Meet the Kalibrate team: Daniel Welborn, Senior Account Executive

At Kalibrate, we believe our success is driven as much by our people as our technology. So, as part of our meet the team series, we’re showcasing some of the talent and expertise within the Kalibrate family. This installment features Daniel Welborn, Senior Account Executive.

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What’s your role at Kalibrate?

I’m an Account Executive working with Kalibrate clients all across the USA. My role is to develop new relationships, and strengthen existing relationships, with fuel and convenience retailers. My primary objective is to meet with clients and prospects and spend time understanding the challenges they have in their market. I can then suggest ways Kalibrate’s Decision Suite can help their business perform to its full potential by adding value through improved strategy, process, automation, and optimization.

For example, some retailers that I speak to initially think their business is too small to benefit from a fuel pricing platform or a network planning tool. But if you’re thinking about ways to increase margin without losing volume, Kalibrate Pricing could help you to optimize your fuel pricing efficiency to help you meet your objectives. If you’re considering opening a fuel retail site in your neighboring state, Kalibrate Planning can help you to fully understand the market and run tactics on different sites to see which location would be most profitable.

What does a typical day look like?

My days are filled with strategic client meetings, followed by discussions with Kalibrate’s customer care teams to ensure the client’s needs are being met and any actions required are being followed up.

I meet with prospective clients to introduce them to our Decisions Suite and work with Kalibrate’s Solutions Consultants to conduct product demos and explain how our platforms can be used to improve their business. Once a prospect has decided to go ahead and purchase a Kalibrate solution, I prepare the contracts and finalize the project before handing the new client over to our Client Services colleagues to ensure they are on-boarded as soon as possible. Oh, and I also answer my emails — lots of emails!

What do you love about your role?

I like feeling like I’m part of the team when I work with my clients. I’ve been in the fuel and convenience industry for almost a decade, so I’ve got a lot to offer in conversations with site owners and operators. I’m always keen to know what keeps them up at night, then help them find the solution.

I love to see the ideas we’ve discussed in meetings executed in real life, and see how Kalibrate’s solutions have made retailers’ lives easier and helped their bottom line.

Why did you choose to join Kalibrate?

I chose Kalibrate because of their technology and people. During my interview, I was so impressed by the forward-thinking teams and their knowledge of the industry. They understood that if you are not constantly innovating, then you’re falling behind. The data science and AI technology behind our software is a game-changer in helping businesses make dynamic decisions to increase margin and volume.

What do you think are the greatest challenges and opportunities in the USA?

As we all know, 2020 was a tough year for everyone from a fuel volume perspective. However, as they are considered “essential” businesses, convenience stores were able to stay open which helped soften the financial blow for site owners. For some consumers, their local store suddenly became their grocery destination of choice as it allowed them to avoid busier, large format stores. This was an opportunity for retailers to review their product selection to deliver more margin, with high-quality, plant-based, or local food offerings.

I think going in to 2021, businesses are going to be aggressively looking for ways to further increase margin and gain market share as the volumes return. I predict that some retailers will be looking to achieve this through mergers and acquisitions as they look to stay competitive.

Retailers who are withstanding the pandemic better than others are now in a position to bring new sites or networks into their portfolio. But how do you know if your acquisition target is a good fit for your company? Is there any risk you could be cannibalizing volume from the existing sites in your network?

You also shouldn’t base your decision to acquire a new site on high volume alone. You need to understand the potential of a site not just its current performance, and to do this you need data and technology to make dynamic decisions.

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To analyze whether your existing network is fit for growth and discover the best way to identify acquisition targets, watch the short video in our blog: “Taking your network to the next level with PPQ analysis”.