A ‘Hot’ Property
Go behind the scenes at Hot Spot Convenience Store with Convenience Matters podcast.
May 29, 2019
ALEXANDRIA, Va.—On this week’s episode of Convenience Matters, “A Conversation with Dan Durbin,” NACS hosts Jeff Lenard, vice president of strategic industry initiatives, and Carolyn Schnare, director of strategic industry initiatives, discuss how Dan Durbin, former president and CEO of Jordan Oil Company, developed the Hot Spot Convenience Store brand.
“I wanted to develop a chain starting with one store; the name just seemed to work with so many different things. Every time we went to a study where they talked about names and how you use them and how you incorporate them into your marketing plan, it was that you should have a name that you could use throughout the store. So, we did that, and we do that today in our store, and it’s really around the word ‘spot’ more than anything.” For example, the chain has a Dollar Spot and a Food Spot.
Hot Spot also deliberately choose to refer to employees as “family.” “When you walked through that door, you were family,” Durbin said of Hot Spot founder R.L. Jordan. “He treated his employees just like he treated his children. I’ve never worked for a place where it was like that.” Jordan’s children also continued that legacy when they took over after Jordan’s death in 2006. “It’s a fantastic environment here that they have created,” Durbin said.
“I think it’s the everyday way that we do business,” Durbin added. “[Employees] can tell it’s a different environment. It’s an environment where you really do feel loved from day one, and as with any family, you’ll have situations that come that try people. But even in negative situations, our employees know that we are there for them and trying to maintain that family significance. … Having a family within your company it has to extend to your customers and your employees’ families. We go way beyond just trying to make our employees feel like family. We make everyone who’s associated with our company feel like family.”
Each week a new Convenience Matters episode is released. The podcast can be downloaded on iTunes, Google Play and other podcast apps, and at www.conveniencematters.com. Episodes have been downloaded by listeners more than 60,000 times in 80 countries.
