Lauren Beaulieu, vice president, professional marketing for Advance Auto Parts, Carquest and Worldpac, explains how resiliency amid economic hardship is poised for future success. Roo’s response to our Mid-Year Distribution Update is below. Read the full section in our July issue.

Our enterprise is focused on providing repair shop owners with differentiating products and solutions to help their businesses succeed and grow. We’re always evolving our strategies to support the needs of our customers.

We’re preparing our customers for the future – because the future is here! As more electric vehicles and ADAS technologies populate the car parc, it’s our responsibility to support our more than 16,500 TechNet member shops and other enterprise customers with industry-leading education to support the vehicles of today and tomorrow.

Part of how we do this is through our Carquest Technical Institute and Worldpac Training Institute technical and business management training. Shops that invest in their teams and create a positive, engaged culture retain good employees. CTI+WTI’s online, virtual and in-person training provides technicians, service advisors and owners the opportunity to expand their knowledge and grow their career and business. We’re developing more training content on high voltage, ADAS and other emerging technologies to help our customers prepare for the future.

Also, our team is hard at work preparing for next year’s Supplier & Training Expo (STX) in Nashville. Each year, our goal is to add more relevant training and networking opportunities for attendees. We’ll have more than 350 courses led by the world’s top OE instructors, along with expert instructors from CTI+WTI. This will include significant programming on electrification and ADAS. While STX originated and is primarily a Worldpac customer event, it’s open to all our customers in the U.S. and Canada: Advance, Carquest and Autopart International. We’re also excited to host our first event at STX specifically for members of TechNet Nation to network with other shop owners and technicians. This event is sold out, and we’re looking forward to seeing how members respond.

Earlier this year, I mentioned in this space how we’re expanding the benefits that come with being a TechNet shop. From social media templates to direct-mail designs, we’ve added more to our library of TechNet-specific marketing resources for shops to leverage. We also recently launched within our online TechNet shop locator a “service and specialty” section. Motorists now can sort and filter shops by what type of work they do. For example, if you’re looking for an import specialist or a shop that works on hybrids and EVs, you can find the shop that meets your needs.
Providing personalized resources to our TechNet shops while supporting the brand they’ve built in their local communities distinguishes them and helps them better-serve customers while helping their businesses grow and thrive.