As they go...

I've been participating in conference calls recently with my counterparts in the wholesale trade. We get together once a week to discuss our forecasts and how well we're doing against the educated guesses we made 3 months ago.

And boy, are my cohorts excited! Sales to retailers--from large to small--are en fuego. On fire. Smokin'. Up 25%, or more. Now yes, it's up against 2009, which by all measures was pretty crappy. But up. Way up.

All this is Good News for us. We are a "lagging indicator"- an economist's way of saying that we are last to recover from any downturn. And depending on the product category, we "lag" by 5-6 months.

But I'll take that--in fact, I'll take ANY semblance of recovery. Our descent into Hell began in November 2008 and has been pretty much downhill ever since. But Retail went into the tank much earlier--Spring 2008 by most accounts--and their upswing just started in January.

My hope comes with a caveat: I'm very concerned about the whole "expense/investment" thing. I've opined on this more than once but it's still valid--if our clients view us as "cost" instead of "investment" the cuts they made in 2008 and 2009 may not be reinstated at the level they once were. This keeps me up at night.

I heard about a company that ran a recognition program for years--spent $1 million on it. This year they decided not to run it at all. Why? Because the choice for the managers was "run the program and cut 15 heads" or "don't run the program and not cut 15 heads". They decided to keep their people. Humanistic decision--and one that doesn't have a snappy rejoinder from those of us who sell stuff for recognition.

The Good News about our business has always been the same--"Everyone's your customer". So those who view us as a "cost" may fall by the wayside but others will step up to replace them as an important part of the business. Remember when we sold End-Users? That was "then". Now we sell resellers and we're doing just fine.

We'll find out how to move the business forward. I have a thought about that. But not now...


Pete