My – it’s a while since I’ve spoken to you all. Still getting over the excitement of one and only son’s wonderful wedding back in August I guess! As he works in the drinks industry, you can imagine the alcohol was freely flowing on the day!
Ahem. Back to business however. Well, I think we can all agree the times continue to be some of the most challenging most of us have ever known and I can only say how much I admire the tenacity of so many of our retail customers and our own sales team that we’ve actually managed to hold our own as well we have done to be marginally ahead after the first nine months of the year. One thing’s for sure, it’s not going to get any easier and I know they’re working hard over at the Wiemann factory to come up with some really good, sellable new ranges for us to launch at the Interiors show at the NEC in January (22-25). If you want a sneak preview the place to be is at Cologne – I’ll be there on the Monday to Wednesday (January 16-18) before heading for Birmingham to set up our stand there.
We definitely missed having Salterforth this September – but a return visit to the south west event after an absence of three years proved surprisingly successful. It was well organised – cheap – and well attended. We took along our top performing promotional ranges, Como, Dakar and Kaylee, and we opened a number of significant new accounts – well done to all concerned!
Another new development is a smart new four page flier that we’ve produced here in the UK, which you’ll be able to hand out to customers – your agent should be distributing these in the next week or two. It’s not something we’ve had before so we hope you find it useful.
Finally, my sales tip for the autumn is: focus on overhead bridging units (we do them in our Luxor, Kreta and London ranges). The extra storage they generate in tight fitting British bedrooms can be a pretty powerful selling point.
