2013 / 2014

[Mojo]

We will be closing our books out this weekend for the 2013 year and preliminary numbers are indicating that this has been a growth year beyond my imagination.

It appears our sales are up 58 %. I knew we were busier this year as compared to 2012 but had no idea we were THAT busy. It all just kind of creeped up on me. So what can I contribute to this huge improvement in sales ?

1.) Our name is now being mentioned all over industry forums.
2.) We stepped up our attendance schedule at rally's.
3.) We redesigned our seminars
4.) Our past customers have ended up being our biggest cheerleaders and are getting the word out
and the referrals are coming in.
5.) We have really went overboard on customer service.
6.) We pushed our " free " canvas inspections at rally's hard this year and the sales conversion ratio has also doubled.

I am a little concerned about 2014. We have re-evaluated our rally schedule and dropped a couple small ones. But we have also added two big ones to the schedule. As a matter of fact one that we are doing will be the largest rally we have ever been to.

One other concern is that we are fast becoming tapped out on production. We cannot handle any more growth without building a new shop or expanding the one we currently have. That would require bringing in a part time contract stitcher. One other idea is to sub-contract out some of our work to a canvas shop and I know a damn good one ( Big Mike ). I am losing some sales because I am limited to doing toppers and window awnings. The large patio awnings we cannot do in our shop but Mike can. :)

2014 is going to be interesting to say the least. I am excited but also concerned. We shall see what transpires. I am hoping that 2014 is going to be a banner year for all of you. If this economy can continue to tick along we all may have a great 2014. Lets hope and pray.

Chris

[Mike]

id be happy to help if I van chris. weve got to meet up  sometime

I just got a small rv awning job to do ,    me im trying to to less work with more profit myself I want to raise my prices a nit and weed out the no money jobs.

I did that just the other day on a enclosure quote and signed it :)

quoted higher then I would have figuring I drove out to give a price on a boat and figured as a lot do they will think about it  so I went high ( did I say the guy lived on the ICW)
so he countered  can you do it for this $,  which was still well in my favor

[bobbin]

Wonderful news!

Me? this new venture has not been without its hiccups, but mostly on the "business" side of things.  The skill/work side of the venture has been really very stress-free.