Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Cleaning The Mind - Keeping It Simple

The financial news is not good. Gas prices are all over the map. The whole North American continent is in the midst of an election - Canada and the U.S. It's a time of extreme uncertainty. It's not the end of the year yet, we still have over three months to go, but in a way I have already turned the corner and am working away on 2009. In this business, the sporting goods business, that's the way it works. In light of that, I have just cleaned off my desk - time to start fresh and focus on the task at hand, which at this time of year is getting our ( Nineteen Wetsuits) information out to all our customers and to as many prospects as we can. So despite all the uncertainty and variables that are going on with the economy, with the elections and in the greater world, it's nice to just zero-in and focus on one thing - building our Nineteen wetsuit business and focusing on our sales and business development. At times like this it's best to keep things simple. That I find sharpens my focus and allows me to really get done what needs to get done.

It's been a good year. Our sales grew by over 50% this year. Based on conversations I have had with many dealers who are both customers of ours and good prospects, I have a good feeling that we could equal our growth this year in 2009. That's very encouraging. However we can't wait around for that to happen, we need to go out and make it happen - by talking to customers and prospects, making proposals and receiving orders. It helps that we will see many key people in the business next week in Las Vegas at the big Interbike Trade Show ( www.interbike.com ). Trade Shows get mixed responses these days when you bring the subject up with people, but I figure you will never have that many key people all under one roof at one time in a business - make what you can of it. Many go to Trade Shows, set up their booths and wait for people to come by. This approach rarely works. I have spent the last month booking meetings with many key customers and prospects. We have over 40 meetings set up. For some people, it's the only time all year that we get to see them personally. More time with customers and prospects is always good thing.

We have some very exciting additions to the Nineteen line for next year that we will be launching at Interbike - some very cool stuff actually that I know we are going to sell a lot of. Check back in, in a short while and I will have more information on some of the new Nineteen Product for 2009.

That's it for now. I will try and make the blog posts more regular.

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