Happy New Year $$$
At the end of every year, we gather all the
sales people together and ask each of them what the coming year
will bring to PAL. There are the optimists with their rose-colored
glasses saying, "Sales will be up 20% from last year."
Then there are the post-sillers that waffle, "All my customers
say they're going to be busy but they also say it might be slow."
The pessimists among us sit in their chairs whispering statements
of doom and gloom - "Tourism is still struggling and you know
what that does to the rest of the economy."
This year we had our spreadsheets out along
with the last 45,000 years of sales reports. We had questionnaires
and projections scattered all over the place. Finally the magic
sales growth number that was going to guide Pacific American Lumber
in 2003 was produced. Everyone sighed with relief knowing that PAL
would be in business for another year.
As always the case, I walked away from this
meeting with an uneasy feeling. What had we missed? Then it came
to me at the 2003 BIA Home Builders Show that we had it all wrong.
If we wanted to project what our business was going to be like for
the year, we simply needed to listen to what the visitors in our
booth were saying.
As I stood in our booth, I watched as hundreds
and hundreds of qualified buyers walked around asking sophisticated
questions and inquiring on pricing and availability. There was an
excitement and interest unlike anything I had seen in a long time.
These people weren't window-shopping. They were ready to buy! When
it was all said and done, I realized 2003 was going to be a great
year!
Which led me to think that the next year-end
sales meeting should be scheduled post-BIA Home Builders Show 2004.
So much for spreadsheets and sales analysis reports.
Aloha,
Chris Nied
|
Barbara
Haliniak