In October on NATSO's Blog

In October, Darren Schulte shared two posts in his blog series, Darren’s Great Ideas! for Independent Operators! The biweekly column provides digestible retail tips by Darren, NATSO’s vice president of membership. Darren discussed:

Collaborate with Vendors to Increase Truckstop Sales: In this month’s first blog post, Schulte explores the need to find ways to work with your vendor partners. Read the blog post to learn the types of discussions you can and should have with your vendors.

Digital Signage is a Truckstop Great Idea: In his second blog post of the month, Schulte recommends embracing digital signage. Read the blog post here to learn how digital signage can allow you to manage your retail pricing strategy effectively.

Last month's Sample Merchandising and Marketing Checklist was such a hit, this month we are offering another digital download — a Sample Truckstop Marketing Calendar. A marketing calendar can be used to plan promotions all year. Download the Sample Truckstop Marketing Calendar to plan ahead to take advantage of holidays and special times of year.

The November/December Stop Watch magazine Operator to Operator answer provided by NATSO member Chris Wetzel of Jubitz Travel Center was wonderful, but too extensive to print. We didn’t want that great content to go to waste, so we asked him to guest post on NATSO’s blog this month. His post, How Do We Combat Shrinkage in Our Store?, can be found here.

This month we had our three guest blog posts from NATSO Chairman’s Circle member Thought Leaders.

ADA Regulation and Your Fuel Dispenser: Guest post contributor Chad Johnson of Gilbarco Veeder-Root explains what the 2010 ADA regulations are for fuel dispensers. Read his full post here.

Four Most Frequent Causes of Workplace Fires: Nate Oland of Federated Insurance offers the four most frequent causes of workplace fires. Read his full post here.

Cold Weather Biodiesel Blends: Jon Scharingson of Renewable Energy Group says, "As a general rule, a biodiesel blend should not be stored lower than 10° F above its cloud point." Read his full post here.

Schulte also writes regularly on timely subjects. Last month he urged travel plazas and truckstops to take advantage of Halloween in Is Your Truckstop Prepared for Halloween? Read the blog post here and download the Sample Truckstop Marketing Calendar to plan ahead to take advantage of holidays and special times of year.

Tiffany Wlazlowski also kept us up-to-date on the fight against tolls with Court of Public Opinion Rejects Tolls on I-95.

Lastly, Amy Toner introduced The NATSO Show Magazine, a new online magazine with exclusive interviews, great ideas, location highlights and tips for how best to take advantage of The NATSO Show, in The NATSO Show Magazine Released.