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



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



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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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



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

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



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



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



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

Membership models and unlimited clubs have become the norm in the car wash industry, but the methods by which we convert visitors to members are mostly restricted to face-to-face in-person sales. This week on the show we explore the question: Could customers join our membership programs online... and could they even do it without even having visited our wash?

Marcus Sheridan is a New York Times Official Web Guru, owner of a successful digital marketing agency and author of the book "They Ask, You Answer." Sheridan joins us to discuss what digital campaigns and strategies could lead to online conversions. Along with those campaigns, he explains the kind of information we need to be ready to provide on our sites and platforms and what steps you can take to improve your digital presence today. Armed with these tools, your wash can be a digital David in an industry of Goliaths. 

 Hear more from Marcus Sheridan at The Car Wash Show in Nashville, May 13-15: www.thecarwashshow.com.