Podcasts about kum go

Brittany Spears is traveling with an unlikely buddy. Sabrina Carpenter celebrates one year of Espresso with a limited edition vinyl. Cynthia Erivo has an album on the way. Egg shortage got you down? Vinnie has another alternative for Easter. Plus, Crocs cause crash at Kum & Go-say that 5 times fast!

Amy's mom Marsh is in the house for this week's ep! Don't get excited…she's not talking much for some reason. She does yell from the living room occasionally though. Speaking of houses, Maya's childhood home is for sale. Don't worry, she's not sentimental about it. What happened to the carpeted poles? Amy and Maya reminisce about one of Amy's childhood homes. They solve the mystery of why they didn't go to the same elementary school. Maya learns about “Pow Ball” and introduces Amy to ESPN Ocho and “Roof Ball”.  Amy recaps the Netflix failed attempt to live broadcast the big fight. Maya puts herself in the shoes of the person in charge of the failed Netflix live broadcast. It's not a good feeling. Next up, an in-depth analysis of the Zoe Kravitz and Channing Tatum break-up. The ladies are totally jazzed for Christmas romcom season including “Hot Frosty”, a movie about Lacey Chabert (of Party of Five fame) falling in love with a hot snowman that comes to life. It's a good thing she didn't put that magic scarf on a dumpy snowman. Sad news, the gas station brand Kum & Go is rebranding. 

Who needs a million friends when a smaller social circle can boost health? This episode explores the benefits of close-knit relationships, shares Mike's latest toilet saga, and discusses the rebranding of Kum & Go gas stations. We feature an inspiring story about Augmentative and Alternative Communication, debate the merits of wedding dance floors, and whether passed hors d'oeuvres are classy or chaotic. Finally, we share some Netflix live-streaming fails and tips for unforgettable family memories. 00:00 Intro 05:10 Why not having a ton of friends can be better for your health, according to study 14:52 Buy Or Sell 34:13 Outro and Advice MERCH: https://store.streamelements.com/funnybusinessen FOLLOW US Beacons: https://beacons.ai/funnybusinesspod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/funnybusinesspod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/funnybusinesspod/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/funnybusinesspod Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/funnybusinesspod YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwA7LU4-jps613RuewhWWDg/featured Note: The opinions expressed in this show are the hosts' views and not necessarily those of any business or organization. The podcast hosts are solely responsible for the content of this show. FUNNY BUSINESS A podcast where Mike and Matt share internet stories or news that should be important to you. You'll hear about strange news and personal experiences, and every once in a while, Mike will quiz Matt on some of the oddest things he can find. We'll also dive into some of our original segments, like describing some of our strangest stories, debating if soccer is more boring than golf, and even talking about our feelings, as every man should. Funny Business is a podcast run by Mike and Matt, two friends who met at college and decided to start this project during the pandemic of 2020. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/funnybusiness/support

Who needs a million friends when a smaller social circle can boost health? This episode explores the benefits of close-knit relationships, shares Mike's latest toilet saga, and discusses the rebranding of Kum & Go gas stations. We feature an inspiring story about Augmentative and Alternative Communication, debate the merits of wedding dance floors, and whether passed hors d'oeuvres are classy or chaotic. Finally, we share some Netflix live-streaming fails and tips for unforgettable family memories. 00:00 Intro 05:10 Why not having a ton of friends can be better for your health, according to study 14:52 Buy Or Sell 34:13 Outro and Advice MERCH: https://store.streamelements.com/funnybusinessen FOLLOW US Beacons: https://beacons.ai/funnybusinesspod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/funnybusinesspod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/funnybusinesspod/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/funnybusinesspod Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/funnybusinesspod YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwA7LU4-jps613RuewhWWDg/featured Note: The opinions expressed in this show are the hosts' views and not necessarily those of any business or organization. The podcast hosts are solely responsible for the content of this show. FUNNY BUSINESS A podcast where Mike and Matt share internet stories or news that should be important to you. You'll hear about strange news and personal experiences, and every once in a while, Mike will quiz Matt on some of the oddest things he can find. We'll also dive into some of our original segments, like describing some of our strangest stories, debating if soccer is more boring than golf, and even talking about our feelings, as every man should. Funny Business is a podcast run by Mike and Matt, two friends who met at college and decided to start this project during the pandemic of 2020. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/funnybusiness/support

Kum & Go is going https://www.motor1.com/news/741007/kum-and-go-rebranding-stores/ Bugatti no roof https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a62906138/bugatti-mistral-roadster-282-mph-world-record/  Cybertruck Recall https://www.motor1.com/news/741154/2024-tesla-cybertruck-recall-inverter/ Lucid Police car https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a62881785/lucid-air-california-highway-patrol-test/  Ford NHTSA fines https://www.motor1.com/news/741034/nhtsa-fines-ford-recalls/ Rump https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/15/business/musk-tesla-trump-ev-tax-credit/index.html  Ford cutting EV production https://www.motor1.com/news/740842/ford-cuts-explorer-capri-ev-production/ Jag https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a62896280/jaguar-future-sedan-ev-i-type/  Polestar 3 https://www.motor1.com/news/740771/2025-polestar3-long-range-single-motor-specs/

Kum & Go is changing its name, Bailey isn't getting her share of the cake, and more!

Grocery Outlet trudges forward with a new interim president and CEO. Gaubert Oil announces a new partnership with Dickey's Barbecue. And Kum & Go will soon be no more.

In this episode: underpromising, scam update, apostrophe catastrophe on the ballot, humble people, cool kids, camo, scrub daddy, picklers, Gifted Aunt Janice, no feet in the kitchen, dinking, not sharing the spotlight, then vs than, Kum & Go news, DNA solves a 1989 hit & run, important Pakistan gold medalist news, milking buffaloes, stitches in time, This Week in College Facebook Parenting, land lines, local menopause drama, and The Best 1980s Quiz Show Ever.  

Kwik Trip gets rid of bagged milk. The California Legislature considers a bill requiring one worker for every two self-checkout registers. And Kum & Go gets ready for National Burrito Day.

Rollout of the new Tesla Cybertruck has been less than smooth, and it turns out that their stainless steel body panels aren't very resistant to stains or corrosion. Meanwhile, the UAW is fighting to unionize auto plants in the South, Chinese companies are getting ready to sell electric cars in North America, and beloved gas station Kum & Go considers a name change for some reason.Main topic at 53:23Email us with tips, stories, and unhinged rants: carsandcomrades@gmail.com //Our social media links etc: www.linktr.ee/CarsAndComrades //Music by King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard: www.kinggizzardandthelizardwizard.com/polygondwanaland //Links/Sources:https://www.theautopian.com/tesla-cybertruck-wheel-covers-are-chewing-up-tires/ //https://www.wired.com/story/this-is-why-teslas-stainless-steel-cybertrucks-may-be-rusting/ //https://finance.yahoo.com/news/spacex-illegally-fired-workers-critical-192839382.html //https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/29/uaw-launches-union-campaigns-at-tesla-12-others.html //https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/4454085-uaw-says-majority-of-workers-at-tennessee-vw-plant-signed-union-cards/ //https://www.thedrive.com/news/chinese-carmakers-want-factories-in-mexico-that-can-mean-only-one-thing //https://www.thedrive.com/news/ford-kills-self-parallel-parking-feature-to-save-a-few-bucks //https://www.thedrive.com/news/kum-go-will-change-names //https://www.theautopian.com/full-size-suvs-are-twice-as-likely-to-kill-pedestrians-as-cars-study/ //https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/manufacturer-deliberately-bricked-trains-repaired-by-competitors-hackers-find/ //

This week on Talking Paragraphs: Dan can't find Caitlin Clark's cereal anywhere. The time for Kum&Go has come and gone, say new owners. Pepsi cuts off the French. Is World War III soon to follow? Also: 100 great movie quotes from Fandango. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/talkingparagraphs/message

This week on Talking Paragraphs: Dan can't find Caitlin Clark's cereal anywhere. The time for Kum&Go has come and gone, say new owners. Pepsi cuts off the French. Is World War III soon to follow? Also: 100 great movie quotes from Fandango. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/talkingparagraphs/message

This week, we talk about Hell Let Loose, The Finals, Frasier, Picard, Doc of the Show, Ubisoft head says gamers should get comfortable not owning games, AI Carlin special, Fruit Stripe discontinued, Domino's Cheese Volcano Pizza, Milk & Cheese shirts, the QoftheW, and more! Salty Merch: https://www.teepublic.com/user/saltylanguagepods Our Patreon: Patreon.com/saltylanguage   Subscribe / rate / review us on Apple Podcasts!   Links: 1. Fathead https://fathead.com/ 2. Ubisoft head says players should get comfortable not owning games https://www.ign.com/articles/ubisoft-exec-says-gamers-need-to-get-comfortable-not-owning-their-games-for-subscriptions-to-take-off 3. AI generated Georlge Carlin comedy special https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/george-carlin-ai-generated-comedy-special-1235868315/ 4. Fruit Stripe Gum discontinued https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fruit-stripe-gum-discontinued-54-years-rcna133400 5. Domino's Cheese Volcano Pizza https://soranews24.com/2024/01/10/dominos-japans-new-cheese-volcano-pizza-is-a-game-changer-thats-about-to-go-global/ 6. Kum & Go name change https://boingboing.net/2024/01/17/kum-go-is-changing-its-name.html 7. The Finals https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/the-finals-review-an-explosive-game-show/1900-6418164/ 8. Hell Let Loose https://www.ign.com/games/hell-let-loose 9. History's Greatest Mysteries: Titanic's Lost Evidence https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13242512/ SUATMM: Milk & Cheese shirts https://www.teepublic.com/user/house-of-fun QoftheW: What's a thing you're not good at no matter how hard you try? Visit us at: saltylanguage.com Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/salty-language/id454587072?mt=2 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3GnINOQglJq1jedh36ZjGC iHeart Radio: http://www.iheart.com/show/263-Salty-Language/ Google Play Music: https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/Ixozhhniffkdkgfp33brnqolvte Tony's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@allthebeers Bryan's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@IFinallyPlayed https://www.tiktok.com/@saltylanguage facebook.com/saltylanguage @salty_language / saltylanguage@gmail.com http://salty.libsyn.com/webpage  / http://www.youtube.com/user/SaltyLanguagePod Instagram/Threads: SaltyLanguage Reddit: r/saltylanguage Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/salty-language tangentboundnetwork.com Share with your friends!

Why Kum & Go stores will disappear from Iowa, and another country star is coming to the Iowa State Fair!

Costco reports strong sales in December, C-store brand Kum & Go is set to disappear by 2025, and the U.S. Supreme Court rejects R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.'s challenge to a California ban on flavored tobacco products.

Can you cum and go at a Kum & Go? Is this still America? John and Adam think so. The All Serious Subjects (ASS) Podcast has the innovative ideas you've been looking for, but where too dumb to think of yourself. It's okay, the boyz are here, and they've got disinfectant wipe fleshlights, so get in.

A c-store chain has a new food-focused location. Food and beverage sales are down year over year nationwide. And one grocery delivery platform is planning layoffs as demand slows.

Convenience-store chain Maverik just got a lot bigger. A Chicago Save A Lot operator closed on a major round of financing. And an activist investor continues to press for change at 7-Eleven.

The Kum & Go chain may be for sale. Grocery pricing continues to soften. And Walmart is closing three technology hubs.

This episode is sponsored by Transact Technologies. Dollar General is making some operational changes in Ohio. Kroger and Albertsons are deciding which stores to divest as part of their mega-merger. And one convenience store is turning to robots to tackle a time-consuming chore.

A fuel brand is acquiring an electric-vehicle charging company. The government has made some major updates to organic food products. And one popular c-store chain is entering a new state.

There's more consolidation coming to the ultra-fast grocery delivery space. Kum & Go is largely exiting the non-fuel c-store business. And one convenience store chain is bringing some innovative technology to the gas pump.

We are excited to release the second of two bonus episodes recorded live at the MarketDial podcast studio during the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) conference.Our guest is Stuart Taylor VP, Business Insights and Analytics at Kum & Go, one of the most successful convenience stores in the industry, operating over 400 stores. We delve into how leveraging customer data and insight helps inform the company's growth strategy and transformation. It's a Master class for any retailer in any sector on how to use data science and testing to win, grow and create loyal customers. About StuartDevelop creative analytical solutions and applications to answer complex business questions and drive real market outcomes. Rapid and effective adoption of novel analytical approaches and technologies where relevant to the need at hand. Comfortable across data types and in driving integrated solutions from disparate data sources. Cross-functional team leadership success rooted in alignment with strategic objectives and analytical vision, and illumination of individual team member roles in achieving the vision. If we think about today's needs to drive in-market success and differentiation through applied business analytics, there are two foundational data science pillars of math and technology. I unapologetically bring the third pillar in being able to surface the right questions, bring them in a meaningful way to the technical scientists, and deliver accessible, meaningful solutions to the end user. I succeed through leading complex cross-functional teams toward integrated, meaningful solutions. About UsSteve Dennis is an advisor, keynote speaker and author on strategic growth and business innovation. You can learn more about Steve on his       website.    The expanded and revised edition of his bestselling book  Remarkable Retail: How To Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Disruption is now available at  Amazon or just about anywhere else books are sold. Steve regularly shares his insights in his role as a      Forbes senior contributor and on       Twitter and       LinkedIn. You can also check out his speaker "sizzle" reel      here.Michael LeBlanc  is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice.   He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience, and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career.  Michael is the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts including Canada's top retail industry podcast,       The Voice of Retail, plus  Global E-Commerce Tech Talks  ,      The Food Professor  with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois and now in its second season, Conversations with CommerceNext!  You can learn more about Michael   here  or on     LinkedIn. Be sure and check out Michael's latest venture for fun and influencer riches - Last Request Barbecue,  his YouTube BBQ cooking channel!

BJ's Wholesale Club had a record quarter. The FDA is sending out warning letters to vape manufacturers. And one c-store chain has plans to dominate Detroit.

With a pinch of innovation, a dash of marketing acumen, and a heaping helping of hard work, Taufeek Shah has turned a family recipe into an international brand. Taufeek Shah, an Iowa native, is the founder and CEO of Lola's Fine Hot sauce based out of West Des Moines, IA. Taufeek started Lolas in 2016 taking his immigrant Filipino mother's generational family recipe hot sauce from mom's kitchen to farmers' markets, to ultimately retailers and restaurants across North America. Lola's features real peppers and fresh ingredients to create #flavorfirst hot sauces as well as line extensions into gourmet salsas, bloody mary mix, seasoning, cookie biscuits, and co-branded snacks with large national companies such as Casey's, Lowe's, Kum & Go, Walmart, Target, Hy-Vee, and more. In 6 short years, Lola's grown into over 8,000 retailers and restaurants across North America.   To get in touch with Taufeek, or to order some Lola's, go to:  http://lolasfinehotsauce.com/ - be sure to use Passion2022 to get 15% off your order.    To connect with Tyler go to: tylerkamerman.com

My name is Bob. You rarely hear from me directly. I'm the senior editor at THN Media. One of my responsibilities is to create the summaries for each episode. Most of the time, it's really fun. Hell, no one even cares if I just make up stuff. But I really don't know what to do about Episode 49. At this week's staff meeting, I suggested that we shove it in a missile casing and launch it toward North Korea. Everyone told me to get back to work. Episode 49 started out fine enough. As you know, special guest Carla from Burnt Korn, Alabama, is also the manager of the local Dairy Queen. Co-host Arik asks her: “When you're cleaning the DQ men's room, instead of using urinal cakes, do you just drop a Dilly Bar in the urinal?” Cute. Well, I thought so. Carla stared hard at Arik, then proceeded to read a lovely hate letter from Nikki Goldenheart: “Hello, my fellow dispensers of Hatorade! Let's keep it simple. I hate vehicles that hog up all of the gas pumps on any one aisle at the gas station—especially Amish passenger vans!” Carla follows this golden epistle by sharing her hatred of websites that refuse a user access until they sign up for the site. Pauly practically has a hategasm over this. That's when things go sideways. Pauly hates idiots—then throws himself on The Hate Napkin. (Clearly, he's just positioning himself for an upcoming Hatey.) Then Arik goes off the rails. He starts with a nostalgic sidebar about Kurt Vonnegut and the heyday of the short story. Then something about lot lizards and cheese curds at the local Kum & Go. Something something The Pooper. Then a story about the time when columnist Dan Savage visited the Columbia City Paper staff. Arik finally concludes with an aborted THN PSA about getting bodily fluids and excrement on the sheets during lovemaking. Arik concludes: “There really isn't any shame—it's all just part of the human experience. We're stuck on this tiny rock in the middle of a galaxy surrounded by billions of other galaxies with billions of stars.” Um, not quite true. Actually, there is quite a bit of shame. And it's called Episode 49. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thehatenapkin/support

My name is Bob. You rarely hear from me directly. I'm the senior editor at THN Media. One of my responsibilities is to create the summaries for each episode. Most of the time, it's really fun. Hell, no one even cares if I just make up stuff. But I really don't know what to do about Episode 49. At this week's staff meeting, I suggested that we shove it in a missile casing and launch it toward North Korea. Everyone told me to get back to work. Episode 49 started out fine enough. As you know, special guest Carla from Burnt Korn, Alabama, is also the manager of the local Dairy Queen. Co-host Arik asks her: “When you're cleaning the DQ men's room, instead of using urinal cakes, do you just drop a Dilly Bar in the urinal?” Cute. Well, I thought so. Carla stared hard at Arik, then proceeded to read a lovely hate letter from Nikki Goldenheart: “Hello, my fellow dispensers of Hatorade! Let's keep it simple. I hate vehicles that hog up all of the gas pumps on any one aisle at the gas station—especially Amish passenger vans!” Carla follows this golden epistle by sharing her hatred of websites that refuse a user access until they sign up for the site. Pauly practically has a hategasm over this. That's when things go sideways. Pauly hates idiots—then throws himself on The Hate Napkin. (Clearly, he's just positioning himself for an upcoming Hatey.) Then Arik goes off the rails. He starts with a nostalgic sidebar about Kurt Vonnegut and the heyday of the short story. Then something about lot lizards and cheese curds at the local Kum & Go. Something something The Pooper. Then a story about the time when columnist Dan Savage visited the Columbia City Paper staff. Arik finally concludes with an aborted THN PSA about getting bodily fluids and excrement on the sheets during lovemaking. Arik concludes: “There really isn't any shame—it's all just part of the human experience. We're stuck on this tiny rock in the middle of a galaxy surrounded by billions of other galaxies with billions of stars.” Um, not quite true. Actually, there is quite a bit of shame. And it's called Episode 49. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thehatenapkin/support

Road Show: The boys are coming at you once again from ORLANDO FLORIDA! With tales from the road and of course the magic of theme parks!Halloween Horror Nights: Has Mike Steele become HORROR-PILLED!? Have we broken through to the other side?EPCOT: Have all of the boys become EPCOT-PILLED!? Have we broken through to the other side?LET'S JUST TALK!, SOUNDBOARD!, ROAD SHOW!, AIRHORN!, RECORD SCRATCH!, JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE!, DRUNK!, BLAST A SHIT!, ORLANDO!, FLORIDA!, HORROR NIGHTS!, EPCOT!, THEME PARK!, SATURDAY CREW!, PATREON!, PART 0!, JIMTERVENTION!, MARRIED WITH CHILDREN!, BUILD CREDIT!, THAT'S ALL FAKE!, LOONEY TOONS!, LEMONS!, PEARS!, BOWL!, VRBO!, AIRBNB!, FAKE!, WAX!, WAWA!, IN N OUT!, 7/11!, REGIONAL!, PRICE POINT!, VARIETY!, MIDGET!, SHORT!, EUROPE!, CUMBERLAND FARMS!, KUM & GO!, STOP AND SHOP!, TERRIBLE HERBST!, NEXT PUMP!, ENVELOPE!, PRONUNCIATION!, PARTY!, PROFESSIONAL!, PARCEL!, PAPER PUSSY!, COBRA KAI!, SEASON 5!, REACTION!, RIP!, TOUR GUIDE!, DEAD MAN'S PIER!, THEMING!, DETAILS!, FUCKED UP!, FAKE WEED!, DELTA 8!, STORYLINE!, BACKGROUND!, CONTEXT!, HALLOWEEN!, PUMPKIN LORD!, UNIVERSAL MONSTERS!, HOLLYWOOD!, PIZZA FRIES!, LATE NIGHT!, EARLY!, EPCOT!, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY COSMIC REWIND!, TOWER OF TERROR!, COASTER!, SPACE MOUNTAIN!, VELOCICOASTER!, MOTION SICKNESS!, FOOD AND WINE FESTIVAL!, FRY FLIGHT!, MAC AND CHEESE!, WINGS!, BUFFALO BRUSSEL SPROUTS!, FLIGHT OF CIDERS!, TURTLE TALK!, AQUARIUM!, BUTTHOLE DON!, HOOBASTANK!, THE REASON!, CRAWLING IN THE DARK!, CRINGE!, ASIAN LADY!, PLAN!, CHURROS!, WALK AWAY!, MEXICO!, BAD SERVICE!, YOUNG GUNS 2!, MISHEARD!, F-FLUR!, OGA'S CANTINA!, RETURNING FRIEND!, SHOW!, MERCHANDISE!, RINGER SHIRT!, ZIP UP HOODIE!, CONTRABAND!, STOLEN!, GLASS!, CONTENT CREATORS!, JAKE!, FINANCIAL ADVICE!, AFFORD!, DONATION!, GUILT!, ASKING!, ASHAMED!, HOMELESS GUY!, SIGN!, BUM!, TEST TRACK!, RETARD MOBILE!You can find the videos from this episode at our Discord RIGHT HERE!

District 1 City Councilmember Dave Donelson talks about the controversial Kum & Go plan on South 8th St. that was approved by city council.

District 1 City Councilmember Dave Donelson talks about the controversial Kum & Go plan on South 8th St. that was approved by city council.

What's up guys! Welcome back to the show! Today we're switching it up a bit and just having a fun conversation and going wherever that leads us. It was a lot of fun and we hop you enjoy!Follow us everywhere!https://linktr.ee/thwakjak

Podcast topics:- Ross talks about her position as Edelman US CEO six months into her tenure, how her work in the public political comms sector informs her work in the private sector, what a "great day" at Edelman looks like, the strides that have been made regarding diversity at the top of the PR industry (and how much work remains to be done) and more;   - Discussing the onset of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 and its potential — and realized — impacts on the comms industry and larger economic impact;- The controversy surrounding TikTok influencer Kyle Scheele's Kum & Go prank that wasn't really a prank after all and what it says about influencer marketing and the need for authenticity and transparency; - Recapping notable holiday activations around Thanksgiving and looking forward to end-of-year holiday campaigns;- What's next for Twitter after the resignation of Jack Dorsey;- Notable merger and acquisition news this week, including a big investment in ICR and more.

Consumers will embrace a brand that stands for something, cares about the community, and shares their values. Kum & Go is one convenience retail company that goes beyond leading with purpose and models its entire operation around it. Related Links: NACS Managing Food Waste Guide  Kum & Go/Krause Group 2020 Corporate Social Responsibility Report  Episode #298 Resolving Food Waste as a Business Solution  Hosted by: Carolyn Schnare, Director Strategic Initiatives, NACS and Jeff Lenard, VP Strategic Industry Initiatives, NACS About our Guests: Emily Bahnsen, Philanthropy Manager, Kum & Go Emily Bahnsen oversees Kum & Go's philanthropic giving programs, including the company's annual United Way and Habitat for Humanity campaigns, grants and in-kind donations. In addition to her work at Kum & Go, Bahnsen is a member of the Mid-Iowa Planned Giving Council, Association of Fundraising Professionals and Community Foundation of Greater Des Moines Funders Forum. She also volunteers her time with the Young Women's Resource Center Young Empowerment Partnership board, Business Volunteer Council, and as a reading mentor for Everybody Wins Iowa. Meg Kayko, Waste Reduction Specialist, Kum & Go Meg Kayko oversees Kum & Go's sustainability programs for waste reduction including food donations, recycling and trash management, and more. Meg is actively involved with the NACS Sustainability Strategy Group as a valued contributor and frequent presenter.  

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.

The stores of the future are being built today, and according to David Wilkinson, President & General Manager of NCR Retail, they will not be the types of stores that currently come to mind. We are living in a time that blurs the lines between digital and physical, and retailers are working with NCR to make every experience as seamless as possible. David explains how on this episode of Up Next in Commerce. He tells us how personalized shopping will be brought to the forefront through first-party branded apps that customize the shopping experience for you. And he details how retailers in all industries can start breaking free of the traditional shackles of standard point of sale technology and store designs. Plus, David and I nerd out about how cryptocurrency will be entering the mainstream sooner rather than later, and how retailers can prepare for what that will mean for their payments systems. Enjoy this episode!Main Takeaways:Tech First, Differentiation Later: Retailers in every industry are trying to find ways to differentiate themselves and create memorable experiences for customers. But in order to ensure quality customer experiences, the basics of how your store functions need to be flawless. Focus first on optimizing all point-of-sale technology and other digital or tech offerings so that however the customer wants to transact, they can without friction. Then, when that is running smoothly, you can begin to focus on the peripheral experiences that separate your store or brand from the rest.Freeform Future: Anyone looking to create a store or business today has more freedom than ever before. They are no longer locked into the old ways of doing things. Traditional points of sale can be rethought. The design of a grocery store can be revamped to cater to more personalized experiences. Fast food restaurants can completely forgo inside dining. So many new options are on the table because in 2020, consumers proved to be willing to adapt to all kinds of new experiences.    Going Beyond The Loyalty Program: The days of trading your phone number for a discount code are long gone. These days, if a consumer is giving over personal information, they want something substantial in return. Brands have a chance to create loyalty experiences that are personalized and incentivize activities outside of the store, such as on social media, to give their consumers a unique reason to sign up. Crypto Checkout: Cryptocurrency is more than just a buzzword — it's likely to begin infiltrating daily life, particularly how people buy and sell goods. Majority of cryptocurrency holders would be willing to pay for their goods with their crypto, and retailers have to start figuring out now how to create systems that would make those transactions possible and secure.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we're ready for what's next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Hello, and welcome back to Up Next In Commerce. I'm your host, Stephanie Postles, CEO at Mission.org. Today on the show, we have David Wilkinson, the president of NCR Retail. David, welcome to the show.David:Thank you, Stephanie. Glad to be here.Stephanie:I'm very excited to have you on. So before we start, I would love it if you could highlight what NCR Retail is for anyone who doesn't know, because you guys do a lot and I want the words to come from your mouth instead of ours.David:Yeah, I appreciate that. There's a lot of, depending on who you ask, a lot of misconceptions about what we are as a company and what we do. We think about it in pretty simple terms, we want to create technology that runs the store. And so when I think about that, that's really the software and services that would be creating the capabilities to do transactions and interact with customers in and around the store environment. People might traditionally think of us as an ATM or a cash register company, it's really quite different, it's a payment software and services company across the three primary businesses that we serve, banking, retail, and hospitality.David:We're experts in how consumers interact with technology for things like self-service or automated transactions, which is critical in what's happening around the world today with labor and reallocation of labor, and really just focused on creating great customer experiences and technology to enhance that.Stephanie:Okay, cool. So what are some of the newest projects that you've been embarking on over the past year or two that maybe you had to quickly roll out where you're like, "Okay, everyone wants touchless payments now, or everyone wants this capability"? What have you had to scramble to keep up with?David:Yeah. When you think about our business, we're in the retail side where 70% of our business is grocery, or in big box, I'll put big box in that, another 15% that would be convenience and fuel retail. And then the rest of the balance of that would be, think about a department and specialty. So there are a handful of different trends, as you know, that occur within each of those industries. I'll start with convenience and fuel for a second, as you described. There was a big race when the pandemic was early, everybody wanted to social distance, nobody wanted touch things that other people were touching, so it created the ability or the need to do things like touchless payments at the pump.David:So we've worked with several convenience and fuel retail companies, Kum & Go was one of them, where we created the ability to do stage transactions on your mobile device and reduce the number of touches that you would have to make to the pumps. So it's got store payment, it would allow you this to queue up the pump, initiate the pump activation through our point of sale application, and then you could get to the pump and you always got to touch the pumps to put the nozzle in the car for those of you that have to pump gas in the 48 states that require that. And then the other, you'd have to touch the pump, but it reduces the touch of the thin pads.David:So we're finding those kinds of applications in convenience and fuel. Convenience and fuel also, we're seeing a big rollout of self-checkout, which is one of our flagship... We are the market leader globally in self-checkout, and when I think about what's happening, we really understand how consumers interact with the technology. The hardware is interesting, the software is really interesting, but the understanding of the workflows, the process flow, how do you avoid unnecessary shrink? How do you avoid unnecessary interventions? We're seeing a lot of now, increased demand in the convenience and fuel space that hasn't traditionally had self-checkout, but makes a perfect fit, small basket size convenience shoppers don't want to stand in the line and want different interactions or maybe a less interaction with a person in that environment.David:So COVID is heightened that. So that's what's happening. Convenience and grocery, it's a similar thing. We saw some weird things happening early days with spatial awareness and everyone was focused on, "We've put plexiglass in the stores, we can't have any kind of human interaction, we've got to queue outside the grocery store before we come in and set appointments in different times." So we did a lot of things. We have a very large professional services team that can do custom applications, and we did a lot of that kind of stuff where we're building queuing apps and other things that probably aren't here to stay, but we'll have some longer-term applicability.David:But what we're seeing really is touchless payments with self-checkout, so paying on the mobile or mobile scan in the isles, and then a broader roll out of self-checkout and then getting deeper debt or more density within the store for self-checkout, meaning more lanes enabled for self-checkout so that customers have that capability. I'll take a breath after this, but then the other piece was ecommerce. Obviously ecommerce is growing. If you look at grocery, you can look at different numbers, but it's multi-hundreds of percent growth off of fairly small numbers. But in ecomm, that's being a large part up to anywhere between 15 and probably 25% of grocery quickly moved to ecommerce.David:So we invested, bought a company that has an ecomm engine to turn that experience back over to the retailer so they can have an app, a retailer branded application, allow you to do the list management, recipe management, order online pickup in the store, and then has a picking optimization app on the back end for the retailer. So those are some things that we're working on and deploying that would include payments, but it's a lot going on. Innovation has been compressed into a short amount of time with COVID. I think we're seeing that in a lot of different industries and probably none more impactful than retail.Stephanie:So kind of what things do you think won't stick now that we're a year plus past, and a lot of times when change is happening quick, people are like, "Let's just try everything and do everything new." Some things like ordering groceries online, it feels like it's here to stay, people are debating like, will the percentage fall back again? I think maybe it has this 2020, but then maybe the pie grew. So the numbers, I'm not really sure, but what things are here to stay and which ones were just like a fad and we tried it out and now it's like, no, we actually don't need that.David:Yeah, it's a good question. That's a question we get a lot. I'll start with the easy ones that are fun to joke about in light of the seriousness of the pandemic, but like plexiglass and a sticker on the store that you have to queue six feet or 12 feet or however many feet apart. Those are the things that I think will start to fall down a little bit. We learned that hoarding and stockpiling toilet paper was not a cure for anything. So I think some of those kind of applications or behaviors will go away. What we did find though in the joke in the toilet paper is really about the supply chain. And what we found is that brand loyalty across the consumer base shifted pretty significantly, that you no longer were loyal to a single brand, you were loyal to a brand that had what you wanted and we saw a supply chain shortage.David:And that may have introduced shoppers to where they were traditionally brand loyal for whatever reason, the ability to shop around. One of the trends that will see continue is retailers want more and more data about their consumers so that they can offer personalized experiences, and we all crave that. The social shopping phenomenon is here. And we see it in Asia is more prolific than in the US, but some form of that will start to take hold in the US. And so understanding the customers more deeply is a trend that's here to stay. I think you said online grocery shopping, even while we saw hypergrowth, 85% of the shopping was done in the store, so we think some blend of that will stick around.David:I've seen the same stats that say, "Hey, we've reached the peak of growth, it's going to plateau, maybe decline and then bump back up." So I think online shopping, if you think about it as a consumer, so personally if you think about it, the ability for me to create a list based on past purchases or find a recipe and click on a recipe and add those ingredients to my list or to my basket, have somebody pick those items but I still want to pick out fresh vegetables, fresh flowers, meats, whatever it may be, the things I want to look at, touch and feel, how do we create this hybrid shopping environment where I can do the, we'll call it the center of the store shop, dry other things, and allow me to do the edge of the store, the fresh foods and other things, I think there's there's a hybrid model that makes a lot of sense.David:Now, that's a big change because none of the retailers... We didn't design stores that way, we designed stores to, like I just said, center stores, all this stuff, the outsides are all fresh foods, all the checkout stands are right at the front, congregated. I think this notion of pervasive and flexible checkout will start to take hold. I think those are the trends, convenience, less touch, more choice, and knowing your consumers better are the things that we'll start to see that will stick and we'll see those trends either flatten and start to grow again, or just flatten, but become a bigger percentage of the overall.Stephanie:Yeah. It's funny you mentioned about like what things I want to pick out versus what things other people can. I mentioned this a couple episodes back like, I don't care about picking out the flowers, the cereal, that's all fine get what's there, but no one will ever pick out the avocados the way that I want them or the type of fruit that I want. So why isn't half the store just in inventory, just grab it out of inventory for me, and the other half, it actually want to be and see and touch and smell, that's the part that you can actually interact with. So we're thinking alike, which I like.David:Yeah. You're spot on. Are you a cantaloupe thumper?Stephanie:I am, yep. And the watermelon, I want the perfect little dark yellow spot on it. And my avocados, I hope it didn't get plucked from there and mold growing around the STEM. I'm very particular. And I always think when I order from Whole Foods, I'm like, "Should I write these in notes?" No, because they're going to think I'm crazy if like, "Pick out the avocado just like this, and look for this with your watermelon or cantaloupe."David:Yeah. But think about the opportunity there with what you described. So the application that we have allows us to do a lot of customer specific notes. And then if you have control, if you're the grocer and you have control of your experience, so forget about third-party intermediary picking apps. I'll use Instacart as an example Instacart, sends an Instacart shopper into the store, you may or may not have the same shopper. And the Instacart person doesn't may or may not care, I'll say on a relative scale, cares less about the brand itself where you're shopping. But if the retailer had control of that and knew that you, Stephanie, were a high value customer, you love to buy avocados and that was a real differentiator for you.David:If I knew that about when you shop, you could create an experience that you would actually enjoy buying all the products online, perhaps, or maybe they have an avocado cam specifically for you, but those are the connected experiences that we think getting more and more technology in the stores to deliver those experiences is going to be key.Stephanie:Yep. I think that also summarizes the next couple years, because this past year, year and a half or so, people were willing to try, try online ordering, try going through self-checkout, try all the new things. But then now I think we're in a phase where brands need to actually deliver. We were okay with hiccups as consumers for a while there, but now you go in and if self-checkout is not working, I know some stores I know I'm like, "I'm not even going to try it because every time that little light goes off, if I don't put my thing in the right area and I have to wait and whatever it may be." I remember the brands that it doesn't work with and I don't do it anymore, versus certain stores, I know every time I go in and out and it works perfectly.Stephanie:So I think now is the time when brands have to deliver and figure out, "How do we actually deliver that experience to them because they've been willing to be in beta for a little while now, and now we're popping out of that and we're ready for just like a good experience."David:Agree, agree. And to deliver that, if you think about where retail technology had been, anybody that's been in and around retail technology understands that the way we deploy technology in a retail store is antiquated, fairly antiquated. And the experiences that you described are ones that would say, "I have to have modern capabilities. I can't afford to rip and replace everything." And we're taking this run the store approach where we want to deliver outcomes to you. So as a retailer, we want to deliver all those outcomes that you just described. And the more technology you deploy into the store, as you said, the more it has to be available and working. And that sounds basic, but it it's not as basic as you would think. It's not as common sense as you think across the piece.David:Because I can't put a paper sign or a bag over a kiosk and say, "Hey, this isn't available," it has to be available because that's the way that we're interacting and transacting. And so when I look at that, I think we're investing to deliver at scale all the technology in the store. So think about like the dial tone where it just works. The ability for a consumer to come into your store, identify themselves, stand an item, get a total basket, or start a transaction online and finish it in the store, tender it, take payment. That's what we want to deliver to the store as an outcome, as a service. And then the store then, or the retailer brand can focus on, "How do I differentiate my brand? What experiences can I create? Can I create a store within a store or venues within my store? Or what am I trying to do?"David:Because that's really where the store will start to compete. The base technology is not where the store is going to compete, the technology has to be a foundation for creation of new experiences that will be enabled by technology, and a lot of it, we don't what will it be? I don't know. Most of them are likely to be consumer led technologies as they're bringing their own tech into the store, and we have to learn how to deal with it. That's what we're focused on, is getting down to a foundational level, providing that modern architecture without a rip and replace building the bridge, and allowing them to be cloud ready, cloud enabled to take advantage of all the cool things that are happening and all the investment that's going into all these interesting applications that are all consumer facing or social shopping or whatever you want to call it.Stephanie:Yep. That's, to me, the life cycle of technology, when it starts to work is when it's seamless behind the scenes, that's when you know you've made it to then start building on top of it. You don't even notice it's there. What do you see retail experiences looking like going forward to actually have an experience there? what are you seeing brands doing right now that's really cool? What should that look like?David:Yeah. Think about the experience, think about an online shopping experience overall and why you like it. I will say online shopping is horrible, online buying is a good experience. Shopping online, I have to know what I'm looking for, I don't get to see the selection. Maybe I know a little too much about how the content gets served up to me, but I'm not seeing the full selection or assortment I made. There may be something I like that they don't think I like. So there's all these things that happen. But why you think online buying is such a good experience is because you know who I am. I walk in, "walk in" to your store, and I say, "I'm David Wilkinson. I am here."David:Also, I'll give you permission to see everything I bought, and then you have the ability to say, "Oh, based on everything you bought, these are other things you might like," and serve all that, a package it in a way that makes it a good experience, put it in a cart, and then I also have given you a form of payment that I've told you that you can keep and use for anything that I shop in your store for digitally. And then I transact and then you deliver it to my home frictionlessly. Now, take that and say, "How do you create a great shopping experience?" Take a lot of those attributes of online buying and then physical as you described.David:Let me grab the avocado and make sure it's just soft enough but not too soft, let me thump my watermelon, let me look at the meat, let me look at the flowers. Let me take in the full cereal aisle to see what's going on. I love chocolate, but I don't know if I want milk or dark, but I want to experience that in the store, but allow me to see... If I put a box of Rice Krispies in my shopping cart you might ask me, "Do you want marshmallows?" Because maybe you want rice crispy treats, as a cross sell up. So, deliver that to me dynamically in the aisle on a mobile app.David:You've got my store payment form. I've got all these scanning items in my cart, real-time building that basket real time, and then allowing me to pick up some things that I had you pre-picked for me, that I ordered online, or I may just do pervasive checkout where I'm using computer vision RFID or some other form of sensory fusion to create a basket that always knows what I bought. So the notion of creating that online experience, but with all the goodness of what you could create as a brick and mortar retailer in the store and removing that friction is what the experience of the future looks like. We're not that far from that. That's not a, "Oh my gosh, that's a 10-year vision." We could deliver that tomorrow. It's a matter of breaking down some of the traditional thinking and some of the traditional barriers that occur within retail technology today and then getting the consumer engagement that would drive that.David:So that's the way I see the experience of the future, is a nice blend of all the convenience of online with the greatness of an experience in a store.Stephanie:Yeah. I love that. I think that's also why it's important to take a step back from your industry and look around at like what other tech companies are possibly doing and seeing how other things are being created and being experienced, because I think when you're thinking, this is what the store is, and here's my capabilities, it's hard to think outside the box. Whereas just when you were talking, I'm like, "Wow, how cool would it be to... " People go there to experience things, they go shopping to experience things, and maybe people still want to see shelves, but do you actually need a shelf? Can it be a virtual shelf? Can it be a mix of AR or VR where you just look and you can see all the new brands popping up, you can still feel like you're experiencing it.Stephanie:And then you just tap a bunch and you can have a little bit of both while also the productivity of like your car getting filled on the back end behind the scenes and you're ready to go, because you might not need to see the different types of bone broth on the shelf, but you won't actually see them, but you don't need to be collecting them yourself. And I think yeah, always thinking outside your industry is a way to start feeling that out and seeing new innovations and then rethinking the entire way that retail operates right now.David:Yeah, I agree. I agree. I think it's a lot fun. And you think about those experiences that you have to create and the state of the labor market, it requires more labor in the stores to deliver a lot of those experiences. And we're in a labor crisis where labor rates are going up, unemployment was at a low, but now it's hard to read the unemployment stats because it's more of a willingness or want to work at this point and more labor hours required in the store. I think technology will be the key in getting some of that back. I love the AR, VR. Allow me to build a list outside of the store, whether I'm going to buy clothing, go to a convenience store or to a grocery store.David:You could have a list and shop through your mobile device in the store and it points out where you go and it could point out other like items. There are so many fun things that we're going to be able to unlock with technology and data and the consumer willingness to opt into that if you're creating value for them.Stephanie:Yeah. I sometimes also like to look at the startups who don't have barriers to enter the markets, the ones that can just start a little guide shop type of maybe grocery store or whatever it may be and they're like, "I'm going to implement this store in like a tech-first approach. And it's going to be small, but it's going to be like this." Do you see anything like that right now where you're like, "Whoa, these companies are doing things in a very different way and it could either fail or be really cool"? And you don't have to name names if you don't want to.David:Yeah, we're seeing it on both. We do obviously a lot of research around what's happening on the tech side of retail, and I'll collage together a couple of sources and I'll tell you that there's $100 billion of investment going into retail tech startup is proclaimed to be retail tech startup. Forget about anything that might be on the periphery of that around could be any AI or ML or inventory. It could be some other things. So there's a lot of money and there's a lot of really interesting things happening. Yes, we're seeing that anywhere from retrofitting in-store lighting to create a platform for AI where you can do camera and tracking and you can do facial recognition or gait recognition, store tracking and close the loop with a point of sale system.David:Really interesting things happening there. On the other side, there are a lot of startup retailers. If you and I just sat in a room and brainstorm and said, what do we want to build as a store? We wouldn't be forced to this paradigm of what a convenience store or especially specialty retail store or a grocery store look like today. Why do I need a fixed point of sale? Why do I need these other things? And so we're working with a small startup out of South Carolina that's creating this concept of drive up grocery. They're looking around watching the pandemic, fast food and quick service restaurants do a great job, buy online, pickup in store. No inside shopping. And so we're helping them with the tech. We're going to run all the tech for these stores where they effectively have a dark store that they either order on an app or they drive up and you order on a tablet and they have to pick it quickly, so they have to know inventory.David:So I look at these things and it's fun to watch. They have no barriers, they have no paradigm that they're trying to break. They're just charging forward with a need in the market and how they're going to approach it. So, yeah, we see a lot of that. We see a lot of that around computer vision, we see it on the tech side, we see a lot of that around what's happening with a AI and ML. We're starting to see a little bit more of that around payments and alternative payments with things like crypto. So there's just a lot of interesting things that we see happening.Stephanie:I would think the one misconception a lot of people have too is that retail is dying or dead. And a lot of influential people have said that, and maybe they're retracting that statement now, but what I think is cool to watch is the type of retailers that are opening up. You see a lot of discounters opening up right now way more than maybe in the past, which is an interesting trend. And then you see these very luxury, maybe not too luxury, but B2C brands also only focusing on what experience do you get by coming here? So what do you think around those two types of industries opening up more retail locations this year than before?David:We serve those discounters all around the world and that's not just the US trend, we see that happening in all parts of the world. And I think convenience growth is also... I just this moved to convenience, smaller footprint is a big trend, and I really think it's about that last mile and accessibility. And so, all the discounters will tell you their growth numbers are off the charts. The way I think about that is they have a critical need for data because they have to understand, they're not obviously carrying a full assortment in that store, so they have to understand their demographics. They have to understand that past purchase history of that municipality or wherever they're located. And they have to have probably technology solutions to deploy potentially the order in the store.David:So I think there's a good blend there as the retailers are going to find the discounters that they're really all about location and proximity to their customer base and serving a need that people want either in between a big grocery shop or going to the big box retailer, the ability to just do quick top-up trips for certain items, I think is where they're going to make their names. And I think that they're seeing a tremendous success as evidenced by their growth and the industry. The luxury brands are interesting, or even maybe not the luxury brands, but you see other in a lot of sporting and fat sporting fashion, and other things where you have the home fitness craze or the virtual fitness craze is taking hold, but so many of those things are experiential again.David:So instead of a story, you think about just creating an experience center that allows you... We saw that, Apple started that with their Apple stores, they were very experiential, Tesla had done something very similar, no big surprise, the same person helped design and develop those two stores. But when do we think about that, if you look at what Kate Hudson did with her brand and partnering. So there a lot of interesting things that are happening around creating experiences around retail at those higher end, or call it more luxury brand goods, it's a blend of, "Hey, I have this subscription content and a complimentary set of retail items that you have to somehow bring together."David:And that's a hard thing to do online. I think that's what we're seeing. I think you'll see more of those pop up. And I think we're seeing more of the traditional retail, the older school, especially retail, either collapse or consolidate, and you're seeing a lot of those newer experiential brands pop up. So I think it's a trend that will at least be here for the next three to five years.Stephanie:Yeah. I agree. I'd love to start seeing case studies around these people, they came into the store, their experience is golf store, whatever it may be, they played on in this camping set with their kids, and then it attributed to this many sales. That's what I'm hoping to see over these next couple of years. I think the experience is where it's at, but I also know a lot of people do, maybe even myself who would just go in and have a good time and be all right, see you next week. And so it'll be interesting to dig into that data eventually and see, is the ROI there of having a full-on experiential store or is it more from a branding perspective or how do you even view that from a financial person?David:I think you said it, well, you have to be purposeful in how you do that. You can't just say, "I'm going to pop-up a traditional retail model, and it's going to be experiential." To your point, I think you have to set out to say, "I'm going to create this experiential store. It's got a different footprint, a different look and feel, a different set of technology capabilities." Because you may or may not be catering to the client that's going to buy online. If you look at a clothing store like Bonobos, who has a showroom store or showroom store, you don't buy anything. There you go in and you try things on for fit, feel, you can touch and feel everything. They have one of everything and they have a bunch of different sizes.David:And then when you go to order, all they're doing is ordering online and then they've got your account and you can order online. So I think that's a good example of somebody that has done a great job of creating an experience. And then that also solves the returns problem on the flip side of the econ equation.Stephanie:The other thing that I wanted to talk about with loyalty programs, because I think you've talked about this in the past and I know a lot of companies always try it, and I can think about the ones that actually, I remember that worked well for me, Nordstrom Rack is one of them, I think TJX one's sometimes hard to find where my dollars are, but at least I know that they're there. And then other ones that just don't work well, certain grocery stores where I'm like, "Why do I keep putting my number in here? What am I getting from this?" So how do you think about loyalty programs? How should they be created and how will they work over the next couple of years?David:This is going to get back to data and the ability to do personalized shopping. Some of the research that we look at, and I'll look at things that are 50, 60, 70% of consumers are willing to provide data or willing to give data if they get value in return. I know that seems like a loose equation because value is different to your point from the eyes of the beholder, but I think it has to be a more personalized program like you said, if I'm just going to enter a phone number in and that's going to drive a discount off a price, that's just not going to be good enough anymore.Stephanie:What if it's not clear, if you're like, "I put my phone number in, did I get anything?" You're looking at the little register and you're like, "I don't see any discounts, what am I even building up to? I don't get it."David:Or offering you something after the fact like, "Hey, you made these three purchases, here's something off your next visit." I think there's going to be such a competitive marketplace for people creating personalized experiences. Now, think about social, if you're on the clothing side, like you're talking to those high end brands, the ability to plug into social networking and create a loyalty program that either would reward somebody for expanding their network or influencing your products or the ability to buy through social channels when you see I want input from people that I would view as either my peers or people like me, how do they like reading reviews, other things, information's at their fingertips.David:So I think that kind of information with your personal data, with social interaction is going to be key. But again, I think loyalty programs are going to come down to more of what we talked about earlier around the online experience, creating more of that online experience, where I give you permission to create an experience because I don't want the friction. I want you to know who I am, I want you to know what I like, I want you to be able to recommend things that, and I want the best deal at the time of purchase. And I want you to respect my loyalty to your brand in the long term, and then I want to reduce all the friction.David:So to me, that's bigger than a points program or enter your phone number, and I'm going to track your purchases and may or may not give you a discount. That's creating that 360 full view of your consumer and really truly understanding them.Stephanie:Yeah. And I think it's also, it's okay to interact with them more than you think if it's done in a way that's purposeful. I think that's the interesting thing is you see the brands that you don't ever hear from and you're like, "What am I even doing here?" And then you hear from the brands that just give you random offers that maybe never incentivize you to do something. And so I think there's a sweet spot where a lot of brands now are leaning into that the more, becoming a media company, having their own content, creating this all-encompassing experience and figuring out how to do that in a way that actually drives the results, will be the way of the future.Stephanie:But I think still brands are having a little bit of a struggle around trying to figure out like what that looks and what incentivizes people to want to act and interact with your content or your texts or whatever they need.David:Right. And like we said, in Asia, it's probably a little more ahead with some of that social commerce and the gamification of both social and product recommendations and loyalty. So some form of that will take hold here. I was trying to think of an example of who is doing it really well, nothing just pops into my head. So we'll skip that.Stephanie:We can skip that then. Yeah, no worries. For anyone who listens to the show, they know that I love to always try and talk about crypto when I can, for whoever is willing to do that with me. And so I wanted to hear from you since I know you guys are obviously the payments space and you're probably watching what's happening in that realm all the time, I want to hear your thoughts on how crypto is going to impact retail and specifically around payments.David:Yeah. I love to talk about crypto too, so I appreciate you bringing it up. I think that it's obviously a very hot trend, there's a lot of trending news happening around crypto. Some of them good, some of them bad, whether it's the hype that Elon Musk creates around things those Dogecoin or Bitcoin on Saturday Night Live, you can follow the trials and tribulations of that. When you get to the underpinnings of the applicability of that and the desire of people to participate in alternative payment form that has less, we'll call it less fees or less cost or more direct access, or feel they have more control, I think that's where we're seeing a lot of uptake in cryptocurrency.David:I just read some studies this morning that talked about cryptocurrency holders, 51% of crypto holders are very likely to use cryptocurrency at retail if they would accept it. So you think about, okay, how do we accept cryptocurrency in a retail environment? We did a demo pre-COVID, whatever, I think that would have been 2020 January at the National Retail Federation, their big show that they have in New York at the Javits Center every year, we actually had a cryptocurrency demo where we said, "We're going to help serve unbanked or underbanked cash economy. How do they participate in the digital economy?" But we had our cash acceptance, think about a self-checkout that has the ability to accept cash.David:We could take that cash. We partnered with some companies to convert that cash to crypto that would be then stored on a cloud wallet or a mobile wallet, generate a QR code, and then we shared it. It was a short demo line, and then we effectively go to the point of sale and purchase something with cash that we had just turned to crypto, scan a QR code at the point of sale, a very simple execution of a lot of elegant and complex things behind the scenes and new thinking. So I think we will see more and more crypto applications come up in retail. And for us as NCR, whether it's moving from cash, to still some checks, to credit cards, debit cards, tap to pay, Apple Pay, mobile wallets, crypto, we want and need to, based on what our mission is, to be able to serve your payment needs from cash to crypto.David:So we are absolutely investing in both partnerships and organic technology that is around crypto, we think again, whether it's payment or some other disintermediation using the underpinnings of what distributed ledger would bring to just ease of payment and security of payment, and again, value stream of payment. There is a there there, either work to do to define exactly what that means, and then consumer adoption is a bit of a wild card, which of those will take off.Stephanie:Yeah. But I think once again, it highlights when tech goes behind the scenes, there will be a place when we are transacting and we don't even know really what's behind the scenes and operating that. Even for now, thinking about Venmo, what actually goes behind the scenes to make all of that work, I think there will be a place when people go in and transact, and maybe it is utilizing crypto, but you don't really know how it's really working, you just know that it's fast and you don't pay fees on it, and it just happens, and it just works. And same thing around financing, these companies that you need to finance things, there'll be a much easier way to do it, whereas you can enter into it quickly and you can see your contract quickly and get out of it when you need to.Stephanie:And right now it feels like a lot of friction around that still, and especially for developing countries, like you said, who don't have banks to rely on or can't rely on them because it is a little bit volatile or whatever it may be. A ton of opportunity that I see disrupting and getting to a place where you don't even know what's behind the scenes powering essentially everything.David:I think you're right, there's a broader education that has to be done because crypto is not about nefarious criminal activities and I'm a money launder or in some illegal trade that I don't want my cash to be seen by the government. That's not what it is. There a lot of regulations, a lot of usage around KYC and other ways that are protecting those assets there, a lot of backing that's being done, you see things stablecoin. The volatility of the value is obviously a big myth, we joked about at the beginning, it's up and down, up and down. But getting asset back, tokens and stablecoins will start to create the ability to leverage distributed ledger in the way that it was meant to be, where the chain of custody is always known, the assets itself hold their own chain of custody.David:You remove all the intermediaries and all the middle people, clearing houses and other... It's going to free up the world of payment in some way that we'll see that more, call it a democratization of the payments infrastructure that I think will be interesting, that would be part of it.Stephanie:Yeah. I like watching it. And the only time I get a little hesitant is when I see entities creating their own coins or governments being like, "We're going to be issuing crypto however," it's backed against, I'll just make it up the US dollar or gold or whatever, our currency in this country. And that's where I'm like, "Oh, I feel like you're taking idea of decentralized and you're completely doing the wrong thing with it and it's turning back into a centralized function." And that's the only point that makes me hesitant, but also I know that maybe consumers would hear that it's backed by the US dollar and be like, "Oh, that one is a better bet." Whereas if you actually understand where this tech, even maybe people don't know who created it, but where it even started and the ideology behind it, is not to tie it to a centralized in it, but we will see.David:Like do that then you just recreate the payment system. Probably not worth it.Stephanie:No. All right. Well, let's shift over to the Lightning Round. The Lightning Round is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I ask a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, David?David:I am ready.Stephanie:All right. Hard one first, what one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?David:I think I'll call it ubiquity of buying online and picking up or delivery anywhere. And so solving, how do I get it to the home at a cost-effective way? How do I manage returns? Or how do I combine that experience of in-person and online? However we define that or whatever that looks is going to change the face of ecomm or commerce.Stephanie:Yup. If you had a podcast, what would it be about and who would your first guest be?David:Wow, It's going to be totally odd. If I had a podcast, it would be about fitness. And I love to do CrossFit, and so it'd be fitness podcast, and I'd have a CrossFit athlete like Travis Mayer or Mat Frazier or somebody on there.Stephanie:I like it. What are you secretly curious about?David:It's funny, it's not overly secret. I think about what the conversation we just had about cryptocurrency. I'm fascinated by cryptocurrency and the underlying applications of distributed ledger across everything from supply chain to the world of, call it finance or micro lending, or just the stock market. A physical stock certificate is no longer... In distributed ledger worlds, you no longer need a physical stock certificates. So I'm fascinated by that. So maybe more fascinated than secretly intrigued.Stephanie:Yeah. I love that. I always keep thinking about smart contracts and especially going through and buying a home and being like, "Why am I still trying to verify that no one from the 1920s or whatever owns this home, that's ridiculous. Why don't we just put this baby on Ethereum or Cardano and call the Dai." There's so many of this.David:The home knows it hasn't been owned.Stephanie:Yeah. It should know that we don't have, we don't need to ask and pay $3,300 in title insurance to make sure that no one else owns this title. That's crazy.David:It is. I agree with you. I agree with you. So I'm interested in how we unlock all that goodnessStephanie:Yeah. When you want to feel more joy, what do you do?David:I spend time with my wife and my daughter and our dog. So I just hang out with the fam.Stephanie:I like that. And then what one thing do you not understand today that you wish you did?David:Wow. That may be the same answer to what I'm intrigued with the cryptocurrency, but I'll go a different route. I don't understand why I can't hit a golf ball more straight, and I would love to understand that. I would love to understand that.Stephanie:I wish I could help you with that, but I just attempted mini-golf with my three-year-old the other day and it did not go well. And I was like, "I shouldn't be teaching you. I think you're doing better than me." So I hope you figure that out on your own.David:Yeah. I do too. I do too.Stephanie:The last one, what's up next on your reading list or on your podcast queue?David:It's funny I don't have it with me, but it is a book about, it's not a crypto book, but it is a distributed ledger of financial book. I don't remember the name of it, it's probably not overly interesting.Stephanie:Is it new?David:It is new. It's a 2020, 2021 book. Stephanie:Digital Finance: Security Tokens and Unlocking the Real Potential of Blockchain.David:That is it. That's sitting there waiting to read. And then it's funny, the other book that is next next on my list, and I'm old school so I have real books-David:a book called From Cotton Picker to Store Keeper. It's the story of the Brookshire's grocery company. So a Texas company at Tyler, Texas, but it's just a store. It's a family-run store that has a grocery chain that has survived and continues to thrive and grow. And so it's just an interesting read Stephanie:All right, David. Well, it's been really fun having you on the show. Thanks for sharing all your insights and hanging out with me for a bit. Where can people find out more about NCR retail and yourself?David:Yeah. I would just go to our website, ncr.com and you'll find about us. And then for me, I'm on the old school social media of LinkedIn. We do still a lot of posting through LinkedIn, it just works for us. So you'll see more thereStephanie:I'm on LinkedIn, it's not that old school. Cool. Well, thanks so much for coming on and joining us.David:Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Tanner Krause started working at the family business Kum & Go when he was nine years old, today he is the CEO. Kum & Go is very active with human rights projects and supporting programming related to Black Lives Matter, and Gay and Trans rights. Tanner still plays soccer today and hopes to return to coaching soon. He grew up enjoying the sport and played through his college years at Loyola University. I enjoyed learning about how soccer helped to prepare him for his role today.

2/6/2021. Equality Act, MTG V. Marie Norman, House & Senate Transphobia, Rand Paul, Merrick Garland, New Drag Race, Lindsay Graham Hole Rant, Gay Fat Shaming, Kum & Go, TikTok Vegan V. LGBTQ, Buttigieg Airport Proposal, Suing Subdivision, "Mr." Potato Head & more. 

BGBS 052: Tanner Krause | Kum & Go | We Must Be the Force of Change Tanner Krause is the President of Kum & Go, a fourth-generation family-owned business headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa with 400 stores spanning 11 states. And boy, does he have a story for you. You'll learn that Kum & Go is more than just a convenience store. On top of being a fun place with a die-hard fandom, the service mentality that the company embodies is exemplary, and you'll be sure to feel Tanner's passion through the mic as he expresses his mission to improve greater equality and kindness for humanity. In this episode, we deep dive into Kum & Go's history and learn how it all started out with a love story. Tanner also touches on crucial decisions that were made during each generation, including his own, that all impacted Kum & Go for the better. Overall, Tanner feels his greatest purpose is to ensure that his family and others are proud of Kum & Go for generations to come. To him, that means using his privilege and opportunity to be a force of change for the many forms of inequality America endures. That being said, how can you become a force of change, even in your own small way? In this episode, you'll learn... The name for Kum & Go came from the last names Krause and Gentle, named after Tanner's grandfather and great-grandfather Tanner speaks fondly of his grandfather Bill Krause, a charismatic person with a gift of making people feel special and paying attention to detail, no matter how influential he became. Although the number of Kum & Go stores are smaller than they were in 2004, Tanner's father Kyle ensures that the chain of stores left were rebuilt, ensuring a continuity of quality and improving the financial health of the company At Kum & Go, the 5 core values they stand by are passion, integrity, teamwork, caring, and excellence Kum & Go has generations of service-based leadership. In an industry where products are not generally differentiated, Kum & go wins with its people, which is why they've maintained such success for 61 years Tanner stresses that in today's day and age, you cannot require a consumer to come shop and meet your needs at the store. They need the freedom to shop in person at their own convenience. Therefore, developing the technology for that freedom was essential to Kum & Go. Almost every decision you make, you think is right based on the information you have at the time. It is important to remember this when hindsight overturns your original decision Tanner encourages families with privilege to make transcended progress in driving change on matters of equality. Kum & Go associates get six weeks of fully paid maternity leave, which is rare for retail in Iowa. Thus far, this has impacted about 3,000-4,000 people. The family age of first employment at Kum & Go is 9 years old. Tanner was so excited to work, he unsuccessfully negotiated to start at 8. Resources Tanner Krause LinkedIn: Tanner Krause Twitter: @TannerKrause Kum & Go Website: kumandgo.com Twitter: @kumandgo Instagram: @kumandgo TikTok: @realkumandgo LinkedIn: Kum & Go Quotes [19:48] We have core values at Kum & Go. We have five. Passion, integrity, teamwork, caring, and excellence... A Kum & Go person is somebody who embodies those core values. Somebody who gets out of bed in the morning and thinks about making days better for others, "how do we come in and serve?" And it's been this service mentality that has led us to be successful. [31:44] Success in the convenience store business is getting some getting somebody to inconvenience themselves to go to a convenience store [46:47] The fact that somebody's going beyond just, you know, buying drinks and buying gas from us, but to say, "You know what? This company, this brand, this store, this experience is so cool, I want it too, and I want it to be a part of my personal story and my personal brand," I get really proud. I'm really happy I see it, and it brings a smile to my face. [48:53] Inequality exists in a variety of forms in America. And in order to make acceptable progress, it cannot be the oppressed that drive change. The privileged have to drive change. For us to really make transcended progress and success in matters of all sorts of equality, it has to be people like myself, people who look like me, people who have wealth and opportunity like I have, people that have education like I have, that recognize this and say..."Why don't we be the force of change?" Podcast Transcript Tanner Krause 0:02 Kum & Go's purpose is to make this better if we're successful in our purpose, and if we can give you just a glimpse of incremental joy or happiness, when you think about the impact that we can have in the country by being a small source of joy, that's exciting to me, about, you know, how we can leverage what we do to drive the change, we want to see. That's what we're trying to do. And we invest in our associates and we design our associate value proposition, not in a way in which, you know, what does the market demand? Or does the market bear for things or for people, but, you know, what do our people deserve? And listen objectively, like with a global perspective, do our people deserve a living wage to deserve maternity leave? Do they deserve health insurance, you know what that list look like? And you know, before we start to add bells and whistles over here, and let's stay focused on people in our employ, and make sure that they're respected and dignified, except that they shouldn't be. And that's what we've tried to do. Marc Gutman 1:02 Podcasting from Boulder, Colorado, this is the baby got backstory Podcast, where we dive into the story behind the story of today's most inspiring storytellers, creators and entrepreneurs. I like big Back stories, and I cannot lie. I am your host, Marc Gutman, Marc Gutman, and today's episode of Baby Got Back story. How a young boy from Iowa grew into his destiny to run one of the largest networks of privately owned convenience stores in the Midwest. I am so excited about today's episode, because I'm personally obsessed with relevance. How do we stay relevant? How do we reinvent ourselves? How do we move forward with the world as it moves forward around us? And how do we stay relevant while effecting change. And today's guest is all about relevance. Last week, we had Ariel Rubin from Kum & Go on the show. And today we are talking with Tanner Kraus president of Kum & Go. And before we get to Tanner, I want to remind you to rate and review this show. If you're listening, I'm assuming you like it. And if that's the case, please take a minute or two to rate and review us over at Apple podcasts or Spotify, Apple podcasts and Spotify use these ratings as part of the algorithm that determines the ratings on their charts. ratings are good for us so we can continue to produce this show. Better yet, please recommend this show to at least one friend you think well like it. That's just being a good friend. Tanner Krauss is the president of Kum & Go headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa. He is the fourth generation to lead the family owned business. And as President Tanner oversees the marketing operations, human resources, information technology, finance and storage development functions. Together, these teams provide support to 5000 Associates and 400 stores across 11 states. I mentioned that Tanner is 32 years old. But you wouldn't know it by listening to him. And as you're hearing today's interview, he was raised for this job. And he knew ever since he knew something that this was his calling. And the combination of the two makes it no surprise that he is President today. What may surprise you is Tanner's perspective on the convenience store. But the impact they're making on their employees, their communities, and the world. Tanner is not simply along for the ride. He sees Kum & Go as a platform to do good while continuing to build the business. As I mentioned last week, as a customer, I am so enamored by Kum & Go. I seek out their stores when I'm on the road. And I'm so honored to have Tanner Kraus on the show. And this is his story. So I am here with Tanner Krause, the president of Kum & Go. Tanner, welcome. And if you could start off by telling us, what is Kum & Go? Tanner Krause 4:26 Well, Marc, thanks for having me. And shout out to all your listeners out there. I love talking about Kum & Go. So Kum & Go is a convenience store company based in Des Moines, Iowa. We've been around for 61 years. We're in 11 states across most of the Midwest, and we've got about 400 locations Marc Gutman 4:47 and kind of a funny name. Where does the name Kum & Go come from? Tanner Krause 4:54 Sure. Kum & Go is a name based actually on my family. So we're a family business on the fourth generation of my family to lead the business. And, you know, Kum & Go and grew out of one store in Hampton, Iowa in 1959. And I like to say that Kum & Go was a love story. You had my grandpa who was working for a kind of oil, who's about to get relocated to Wyoming. And his soon to be father in law said, there's no way in hell you're taking my daughter from I went to Wyoming in the 50s. Why don't I buy that service station that's for sale on the corner, and you can run it and we'll go into business together? So what's keeping Nancy Gentle in Hampton, Iowa was the impetus for the first store in this business. And it was Hampton oil company. Well, we grew pretty rapidly that a good little model. And finally, we needed a name, and didn't want to call it Hampton oil as we went into these other small towns in Northern Iowa. So we needed a name. And they wanted to name my grandpa, my great grandpa that brought in the K from my last name Krause. And then the G from my great grandpa's last name, gentle. So we have the name Kum & Go. And this is early 60s. So my grandfather's go into the sign company in Northern Iowa. And they say we need you know, we have whatever nine stores, we need three signs for a store. And here's our name, sign guy goes, Okay, it's 50 bucks a letter, and does the record tick, as all right, it'll cost you this much money to buy signage for your stores. And being a scrappy entrepreneurs that we were, they look up the name and said 50 bucks a letter, that's too expensive. What if we do this, no longer will be a nd we'll use the ampersand, save two characters. And we can spell come instead of spelling kome. We can spell it Kum save a third character. And then they got a new quote, they probably saved I don't know, 4000 bucks or something and early 60s, and Kum & Go, as you know, today was named Marc Gutman 7:18 Ah, that's awesome and it's become an iconic name ever since. And then. So from that moment, where we're kind of in this moment where the name gets more or less branded, or I guess maybe the the typography of it comes about in this organic way. And the name comes about what happens there with the business, how does it continue to grow and expand? Tanner Krause 7:43 Well, I think the thing that we've gotten better at recently is talking about the elephant in the room. And there was a long stretch of time where we didn't know how to address the reality that it is our name, and the innuendo and the euphemism and the underlying sexual tone in our name. So we avoided it. And looking back, that was probably the wrong strategy, because we allowed others to control the narrative of our brand assets. Instead, we now embrace the fact that our name is our name. And we're controlling the narrative, and we're doing so in a way that doesn't cheapen who we are, it doesn't invite further sexualization of our brand. It addresses the awkwardness in a mostly mature manner and we even stamped out rude or de sexualizing comments on our social media accounts, so that we, we don't have that type of negative activity or surrounding us. And so now it's becoming more of the conversation and more normalized, and we're seeing a really positive reaction to that. Marc Gutman 9:03 Yeah, that's awesome. It's really this idea, you know, that I've talked about before, which is brand or be branded, like, either you're out there talking about it, or other people are, but people are talking about it. And so better, like, as you mentioned, to, to try to, it's not even, like control the narrative, it's just like, inform the narrative, it's more like shape it because, you know, narratives are kind of our two ways. You know, a lot of times are most of the time with our customers. And so, I love that and so, kind of getting back though to when you have these scrappy entrepreneurs, they're they're building the business, how did the business grow from what I was trying to maybe ask and, and I loved your answer because I but I did a poor job. I think of the asking the question was, how did the business grow from that point on how did it begin to become this bigger thing that started to spread out across multiple states and and over the generations have all these all these locations? Tanner Krause 9:55 Yeah, happy to tell that story too. So, you know, we had a bit of magic That first service station back in Hampton, Iowa. And she had a couple things going for you that my grandpa and my great grandpa. And so my grandpa, Bill Krause was as charismatic a person as I ever met. He was incredible with people, you remember everybody's name, he remembered more than just your name about you. And he made you feel important. He made you feel special. And he never lost that. And no matter how influential or wealthy he became, he was always had a gift with people. And he worked his ass off. He, you know, my grandma still tell stories how when we had that first store, you would close overnight? Well, he would pin the home phone number to the gas pump. And if there was a trucker driving through Hampton at night, they needed to go to his store, call him he would put his boots on, got to bed, drive down to get the sale, and then go back home and sleep the rest of the night. And so he was that kind of guy. Then you had my great grandfather, who was, you know, the consummate merchant, he was this business man, he, he owned a pharmacy in Northern Iowa, before he got into the gas and oil and service business, his family, his parents ran a fruit stand and kind of predict that depression era Iowa. And so he was good at merchandising, he was good at, you know, buying for $1 and selling for two. And so they really pioneered and what's the modern day convenience store, at least in our part of the country in which you had this model that was very automobile focused. And it was oil changes and tire changes and fluid changes and gas. And it was kind of basics. And they were one of the first you know, it's the story is told the first to really start to merchandise, staples with your automobile products. So they were selling bread, milk, a eggs, nice to have, they were really bringing convenience to the customer. And that combination of merchandising and marketing, slash sales and people skills was a really successful one. So the store started to work, show them a lot of money, relatively speaking. And then they were able to kind of go town to town across Iowa. And you know, no business plan, No formalities, a walk into the local banker and say, Hey, this is my model, do you believe in me with a small loan, I can get one of these going in your town. And that worked. And it kept working. And I kept repeating itself. And then that became Kum & Go, and then we're growing through the 60s or going through the 70s, or growing through the 80s, pretty organically kind of one at a time slow, slow, slow, as you get to the 80s. And into the 90s, especially our business grew to where we were able to start kicking off a decent amount of cash. And we were able to do some acquisitions. So we really grew from a store count perspective and a geographical reach in the 90s especially. And so we had this operational magic, and to some extent, a strong brand. But really the magic was in our ability to execute in stores, we could take a bankrupt chain of convenience stores in any town in the Midwest, buy it and run it and be able to make a good money and have really quick returns through that process. And so we did that, that got us into Omaha that got us into Colorado got us into Tulsa gotta finish Springfield, Missouri, got us into a lot of the markets where we are today. So my grandfather really led this scaling of our enterprise largest your acquisition. The next chapter is you have my dad coming up to the business. And so my dad graduated from USC of Iowa in the mid 80s, and went straight in to Kum & Go. So he's grown up during all this time. And he becomes CEO in 2004. And he shifts our growth strategy as a company. So we were an acquisition based company, we shift to grow into an organic built company again, where we now start to build our own stores. And what he saw was while the acquisition led growth had really positive short term returns, right, you're buying really depreciated assets you're putting Kum & Go on the storefront you're putting Kum & Go people in the store and more importantly, and you're getting quick paybacks, so that was spinning well for us. But you wake up one day, we have 450 stores, all different types of associating customer experiences. We've got some stores of 711 built we've got some stores that getting go bill, we've got some stores that mom and pop in Oklahoma built and they're all over the place in terms of asset quality product offering product mix, plan, the grand the whole nine yards was really scattered. And so our brand suffered ultimately, as a result of all that even though financially we're quite strong. So Dan kicks off this massive initiative to start to build new and rebuild the key real estate that we own and divest non strategic assets in real estate. And we are just about on the tail end of this project, but he kicked off. And I think it was 2010 or 2011, we're really got ambitious about turning over the chain of stores that we own and operate. And so we now have, you know, in his CEO, experience or leadership, our store count has gone down, as we've divested, but we've built new stores, high performing stores, our volume for outlets are growing rapidly, and our overall company financial health, and ultimately, the profitability has grown substantially since he took over even though our total number of stores is actually smaller than it was in 2004. Marc Gutman 15:57 Yeah, and then you come in and you become president. And we'll get there in a second. But I kind of want to take a step back because you so clearly articulated, and thank you for sharing that story in that that journey of Kum & Go and your family. And so do you have brothers or other siblings? Tanner Krause 16:15 I do. Yeah, I'm one of four boys. Marc Gutman 16:18 Okay. And so it can you just give me a rundown of what that looks like in terms of ages and things like that. Tanner Krause 16:25 Yeah, so my older brother Ryan is in law school. He's doing social justice law at the Cardozo School of Law in Manhattan. On the second oldest, my younger brother Elliot, also lives in New York City. He is a director of a creative writing program at a Jesuit High School in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. And my youngest brother, Oliver, is the director of analytics for Parma Calcio. Marc Gutman 16:52 Oh, awesome. And so thank you for that. And so this might answer my question. So when you think back and you know, Tanner, you know, you're 856, something like that growing up in Des Moines? Did you always think that you would someday? Be in the family business? Did you dream of having a leadership role Kum & Go? Or was there something else for you? Tanner Krause 17:15 Absolutely, this is my dream. And I'm blessed to say that, you know, I woke up, I woke up, I grew up, and I looked up to my dad, I looked up to my grandfather, even my great grandfather, you know, he passed away when I was 18 years old, so a lot of exposure to him as well. So, you know, I looked at, you know, my family as, as role models as as aspirational to me. And I've always known I would do this. And I've always known that I would be a part of Kum & Go. And most of my life experiences were designed around preparing me to have the job I have today. Marc Gutman 17:57 Yeah. And so it's interesting, like, I like when I go into a Kum & Go, I feel that it's different. And I don't know why. And I think that that's always the hallmark of a great brand is you can't always identify why you're feeling something or why you recognize it. But there's these little things, you know, and and perhaps I can, I can trace it back to the stories you shared about your grandfather, your great grandfather and how they approached business. But like, you know, you do feel welcome, if there is a and I want to ask you, you know, what you mentioned, you know, we have Kum & Go people, which is a Kum & Go person, because like when I go into a common ghost store, I mean, you talk about things about being a family business, there's values that are printed in different, you know, areas of the store, I mean, it just feels different. Has it always been that way? Or is this something that that's a little bit new with the brand and the way that you're communicating your brand story through the store? Tanner Krause 18:51 But I think we're communicating our brand story in a new way. But I think that thread of consistency has been coming to people. And we've as a brand, if you look back over the last 60 years, you know, if you heard a lot about what I was saying, relative to our assets, we were not winning on asset or store experience or store quality for most of our company's history. Have you walked into Kum & Gos today, thanks to the hard work of my father and our real estate team, we're finally winning on store stores, right? Our stores by and large, are bigger, brighter, newer, younger and better condition better materials than the competition. I'll put our fleet up against just about anybody in the business. However, that was not always the case. Like I said, when we're buying bankrupt seven elevens in downtown Omaha, you don't have great assets. So we had to win with people. And we have core values that Kum & Go we have five passion, integrity, teamwork, caring, an excellence. And so what is it coming to a person a kind of a person is somebody who embodies those core values. Somebody who gets out of bed in the morning and thinks about making days better for others, how do we come in and serve. And it's been this service mentality that has led us to be successful. And you saw that by now my grandfather was not above doing anything in a kum & go store, even when he was in his 60s and 70s. If the garbage was unsatisfactory, he would take the garbage out. If the pumps were dirty, he'd walk in and say, you know, where are your cleaning materials, he walked out and he cleaned the pump, and I saw him good, I'm going to Kum & Go to stores, where here's this, you know, semi retired founder, cleaning palms, taking out the trash getting the mop out of the bathroom, that's who he was. And so we have generation, decades of service based leadership of customer service based associate training and culture built into our DNA. And ultimately, we haven't been able to win on assets for a long time products in our industry are not very differentiated, you'd walk into our store, it's a similar line of products. And when you walk into our competition, that's a tough place for us to win. So you got it went on people. That's why we've been successful for 61 years. Marc Gutman 21:19 I love that. And you know, you mentioned that you were always destined to do this, that this was your dream job. I mean, do you remember that first day when you became president? Like, I know, you were in the company prior to that, so it wasn't like you just like, walked in, you know, one day and became president, but like, we scared like, Did you think like, Am I gonna be the fourth generation that screws this thing up? Like, did you have any apprehension? Tanner Krause 21:45 Absolutely. You know, I knew how to say one thing, my dad still CEO in the business, now he empowers me more and more every day. And at some point, there'll be an additional transition, where he'll step out of Kum & Go a little bit more than he is today. He'll Kum & Go zone by the crowds, group. Kraus group owns and operates 10 different businesses soon to be 11. And so we've got a lot going on in our portfolio. And he's trusted in the power of me, and I'm appreciative of that. But absolutely, I've I've been scared, I've been worried, I've been nervous. That motivates me, that gets me out of bed, you know what you said, I think about a lot, right? I feel the pressure to perpetuate what we do as a business as my main responsibility in this life. And I'm not going to fail, we are not going to fail. And we are faced with some of the greatest challenges that Kum & Gos ever faced, in my lifetime, we will see my prediction, almost the complete eradication of the internal combustible engine, gas will go away, it'll become a novelty, right, the shift to electric or hydrogen fuel cells or some alternative energy source is a matter of when and not if, even though we still have a lot of time to figure that out. And then you look at what technology is doing to brick and mortar. Sure, our industry has been relatively protected from e-commerce, because it's harder to get a hot cup of coffee delivered to your door from Amazon than it is to get a book. And so we're a little bit inflated, but that's coming and you're seeing that happen now. And so I view it as a personal responsibility as a failure responsibility to step up and say, we're not going to take the easy way out and sell. And we're not going to get our lunch eaten by somebody who hasn't been doing this as long as we've been doing this. So whether it was the first day became president, which was June 1 2018, I was 30 or today, or in 10 years, we're going to get up every day and say how does Kum & Go continuing to live its purpose How does Kum & Go continue to sustain itself generation after generation so that not only my family has something to be proud of. But every family of the 5000 people that we employ has something they can be proud of for another generation. Marc Gutman 24:14 And that's you know, quite a mantle to carry and you know, I can I can feel like how much it means to you. And so when you think about it, what is the future of convenience if we are moving towards this new world? You know, what does that look like? What are you thinking about? Tanner Krause 24:30 As I became a president, I've tried to shift the mentality of Kum & Go for a long time. We've classified ourselves as a convenience store. We're no longer a convenience store. We are in the immediate consumption business. That is our value to the customer is coming those stands for a place where it is easy and quick and convenient to get something to eat drink that I want now. The convenience store has merely been the model of delivery for us to meet that consumer need. And because of technology and shifts in consumer behavior, there are now other ways to meet that same need. So we have to focus on being the immediate consumption retailer of choice for our target customer. So that when you are in Colorado, one snack, once in a drink, want something to smoke, you think of Kum & Go. And we remain the most convenient option to get it to you quickly and conveniently for your immediate needs. And that means evolving beyond traditional brick and mortar retail, that means leveraging our existing brick and mortar stores and locations to our advantage, because that remains our major competitive advantage over disruptors and people from outside our industry. And so we'll leverage that. And it means developing technology to allow for the consumer to shop us at their choice. And to not require that consumer to come get in their car travel to our store and shop on hard turf on our terms in order to meet their needs. Because in this century, it's all about customer and convenience. And those customers will pay a premium for. And so if we're not there, and if we're not on the attack, and we're waiting for customers to come to us, we're going to be out of business. Marc Gutman 26:30 Yeah, and what I can say about like, even in this time, in this present day, you know, like I every every summer, I drive my family from Colorado, to Michigan for the summer, and I you know, good, right? Right through come and go territory, right, right through come and go country. And literally, I mean, my family is like, we are only stopping at a common goal. And especially if you're new, they called Fresh Market, or what's the new the newer concepts, the marketplace, the marketplace where they have healthy options where they have good food, you know, it's interesting. My kids are like, I won't eat at McDonald's, I won't eat it fast, you know, like, and so it really does feel like you understand the customer and who you're trying to serve and the present day and modern customer, you know, like you walk in any of your competitors. And it's like, basically, there are no healthy options. And it's like pizza that's been sitting there for, you know, probably half the day and things like that. So that really is felt, you know, and one of the things that so impresses me about coming, go. And so when you think about convenience, and maybe you, you know, mentioned this a little bit, but what's hard about it, like What don't we get, like What don't we see and what's hard about your role and the way that you are trying to bring convenience to your customer or instant consumption. Tanner Krause 27:46 The hardest thing is consistent and quality execution. And Ours is a model, like most retailers, where you've got your typically lowest paid associates, handling your customer delivering your customer service, and executing what needs to get done to make your business run. And so because we acknowledge that we try to culture is set up, Kum & Go. And again, a spirit of service to where we call our corporate headquarters, the store Support Center, and we look at our store associates as they come first in the value chain. And how do we support what happens in our stores? How do we make their days better so they can make our customers days better? How do we take complexity and non value added work away from our stores and into our store support center so they can focus on what really matters? And that's taking care of the customers? Marc Gutman 28:57 This episode brought to you by Wildstory. Wait, isn't that your company? It is. And without the generous support of Wildstory, this show would not be possible. A brand isn't a logo or a tagline or even your product or a brand is a person's gut feeling about a product service or company. It's what people say about you when you're not in the room. Wildstory helps progressive founders and savvy marketers build purpose driven brands that connect their business goals with the customers they want to serve. So that both the business and the customer needs are met. This results in crazy, happy, loyal customers that purchase again and again. And this is great for business. If that sounds like something you and your team might want to learn more about, reach out at www dot wildstory.com and we'd be happy to tell you more. Now back to our show. You know kind of Want to shift a little bit and talk about how, you know you and I became introduced via social media roundabout way and right before this episode airs, we have Ariel on and so a lot of our listeners, listeners will hear about a bit about that approach and things like that. But like what I'm really interested in hearing, you know, you're younger, you know, you just kind of, you know, laid out your age or you're 32 if I'm doing the math, and so you definitely have that perspective of, of social media. But, you know, my family comes from the oil business, and my extended family. And so I've been around a lot. And I think of it as a real, like, old fashion, not willing to move not very progressive. I mean, certainly not your family, but you know, your, your competitors, of course, and to think that you came in and said, Look, we're going to do things differently, we're going to meet our customers where they are, which is on social. I mean, like, how did that all come about? Was your dad like, Tanner? Like? I don't know, or was he just like, do it like, was he like, yes, like, I believe in this? Tanner Krause 31:03 Well, my dad has been a huge supporter of mine. I mean, he's he's given me opportunities that I didn't fully expect, or maybe didn't have full confidence in my abilities, which, if you don't know me, is kind of rare. And he believed in me, and he supported me and encouraged me through the way. And growing up the business and seeing us up close, then from afar and up close, I've kind of coming out of the company a few times on my track, I understood that we needed to stand for something greater, and that Kum & Go a little bit had had lost a little bit of a differentiation. And I say this a lot success in the convenience store business is getting some getting somebody to inconvenience themselves to go to a convenience store. How do you drive for that irrational behavior in which it might be a little slower, or a lot more out of my way, or potentially slightly more expensive, but there's just something there that I like, and it just draws me to it. And we're doing what we can to differentiate on the product side, and you call out some of our healthier options, we're going to go further in that direction. But a bulk of our revenue is still in ubiquitous product, right? You're talking alcohol, you're talking tobacco, you're talking packaged goods, either under cooler or on the shelf. And there's that last X percent, that we're doing proprietary stuff that is different. However, this social, you know, what I can take credit for is a lot longer than I can't take credit for, I can take credit for attracting creative talent and getting out of their way. And the good thing about social is that the numbers speak for themselves. And it's a subset or it's an industry and of itself by now, where you've got instantaneous feedback from the customer. you post something, what was your engagement? What were your life over your views when your shares and you can get that feedback, and you can see if it's working or not. And you can see progress over time. It's more challenging. If you hire somebody as an accountant and say, you know, do accounting, right, you're not getting instantaneous feedback from the customer. And so, Arielle and I are friends who've been a family friend of ours for probably close to 20 years, he was our roommate with my older brother in New York City back early 2000s. And when we had this opening, I knew he could bring something different. And I don't fully understand what he does. I don't get social like he does. That's okay. You know, Arielle has no approvals necessary to post. You know, he's this, you know, Director of Communications at our company, and he's got full authority and he fires away. And he's smart enough, and we see the progress we've seen in access. And he has created that same type of empowerment culture on his team. You know, he recognizes Instagram is a powerful medium, and recognizes that he's okay at instant. But that's not really his microgeneration and it's not really his sweet spot. So he hired somebody who was personally excellent an Instagram to come help us on that medium, tick tock becoming more important. Now, Arielle, and I probably know nothing about Tick tock, but we know enough to know that it's important. And so are you recruiting hired a person who was individually extremely successful at Tick tock, and we empowered them to come in to Kum & Go, and they've done an incredible job with that platform and our brands. And so our success and social, I don't deserve much credit at all. But what I can say is that I've tried to hire credit talent and get out of their way. Marc Gutman 34:55 Yeah. And as you were speaking, I think that you think that is like normal? Or that that is the way that most people do it. But I can reflect back to you that it's not. And that you know that that leadership style of trusting in your people. Like, where do you think that comes from? And I have to imagine, again, having experience in family business that's like, that's got to be hard, right? Like, it's got to be hard. I mean, Kum & Go, might as well, it might as well say, Krause across your chest, you know, I mean, that is the same thing. I mean, Kum & Go is your family. It is your family moniker, it's you, you laid it out very clearly, like this is your purpose of life to you to make this make this thing keep going? And like, Where do you think that leadership style comes from, where you have that ability to care so much in in that caring, you're able to let go and let people have their voice and do their job? Because I it's not, it's not something we typically see. Tanner Krause 35:55 I think it starts with my dad, and my dad trusted and empowered me and gave me the chance to succeed. And he gave me a chance to fail. And he knew that if I screwed up, there'd be limited consequences, at least with the amount of slack is give me at the time, right? And when you own your business, you don't have to explain yourself to anybody. You don't have external accountability. It's an incredibly powerful advantage that we have. And we have complete job security. So if a tweet fails, or a post fails, in which we've had a poster to fail, arguably, Marc Gutman 36:41 Ariel shared a couple on his episode. Tanner Krause 36:43 Sure. So it's there. Right. Okay. What happened? You could argue that that posts end up being a success, because we're talking about today. And it was a semi innocuous tweet about a sporting event at Iowa State game, which, you know, Arielle, the sports novice and Iowa newbie, underestimated people's passion for, you know, the Seahawk rivalry. And you know, we got one wrong. Okay, we deleted a tweet, we wrote a Mia culpa. And we moved on. And guess what send us back failure of epic proportions where people, you know, like putting out there and rewards loyalty cards. We probably doubled our Twitter following in since then, right. I mean, failing on social media post has minor consequences. And so we've just said, you know, what we do? I've Kum & Go, you know, it's not brain surgery, right? I mean, we're selling snacks. We're selling vices, we're selling things that people enjoy the simple need. Let's not take ourselves too seriously. Marc Gutman 37:48 And, yeah, I mean, when you is that also your leadership style, though? Like, I mean, you're kind of like pinpointing social, but are you very much a, get the right people in the right place and let them do their job. Tanner Krause 38:01 Indeed, you know, I listen, I'm less experienced than probably anybody that has a job like mine in a company like mine, I recognize that. And so in order to compensate for one of my perceived weaknesses, I hire people that have that experience. And I don't try to tell them what to do. They've done this before. I've got ideas, I've got passion, you know, I've grown up in the business, I know, Kum & Go really well, I know what might work here, but don't always know how to get things from idea mode to execution mode. And so I find that in people and I hire them, and I'm big on measurement tools, you know, to me, we've got to focus on the right measurables or metrics for our business. And we've got to have the leadership group set goals for ourselves over some period of time, and say, Okay, we're going to move this number from A to B over the next five years. And I'm going to empower small number of people to be ultimately responsible for making progress. And so long as they stay within some, you know, brand code operate within our core values, you know, do these things in a good and sustainable way and go for it. And if you screw up, that's okay. Because, again, we're trying to be outdone. And if we miss earnings for a quarter or a year, it doesn't matter. Because we've you come and go as a generational business, we make investments over a 10 to 20 year horizon. And so if we have some hiccups along the way, the setbacks are minor. So yes, I try to hire smart people, hire talented people, make sure that we align on a direction, make sure they understand how they'll be measured. In terms of success, and then give them the tools they need to be successful. Marc Gutman 40:04 Well, and you mentioned that you had, you know, the latitude to fail, and you have some security within there, outside of social are there is there a failure or an instance you've had, since you've been at the helm of the company where you were dislike, that you can recall or, you know, were, it was it was one where maybe you'd like to have back, Tanner Krause 40:26 almost every decision that you make you think is right, based on the information that you have at the time of the decision. And there are very few decisions that I've made in my leadership experience here, where I've looked back and said, what I knew, then I did or said the wrong thing. And with the benefit of hindsight, you look back and say, Boy, if I had could have that one over again, I would. But if you're talking about you know, mistakes, or you know, asking for a mulligan, hiring is challenging. And when you hire externally, if you can do better than 50%, you're a good selector of talent. And, you know, time will tell I made a lot of hires in my few years in the business. And I've not gotten every one of those right. And that's had, you know, at times, so significant consequence, in terms of, you know, setting us back months, or maybe a year on a significant body of work. And so yeah, you know, if I could look back at some of the hires that didn't last or didn't work, and do those over again, I'd love that opportunity. Marc Gutman 41:35 Who wouldn't? Right? Who wouldn't? And, you know, one thing I really love about common go is that it's, it's a brand, you've branded it. And now there's these things, and we talk about sometimes on the show about, you know, whole brands, not the logo and the name, and it comes down to things like core values, and the underlying essence and the why and the purpose of what you're trying to do. But you've also created some really cool, like visual brand, artifacts, some hats, some gear, some fanny packs, like, where does this focus? Because some, someone's got to say, Hey, we're gonna do this kind of stuff. Where does this focus on elevating and building the coming go brand come from? Because again, like, you don't see that from a whole lot of other people in your category, right? You don't see shell, you know, doing a really great job with that. And some of these other, you know, smaller, smaller convenience stores and things like that. So where does where does that come from? Tanner Krause 42:33 Well, there's this incredible pride and loyalty and sometimes a rivalry amongst regional convenience for change in America. And none of the industry has this kind of, oftentimes rooted in the style, like loyalty and passion around some of these brands. And this is kind of, oh, you're that brand, or where did you come from, or you got to pick aside or whatever else. But there's this really strong, just organically develop passion for our brand that existed, you know, in and of itself for decades, that we've been able to tap into recently. And, and it's about, from my perspective, at least, it's a, it's about taking pride in what we do. And it's about wanting to lead and own a company that does cool stuff. And that doesn't just look at what we do, as, you know, X's and O's. But what we do is, how do we build a company where we can have fun, where our associates can be proud of what we're doing, where our customers are proud of what we're doing. And so, you know, oftentimes, it's like, not as complicated and, and being relatively small, and certainly, you know, privately held helps, but if we want a fanny pack, and when I say we, I mean, my brothers me, Arielle, you know, then let's make fanny packs. And I bet we could find some fans on social that would also love fanny packs. And your audience can see the shirt I'm wearing, but you know, Kum & Go one in a ward for an LGBT organization in Iowa, and I filmed an acceptance speech that said, you know, what, I want to come up with a T shirt with pride colors. And so we made a combination of product colors. And it's just a function of taking pride in what we do, and wanting to have fun along the way. And, you know, oftentimes, these are little, you know, swags that we just develop and build and, you know, creates buzz around the brand and creates advocates out there, it gets us a lot of awareness and, you know, we're on the right people's hips are on the right people's chest, and next thing, you know, like, Kum & Go becomes the brand of preference for the next generation of rising consumers. And so, you know, I'm confident that in 20 years, and these kind Uh, you know, regional c store brand wars, there'll be a lot more people out there saying, Oh, yeah, coming goes my company because, you know, but back when I was in college, you know, the fanny pack was the coolest thing on campus, or they stepped up for, you know, my school's LGBTQ organization in a way that other people didn't. And so, you know, we're having fun, and we're breeding loyalty. Marc Gutman 45:24 And I want you to think back in two recent memory, and I want you to think back to the last time you saw someone wearing some Kum & Go, the peril in the wild, right? Not at not at a store, but you're just out and about, maybe you're having a nice night out or something. Did you? Can you remember that? Tanner Krause 45:43 I haven't been out of the house in about nine months. If I go back deep into the archives, I can have a couple of things that come to mind. Yes, Marc Gutman 45:51 yeah. And so when you think of that, like, maybe maybe you can share with us like real briefly like what you're thinking of? And then like, how does that make you feel when you see someone wearing your brand kind of out and about town and rep and Kum & Go and they don't know who you are, you know, you're just you're just across the square or whatever? Like, like, Can you share that with us. Tanner Krause 46:10 It's a unique feeling to work for a family business, it's, you know, I worked outside of the company, I've worked inside the company, and the amount of pride that I have for Kum & Go is unparalleled, I wouldn't be able to find this working for I don't think any other company in the world. And so when I see, other people choose to associate themselves with our brand. Again, we're not a company that really earns any money on memorabilia, or products, or merchandise or wearables, that is not what we do. So the fact that somebody who's going beyond just, you know, buying drinks and buying gas from us, but to say, you know, what, this company, this brand, this store, this experience is so cool, I want it to and I want it to be a part of my personal story and my personal brand, I get really proud, I'm really happy I see it, and it brings a smile to my face. Marc Gutman 47:08 And you're talking just prior to that to about your involvement with the LGBTQ community. You know, as you know, I've been following you on your company on social and you're your champion of a lot of progressive issues. Where does that come from, like this idea of, of being a Stuart, a champion, a representative for these types of issues, again, we just don't see a lot of convenience stores or a lot of businesses, and there's a lot of businesses don't even do it in general, that are out there as a champion for these groups. And where does that all come from? And what's that all about? Tanner Krause 47:40 You know, my family's extremely privileged. I mean, just extremely wealthy. I mean, it's not really a secret, right? I mean, we are who we are. And through that privilege, we've been able to see a lot of the world. And we're extremely well traveled, I'm very fortunate to, you know, have the experiences that I've had in life, I've been able to live in foreign countries, my brothers have lived in foreign countries, I've been able to educate myself to a master's level, as have all of my siblings. And you know, with that comes perspective. And we've always been raised with a strong sense of, you know, what's right, and a strong sense of respect and dignity for others. And, again, going back to my grandfather, who has one of the most prominent figures in the state of Iowa, and was not going into stores and barking orders, but he was changing trash as a, you know, 70 year old man and expensive car in the parking lot. And we've always just felt a general respect for humanity. And personally, I feel responsible to stand up to improve equality in this country. And inequality exists in a variety of forms in America. And in order to make an acceptable progress. It cannot be the oppressed, that drive change, the privileged have to drive change, for us to really make transcended progress and success in matters of all sorts of equality. It has to be people like myself, people who look like me, people who have wealth and opportunity, like I have people have education, like I have that recognize this and say, You know what, my family has plenty for generations, families like ours, and even families, less affluent and privileged as ours are doing so well. That it's time we look around and say why don't we be the force of change? And why don't we reach a handout and help some of our brothers, our sisters, our friends, our associates, our customers in these oppressed communities and say, I see you I respect you. I'm here for you. And I'm going to Put your needs, and you get into basic levels of human dignity about me getting who knows a lake house or some other, like ostentatious acquisition that we could do. Because that, you know, the time has come for, you know us in power and us in privilege to join this fight, and to, to stand up for matters of equality, because, you know, it's, it's been on too long. And I recognize now that, you know, I've got this platform, I've got podcasts like this, I've got other engagements where I can speak on things. And I want to draw attention to these. And it is rare, unfortunately, in our industry, and it's rare, unfortunately, in the corporate world. And that's too bad. But maybe if I go first, and other leaders and companies say, okay, like they did that, and guess what, like their business didn't fail, or customers didn't leave them wholesale, or whatever measurement they might be worried about that outcome didn't happen. And guess what, people got a little bit better life out of it. Did that success, the impact that I want to leave in this world? Sure. It's about coming up being sustainable. But it's about bigger than that. It's about how do we how do we push for a better humanity and, and one of the things of just how America is constructed is that private enterprise drives an outsized amount of change in the world, we have this free market approach to most of our economies, to most of our societies. And so I look at something that we did last year where we gave maternity leave to our frontline associates. And so now Kum & Go associate working in a store to get six weeks of fully paid maternity leave, that is rare for retail in Iowa, we were able to give that benefit to about 3000 4000 people, right, but it's bigger companies look at what we did and say, You know what, that was good. Or now I have to do that thing to be competitive in the labor market with Kum & Go, then those 3000 people, and then these other companies over here, follow, then that might be 30,000 people. And then next thing, you know, we might have just gone a whole generation of islands or Americans that have access to what should be a basic civic right to be in this country of paid leave for newborn children got that benefit. And so what we try to do is recognize the inequality in America and stand up for those that are oppressed and do what we can. And listen, before I stop talking. We're not perfect. All right. We're not we don't do everything. Right. All right. And we've not been this way forever. And you've got a long history. And I'm sure there's things that people can point to and say, Well, what about this? And what about that, and those things are probably true, and they're probably fair to say, but what I can say is that we care, we see oppression, we don't stand for it, and we're trying to stamp it out. And we're going to do better every day. But we're not going to be perfect starting today or tomorrow. But I promise you, we're gonna make progress in the right direction. Marc Gutman 53:07 Yeah, and certainly, you know, if you can't hear it in Tanner's voice, you know, I thought he was gonna come through the screen at me so passionate about this issue. And so he does care. And Tanner as we as we kind of come to the end of our time here. I've got two more questions for you. The first being What's your favorite store, or at least the the one that you're most proud of, and why? Tanner Krause 53:30 My favorite store is at the corner of 16th and Ashworth road in West Des Moines. Because that was where I started working. The family age of first employment Kum & Go is nine. And so at nine years old, I put on the white shirt and tie for our uniform then. And on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school, I would go to work, I would sweep, I would mop I would stop the cooler, I would clean the shelves. And if I was lucky, I could run the register. And so for me, that's where it all started. Yeah, I Marc Gutman 54:03 mean, I can only imagine you're like, you know, just waiting probably as eight year old Tanner to become nine to go put on that uniform. Tanner Krause 54:10 I actually tried to negotiate an earlier start date this is speaks to my passion to the company. So my brother started at nine as well. And he's just older in his grade than I was he's an October birthday. So he turned nine early in third grade. I'm a June birthday. So I turned nine late in third grade. And so I tried to negotiate with my dad, you know, Hey, Ryan got to be working in his second month of third grade. Therefore, I think I should be able to start working and my second month of third grade and does the no you start working when you're nine. And so I went back to school. Marc Gutman 54:45 Are you June 19 by any chance? Tanner Krause 54:48 June 22. Marc Gutman 54:49 thought we're gonna share a birthday. I was really excited. I was gonna announce it like live on the show that we we had a similar birthday but Tanner, so I want you to think back to That nine year old boy on that first day, walking into comigo and that brand new uniform, so proud and what do you think he would say, if he saw where you are today, Tanner Krause 55:11 but I haven't fast this ascension into leadership happen quicker than my wildest dreams. But, you know, I, I was I made that nine year old proud, you know, I hope I make all 5000 people that we employ proud I take a two minutes of pride in this company. I hope I make my grandfather proud. He's an incredible role model in my life. And he passed away in 2013. And, you know, he knew I was I was going down this career path. And so I was fortunate enough to have that alignment with him before he passed. But I think about him every day. And you know, I I just try to take my responsibility and stand up for what's important and make those around me proud. Marc Gutman 56:02 And that is Tanner Kraus, president of coming go. I'm sure you could feel Tanner's passion and commitment coming through the mic. We had a chance to talk a bit after and it dawned on me that Tanner sees entrepreneurship, the business not as the purpose. But as the tool, the tool that can affect change, both locally and globally, the tool that can provide better lives for their employees and the tool that can be a voice for those who can't speak for themselves. And yes, we're still talking about convenience stores. But when done right, like Kum & Go, any business can change the world. And a big thank you to Tanner Krauss and the team that Kum & Go. Your brand was started as a love story. And I can't wait to see where the love story goes. Next. We will link to all things Tanner and Kum & Go in the show notes. Well, that's the show. Until next time, make sure to visit our website www.wildstory.com where you can subscribe to the show in iTunes, Stitcher or via RSS so you'll never miss an episode. A lot big stories and I cannot lie to you other storytellers can't deny

A listener shared more details on the Kum & Go gas station franchise. Meanwhile, there is some on-going controversy regarding Vera Ellen's waist line. Plus, a twelve year old kid took their parents car on a five state joy ride along with their seven year old cousin. Garrforce t-shirts and coffee mugs are now available by going to "Can't Live Without" on the website. Your purchase of these items is what keeps the podcast going. Plus, you can always email me [garrymeiershow@garrymeier.com](mailto:garrymeiershow@garrymeier.com) or leave a text or voicemail at 773-888-2157 Thank you in advance!

BGBS 051: Ariel Rubin | Kum & Go | Twitter Is Hard! Ariel Rubin, Director of Communication for Kum & Go, is a Webby Award-winning digital strategist with over 10 years of experience in social media and content creation in Uganda, Sudan, Turkey, Switzerland, and the United States. Ariel is a master at Twitter, bringing progressive, fun, and human content to Kum & Go, a fourth-generation convenience store chain with its headquarters based in Iowa.  As Ariel puts it, brands have a responsibility to be good corporate citizens. He uses Kum & Go's signature humor to bring an audience large enough to amplify the voices of marginalized communities that don't usually feel like they are heard. We applaud Kum & Go for continuing to stand up for humanity and feel inspired to do the same. With that, we ask you, who will you stand up for today? In this episode, you'll learn... Ariel has lived all over the world, including Turkey, Switzerland, Uganda, London, and more before talking to the president of Kum & Go and deciding to settle down in Iowa  Kum & Go is a fourth-generation owned business from a family that has lived in Iowa and has served its people for over 60 years The reason why Ariel chooses to be funny on Twitter is because when he wants to speak on a serious issue, he has a built audience that will listen Ariel describes Kum & Go as compassionate, welcoming, inclusive, and open. When tackling today's issues, they put humanity and science first You can't underestimate the power of publicly standing as an ally in a state like Iowa, where people may feel like their voices aren't heard All of the content created for Kum & Go is organic, created in-house, and on free software without many promotions. And yet they've found outstanding traction in the online world One of Ariel's biggest posting failures was a meme about college football. Of all his time posting about global crises, he never received nearly as much rage as with the college football scandal When posting on social media, Ariel does not just compete with other convenience stores for your attention. He competes with your texts, streaming shows, the news, and more. Getting even 5 seconds of your time is difficult  Maintaining relevance is a challenge because audience behavior is changing every day. That is why Ariel never plans a tweet and would rather begin conversations based on what happens that day on social media Consistency is key with social media, even when you don't find easy success. Resources Ariel Rubin LinkedIn: Ariel Rubin Twitter: @arieljrubin Kum & Go Twitter: @kumandgo Instagram: @kumandgo TikTok: @realkumandgo Quotes [9:27] Here at Kum & Go, it's actually about some really inspiring things. And to me, that was what was exciting about it. It wasn't just a convenience store, it was a place that cares about some really progressive causes and actually wants to show up in the community in a really powerful way. [21:04] I think brands just assume that people care about their thing as much as they care about their thing. And the thing is, you've got to earn your audience's care and earn their trust...The strategy behind this whole thing is that I want to be funny on Twitter because when I have something serious to say, I want to have someone to say it to. [23:46] Frankly, our strategy, I don't put much stock into that, because the platforms are changing so quickly, algorithms are changing so quickly, the audience behavior is changing every day. I haven't planned a single tweet in my life. I don't have a tweet ready. I don't know what I'm gonna tweet today. I don't know what I'll tweet tomorrow... And that is on purpose.  [27:28] There's a lot of people here who don't feel like their voices are heard and I think if we can help amplify those voices and help show up to this community, I think we're doing good work. Podcast Transcript Ariel Rubin 0:02 We did a tweet about the cyclones and the hot guys college football and it was one of the teams lost and so the team, we ended up getting image of a team getting pushed down the stairs, it like spread on Reddit and spread all over and people were absolutely livid. I mean they were taking photos of themselves cutting up their come and go and rewards card and tweeting it and calling for boycotts. And it was like this huge fear and we had like emergency meeting and people were would never I mean, I would I had like, it reached like the far reaches of the internet in Iowa. And it was like a real And anyway, the news covered it. I was quoted in the Des Moines register. I'm very proud of them to have this on my resume at the time. Twitter is hard says come and go spokesperson horio ribbon. Marc Gutman 0:55 Casting from Boulder, Colorado. This is the Baby Got Back story Podcast, where we dive into the story behind the story of today's most inspiring storytellers, creators and entrepreneurs. I like big back stories and I cannot lie. I am your host, Marc Gutman, Marc Gutman, and on today's episode of Baby got backstory. We are talking with Ariel Rubin, the director of communications that come and go, Wait, wait, you mean, come and go that convenience store and gas stations with that funny name? Yep, that's the one. Today's guest Aereo Rubin is a Webby Award winning digital strategist with over 10 years experience in social media and content creation in New gunda, Sudan, Turkey, Switzerland and the United States. And today, he heads up social media, and communications that come and go. That don't go anywhere. I'm going to tell you why Ariel is going to be a must listen episode right after I remind you to rate and review this show. If you're listening, I'm assuming you like it. And if that's the case, please take a minute or two to rate and review us over iTunes or Spotify, iTunes and Spotify. Use these ratings as part of the algorithm that determines ratings on their charts. Better yet, please recommend the show to at least one friend who you think will like it. If this is your first time listening, please consider subscribing. subscribing is like being best friends BFF. We might even get BFF bracelets. But only if you subscribe. Alright, back to Ariel. I asked Ariel to be a guest on today's show. Because I was drawn to his work. I noticed that Kum and Go was showing up on social media, first Instagram, and then Twitter. At least that's how I discovered them. And I was immediately engaged with their content. They were funny, progressive, human, fun, interesting. And they are a convenience store. And that began my stocking of Ariel. I had to know how all this worked. Who was the crazy person behind building out a strong voice on social media? What did their operation look like? Did they have 100 interns creating all this content? Spoiler alert, they do not. How did they approach social media? Is it working and on and on and on? Ariel covers all that and more in our conversation. And this is his story. I'm here with Ariel Reuben, the Director of Communications for Kum & Go, Ariel, what is Kum & Go and what does the Director of Communications do at Kum & Go? Ariel Rubin 3:50 Well, first, thanks for having me. Marc, It's fun to be here. What is Kum & Go? Kum & Go is a convenience store chain based in headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa. We have about 400 stores a little over 400 stores now in 11 states. And basically, we're a fourth-generation family run business that started here and really has grown up to be a place it really prides itself I think I'm an opening his doors to everyone really being welcoming, being there for the community, we give 10% back of our pre-tax profits to communities we serve to charities. That sets us apart. And we're really kind of a country that's led by our values, you know, we really look to the communities we were serving and think about how we can kind of make things better for them. So it's a sweet place to work. I really like it. I've been there for about a year and a half. And the Director of Communications, as Director of Communications, my kind of remit is, is our public and kind of internal communications work in our PR or social or events that we put on. Obviously, we're doing quite a few less events in person, at least right now due to COVID. But that's sort of the world we work in and then yeah, everything in between. Marc Gutman 4:55 Yeah. And to those of you listening so you might be asking yourself like why are we talking to a guy that you know does communications for a gas station and convenience store? And you know, a little bit of the backstory is that Kum & Go has gotten my attention for their very progressive, very engaging social media campaigns, particularly on Twitter, they have a really nice presence on Instagram. And so I personally was so intrigued, I was so captivated. You know, I've also been a fan of the actual the store locations, when it when we're on road trips, my kids all want to go because you can feel that there's something different. And I think that that's a really cool thing about a brand is you don't always know why you love it, you don't always know why you're drawn to it, but you feel that it's different. And you walk into a Kum & Go store and they're friendly, and they're light, and they're bright. And they offer, you know, different offerings in terms of healthy food options, and all sorts of things. And people just generally seem happy there. So that's a little bit of the context of why we're talking about Ariel. Like, I want to get into your story. And I kind of want to, you know, get to how you're doing social media and why you've even decided to do it. I mean, I don't follow any other convenience stores and gas stations. But you know, when we met, I was super intrigued by your your background, because you're not from Des Moines. You certainly don't have a background in convenience stores or the oil industry or gas stations. You know, why don't we go? I mean, did when you were growing up? Did you think that you'd be running communications and social media for an outfit like Kum & Go? Ariel Rubin 6:34 Oh, that's a no, I I don't think I did. That was not necessarily something I was planning to do. But you know, as my grandmother would have said, Man plans and God laughs so, you know, here we are. No, it's been a while. I mean, I guess a bit of background on me. I'm, I'm not from Iowa. As you mentioned, I'm a bit of all over. I was born in Canada, I grew up in North Carolina, I went to University in New York. I was in New York for a while, and then I kind of was all over the place I was in journalism, or trying to be for a long time. Many years ago, I worked in Uganda as a newspaper, I had a Master's from the London School of Economics, actually, in human rights and development in the UN were actually involved in communications. And that was really where that my passion for that came, I started the first Twitter account for UNDP, the United Nations Development Programme in Sudan, or done blogs there ended up I was in Sudan for three years and then went to Turkey for two years where I worked for the UNDP there as well running digital content. And then I worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Switzerland, where I was the head of digital content. And that's where I got to do some really cool stuff with the pretty amazing humanitarian organization there traveling all over the world, producing some cool kind of, you know, engagement campaigns, both with communities we work with for there, you know, communities in Sudan, or Iraq or wherever, but also community back home, how do we get people engaged? How do we get Americans and Europeans engaged in some really, really tough subjects? So that was what I was doing for almost a decade. And I ended up through sort of a kind of a fortuitous circumstance, having a conversation with the president of Kum & Go. At a time when I was kind of ready to move back to us, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. But I wanted to get out of the nonprofit world for almost 10 years, and I wanted to try something completely different. And Tanner Krauss is the 32-year-old president of Kum & Go really cool guy, really personable guy. And I think a really strong visionary for kind of what a company like his can look like in the future. And he really, we had a great conversation about it. And he kind of got me excited, and the job was there. And I applied and ended up, you know, I came here from Switzerland with my wife and my one-year-old daughter at the time, and we really liked it, you know, it was like a really fun turn for me. And I just thought, you know, I think when you're doing these kind of communications jobs in general, I, for me, at least, I always want to make sure that I can do it in another space so I could I figured out how to do this in a way it's easy, quote unquote, easy to, to get people interested, I think or to do content about what's going on in a place like Syria or Yemen. You know, it's it's a pretty tough subject. And it's easy to kind of show that. But I guess the challenge for me with a place like Kum & Go was like, how do you do that for hot dogs? Like, I don't mean to make light of it. But it's really it's like, how do you get people to care about something? Ultimately, as a communications person, my job is to make you care about something that I'm doing the Red Cross of the UN, it was about some pretty tough things and here at Kum & Go, it's actually about some really inspiring things. And that was, to me, what was exciting about it was, it wasn't just a convenience store, it was a place that that cares about some really progressive causes and actually, you know, wants to show up in the community in a really powerful way. And they hadn't really figured out how to tell that story, and how to get their audience to really care about it or to know about it. So that was a challenge that sort of presented to me. And what I found really exciting to do was like, how do I get people to care about this store with a kind of a funny name, you know, how do we turn it from? It's coming out to like, wow, this is a community that's at the forefront of some really important issues right now. So That's sort of the connection for me. Marc Gutman 10:02 Yeah. And take me back to that conversation with Tanner. I mean, I can only imagine Here you are. You're, you know, living in Switzerland you're doing, you know, important work, you're doing heavy work, you're, you're accomplishing experience. It's not like you're just out of school and kind of like looking to take anything. And this young CEO of a convenience store says, "Hey, I want you to do my communication, like, what's that look like? I mean, are you at first skeptical? Are you like, all in like, What's that? What's that look like? Ariel Rubin 10:32 I think that I'm always been someone that's Personally, I've always been interested in first, I've always wanted to live anywhere. So for me living in Des Moines is as bizarre as living in Khartoum is as bizarre as living in, you know, London, or whatever. I think every place is can be really fascinating and can be really exciting, presents different challenges and different opportunities. So when Tanner and I spoke about it, I didn't get I didn't, wasn't fully I personally wasn't super serious about it at first. But again, he really did a great job kind of convincing, not convincing me even but just like kind of expressing what his ambitions were, when I saw his ambitions were really quite, quite big. And he has a really, he's got a really big vision for what he wants this to be, that was what got me excited, you know, it was kind of almost this, like, fantasy startup mentality, but he, you speak him, you'll kind of hear this and he's just got a real passion for this stuff. A really, like convinced me that this was more than just like coming to a place and filling out some press releases. And that's not what I wanted to do. And I wanted to, for me the condition that was like, conditions. But for me, the thing that was exciting about it was that I would have the opportunity to kind of run some of the social parts, the way that I thought could be effective. So having the freedom to do that, and really let it figure out, you know, give it a voice was what was really appealing to me. And again, the social part wasn't even a big part of my job description. But I was very keen, I really I said, if I'm going to do this job and do it well, I want to focus a great deal of attention on social media, because I believe that's where the energy is. And I believe that's also where audiences so they said, "Sure, go for it." Marc Gutman 12:07 Yeah, so I imagine you and I'm sure I've got this all wrong, but I imagine you skipping through the streets of Switzerland, maybe some chocolate in hand, and Ariel Rubin 12:15 Sure, yeah, fondue. Marc Gutman 12:17 Yeah, exactly. yodeling up the stairs, and you come home and you tell your wife. Yeah, we're moving. We're moving to Des Moines. Because I'm going to earn it. I don't know how that goes down. Or if you have a conversation around it, perhaps. But you know, and you're like, Hey, I really want to go to Des Moines and run communications for this convenience store. Like, what was that conversation like? Ariel Rubin 12:41 She, my wife is originally from the Midwest, and she grew up in Michigan. And so she was not necessary, I'd say, at first dying to move back to the Midwest, she sort of, I think, left for me for a reason. But her parents are in Milwaukee for they're pretty close. And we have again, we have a young child there. Now, our daughter's three, but at the time, it was really important for us for our daughter to spend more time with our family and be closer to family and friends here. So it worked out. I mean, it was not like, you know, it was and i think that you know, she and I have both grown really, really liked Des Moines and and actually find it quite cool. And I think before, obviously before COVID it was different, but now that it's COVID in a way every This is gonna sound bad, like every place is almost like a Des Moines. I don't know, there's not that much to do anywhere anymore. So I don't know if it was like, Yeah, okay, we're not in Switzerland anymore but actually Des Moines has a lot to offer. It's it's actually really fun. The people are lovely, the surprisingly good. I could go on and extol the virtues of Des Moines. But I don't know. My wife listens to this now, she's probably gonna be annoyed with me, but I think that yeah, it was you know, it was a fine conversation. She was she's down with whatever. To her credit. She rolled with it. Marc Gutman 13:49 Cool. So like, how would you describe the voice of come and go social media? Ariel Rubin 13:56 Um, yeah, I mean, I think you know, like I said, I guess when I started in the role, I was really keen to kind of look at the different platforms we were already on and see which we're working in how they're working together, what kind of voice you wanted to have for which. So for me, I naturally gravitated towards and as I do Twitter, because that, to me, it's the medium I understand the best I think, my demographic, my age, my sort of background at Twitter, sort of by era. And the first thing I did was I got clearance to kind of hire a social media specialist who and the person I hired is someone who absolutely kills it on Instagram, she was just like, I saw her on Instagram and the work she was doing and he had six times the followers that Kum & Go had on Instagram at the time. And I was like, I want someone who really wins at this platform to like run this and to me Instagram is visual is the most important visual platform we have on social media right now. It is where people are seeing your brand. I mean, that really is for me, it's Twitter's more about language and words and if you can be clever there and Instagram is really about sort of like what is your most beautiful life your most beautiful, whatever your most aspirational, living So she really gotten to use and gets Instagram just like perfectly and then she and I work really closely together on those platforms and really spend a lot of time talking about how we're gonna engage an audience what we're gonna do, we have work, she's, she's very different. She's 12 years younger than me, she's a totally different person than I than I am. But we get along really well. And I really enjoyed working with her because she's just got a great understanding of the sensibilities of the platform and aesthetics of it and voice for it. So our voice on Twitter is more of my voice, maybe in a way, it's, it's a bit cheeky, or it's kind of funny, I we don't punch down that sort of thing we try to maintain, but we try to really, you know, be part of the Zeitgeist and the part of the conversation that's happening. Like I said, I believe culture really emanates from Twitter, I think, no, I would say like, not everyone's on twitter at all. But every journalist is on Twitter. So even if my mom might not be on Twitter, she is now but my mom was on Twitter, every journalist that my mother reads or watches on CNN or whatever is on Twitter, and is developing their kind of opinions based on what they're seeing on Twitter. It's a really important platform. I mean, you know, Donald Trump understands extremely well. So it's up—to our own peril not to understand and maximize that platform, I think really well. Instagram, like I said, I think is a great place for that culture to kind of get spread further and into a younger demographic. And then the third thing is is TikTok. And we were again, really fortunate to have in our lead leadership that lets us kind of run with this stuff, we hired a 19 year old, fresh out of high school, basically, to go on TikTok because this person understood TikTok week, they had 200,000, they have 200,000 followers on Tiktok. And I said, we don't have a TikTok make it for us like go first. And their name is Evelyn Meyer, and they're brilliant. So between Evelyn, Nadia, and myself, we're kind of like the social media, I guess, brain trust of Kum & Go. And we each have a bit of a different voice. And I would say the other thing is that we we work really we're all really embedded, especially naughty, I really embedded with our associates and our colleagues and our team and our leaders. So we kind of get a sense I've been through a lot of trial and error, what that voice should be. And you know, when you hit a kind of a red line, or a third rail, you kind of know it, like there's some tweets that have definitely failed. And there's some Instagram posts that we've had to, you know, rethink, because ultimately, like, you've got to be a little bit, you've got to push the boundaries a little bit, you got to figure out where your audience is and where they want to go. And there's a lot of trial and error, you know, and that's sort of how we, we built it up. But the numbers, I think, you know, ultimately, we're judged by the numbers, it's not by what I think is funny. But by what Nadia thinks is attractive. It's really buy what our audience finds appealing. So for audience loves a photo of beautiful, we know it because the internet is the world's largest free focus group, right? It tells us very, very quickly what works and what doesn't. So we slowly over time really A/B tested it, I think a lot of different ideas and a lot of different pieces of content. And Nadia and I message each other every day, a million times ideas, and we've kind of workshop stuff on what's up what's appetite as we go. And, and that's sort of how we developed it. And again, none of this would be possible again, without can't stress this enough, without a leadership that totally trusted us. Trusted me and trusted Nadia and trusted Evelyn to do it. Because if there are layers, I think to social has to be immediate, and has to be reactive. And if there are layers of validations, and approvals and back and forwards, you really lose lose kind of the special thing about what social is, which is that's just happening so quickly, you just want to be part of it. And what happened yesterday is already is it might as well be five years ago, right? So by having the trust of our leadership by our bosses, and all the way up to the CEO, we're in a really fortunate space to be able to really try some fun stuff. And, you know, we fail tons. We also some really, really fun successes. Marc Gutman 18:31 Yeah, and you know, there were I can't, you know, start with that question was just that, like, you and your team have done something that's so to me, you know, challenging and unique, which is really giving a unique voice to something that is hard to give a voice to, you know, I think it's like a hard, hard product to brand sometimes, and you've done a really good job and maybe walk me through that process a little bit. I mean, did you say like, hey, like, Kum & Go is like the cool new, like, you know, whatever, and you're like you have a persona or a profile, or is it more organic than that? Ariel Rubin 19:08 You know, I, when I again, I'm not from the Midwest, but when I came here, I remember I said it in my interview. I lived in New York for a really long time. And in New York when I was in college, I went to NYU 15 years ago, whatever. I don't remember. Yeah, it was 15 Oh, my God. Anyway, 15 years ago, I was at NYU and we lived in. I lived in Brooklyn and we drank Pabst Blue Ribbon all the time. And we drank Pabst Blue Ribbon, not because it was a great beer and not because it was it was just the cool thing to drink. And it was $2 and you drank Pabst Blue Ribbon because we're like a posturing hipster. So I remember the how iconic Pabst Blue Ribbon was and it was like, for me it had this feeling of like, what real America is, right? And I think that so many things that feel like what real America is really come from this space in the Midwest, you know, whether it's Harley Davidson, Budweiser, john deere, Pabst Blue Ribbon, whatever, you know, Anheuser Busch, I'm I don't want a beer but equally to me come and go felt like it had that similar iconic or should have that similar iconic feeling of like a truly American thing. This is fourth generation family that from Iowa from, you know, always when I would came through and built this thing, you know, and that's like a really special, it was special, but it's still there, it's still their thing. It's not like owned by some conglomerate. It's just this family doing this thing. And I think that's like a really special thing. And I think, you know, I'm just cheesy, but like in a world where like, what is American is kind of very politicized and very, like, you know, divisive in a way. What's nice about the story that of this, and the product is like, it's just like a really nice thing. It's about like America that really welcomes everyone that opens its doors that supports black and brown communities, it supports gay communities. And to me and is this you know, as it's been around, has been there for its people for 60 years, and continues to do that. So I think that that was a really compelling story for me. And so, to be able to tell that story on social, we first needed to have an audience to tell it to so I think a lot of brands maybe make a mistake, but like, other brands just assume that people care about their thing as much as they care about their thing. And the thing is, you got to earn your audience's care and earn their trust, and you've got to you got to find them, you got to get them to care first. So we spent a long time getting people to care first, and then finding clever ways. You know, the strategy behind this whole thing is that I want to be funny on Twitter, because when I have something serious to say, I want to have someone to say it to. So if I can do a bunch of tweets that get me thousands of likes or retweets, that's great. Because the one time out of 10, that I'm going to tell you about why we're supporting this young LGBTQ group here that does incredible work with community, "Here's why you should support them," I want to be able to tell that to now I can tell that to 50,000 people, whereas a year ago, I only been told that to 20,000 people and the year before that only until that to 5000. So it slowly grows and builds that community and then people really start to recognize us for it. So I don't know that I kind of went on a tangent there. Marc Gutman 22:00 But it's great, you know, and it really seems to me that the leadership Kum & Go, assuming Tanner, really see this more as a platform not not not even social, but the business as a platform, and a enable a tool of change rather than you know, like, Hey, we, you know, yes, we're in the business of convenience stores. But really, it's that's a tool to do some other things and like, to me that, in general is a rare concept. But for a convenience store a gas station in the Midwest, I mean, you know, I think it's incredibly rare to be putting, you're not only to be backing a lot of these progressive causes, but to be like, shouting about it to be like forthright to be like front and center and saying, Hey, this is what we believe. And in no matter when you say that it's scary. But in a you know, you could be worried about polarizing a good subset of your audience or your customer base. Like where does like this just drive to be progressive come from? And then like, Do you ever get any backlash? Or do you ever like, Are you ever concerned? Like, concerns the wrong word? But yeah, do you ever get any backlash and push back on it? Ariel Rubin 23:15 Yeah. You know, I don't even know if they would admission, if they hear if they would describe it as progressive. I think they would just describe, you know, there's a very pragmatic thing in the Midwest, which I'm not familiar with, but I'm learning about which is that people just, I think that they really, it's, they just see it as human rights. They look at these issues. They look at human rights and science on these issues. And that's what we're talking about Mask use or whether we're talking about Black Lives Matter. We're looking at what is the human issue? And what is how is this issue impacting our community? And what does the science say? So I don't know if even Tanner or Kyle Kyle's, the CEO Tanner's the President, I don't know if either of them would necessarily describe themselves as company as progressive, I think they would describe it as compassionate, a welcoming, inclusive and open. And whatever that means, in today's 2020 COVID. Society, I think, inevitably becomes politicized. But ultimately, I really, I think they really would, in a way push back against it. But that being said, I think that we certainly we get we certainly received, we received comments. Sure, but I, you know, not as many as you would maybe think. I mean, really, it's been overwhelmingly I think, positive feedback we have and you know, I think one thing I really respect about Tanner in particular on this, and Kyle as well is that they're not afraid like you said it's applied, do you see this as a platform? They're not afraid, I mean, Tanner says all the time. You know, it's our job. It's on me. And it's not me. And him. He's a it's incumbent upon him to use that platform, that privilege that he was born into, and that he lives with every day, for some good and to really stand up as an ally. We just accepted an award last night from a LGBTQ organization, the Tanner spoke at it as an ally, its partner in progress. And Tanner literally just said that it said just that, and I think, again, quite why I joined I wouldn't have joined if that didn't exist here. To join, if they didn't, I'm thrilled that they let me use social as a way to amplify those messages and find creative ways tell those stories. And we've given some extraordinarily think, I would say progressive organizations and that are doing great work for Black Lives Matter and for our gay and lesbian trans communities. So, to me, it's a really exciting time to be part of a company, I Kum & Go again, I think, thanks to the leadership who have visited that, you know, that's, that's on them. So Marc Gutman 25:28 I think I think it is something though, that's unique, you know, I live in Boulder, Colorado, which is, you know, I would say, is a progressive area. But certainly, we don't have like a whole lot of convenience stores or gas stations that, you know, outside of Kum & Go that are like, Kum & Go. I also spend a good, you know, I'm from the Midwest, I'm from, you know, grew up in outside of Detroit spend a lot of time in northern Michigan, and there's, you know, you know, it's indicative of America, you know, it's split, and I would say that there is a lot of, you know, welcoming areas, and there's a lot that are less so and, you know, I again, I just you know, I find it very unique, and I don't want, you know, this to get lost, like how special this is that a gas station in the Midwest is really, you know, talking about these issues at the forefront of these issues. But were you gonna say something? Ariel Rubin 26:19 Yeah, well, you know, it's funny, I mean, we had a with this group that from last got this award from I remember, they said, they did a talk to our company. And they said this, that, you know, is it hear it when companies like Kum & Go say that, you know, publicly stand up as allies in a place like Iowa, the impact that has is extraordinary. And they said, I remember they gave us they were telling us how, like, you know, I'm from New York, I'm from the east coast. So for me, it was not as it felt like, Oh, yeah, this is just what people do. But actually here, it's not necessarily what every does. And it's not what every convenience store necessarily has. It's not just assumed. And so you have I'm not trying to, you know, top at my own peril and shoulders, you're too much I don't backs too much. But I think that, you know, they were like, you know, for a small town kid growing up in a farm community in Iowa who's gay. To hear that come and go welcomes them and stands up for is extremely powerful. But like, you can't underestimate how, how powerful that is in a place like Iowa and the communities you serve in, in Missouri and Arkansas, and all over I mean, frankly, so I that really stuck with me. And I think it's, you know, it's cool that we can do stuff like that, because there's a lot of people here who don't feel like their voices are heard. And I think if we can help help amplify voices and help show show up to this community, I think we're doing good work. Marc Gutman 27:39 This episode brought to you by Wildstory. Wait, isn't that your company? It is. And without the generous support of Wildstory, this show would not be possible. A brand isn't a logo, or a tagline. or even your product or a brand is a person's gut feeling about a product service or company. It's what people say about you, when you're not in the room. Wildstory helps progressive founders and savvy marketers build purpose driven brands that connect their business goals with the customers they want to serve. So that both the business and the customer needs are met. This results in crazy, happy, loyal customers that purchase again and again. And this is great for business. If that sounds like something you and your team might want to learn more about, reach out @ www.wildstory.com. And we'd be happy to tell you more. Now back to our show. So kind of getting back to like when you decided to come aboard, I mean, with management. Was there this vision to have social be a core part of the communication strategy? And? And if so, just kind of like what were they thinking? Because again, like, it all kind of makes sense now it seems really like, like it fits now like, but like I go back to that probably that moment where that had to be risky, like, you know, no business I've ever worked with has too much money. No business I've ever worked with has too many resources, right? Like every decision is always like, "Where can we you know, make best use of our limited resources?" And so just to have that, like, thought, like, we're gonna invest in this area, like, can you kind of walk me through that a little bit? And what that looks like? Ariel Rubin 29:28 Yeah, well, I mean, you know, the funny thing I guess is that it's, it's not a big investment. It's organic content, by and large investment was in was in me and my, and in our social media specialist, and then in our TikTok kind of intern, the three of us is it and actually we're actually probably a lot cheaper than the agency that we were paying to do it before. So we're not, you know, it's not I do everything. We do it all in house. We do it all on free, Canva software, and it's free. You know, we don't really put money into from to promote content, like the content that does well as well because the audience finds it and and we've we've done a few campaigns with a few different smaller kind of agencies, one in particular, that was really cool and fun for us. But these are small campaigns. These are not like big, multi, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollar things. It's not at all like that. I mean, really, to me, what's social, I always want social to be a space where we can experiment and your point like no company is ever like, we make too much money. Like, I want to have that freedom to do that, not because I'm a narcissist, although it doesn't hurt and I am. But it's because I think that we can do really cool stuff that we can really find a new audience. And again, only this company where we're family run, so we don't have you know, we don't report to there's not a bunch of different stakeholders that that we have to report to, you know, the, our stuff, we don't have a store, we're not publicly traded. So there's not some stock price that I have to maintain or something you know, that a tweet could sink or something like, I am fortunate again, like a very patient tolerant and open minded leadership team. I remember there was one time, there was a tweet that we had done, I forget what ages ago and Kyle Krauss the CEO, who's on Twitter is doing a great job on Twitter, that he had this reply where someone's like, I can't believe they like let him do this. And Kyle replied, like, isn't, I don't understand what he does sometimes, but I'll always support it. And I think, as a leader, what an incredible gift right? Like or as sort rather, as for me, what an incredible gift have a leader like that, who he just trust that I'll do an okay job or that might have been I'm trying to get him to get his company to a good place, there's a need to understand like, what the meme is, or the joke, or the particular cultural thing I'm trying to get at and that maybe I miss on. He's simply saying, like, Here, you have this space to play him, go for it. So I'm really applauding them for letting me again, letting me take the risk with it. But I don't put that much. It's not very expensive, because it's really just like, you know, Nadia shoots all the photos. She's brilliant, like I do, you know, they were just kind of like a, where I see a sort of an in house creative team, really to be honest with you. And I think that that's what makes it kind of again, that's what makes it fun. Marc Gutman 32:08 Yeah. And so how do you measure success? Man, I know, you probably measure by some some typical social metrics, number of followers engagement, but are you able to track back like increase in revenue and things like that back to your efforts? Ariel Rubin 32:24 Yeah, I mean, you know, obviously, yeah, there's the there's the standards. There's the standard, you know, ROI in terms of our engagement, we look at our engagement, we look at our follower growth, we look at, you know, we look at what's working, what isn't and we ideator iterate based on that. And then we beyond sort of social success. When we look in store, we look at certain campaigns that we have been really kind of getting behind and I mean, I can tell you, for example, we just launched all day breakfast pizza. So we did breakfast pizza till 10. Now we do breakfast pizza all day, I don't remember when it stops. But when it kitchen closes, basically. And we did a fun play on that on social and, and we've seen like a major bump in power breakfast pizza. So now, it's always hard, I think to do causation and correlation with social, we also have been there is another side of Kum & Go that does marketing that does, it does do marketing, the more traditional marketing side, we don't do it at all. I'm a comms person. And I run this organic social scientists in the tire of the park side, my boss, Ben, Vice President marketing communication leads that body of work. So that also exists as an aside, but I think for us, when I look at what successes there, I see stuff like breakfast pizza selling, and I see us pushing it. I like to think that there's a nice correlation there. I think another thing we do, you know, we try to find ways to bring our online energy offline. So we do stuff with fanny packs. We made these fanny packs that have been super popular. We can do giveaways. We just did another giveaway on Twitter yesterday. 500. I didn't you know, funny thing like last person to retweet this gets a fanny pack. And it's gotten retweeted like 500 times. Again, like, we bring those fanny packs to store openings. We had one yesterday and Omaha kids show up at 6am to get these they're gone by 630. So we try to make cool stuff to retain a cool audience to find that the cool kids who are out there who want to come get it and I'd say the biggest example, I think a success online that we've been able to see is we had a really fun collaboration with Anheuser Busch, where we made a Budweiser, they let us make this incredible Budweiser Kum & Go drink a Budweiser shirt with all the proceeds going to a charity for for to benefit veterans. And that didn't we sold them out like it did super, super well. And that was like a really fun social play. We sold out entirely. We sold them online now that actually we had some in stores in another run because it did so well. But stuff like that is just like a really, it's a really fun way to start bringing that stuff offline and showing that success of that energy and where those audience that that audience exists online. And then we can kind of start bringing them into the store. And we're going to continue to do things like that both in store activations and other online. Merch plays, basically. Marc Gutman 34:47 Yeah. And so you've talked a lot about the successes that you've had, and certainly can feel your enthusiasm and energy for what you do. But like what's hard about it? You know what's hard about this endeavor that you're undertaking with communications at Kum & Go? Ariel Rubin 35:03 Um, I mean, what's hard about it? I guess, you know, they've definitely been they've been successes. And they've been total failures and busts. And I don't even mean it like that. Failed forward or anything. I just failed. Like, it just I just did stuff that sucked. And was your worst one. What was your biggest? biggest failure? Yeah, no, our biggest one. And we have a really great failure, which was the, we did Nadia and I did a post a tweet. Basically, I we were both new here. And I'm not from that. I don't really know anything about sports in general. And I certainly don't know anything about college sports. But we did a tweet about the cyclones and the hot guys are the two teams here, college football, and it was one of the teams lost. And so the team remember, we had it like it was a good image of a team getting pushed down this, like spread on Reddit and spread all over. And people were absolutely livid. I mean, they were taking photos of themselves cutting up there Kum & Go and rewards card and tweeting it and calling for boycotts. And it was like this huge fear. And we had like emergency meeting and people who had never, I mean, who had like, I had, like, it reached like the far reaches of the internet in Iowa. And it was like a real And anyway, the news covered it. I was quoted in Des Moines Register, which is I'm very proud of them have this on my resume at the time says, Twitter is hard says Kum & Go spokesperson Ariel Rubin. And I was very proud of that, quote, because you know, the end of the day Twitter is hard. And frankly, I learned a lesson which is in the Midwest, maybe, you know, don't talk about politics, or sports or religion. So you know, stay out of those three. So I, we don't talk about college football anymore. And I frankly, didn't even really understand that. But I learned from that, you know, we got a lot of engagement out of it. We got a lot of followers. But you know, obviously you don't want to do that at the expense of your base and your people. And I didn't want you know, I remember our legal our general counsel was like I dad called me is like my dad's 90. And he's like, what are you doing on Twitter? He's like, my dad doesn't even know what Twitter is. What happened? So, again, credit to everyone we work with, and everyone above me who allowed us to continue going and didn't change, do we didn't have to change, really anything. We just kind of, you know, we learned we learned a really big lesson there on that. So I think I think failures like that are super important that because you really do you learn as you develop this, but it's like a year and a half ago, we we were developing our voice and we're figuring out where those where those third rails were. And we certainly learned. Well, I mean, I got emails, I got death threats, like it was I've never I've worked in on the most hot button issues in the world, Israel, Palestine, whatever. Nothing compares to be animosity, and just deep, deep rage I got on the because of this, this one tweet. So I felt bad. And we apologize. We moved on. Marc Gutman 37:46 Yeah, as I mentioned, I'm a Midwest guy, and you don't mess with cross state rivals and college football. That's just a No, no. But like, as you were telling me that story again, like, I'm just sitting here, buddy, like, Oh, no, like, I can only imagine like, early in your your career here. And like you're already stepping in it. I mean, we were freaking out or did right away was management. Like, look, we got you. But we got to work this out. I mean, how does that go down? Like you're creating quite a ruckus early in your career? Ariel Rubin 38:16 I know. Yeah. Again, man, I don't know, I got lucky to have the management. I got like a, you know, I wrote them an email, I was like, I got some bad news. They're very cool. They're very, they're very relaxed about it. Like they, you know, they had faith in the process. You know, I think, something that I learned, maybe from that, but also, I think some in general, and this year has been a good example of that, as yours just been so crazy, I think news is that these cycles, if you I think it's always a good lesson, as a comms person, remember that, like, the outrage cycle will pass. And not only will it pass, no one will have any idea what it even was in three days. And if you can weather that storm, because everyone's everyone's, I believe everyone's attention span has just become so withered by the kind of onslaught of news and media, and then, frankly, like terrifying kind of things that are happening on a daily basis that the brains have really kind of like goldfish out and are really incapable of like handling too much just constant stimulus. So I think that where the again, the lesson from there was, was like, if you can say that you have to, I think if you can weather a storm that you can recognize that this too, will pass. And it's important always have perspective, in the midst of a kind of social media crisis or any media crisis, which is like, really, the Eye of Sauron really moves on rather quickly these days. And it's, it's important to remember that even at the time when you feel like oh, my God, this is a cataclysm and you know, our sales didn't change for the negative, we follow it. I followed it through I followed up on it with like our analytics team, and we looked at it and sales and stuff and the impact ultimately was practically non existent. So again, fortunate to have to have leadership and colleagues that that were at the time. Really very cool with it. Yes, I was. I was I was very nervous. Marc Gutman 39:56 And was that the strategy to ride the storm? Or did you have to kind of do a mea culpa and apologize, are we ever did that look like? Ariel Rubin 40:03 we did a mea culpa, we did a mea culpa. And it was actually my boss. It was her. I was like her first week, and she just been hired. So she really, I felt really more bad for her because I'd maybe been there for four or five months. And she was really new and was like, Oh, my God, you know, through this ad or like the first week. So we did do a call, but I, and I think it was probably the you know, I was he was a good thing to do kind of diffused in a bed. You know, I said, People really upset I felt really badly hurt by that. Now it was, like I said, it's never our intention. never actually anyone was attention to find it funny. I knew it is the funny joke at the expense of another audience, you know, so, you know, you live and learn? I don't know. Marc Gutman 40:48 You know, so shifting a little bit when we first spoke, you said something to me that that resonated and it was a paraphrasing, or maybe not, but it was something to the effect of socials where the conversation is, you know, can you talk a little bit more about that? Like, like, what do you mean by that? Ariel Rubin 41:04 I think that every day I wake up, and I work for Kum & Go, and all I'm trying to do is get my job is to compete with every single thing that you can do on your phone. My job is compete with the text message from your, your wife, or the photos of your kid, or the Amazon Prime membership, or Netflix or every other brand in the world. I'm not just competing with Kwik Trip, or Casey's or whatever, I'm competing as a brand for your attention and I'm competing with the Red Cross and competing for literally anything and everything. And I think that, you know, we, I just want to get, I want to get five seconds of your time today to think about her coming up. That's funny, or they did a funny tweet, or Wow, they have a great Instagram, or I got to go there and pick up a hot dog because that was awesome, whatever. Like, I'm trying to get that little slice of time. And so I think that when I say that, that's where the conversations, literally I look at audience behavior. And even now, I mean, now accelerated by the pandemic, but we look at social use and and can phone use and it's it's through the roof, it's only growing. And so as we continue on with very connected digitally native younger audiences, or consumer bases, we're only going to continue to be focused there. So it's why I see something for example, like TikTok, I have no real conception of and no real understanding of, but I know is where conversation is happening or culture is kind of created. I know, I want us to be a part of that. And I want us to be a part of that in a way that's authentic, both to the platform and to our brand. So I don't want to be me on TikTok talking because it's inauthentic for me because I literally don't get it. And I would look like the 35 year old. So I want to find ways to to kind of be part of this conversation tonight. I think, you know, social is the watercooler of our time. And there's I don't know where everyone else is. But they're all there constantly. And I think probably much to our society's detriment, but is what it is. Marc Gutman 42:54 Is that why you do what you do? Ariel Rubin 42:56 I mean, I think I'm a product of of our broken brain, social media generation. Yeah, I mean, I was probably, you know, and I, I find it really exciting because I think as when I was younger, I wanted to be a journalist, because I thought that was a really compelling way to kind of tell stories and share news with people. And I think, as I got into journalism, and I had a terrible career as a journalist, I wasn't very good. But I think that, as I got into it, I realized that early on that, you know, what was really, for me really exciting was the kind of constant flow of information that was happening in places like Twitter. And at the time, Facebook when I was younger, and I think that was, I've always found that really addictive. I mean, again, for better or for worse, it certainly has ruined my ability to like, read a book from start to finish. But I really I appreciate and I think I'm okay, a fairly decent at cracking the code of understanding how to get other people interested in what I think is cool. And that's what I try to do at Kum & Go. Marc Gutman 43:50 Yeah. And so like, what's the biggest challenge for you and your team right now, as it pertains to social and kind of how you see the world? Ariel Rubin 43:57 I mean, I think, you know, it's always a challenge in trying to be relevant, and try to maintain relevance, as always, because again, I think, I think, frankly, our strategies, and this matters, like, I don't know how much I don't put much stock into that, because the platforms are changing so quickly, algorithms are changing so quickly, the audience behavior is changing every day. I don't even plan to single tweet in my life. I don't have a I don't have a tweet, right. I don't know what I'm gonna tweet today. I don't know what I'll tweet tomorrow. I don't know what Nadia is going to put on Instagram, we, we do it by that. And that is a on purpose. Because I believe to be truly effective. You want to know, you want to wake up, go on Twitter for five minutes, see what people are talking about and then start developing what that conversation is going to be and how you're going to be a part of it. So I think that the challenges are always in that process. It's tough, like to kind of do that and to maintain, I think, an energy to kind of keep up with it. It's kind of exhausting. It's like there's always that kind of that challenge. And then I think more broadly, you know, it's something you touched on earlier, but it's like, we always want to think about how we can I think show success and show that we're able to not only just get lolz on Twitter or likes on an Instagram post, but actually how we can convert and drive that traffic into stores. That's always the challenge. And I always find that chall—I find, you know, I've been doing this job for a year and a half, I still find that challenge be really rewarding and fun. Marc Gutman 45:15 Yeah. And so, you know, do you have any advice that you could give anyone who is either starting their career and social and or looking to add this to their brand? Who might just be starting a little bit flat footed or don't don't know where to go from here? Ariel Rubin 45:31 Yeah, I mean, I think a few things. I think, I think consistency is really key with this stuff. I don't think, you know, I think it's, when you're building an audience, and I'm building an audience, we're all trying to build audiences. And it's really hard to build an audience like the hardest thing to do, because I'm one store out of a billion stores and one and, you know, one voice out of a billion. So I think, really, I think, consistently kind of like going out every day, and pushing and not getting deterred when you don't find easy, easy or quick success, because I think it takes a long time. And the other thing I would, I would say is, I see this actually a lot like, I think if you're starting your career, you're young, in your career, you're young, you have such an advantage. And tomorrow, in terms of this kind of world, because you grew up in it, you grew up immersed in it, you grew up, you know, I grew up with a dial up modem and AOL and it's just a different world, things are changing so quickly. And I think you grew up with Twitter, Twitter's around for what, 15, 20 years now, like, you know, that's part of and you're 20 years old, like it's just, it's always been there for you. So, you know, the language that you have that you speak in is, is you're already at such a competitive advantage to someone like me, because you just get it better, and you understand it more and you're quicker. So I think, frankly, use your youth I think is an advantage what I'd say to young people starting out and I tell people who are older who are maybe more gatekeepers or leadership positions. I always say this though, it's just like, you have to find people, trust them, and then let them do whatever they want. And that's it to me, it's fine to people that are good at this stuff. And then don't try to ruin it by like, like, Yeah, but where's my brand go? Or like, what about putting this in the photo, like, let the people that are really, really clever at at figuring out a platform or, you know, under understanding an audience, let them do that work for you. And really trust them to do it. Because that I think, is where certainly we've seen and I've seen Nadia and Evelyn are my two kind of colleagues really extraordinary success and some really really fun stuff happen. Marc Gutman 47:18 And so outside of your mobile phone, what's your favorite social media tool? Ariel Rubin 47:24 Outside of my phone? Like what's my favorite tool to—? Marc Gutman 47:28 Just mean like use your phone to tweet and take photos and things like that. But yeah, so like, to me that would be my like, I was just trying to like, you know, get you to not say my phone. Like, what's your favorite tool? Ariel Rubin 47:40 Like but like even like platform that I'm on or— Marc Gutman 47:44 No no no no like actual tool for for doing your job. And I'm hoping to— Ariel Rubin 47:48 Literally just my phone, I don't have anything else. I don't have a single other thing. I have this laptop that I'm talking to you on. I hate it. So I it is truly, truly just my phone. I don't use a camera, I don't use I used to use a to shoot and I mean, I edit and shoot stuff. I you know, another thing I would say generally, it's like, learn how to do everything, at least a little bit well, or at least basic, you know, like learn how to shoot, learn how to edit photo, and video learn final cut or, you know, or Adobe Premiere. I think having basic knowledge, that's not a POC, I want to learn how to do podcast, no idea how to get like, think learning all that stuff is really important. So I can do a little bit of all of that. But the Yeah, I just use my phone for anything. Marc Gutman 48:27 Incredible. No, it's good. Like, I'm a tool collector, you know, so like, some tool. Um, but actually my favorite tool is probably Facebook Creator Studio, because I like that I can you know, do it with Insta and load up, you know, schedule posts and things like that. Before it was only like you can't do or you have to have some weird, weird thing. So yeah, so that's what I like the most. But you know, there's people out there like, you know, Hootsuite and Buffer and all this stuff. But yeah, that's not me. I'm on a more like one to one. Ariel Rubin 49:01 Right on. Yeah, yeah. So you know, as we thank you guys, we come to a close and towards the end of our time here, like what does the future look like for for you in Kum & Go and the social team like where do you think this is all going? I have no idea. But I'm you know, I think again, like this has been the year I'm like any that I've ever I've ever experienced that, you know, earlier, we asked me how I got from Switzerland to here and I think I was working on Ebola at the Red Cross and things like that. And I was like, I'm done with all that, like, I want something that's going to be light and I want to live in Iowa and I want to relax and I ended up coming here and having like the most politically and sort of, you know, intense it's been an intense year and you know, dealing with you know, COVID-19 has been super intense. So I, I hope I hope the future for coming go in future for the country and the planet is one which sort of we'd get Oh, grab a grip on this pandemic and can kind of go back to it. I don't think we're going back to normal ever But I think go back to, I don't know, pretty, you know, it's content that's a bit more fun and a bit lighter. Because it's just been a really it. It's been a tough year for a lot of people. And I hope that for Kum & Go in general that I, you know, again, I think that I think we have a really exciting plan for what this company, how this company wants to be ended up. It's been around for 61 years, it's gonna be around for a lot longer. And I think there's a lot of interesting ideas for how you make and how you reimagine and re envision what convenience looks like in the 21st century, especially post COVID, I would say. So I think it'd be interesting to see what this company does and where it goes. And I'm excited to be part of it and hopefully, continue driving really interesting conversation and building an ever bigger ever growing audience. Marc Gutman 50:39 Yeah. And I kind of alluded to that was my last question. But you've made me think of one more. You know, I think that there's something really interesting that has happened that there's this shift where people are looking to brands, for their news, they're looking to brands for their information, they're looking to brands to like, how do you feel about COVID? How do you feel about politics? How do you feel about what's happening in the world? I think that's, like, a real, profound shift that that is not happening has happened. You know, you know, and, you know, so how do you? How do you approach that? How do you handle that, when so many of your community, so many of your of your audience, your customers are looking to you for commentary on like, big topics like that? Ariel Rubin 51:26 Yeah, I mean, you know, I think you're absolutely right. I think it's, it's scary, that that's where we are as a society, I don't think it bodes well for us. But leaving that aside, I think that brands have a responsibility to be good corporate systems and be good people and kind of be a good, good corporate citizens. And I think that this isn't a new burden, maybe for brands. And I think, you know, I think the brands that succeed, and the brands that we're going to talk about in 5, 10, 20, 50 years, we the brands that took this kind of moment seriously and took that responsibility seriously, and and, frankly, are the ones that I think that we're on the right side of history. So again, I I'd say that I wouldn't work for a company that I didn't think was on the right side of history when it comes to these really important issues. And I'm proud to work for a company that is has been pretty explicit with where they stand on this stuff. So I think yeah, I think it's a brave new world. Marc Gutman 52:21 And that is Ariel Rubin, communications director and social media mastermind at Kum & Go. I hope you felt like you got a social media master class, because I certainly did. And did you hear what he said? It really doesn't take much to do social right? To build an audience to create a platform. But it does take time. It does take mistakes. And it takes a whole lot of trust between internal collaborators. And of course your audience. Business is the platform for social good for creating corporate citizenship as Ariel put it. So what are you waiting for? Build a social media team, have some fun, change the world. A big thank you to Ariel Rubin and the team as Kum & Go. Continue to be that voice for your community that might not be able to shout loud enough for themselves. We will link to all things Ariel Rubin and Kum & Go in the show notes. Please make sure to go follow them. Check out their socials, you might just learn something. Well, that's the show. Until next time, make sure to visit our website www.wildstory.com where you can subscribe to the show in iTunes, Stitcher or via RSS so you'll never miss an episode. I like big stories and I cannot lie, you other storytellers can't deny. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Illinois woman accused of hitting husband in head with frying pan because he wouldn't wash the dishes, Weird pandemic side effect has many folks suddenly seeking tattoo removal, Headline of the week: 'Bad Gas at The Kum & Go', Discovery network is touting Mike Tyson vs Jaws for Shark Week

Season 2 is in full swing and we are kicking things off strong! In today’s episode, we’re talking to Ariel Rubin,  Director of Communications for convenience store chain, Kum & Go. With 400 locations, they may not be the biggest player in the category, but you wouldn’t know that by the amount of clout they’ve built up as a brand. Ariel has certainly had a hand in that.   Heading up communications for a company that services hundreds of thousands of customers is no small feat. Yet, Ariel is on the front lines of the Kum & Go’s Twitter, because of the upside the platform has for both PR & brand awareness. In today’s episode, we discuss the hurdles companies need to overcome to be authentic what it really takes to build momentum on social media And why sleeping on twitter is a huge mistake Links mentioned in the episode: Ariel's Book Recommendation: Anti-Social by Andrew Morantz Kum & Go Social Pages: Twitter: @kumandgo Instagram: @kumandgo TikTok: @realkumandgo Connect with Ariel on Twitter: @arieljrubin

It's a new decade! Al and Frank reflect on retail's evolution in a conversation with fuel and c-store expert, Sam Herro. From defunct department stores to the Tesla Cybertruck, we cover a lot of ground.  For the past decade, Sam Herro has sought innovative ways to change the how, what, and where of fueling. In his most recent role as the Director of Fuel for Kum & Go, he did just that—leading the development of one of the nation’s largest retail portfolios of biofuel blends that included E15, E85, and biodiesel. Sam also served as a member of an innovation team dedicated to proposing new and forward-thinking ways for Kum & Go to maintain its position as one of the leading retailers in the United States.

Adam Hammes grew up in rural Richland, Iowa. He spent much of his 20s traveling the world leading environmental education trips. After this series of adventures, he moved back to Iowa to establish Urban Ambassadors, a Des Moines non-profit that supports community sustainability projects and connections.  Adam is a leader in corporate sustainability. He was the first manager of sustainability for Kum & Go, the founder and Executive Director of the Iowa Sustainable Business Forum, and the author of two books on corporate sustainability: Stress-Free Sustainability: Leverage Your Emotions, Avoid Burnout & Influence Anyone (2010) and Sustainable Business in Iowa (2017).

The million dollar photo? We recorded this episode in Grand Lake, Colorado while there were a couple nearby forest fires. We talk Kum & Go, losing Kenny while running and Tyler trying to find him on a moped, whether the moon landing was fake, and an Australian version of Alfred.

Reach Us Here: Doug- @DJDoug Strickland- @NiceGuyonBiz Show Notes by Show Producer: Anna Nygren Intro Patreon   Smile and Wave, Boys Adam came in as cool as a cucumber Hats off to Adam and Jared! To cuss or not to cuss… that's the fuckin' question The Nice Guy community has been forewarned about how the boys do Kum & Go….   Closing Lines Get the f%$k out Sponsor Link www.Unfolding.biz  Spinners and other promotional products, get 15% off with the promo code 2NICEGUYS through Sept. 30.   Nice Guys Links Support the podcast at www.Patreon.com/NiceGuys   Subscribe to the Podcast   Niceguysonbusiness.com   TurnkeyPodcast.com - You're the expert. Let us help prove it. Podcast Production, Concept to Launch   Book Doug and/or Strick as a speaker at your upcoming event.   Amazon #1 Best selling book Nice Guys Finish First. Doug's Business Building Bootcamp (10 Module Course)   Survey: Take our short survey so The Nice Guys know what you like.     Partner Links: Amazon.com: Click before buying anything. Help support the podcast.   Interview Valet:  Get interviewed on top podcasts and share your message.   Acuity Scheduling: Stop wasting time going back and forth scheduling appointments Dalyn Miller PR -- Guest Placement and Promotion www.ThePodcastTeam.com   Social Quant - Boost your Twitter following the right way. Targeted reach   Promise Statement: To provide an experience that is entertaining and adds value to your life.   Don't underestimate the Power of Nice.

We talked with Kum & Go’s VP of Fuel, James Peroli, about selling E-15, customer reactions and his opinion on the future of mobility.

In this episode, we dissect Iron Man 3, some of us dread the upcoming Great Gatsby adaptation, and completely torpedo any chances of a Kum & Go endorsement deal.  Plus, we talk naked chicks covered in fish, douchebags and a couple of reacharounds.