Archive for July, 2008
July 28th, 2008
After several weeks of e-negotiating with my contact in Shanghai, it looks like I will have an agent there covering 6 eastern provinces of China. We e-discussed drawings, payment terms, shipping arrangements, target industries and target sales volumes. I will be sending him a DVD with all pertinent information so that his 8 sales people can go after new business for my company.
This process started with my attendance at the “Go Global” seminar in May, followed by my working through the State of Illinois Trade Office. They were helpful in putting me in contact with my new agent and lent advice along the way. This is a good example of our state tax dollars at work!
I will conclude this series now and I hope these Export posts will be helpful to others who want to penetrate a new market like China.
July 24th, 2008
The IBM commercials with Innovation Man are a hoot. They portray a middle-aged guy in a makeshift super hero costume going on about innovation. The commercial ends with the on-screen text, “Stop Talking. Start Doing.”
For the last year, District 205 has quietly been doing what it said it would do: start a career-focused high school. The Academic Career Education High School (ACE High School) will begin its 2008 school year with 55 adventurous sophomores interested in myriad technical and health care careers. A hallmark of ACE will be its attention to work-related issues like safety. ACE students will go through OSHA 10-hour General Industry training. Our reason: We want our ACE students to DO. And in order to do they need to be safe in work environments. We see it as “doing” our part to build a qualified workforce for our community.
So go ahead and click on the link for the Innovation Man spot and know that District 205 is poised for more “doing.”
July 24th, 2008
Ever wonder why export sales in the summer fall off for a while?
Europe has a practice of closing their factories from 2-4 weeks each summer so all employees can enjoy that period of time. By all employees doing this at the same time, no one is pressured to “stay in touch”. My Italian customer closes for a 4 week period in August so we typically don’t ship orders for a 4 week period. France has a different time period. The Netherlands has a system that divides the country into thirds and each year they rotate which third goes on vacation, each third doing it at a different time.
So if you want to get confused about vacation times in Europe, try shipping to each country!
July 23rd, 2008
Think gas prices are high here? Check them out in the U.K.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/jul/12/motoring.consumeraffairs
The latest prices in Leicester, England are 118.9 pence/litre. That’s 1.189 British pounds per litre.
There are .26 U.S. gallons in one litre or 3.8 litres in one U.S. gallon.
The current exchange rate is 1 British pound equals $1.99.
So 1.189 times 3.8 times $1.99 equals $9.14 per gallon. Blimey!
Makes our prices look pretty good, don’t you think?
Cheerio, mates!!
July 22nd, 2008
I’ve recently written about my observations regarding cars and truck traffic on I-90; then I expanded it to include some other factors that I noted regarding the economy, especially the local area. This morning, it occurred to me that there were other notable indicators that would indicate to me that our local economy is in better shape than we see in the media. So I’ve developed an unscientific approach and will call it the “Feel Good” Index. Here’s what I’ve seen and what’s been reported:
1. Car and Truck traffic….heavy on a sample of three different days and times.
2. Movie Box Office receipts…a record last weekend; both Showcase 16’s sold out on Friday.
3. Retail sales seem to be holding up, e.g. Starbucks, Best Buy still busy and reports from the IMF that say the consumer is still spending. Oh, yes, they also said that the rebate checks are working. Funny, I didn’t see this on national TV.
4. Local Tourism spending in 2007 is 5% ahead of 2006. It was the highest since the 2001 attacks. With the floods causing closure of SportsCore I, it may be difficult to predict revenues in 2008 on a comparable basis, but the trend was right.
5. Air traffic at the Rockford airport; slightly down from 2007 in June: 18,044 in ‘08 and 18,290 in ‘07…but +16% ahead of last year on a Year to Date basis.  Let’s see, that means the roads and air fields must be crowded?
6. Record sales and profits for Apple. Boy, do we love to buy those iPods and iPhone 3G’s!! I guess we call these things “necessities of life” nowadays.
Now to figure out how to make a number out of these!
I’m sure my index won’t earn me a Noble Peace Prize for technical brilliance, but maybe we can develop this idea further and stop wringing our hands at all the negative headlines!! Manufacturers have enough to worry about.
July 21st, 2008
Earlier, I posted my observations on a business trip mid-week to the Chicago-land area. Then I questioned “where is the recession” with all the cars and trucks on the highways from Chicago to Rockford.
Over the past two weekends, I drove again to the Chicago-land area three times, once on a Friday, one a Saturday and one a Sunday (yesterday). Guess what? The same observations….lines of cars and trucks in both directions! None of the times were at “rush hour”.
I also noted that this weekend was a record box office weekend for movie goers; I see the Starbucks and Best Buys with many customers and retail sales are holding up. I saw a flash on the Internet from the release from the IMF (International Monetary Fund) that stated the U.S. consumers were holding up our economy and the rebate checks were just the thing at the right moment in time. Bet you didn’t see that on mainstream TV or radio! I didn’t either.
We don’t want to talk ourselves into misery. It’s bad for business and bad for manufacturing!
Keep on spending, consumers!
July 21st, 2008
In this week’s BusinessRockford.com and its Economic Index, it’s unfortunate that the headlines don’t match reality.
I think by now, most of us realize that the Rock River Valley no longer has the large manufacturing firms that once dotted our landscape and filled our workforce. We are now mostly small to medium sized companies employing 100 or fewer employees. Yes, we still have a few larger ones, such as Chrysler.
Unfortunately, when a Chrysler lays off 1,100 employees locally, it tends to distort the positive impact of the many remaining small to medium sized manufacturing companies. For the most part, these companies are still enjoying good, steady business and some are still growing. Some are still looking for engineers and factory employees.
So if you only read the headlines, you are not getting the correct view of what is really taking place. Manufacturing is more healthy that headlines indicate. Further, most of these companies are locally or family owned and not subject to the pressures that Wall Street gives to the big guys who are more concerned about their stock prices than the basics like customer service. Yes, we have our challenges, but there is nothing wrong with being a successful niche player!
So just ask around, as I do, and you’ll hear a different story than the headlines lead you to believe.
July 21st, 2008
I am one of the people who fill out John Lewis’s NIU Economic index survey. When I read the RRSTAR front page headline and the article they wrote about it I got a much different feeling than I did when I look at the results data graphs on the top of page 6C. I suggest you look at them again too. Adding together the categories same and higher comes up to some pretty good numbers. For instance manufacturing production: 31% believe it will be higher in the 3rd quarter and 54% believe it will be the same—-my companies’ the same would be pretty good!—but add the two together and you get a good percentage of manufacturing employers that are pretty positive about their next few months. When I am in the region doing sales or when companies come to our location we ask everyone—How is it going? A lot of those responses are very positive.
One thing I am noticing in the manufacturing community is the opportunities available. When the manufacturing sector was slowing in ‘99 to ‘2001 there just didn’t seem to be the opportunities that are available today. The RRValley has networked, and trained, gotten lean, and changed the way we think to the point where, I believe, we are in a different place. Do you agree?
Bloggers Blogg to elicit some type of response. They know you are there because there are stats on hits to their Blogg….do agree that 1-our local manufacturing situation would be okay if it could stay steady? and 2- that you as a person in manufacturing have more opportunities for sales, growth and profit than you did eight years ago?
If we say yes, then we need to send that positive message to the community rather than the negative message. Perception of a negative situation will stop our forward progress. I believe it is still pretty good to participate in manufacturing in the Rock River Valley—-we are making it happen! What do you say?……
July 19th, 2008
Owning your own business is really a crazy place to live. The ups and downs in an eight hour day are unreal. Just this week in one hour we quoted a million dollar a year for 10 years job and found out we had 2,000 questionable parts out in the field! No time to celebrate, just keep moving fast! Often this roller coaster takes over your life 24/7 but we can discuss that some other time!
Different groups in the region do things to support Business Owners/Entrepreneurs by having seminars or bringing in speakers. On two separate occasions Rock Valley College and the Rock River Valley Entrepreneurship Center have brought Barry J. Moltz to speak to Rockford. His first book was “Crazy About Business, Insane for Success”, Hearing him speak about the craziness of owning your own business was great! He is funny but right on. I really recommend his information to anyone that does that for a living or wants to do that for a living!
A more recent book “Bounce ” has helped him to get on to the Donny Deutsch show The Big Idea.
I just found out he has started a show about business on blogtalk radio. You can hear it at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bjmoltz. It is short but encouraging to anyone that has taken that step to business ownership or wants to do it. ENJOY!
July 18th, 2008
Sam Schmitz, President, Goodwill/Abilities Center, announced today that they have been selected by Goodwill Industries International (GII) as one on five national “Kaizen” training sites for this fall. Goodwill/Abilities Center was selected from a group of 26 Goodwill agencies from around the country that bid to be a “Kaizen” training site.
Kaizen is a proven process improvement concept designed to improve quality, cost and delivery. GII has taken this concept and applied it to the donation centers of Goodwill retail stores, particularly in improving the back room (donation center) processes. It has been proven to be effective in multiple retail stores around the country.
The training is scheduled for November 11 - 14 at their new location on North Second Street.
This is a special recognition for our local Goodwill/Abilities Center; any questions, call Sam at 815-965-3795.
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