In the latest episode of ADDcast, Jeff Lenard, Vice President of NACS – Media and Strategic Communications, and Chris Kiernan, Director of Operations – Retail/Wholesale at ADD Systems, gather together to discuss the NACS Show. They explain how to make the most of the conference and what to expect from its 2025 iteration.
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Brian Cohen: Welcome to ADDcast. I’m ADD Systems’ Multimedia Specialist, Brian Cohen. Joining me today is Jeff Lenard, Vice President of NACS – Media and Strategic Communications, and Chris Kiernan, Director of Operations – Retail/Wholesale at ADD Systems. Jeff and Chris, thank you both for taking the time to speak with me today.
Jeff Lenard: Oh, thanks for having me.
Chris Kiernan: Thank you, Brian.
Brian: Jeff, can you start by telling us a little bit about yourself and your role at NACS?
Jeff: So I’ve been at NACS 25 years. Started in late 1999. I won’t bore with the details, but that was Y2K. When I tell that story now to younger people, it’s like, Y2k is a video game, right? It’s like, no, no, everything was gonna end because of a two-digit computer code. But my job is to tell stories and oversee our media, which is our magazine, our podcasts, talk to reporters, script out general sessions at the NACS Show. So how do we tell stories so that everybody loves convenience stores as much as us at NACS and as much as those as in the industry love convenience stores?
Brian: And Chris, for those who haven’t heard your past episodes of ADDcast, can you remind everybody a little bit about yourself and your role at the company?
Chris: Sure. Thanks, Brian. So I’ve been with ADD Systems about 22 years now, and over those years, I’ve worked in the development groups, the QA groups, the training groups. Right now, I head up the retail and wholesale operations. Basically, I overlook all the development and implementations of the home office and back office applications – the eStore and Atlas products.
Brian: Well, today, we’re previewing this year’s NACS Show, which takes place October 14 through 17th at the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago. Now before we touch on the exciting details of this year’s event, Jeff, can you give us a little brief history of the NACS Show?
Jeff: Okay, I’ll make history sound exciting, at least for somebody that likes history. I’ll try to make it
exciting for people who may not. NACS was founded in 1961 and every year since its founding, we had an annual event. This event was largely focused on education. Originally, it was taking ideas for grocery and using them in convenience because why shouldn’t it work? Well, it doesn’t work. But that might have kind of been the genesis because there wasn’t anything specific for c-stores that people just started sharing more. How can I help you get better? How can you help me get better? We didn’t have an expo until, really, 1976. Before that, it was just purely education. We had an expo. We had it every couple of years after that, and then we started to say, “Hey, we should probably have this thing every year because there’s an appetite.” And by the way, when we have an expo, attendance absolutely spikes. So we started having an annual event called the NACS Show in 1993 and we’ve had it every year since. That’s kind of been the broad theme. Every year, we have sub-themes related to that, but the big theme is the NACS Show. Before that, we had all kinds of funky names, like, you look at some of these years, like 1979 it was something clever, like “Entering the 80s.” So, really, no business context. It was just kind of cute, but we’ve had interesting shows along the way. I thought one that I’ll repeat that I thought was interesting. We’ve held in different cities along the way and early, early on, 1965, NACS is four years old, we had our annual event in Washington, DC. Back then, our entertainment was Anita Bryant, who passed this year, but she was in her prime then, she was very well known, and everybody was pretty excited about having her as one of the entertainers. And then the call from the White House came. “I hear you’re in DC.” And this is President LBJ, said, “Hey, can you play at the White House? And she’s like, “I can’t turn down the president.” So she bailed on NACS, had to write apology letters to everybody who, all 200 people were at the NACS Show, wrote apologies. “I’m sorry. The president called.” So they did something else for entertainment, but little things like that along the way. We’ve had bigger entertainers along the way that were able to stay and we’re excited about some of them that we have this year.
Brian: Well, Chris, from ADD Systems’ perspective, can you talk about the company’s history with the NACS Show?
Chris: Sure. So as long as I’ve been with ADD Systems, we’ve been attending and exhibiting at the show. So that’s well over 20 years now, and looking back on the history, as Jeff had mentioned, the industry has really evolved. You know, you went from a lot of operators that were focused on their fuel and the related accounting for their fuel, but in reality, now it’s really focused on a lot of the inside sales and the operations of that are just so much more complex. So we’ve had to evolve with the industry with our software. So now, our software helps them manage their pricebook, helps them with analytical reporting, just gives them the visibility into their store operations with real-time data, all kinds of sales. It’s been very exciting over the years going to NACS and showcasing all the new modules and features we’ve developed since I’ve been on board.
Brian: Now, Jeff, each year, the NACS Show has a theme, and this year’s is Level Up. Can you talk about some of the meaning behind that theme?
Jeff: Yeah, so we didn’t consider a quarter century of the new century. So, we stayed away from the years. And of course, you also want to stay away from places because you wanted it to be about the business perspective. Every year, we look at different sub-themes. How do we kind of get something that works with signage, even though the big theme is the NACS Show every year. And thinking about coming out of the pandemic, 2021, 2022, it was like, we got this was the first year coming out of the pandemic. Then the next year was full speed ahead. And it felt like, okay, you know, we’re starting to move forward. We picked Level Up because it’s a gaming term, and anybody who plays games is still getting to the next level. And the idea is that here we are. We’re always going to face issues like the pandemic or continuing to face issues like that. But how do we now move to Level Up? Because the competition is so fierce for the convenience customer, not only within our channel, but with all channels. So what do you need to do to elevate that customer experience to find that new idea? We used to use this informal tagline, “One Idea Can Change Your Business,” and that really, I think, speaks to the whole Level Up idea. You don’t need to come away with 100 ideas, but if you can come away with one or two or three, and it’s focused on what you want to change, you’ve just leveled up.
Brian: I do want to touch on something you mentioned earlier, which was the place in the location. Is there a method to where the show is year after year? Are you trying to cover the spectrum of the U.S. every three to four years?
Jeff: Yeah, we went to an awful lot of places over the years. We’ve been to Canada twice. We stopped going to California when they had mandates about indoor smoking. You know, it’s a show that features tobacco, so that didn’t work. New Orleans used to be in heavy rotation. 20 years ago, Katrina struck, and we had our trade show that year, and we moved everything to Las Vegas on a 10-week cycle. Normally takes a year, and we still get 22,000 people. So we learned from that we are not going to have our NACS Show in a place that could face a hurricane. However, we also want to have geographic diversity. So we have three cities in the rotation. Vegas is the most popular. So we try to do Vegas every other year, and then every fourth year, we aim to slide in Chicago or Atlanta. This year is Chicago. So in an ideal world, it’s Chicago, Vegas, Atlanta, Vegas, Chicago, Vegas. Sometimes doesn’t work out, and a city may not be in that that rotation, but that’s the rotation, and you’re exactly right about geographical diversity. It gives people in different areas of the country a little easier for them to get there, whether that’s a drive or whether it’s a direct flight as opposed to connection. It also works for international. East coast works a little better for folks from Europe. West coast works a little better for folks from Asia. So we take all those things into account.
Brian: Now we were talking about leveling up, Jeff, so how does NACS try to up the ante each year in terms of the offerings that the conference provides for attendees?
Jeff: Well, we don’t want to mess up what we already have. So we don’t want to reinvent something that feels good. So it’s really the tweaking around the edges. The number one thing is we listen to consumers. We’re kind of fanatical about asking for input on sessions, whether it’s the general session, whether education sessions, whether overall experience, because for us, it’s also customer experience. If the customer didn’t have a good experience, the customer is not going to come back. So we really want to know what worked and what didn’t, and kind of work around those edges to enhance what we think is already working. The number one thing that we try to look at is in open-ended questions, “What do you most hope to get at the NACS Show?” People say, “I want to see the future.” And the future can mean a lot of different things. It could mean a new idea, a new contact, an amazing new speaker, whatever it is, but they want to see the future, and our job is to put the future in front of them and let them decide what path that is.
Brian: Now, Chris, bringing you into this part of the conversation, I’m hearing some similarities here because ADD Systems’ focus is Always Moving Forward. So what value does the NACS Show bring ADD Systems in terms of future software development for the company?
Chris: Well, one of the key points that Jeff just mentioned was listening and NACS gives us a chance to meet with our clients and prospects and really get their input and feedback. It’s really what drives us. We don’t, you know, being programmers, we don’t squirrel ourselves away in a dark room, and just program random ideas, we gather all the feedback, and it all goes right back into the software. So we come up with our development plans, and year to year, we try to present them to all the clients to let them see, here are some of the new features, some of the new functionality that we’ve talked about over the past meetings.
Brian: Now, Jeff, I am sure that the day that the 2024 NACS Show ended, you began preparations for this year, but, obviously, we’re getting very close to the show. So can you share a little bit about those preparations that are currently underway and what attendees can expect from this year’s show?
Jeff: So for anybody who hasn’t been to a NACS Show and they’re thinking about it, well, first off, my advice is go. But second, think about what you want to accomplish first. Whether you have one store or 100 stores, look at your stores. What are the things, I’ll use the marketing phrase, what do you want to Level Up on? What do you want to improve upon? And go in with that as the ultimate plan, and then see how things kind of unfold in front of you. We have 50 education sessions. Each one of them gets roughly 250 attendees in them. At most conferences, that’s considered a general session; that’s considered a big room kind of opportunity. But you also can ask questions, you can talk to people afterwards. You can make all kinds of connections. So, you know, it’s important that these education sessions are designed by retailers, for retailers. They are very targeted to what we have heard they want. The expo is, well, that kind of lays itself out every year, and you could see different trends. Like last year, if you were to purely say, “What did you see at the NACS Show?” And you have nothing to do with the industry, you’d say, “I saw a lot about sour. I saw a lot about pickles. I saw a lot about candy, drinks, snacks and all that.” But if you’re in the industry, you’re going to say, “I saw a lot of things around efficiencies and improving upon the basics.” And when you look at, for instance, the cool new products area where people scan and that gives us a sense of who are the top-10 exhibitors in this special area that people want to see. It’s not fancy as candy. It is all around software. It is around shelving. It’s around the basics. How do you create something for the customer? Now my job is to write the compelling speeches and bring in some speakers. We just announced that our closing speakers – the last day. We try to have something that the last day is somebody everybody knows. Last year we had a couple celebrity chefs, Andrew Zimmern and David Chang. This year, it’s Kevin Smith and Jason Muse from Clerks. They love convenience stores. Their careers wouldn’t exist without convenience stores. And they continue to talk about convenience stores. I think there’s some new things they’re going to talk about. But, you know, we want to have something that’s really focused on our industry. You know, bring somebody in that’s a name. If they aren’t really already familiar with convenience stores, let’s get them more familiar with convenience stores so they’re celebrating us. So we try to open with a motivational person. This year, it’s this guy, he’s named Seb Terry, and we’re going to construct something also with him. He has a book and a movement called 100 Things, and he dared himself to do 100 things. He did things like he helped birth a baby. I wouldn’t suggest everybody does that. I assume he didn’t just walk down in a hospital and say, “You need a hand?” But he tested himself. And he says for this event, he’s going to ask people what their dreams are in advance and see if there’s a way to maybe help somebody get to their dream. So it’s going to be a little different, a little bit more interactive at the front end, and then we have business in the middle. We’re going to show ideas to go where we visit across the country, visit some really, really cool convenience stores. And then we have, our current CEO is stepping down at the end of the year, Henry Armour, and our new CEO is Frank Gleason, is starting on January 1. So we’re gonna have a discussion with them about what the future of the industry holds. So that’s kind of the setup for what the big things are, which may not sound like big things, but it’s the coloring around the edges. So something that’s working pretty well.
Brian: Now I want to touch on two sides of the coin, if you will. First being the expo side of the show because it seems like year after year, the name brands continue to up the ante, everything from free giveaways to DJs to celebrity appearances. Can you talk about the history of that growth and how it continues to, for lack of a better term, Level Up year after year?
Jeff: Yeah, we’re both onto the marketing today. So my first show, I didn’t go in 1999. I was hired after the show. My first show was 2000 and I had a little bit less responsibility then, so I had a little bit more ability to go on the show floor. But it was amazing to walk on the show floor, and you go down an aisle and all of a sudden, it’s, I know that person. It may be somebody in the industry, but it’s your first year, but it’s somebody famous, and it’s like, wow, that’s really cool. That’s some of the flash, and that’s always cool to see. It’s always cool to see the new products that haven’t hit the shelves that, no doubt, that’s amazing. And you walk away, I now, I get only about an hour or two on the shelf floor total, and that’s mainly what I do, is I go out and I get information, not product. But I’ve been told by my wife and kids still that if I don’t come home with that bag of candy, I may as well not come home. So it’s always important to have all those things like, look at this, look at this. So the experience is really what I would say, and I know I’ll give a little bit of advice. If you’ve never been on the show floor, the expo is three days. Don’t miss out on that third day. I’ll give a little bit more. I’ll talk a little bit more about that later, but the first two days, you’re tired after that. And I think a lot of people say, well, the third day, I’ll sleep in. It’s a half a day. That’s a really good day to go back and kind of get a second look at things, and I think that it’s hard to do. Your feet hurt. You’ve had a good time. You’re probably tired, but that’s still a third of the expo. So take advantage of that day. People are a lot more willing to talk in detail if they’ve already seen you once.
Brian: So let’s flip that coin now and look at the educational industry sessions that run throughout the conference. How does NACS keep its finger on the pulse of the c-store industry’s biggest needs and try to stay ahead of those needs year after year after year?
Jeff: Well, we try to. So the question is, in the surveys, did we? So it’s up to our customers to tell us whether we did it or not. I don’t want to say we did it yet. The polls are still open. We’re confident, though, but we are a retailer-based organization. We have a board of directors that are retailers. We have committees that are retailers. We have a convention committee that designs these workshops. We focus on the sessions being led by retailers. So, you know, there’s obviously some things that we’ve seen in the news related to loss prevention. There’s more of an emphasis on that than there has been in the past few years, or the last two years compared to previous years. There’s more around, just around how AI is obviously a big topic, but we don’t want to make it too big because there’s entry level, and then there’s what others are doing that’s a little bit more advanced, and then there’s the stuff that’s just kind of wacky. And I think you see that in every business there’s some people that are fairly versed in how to use it. There’s some people that never have used it, never want to use it. And so how do we find those sessions that are 100 level, and also sessions that are 300 level? And let people know this is a great session for my skill level, this may not be a great session for my skill level. So what’s that dance like? Not only the topics, but the level of expertise. So it’s one of those dances that a lot of retailers get together and spend an awful lot of time on. A lot of it is spent looking at consumer surveys, what rated well. And then we also have an area where it’s like, tell us what you think we should have in the survey. So combination of all that. I think that the education for people who have never been in a NACS Show, we talk about the expo and the expo is absolutely amazing. The education and the expo don’t overlap. So that’s one thing we always deliberately do. We don’t want to diminish the value of the expo to anybody who was an exhibitor. But I think people don’t realize how amazing those ed sessions are and how much you can learn from them. And really what we try to do, start today with ed sessions, go to the general session, get together in the big room, have a communal experience, then head out on the show floor in an awesome mood, thinking and knowing that anything is possible.
Brian: Chris, bouncing off of what Jeff just said there, can you talk about the value the educational sessions bring to ADD Systems, as well as maybe eStore users who are also in attendance at the conference?
Chris: Sure. So thinking about those sessions, I’m a geek. I love the sessions. To me, the sessions are more important than the expo. I love attending as many as I can. There’s a wide variety of different tracks for the sessions. They try to categorize them. There’s usually something for everybody. There’s sessions that focus on technology, foodservice, fuel operations, all across. Now, a lot of our clients, when it comes to running our software, they’re trying to improve their operations. They’re trying to, you know, learn what is the latest merchandise out there, what are the trends and what category should they be focusing on? What are the leaders? What else is up and coming? So they’re looking to gather that information from those sessions and then bring it back and work with our software and see if they can see those same trends. There’s all kinds of reports they run out of our system to look at their top sellers, and they’ll also look at the margin they’re making. They say, all right, are we in line with what we just heard at the sessions at NACS. They’re always looking to improve. There was also a mention Jeff just said about loss prevention. Shrink has always been huge, and they’re always looking for a way to stay on top of that and minimize that.
Brian: Now, Jeff, we’ve been talking about during the conference this whole time, but there is the time that leads up to the show. So if there was one thing that you would recommend to attendees prior to coming to the show, what would that recommendation be?
Jeff: My job is communications. I can’t keep it to one, so I’ll give you three. Okay, one is the one I already mentioned. It’s like, kind of look around your store and see what do you most hope to accomplish? And think about that. I think the second thing that’s really helpful, and it’s not because we make money having it. It’s really, I think, a handy device, it’s for the retailer, is download the app. I mean, you’re able to just preview, type words in, figure out how to get from one place for another, lock into some ed sessions and things like that. It’s really useful to have on. I’m a paper guy. I still love running around with a map, a big, giant map, and walking into people because I can’t see but the app is super helpful. And I think the third thing is kind of committing to keeping your energy up as long as possible. I’m working with somebody on her speech in a general session. And one of the things that she wants to communicate is, the first NACS Show she went to, somebody said, “You need to go to the NACS Show.” So she said she went to the NACS Show. And she said she’s from a small town, and the first couple hours, she felt overwhelmed. It’s a big experience. She didn’t know anybody. And her first reaction was, “Well, you know, I’m not an extrovert. This may not be for me.” And she said, “Look, I’m here for a reason. And I said, “I want to do this, so I’m going to stick with it.” And she said that self-pep talk kind of grounded her, and said, “I’m going to see this through. I’m going to be an extrovert for three days. I’m going to not go to my hotel room when I’m tired. I’m going to continue to go to sessions, hit that show floor, meet people.” And she said she went from that first show where she didn’t know anybody, didn’t really feel she had a connection with anybody. She said 10 years later, she couldn’t walk 10 feet without somebody saying, “Hi. How you doing?” And just the difference it makes to get engaged, whether at the NACS Show or any other event. Kind of commit that once you’re going to do this, it’s not going to be you don’t have to go to NACS event, go to any event, but commit to getting the most you can out of the event. Ignore the tiredness, and then continue it up throughout the year with some sort of learning to keep things moving forward. Three things, not one, I know.
Brian: All right, that’s fine. Chris, coming from ADD Systems’ perspective, what advice would you give to attendees of the show?
Chris: Well, to continue on what Jeff said, the schedule of the sessions is really important and the NACS website gives you a printout of the schedule at a glance, and I print that out every year because I’m a paper guy too. And I run down that list and I’m like, all right, which ones do I want to go to? And I circle them, then I’ll come back to it, and I’ll notice that I circled two at the same time. So you got to prioritize it. So print out the list. Prioritize where you want to go, and then every afternoon, when you’re walking that trade show floor, it’s really big, so make sure you’re wearing comfortable shoes. It is a lot of walking, and you want to visit as many exhibitors as you can. So you don’t want your feet to be in too much pain.
Brian: Well, Jeff, you like things in threes. So if you had to recommend your top three things to do at the 2025 NACS Show, what three things would those be?
Jeff: Bring two shoes that are very comfortable. Now, do I need a third one? Totally agree with Chris there. You gotta have comfortable shoes. What I would suggest is, if you are there with a team, debrief every night and talk about, you probably saw the same things. You probably heard some of the same things. Now, you might be from different perspectives, different buyers, different levels of the organization, but some sort of debrief, I think, is really important. And if it’s just you, whether you are the owner and you’re representing the entire team or you just happen to be the only member of the team, think about what the other members of the team might need to get out of this, and whether that’s grabbing product, whether that’s grabbing information, think about ways that you can bring something back for those who aren’t there, so they can experience some of the – they won’t experience the fun, but they can experience some of the learning. So those two things, and then I think the third thing is after the show. So if you’re the team, debrief. If you’re by yourself, you make sure you think about the team. The third thing is what we’ve heard, and this is kind of fortuitous on our part. We have the show in October because we had the show in October last year and we had the show in October year before. It’s just dealing with one of the times of the season. But retailers have told us that it fits really well with a lot of their strategic plans. They come back and they meet as a team. If they sent one person or multiple people, whatever it is, they have a strategic retreat, couple hours. And it’s like, what did we learn? What do we need to do? And it kind of sets them up for the next year. You’re in the middle of October, it’s before Thanksgiving. It gives you a chance to kind of get ready for the next year and make some decisions. Whatever your budget situation is, time of the year when you might have budget, whether it’s first of the year, whether it’s the midpoint of the year. So think about the strategic ways you could use the NACS Show and use it in terms of some sort of strategic planning. Those three things, plus probably multiple pairs of shoes, multiple pairs of comfortable shoes.
Brian: Well, Jeff, if somebody would like to learn more or more importantly, register for this year’s conference. How would they go about doing so?
Jeff: Nacsshow.com. We make it easy to register. And really, it’s – meet new people. If you have old friends there, spend time with that. One final piece of advice, I talked to some retailer a couple of years ago and said that he’s gone to the show for years and years and years. Everybody has a different strategy. Sometimes he hit a different section. You start with that. But he said he just starts at booth 1 and ends at booth whatever. And over a three-day period, he hits them all, and he said it wasn’t until the last day, the last row, literally, the last booth, he saw something that he says, “I can change my business.” So it’s sticking with it. And maybe if he started reverse order, he could have saved, you know, two and a half days of a lot of walking. But you know, that’s how you find ideas. You just stick with it and have a plan. It works out pretty well. Nacsshow.com – convenience.org if you want to see more about NACS, and also if anybody just wants to reach out to me directly, jaylenard@convenience.org.
Brian: And, Chris, if someone would like to talk to you about how ADD Systems can help level up their c-store chain, where can they find the ADD Systems booth at the NACS Show?
Chris: Sure, I’ll be at the show with the sales team and some of our development team. We’re going to be in the technology section of the south building, booth 3559.
Brian: Gentlemen, thank you both for taking the time to speak with me today.
Jeff: Thank you.
Chris: Thank you.
Brian: To keep up with the latest happenings at ADD Systems, visit addsys.com/blog, or connect with us on social media by following ADD Systems on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, or X. If you have any questions about ADDcast, feel free to reach out to us at addcast@addsys.com. Thanks for listening, and have a great day.
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