March 1, 2010


A Note From Mike Carr

2010

I can’t believe it’s already 2010 and February is over.  It seems like just yesterday I was preparing for the end of the world due to the pending Y2K disaster.  A lot has happened over the last year, let alone the last decade.  For most of us, 2009 was a financial disaster and we are cautiously looking forward to better things to come this year.

I have seen some encouraging signs.  One of our customers has had many of their products made in China for several years.   They recently made the financial decision that it’s more effective to produce it right here in Michigan.  

In January, I went to a daddy-daughter dance with my daughter and I spoke with a couple of other Dads who own businesses.   They said they were down right busy.   Even though both companies have smaller staffs than they had a year ago, it is still encouraging.  Of course, I’m always the eternal optimist.  Why am I optimistic?


Optimistic or Pessimistic?

Some people think I’m delusional, but I just can’t seem to help it.  Whenever circumstances create set backs for me, I’m always reminded that so many people are in worse situations than myself.  When challenged by a set back, I always think to myself that there is nothing I can do about it now, even when I am the cause of the set back.  I just try to find a way to pick myself up, one step at a time. 

I found this article by Carolyn Butler which was printed in the Washington Post http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/main/6818125.html .

My fellow optimist has found that research suggests that a sunnier outlook on life is associated with a lower risk of heart disease and mortality. The research, which tracked more than 97,000 women older than 50 for eight years, found that optimists were 9 percent less likely to develop heart disease and 14 percent less likely to die from any cause than their pessimistic counterparts.  Those with a high degree of “cynical hostility” were 16 percent more likely than all others to die during that same period.

“This is really consistent with a number of other studies in the past, with the strongest findings in the realm of coronary heart disease: There is good evidence to suggest optimism is protective and that pessimism seems to be detrimental, when it comes to the development of disease and future outcomes,” says Laura Kubzansky, an associate professor at the Harvard School of Public Health who has focused on these issues. “But what's a little less clear is what the mechanisms are, or how that protective effect occurs.”

I don’t know about you, but based on this I’m going to stay delusional if that’s what it takes.

Am I Delusional?

I can’t be so delusional to not see that Michigan and our own Metropolitan area doesn’t have its share of problems. Some things that have happened such as Chrysler and GM going bankrupt and some of the auto dealership closings are just flat out unbelievable.  At least 2 of these dealerships were friends and customers of mine who were running profitable businesses.   In an instant, they were closing, selling inventories for pennies on the dollar, and are now stuck with buildings to sell in what is still a lousy economy. Despite those set backs, it still goes back to the same thing - I can’t do anything about those things (even though I wish I could), so we just have to plan a different way to survive. 

At Office Express, we had made a bold plan for growth 2 years ago after we moved.  The first year went great and we were up over 23% in 2008, but in 2009, we slid back about 11%.  To meet our aggressive goal (from 2 years ago) for this year, we will have to raise our sales by 50%.  Some people might say we have to adjust our goal, but I think we can still do it.

Reasons why and reasons for hope

I have 3 main reasons why I think we can still achieve our sales goals for 2010.

1.    We are going to target some larger accounts and win their business. Large accounts all too often dismiss what a smaller, service-orientated business can do for them in regards to saving money. Face it, we all want to save money and we have a strategy to save customers money, especially larger custo