Some interesting observations came out of Orlando at the National Coalition of Associations of 7-Eleven Franchisees 33rd Annual Convention and Trade Show.

First, apparently the bigger and fuller the bag an attendee had, the less certain attendees seemed to care about what the exhibitors could do to help them grow their business. The focus of these individuals seemed a bit off to me. Unfortunately, this is also common practice of some participants at the NACS Show, particularly before the expo closes. If you add up the dollar amount of the free stuff, the average cost might be around $60, and if you add in the hotel room rate plus the costs of the event, the shopping trip doesn't exactly sound free to me.

But I don't think that the large majority of folks at the 7-Eleven show disregard their business -- in fact, I believe that many retailers are relying on 7-Eleven Corporate to help grow their business. With 7-Eleven going to an all franchisee model, retailers are going to have to do a lot on their own to grow their business. This is going to be an opportunity for the regional groups and NACS to educate these retailers and help them grow their businesses.

The leaders of the regional franchisee groups are supporters of NACS and want to work with us more...and NACS needs to take advantage of this is opportunity to reach out to the 7-Eleven franchisees. Overall, the event was a success and I made some good contacts to follow up with to help grow our NACS State of Industry report.

-Carl Bayer, NACS Director, Industry Data Acquisitions & Analysis