Are You a Buc-ee’s or a Stuckey’s?

The billboards started counting down somewhere on the lower spine of the Delmarva Peninsula. “Only 45 miles to Stuckey’s!” Then 30. Then 25. They were faded and weathered, but I could make out the name, and I was filled with a kind of excitement I hadn’t felt since I was a kid.

Here’s how I got there. My old Scout camp was hosting a staff reunion, the kind that only comes around every 10 years or so. I worked there for seven summers as a teenager, and I wasn’t going to miss it. My family was wrapping up two weeks at Virginia Beach, so I headed out solo across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel and up the peninsula. Wide open road, not much to see besides small towns and billboards. No real schedule. The perfect setup for a detour I’d been wanting to make my whole life.

Stuckey’s holds a special place in my version of the great wide open American road, right alongside South of the Border and Buc-ee’s. I’d never actually been to one. I just knew it involved ice cream, some cross between Howard Johnson’s, pecan logs, and the 1950s, and that was enough. The billboards kept clipping along, my anticipation kept building, and then there it was on the right. A sign, a few gas pumps. I pulled in, jumped out, stretched my legs after hours on the road and eagerly strolled inside.

I was immediately crestfallen.

This place clearly used to be something. There used to be a diner. There used to be ice cream. There used to be a lot of things in this hollowed-out shell. What remained was markdown fireworks, knickknacks, and other junky collectibles scattered around with no meaningful merchandising approach. An irrationally optimistic proprietor presided over his kingdom behind the counter, sporting a stained Stuckey’s T-shirt. The restroom looked like it hadn’t been touched in years. Everything about the place radiated sad energy from years of neglect.

Also by Henry Clifford: Gilding the Corners

Driving away, I couldn’t stop thinking about our businesses. I was somebody who got marketed to on the road, got genuinely excited, and then immediately let down. Think about all the dollars we invest in search engine optimization, AI engine optimization, Instagram, Google, short-form video, long-form video, phone staffing, and answering every email. All of that spend exists to get people excited enough to walk through our front door. So, what do they see when they walk into our store? How does everything look with a fresh set of eyes?

If we’re not reinventing ourselves every 6 to 12 months, we’re setting ourselves up to become this Stuckey’s. Technology ages fast, and our employees and customers pick up on it immediately. The dollars we spend to get people in the door matter, but I wonder if we sometimes spend them at the expense of what happens after they arrive. Ask yourself:

What’s the sales experience like? Not the one you designed three years ago. The one happening today.
What’s the phone prequalification like? Would you enjoy being on the other end of it?
What happens when they call back needing help with an existing quote or job? Voicemail or live answer? How fast?
Can they text you? Do you respond after hours and on weekends? Are you using services like OneVision or Parasol, or did you code something yourself?

Either way, we get to choose what our proverbial gas station rest stops look like. After my super sad detour, I got a nice reminder that Livewire is trying like hell to look like a Buc-ee’s, and it requires constant care, watering, and feeding. It may not be our first time, but it’s always the customer’s first time.