Leverage your size. If you're small, you're much more nimble.

Delight your current customers. Nothing is more powerful than word of mouth.

Understand your current and potential customers. Who are they? What do they want now?

Where are the hearts and minds of the community? In Richmond, it was high school football. Put up posters? We'll do that. Beverages at events? We'll do that with the high school students and then their families. We'll become part of the community and not an invader from the north coming to invade Virginia.

We can't be a meaningful sponsor with big teams like the Philadelphia Eagles. But we can get involved with a minor league team. We have 13 different teams in five state markets we're associated with.

We launched a Facebook page on Wawa. We can launch a new product and within an hour we can have 1500 people comment on it, whether they're customers or not. It's very powerful.

Shop competitive stores. They don't have to be our direct competitors. We regularly visit Dunkin' Donuts, McDonald's. Out here, we'll visit Fresh & Easy, even though they're not in our market.

Get your house in order. Identify and fix key points of pain:

1. store/parking lot was dirty
   
2. employee was rude to me/ignored me
   
3. service was slow
   
4. the product I wanted was out of stock or, if made, made wrong

It's setting standards, understanding how they impact the customer's experience, then living those standards.

Stand out from the pack. Stand for something that customers want. Understand how customers see your store and revitalize your image as needed. Understand what your customers didn't see you as being and then work to change that.

To summarize: know your market, know your competition, and get your house in order.

Customers have told us clearly that they don't want to mix gasoline and food. You want to get them out of that environment.

We have Muzak in store and at the pumps. At the pump we use it to promote products. What we found is in store it drives the associates crazy.