Word on the Street by Kevin Carty
Classic’s Town Call
With July almost past, I am beginning to question where summer has gone. In Oregon, it doesn’t begin until July 5. I’ve heard Mel’s wife refer to June in the Pacific Northwest as “Junuary.” Very true, particularly this year.
Well, with August around the corner, we are already in full blown busy mode. Lots and lots of designing and quoting for fall shows. Thank you very much for the new opportunities both large and small, kits and custom. From what we’ve seen, some amazing work lies ahead in the coming months.
Our sincere thanks to those distributors who attended our first Classic Town Call on Thursday. We had a very good crowd and plenty of questions. As with any new initiative, we were a little nervous, but based on your feedback, we are excited to continue this format following the end of each quarter. With each one, we’ll refine the presentation and the message.
For those who missed the call, here is a link on YouTube to the recording of the call.
Those who joined us heard about the market trends we’ve seen in the first six months of 2012, such as:
- Retail. More Retail Display projects, both prototypes and production runs
- Custom. More and more true “Custom Elements” whether as standalone projects or as components of kits both inline and islands
- Silicone Edge Graphics. SEG is not only here to stay, but it’s also becoming a “standard.” Classic is bending as many TSP profiles for SEG graphics as possible, much to the chagrin of our Production crew 🙂
- Personnel. New Additions to the Classic Family of Employees to handle your sales growth
- Research and Development. New Products coming such as more iPad Kiosks, and many new products that were added in the first half of the year
- Rentals. Custom Rentals have not slowed as Purchase sales have increased. Rentals are up 20% YTD, on top of the increases over the past four years. Lots of hybrid island rentals
- ClassicMODUL. We’re opening another regional depot in the next 45 days and if you haven’t checked the prices lately at CM . . . you should. They’ve gone down on many common profiles.
Well, I hope you take a few minutes to check out the Town Call recording and please let us know what you think. How can we make this quarterly Town Hall meeting with you even better in the future. We want your thoughts and your constructive criticism.
For now, I am back to painting my house. Some idiot (ME) thought that this could be done in two days. Which makes sense if each day was 64 hours long.
Be well and have a great week ahead.
–Kevin Carty
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