WAWA, Pa. -- The top-line takeaway from this celebratory book by former Wawa Inc. president and CEO Howard Stoeckel (with Bob Andelman) is that this company was bound to succeed. Fully titled "The Wawa Way: How a Funny Name & 6 Core Values Revolutionized the Convenience Business," the first-person book was published to coincide with the privately owned convenience store chain's 50th anniversary (today) in retail.
While its leaders made mistakes and the company experienced failures, it always learned from those missteps and moved forward, sometimes revisiting and turning them around years later.
There are many reasons to read this book, from the historical look at the c-store industry to the business leadership tips. A few highlights include (spoiler alert!):
1. Spanish segars. Although the company's origins as a foundry and its history as a dairy are fairly well known, the book offers glimpses into the founding Wood family's retail ventures in New Jersey and Pennsylvania going back hundreds of years. Early ventures included shipping cedar logs, Spanish segars (cigars)--Wawa's history as a tobacco retailer actually goes back to the early 1800s--watches and household china.
By the 1890s, the family settled in a red-roofed house in a Delaware County, Pa., community called Wawa. It established the dairy farm right after the turn of the century. As home delivery of milk declined, the family opened the first Wawa Food Market in 1964 as an outlet for the dairy products. That evolved into a chain of more than 635 convenience stores (more than 365 offering gasoline) in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Florida. The stores offer a large fresh food and beverage selection, including Wawa brands such as built-to-order hoagies, coffee, hot breakfast sandwiches, built-to-order specialty beverages and more convenience fare.
2. The six core values. "Today, many retail businesses measure excellence by share of market: the percentage of total sales in a specific category that they control at any one time," Stoeckel writes. "Banks tend to measure success by share of wallet and public companies by their share price. At Wawa, our measure of success has always come from a more human place--one that values people, not simply profit. We strive for something we believe is more important and more enduring: share of heart. … When you share part of a customer's heart, the service relationship changes. Customers become friends--and in many cases more like family members."
Growing out of the principles of servant leadership and shared ownership, this philosophy is at the heart of what the company calls its "six core values": Value people, delight customers, embrace change, do things right, do the right thing and have a passion for winning.
3. Laundromats. If things had gone differently, the subtitle of this book might have been "How a Funny Name & 6 Core Values Revolutionized the Laundromat Business." But it would still be "The Wawa Way."
Wawa leaders don't shy away from admitting their failures. Along with laundromats, other unsuccessful attempts at retail concepts included rug machine rentals, hydroponic tomatoes and--believe it or not--foodservice and gasoline.
In the 1960s, the company tried but quickly abandoned kitchens featuring fried chicken, fish and chips and hamburgers; in the 1970s, it tried and abandoned gasoline.
"The early move into fuel was poorly thought out and not adequately supported by [today's] sophisticated equipment and canopies with adequate lighting," Stoeckel wrote.
Both experiments were before their times and the company backed away from them, only to succeed later when the time was right.
Also in the 1990s, it tried co-branding with quick-service restaurant (QSR) chains, but found that customers preferred the Wawa brand. Wawa jokes about its pizza "tests" going on for years because they still have not hit on a recipe it is satisfied with to carry that brand.
Now the chain is famous for its Hoagies and its fuel offer.
4.Smelly coffee cups. The chain is also famous for its coffee. At one point, however, a new coffee cup led to embarrassment when the ink on the outside of the cup gave off a bad odor when heated, a mistake that Wawa quickly remedied after it became the talk of a local radio station.
5. Letting people have their own money. In the 2000s, Wawa took the unusual step of offering surcharge-free ATMs in its c-stores. "People thought we were nuts," said Stoeckel. But the move resulted in giving customers more of their own cash, much of it "being spent moments later in the store. … Years later, free ATM transactions continue to create a tremendous halo over the Wawa brand--and bring in extra traffic that's worth its weight in gold."
6.Heavy cream. Wawa is known for its philanthropy--longstanding causes include The Red Cross, Susan G. Komen, USO, Special Olympics Wawa Welcome America and many more. But the company also supports children suffering from epilepsy-related disorders by supplying them with the heavy cream they need for their special diets.
7. Life-saving Hoagie. The book recounts how a sandwich made by a friendly, accommodating Wawa employee actually saved a man's life.
8.News. Even in a book chronicling the company's past, Wawa finds a way to make news. Florida may not be the last new market to become annexed into Wawaland. Stoeckel revealed that the new-markets team looked at the Carolinas, Pittsburgh, Kentucky, Columbus, Ohio, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Chicago before settling on the Sunshine State.
And although the recession and the failure of Tesco with its Fresh & Easy in California led Wawa "to officially call a time-out" on more expansion, the company is "already looking forward to the next frontier of Wawaland."
There's much more to this "Cheers of convenience stores" laid out in this book, but as a bonus ninth reason--it's just fun to say. "Wawa!"
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