In January 2025, two WashCard employees – Marketing Director Amy Olson and Marketing Coordinator Kayla Knudsen – ventured to Charleston, South Carolina, for the 11th Annual Women in Carwash™ Conference. WashCard, under the umbrella of parent company D&S Car Wash Supply, was a key sponsor of the event.
The Women in Carwash™ Conference is a place for women to thrive, position themselves for success, and build confidence in their leadership abilities. Though aimed specifically at making an impact on women in the carwash industry (due to its historically heavy male presence), many women from parallel industries were in attendance, including convenience, finance, business, and more. Attendees from around the United States came to the conference, held January 19-21, with a few attendees joining from Canada and the United Kingdom as well.
At this year’s conference, development – of people (both as individuals and teams), business, marketing, and strategy – was a key focus for attendees, with many of the event’s dynamic speakers giving advice about the importance of empathy, positive mindset, and empowerment in their presentations. As a result, placing an emphasis on good culture, award-winning customer service, higher sales, and loyalty became the biggest takeaways for attendees.
Loyalty can make or break your business this year.
The WashCard team was exceptionally excited by the mention of loyalty as a key contributor for business success in 2025, because – as you may know – loyalty is what we do! UWashApp is the WashCard mobile application that puts loyalty directly at your customers’ fingertips. The app allows you to build and offer customized programs like memberships, wash packages, virtual punch card, incentivized referrals, fleet accounts, and more – making an operator’s wash more valuable, and keeps customers coming back time and time again.
Also key in the loyalty realm? Employee loyalty. Investment in your employees and culture will be a big ticket item in 2025 and beyond. Brand loyalty is part of this, too; perhaps even the largest part! We know this, and it’s why we work directly with customers to build their brand(s) up during the equipment build-out process after an order goes through. It’s extremely important to our team that we understand what makes your business unique – especially as we advise you on how you handle your marketing and business strategy vs. your competition.
Speaking of, good marketing matters.
Several attendees at the conference worked in their car wash (and car wash adjacent) company’s marketing department, including the WashCard employees in attendance. As the conference grows, it becomes increasingly obvious how important having good marketing is to the livelihood of a business – especially small businesses.
At the 2025 WICC, WashCard Marketing Director Amy Olson presented on Digital Marketing twice, explaining the importance of having a digital presence, the risk factors of not, key challenges in digital marketing for car washes, how to create SMART goals and build out content strategies, and more.
The services that WashCard offers its customers were built with Amy’s knowledge and experience at the forefront, so her presentation provided incredibly unique insights for businesses with little-to-no marketing presence at their wash. As a result of her background and ability to pull valuable strategic data, we know the importance of good marketing at your wash. It’s why we offer comprehensive sign packages, a customizable mobile application, and an all-in-one meter box self-service bay solution with advertising functionality – among other things.
If you are a current customer interested in refining your digital marketing strategies, a short-form version of Amy’s presentation is available by emailing [email protected].
If you are a non-customer who is interested in obtaining unique small business insights, you can still email [email protected] and ask to be added to our email list. The WashCard team sends several emails a week that educate about trends in our industry, business, marketing, and more, free of charge.
Women make up 20% of the car wash industry’s leadership.
Overall, it’s worth noting that while only 20% of the car wash industry’s leaders are women, the presence of women in car washing continues to grow at a steady rate. Women are increasingly becoming recognized as some of the industry’s most innovative leaders, and the dynamic of the industry will continue to change for the better with more women entering it.
Here at WashCard, we are lucky to have two hardworking, driven, and kind women on our staff, working everyday to benefit our customers and the industry with the work they do. As a small business, we are incredibly grateful that they both excel at bringing the latest innovations and strategies to the table, as their ideas directly influence what we can offer to and on behalf of our customers, now and in the future.
Thank you, Amy and Kayla, for your contributions to our business and the car wash industry!