Changes in Progress

Good Monday Morning!

Please read this very carefully, I am posing so that there is no confusion and you heard it directly from the individual responsible for managing the change!

Effective, 1 March 2008, Harbour Lights will take sales "in house". After evaluating the number of "Active Dealers" and trends in the collectibel business, this is the best way to chart our course for the future.

Before, I go on, this is an opportunity for all of us to thank the legions of Field Sales Repreasentatrives , who have served so well! In fact, better than 50% of the Reps have been with Bill from the beginning! We wish them every success in the future.

Why the change? To allow Harbour Lights to allocate resources to strengthen our Dealer base by offering new incentives and programs. Most importanly we need to attract new Collectors! Finding and cultivating NEW Collectors is a top priority, equally as important is retention of existing Collectors!

Dealers, over the next week, will receive a package outling Dealer incentives and programs, all designed to strengthen their business and work towards increasing traffic in their stores.

This is a bold move to the future!

I will manage the Top 50 Accounts through the United States. My twenty plus years of experience makes my name a familiar one, to most Dealers. Our Customer Service Representatives will assist in the management of the other accounts.

Just so you will understand where we are going - both consumer and trade advertising is back! We are committed to reawaken the Harbour Lights brand!

Is it a move the involoves risk? Of course, all change is risky to use on of my own quotes:
"Success in the future necessitates change in the present!"

Please note: we are already half-way through the development of the 2009 product line!

Questions? Call me 800.365.1219.

AJC

One word: BRAVO!

Bob

Tony,

It appears that this will be a very positive step in the right direction. It's about time. Harbour Lights has a chance after all. CONGRATULATIONS! I for one will back you 1000% in your future endeavors.

bobo

These changes sound great !!!

Good to hear Harbour Lights is bold enough to make changes to move in the right direction.

I'm trying my best to support HL more and more.

I too wish HL all the best and hope the new system will be a great success!

Sounds like HL is taking some very positive approaches. The middleman situation of the sales rep has long needed some revamping, so it appears that this change will be a very productive one. Hopefully, it will also mean a closer relationship with dealers and collectors. Thanks for the update, Tony, and good luck!

Sounds like a win-win situation for all except the reps. HL has to do what is right to keep the company prosperous and the likes of us keeping our collections growing.

It is about time that this change happened. In talks with various dealers here in Florida, the Rep is a ghost most of the time.

There are both excellent reps and the really poor ones. In our case, we have had really lousy reps for a while. Even after they fired one group the new one was as bad. And, there are areas (like upstate NY) that have not had reps for a while. This will add a lot of work to the home office, but should hopefully help most dealers and collectors.

I wish Hl all the best in the upcoming changes.

Good news. Good luck with the changes.

Tony
You mentioned all the good that will come with your added responsibility, but you didn't mention the bad.

Now if anything goes wrong with sales, the Reps will no longer be blamed, just you know who!!

Good Luck, I have all the confindence in the world in you tackeling this increased responsibility.

Judgement may be made one customer at a time. We as collectors won't know that but dealers will. If they add one customer, they will be happy. If they lose one customer, they will be sad.

Bob

I for one will miss our sales rep. She has been great over the years and more responsive than some of the dealers in the area.
Judy

Curious where new retailers will get to see Harbour Lights. Will they now have to attend a show in Maine every year? Without field reps, who will contact the new retailer and show them HL's offerings? The more thought I give to Tony's statements, the less comfortable I feel about the "changes." Strikes me that the timing is off for such a drastic move. Color me hesitant.

Sandy

As a retailer of more than 1200 products, I am involved with quite a number of suppliers, as you can imagine. A few of these suppliers have sales reps, but the vast majority I deal with on a one-on-one basis.
Both have their advantages and disadvantages, however I prefer the one-on-one with the supplier for a number of reasons. First, whether the field rep is good or bad, in the vast majority of the time I receive my order much quicker by dealing direct. The time it takes the field rep to get his/her orders all together, (usually the rep handles many different lines and has to prepare orders for each supplier), then submit them in the proper way in order to get paid for them, in many cases it may take an entire day or two before they get submitted. Dealing directly with the supplier, in many cases I can order in the morning and have them on their way to me by that afternoon or next day. It also works the same way in the event that there is a problem with my order. It gets fixed MUCH quicker without having to deal with a rep in the middle.
Secondly, the field reps, as well as the company they work for, are getting a commission for every sale they make. Without a rep, it usually allows me to get a better price on my merchandise, or at the very least some sort of incentive program.
Thirdly, (although this doesn't apply to HL, but is important to me), I do some special orders with a few of my suppliers. Dealing one-on-one affords me the opportunity to deal directly with the artist or manufacturer which ensures they are getting my special order info correct the FIRST time and they know EXACTLY what I want. (Remember that game we all played as kids where something gets whispered in one ear, then passed on from person to person until it eventually gets back to the original quoter? Remember how it NEVER was anywhere remotely similar to the original? The same premise works that way when you deal with a middle-man.)
As for seeing new product, I visit a number of gift shows which are held on a regular basis almost everywhere throughout the country in order to view new products. Almost every supplier also has a website nowadays, as well, with photos of their products. Any good supplier will also provide samples to a retailer, especially if the quality and mark-up of the item is good, and the supplier knows that the representative item will pretty much sell itself. Also, as an established retailer, I get many catalogs, etc. from potential suppliers hawking their products.
Now HL may have to do more promoting of its products now that it doesn't have field reps. Tony has already stated that the company will be doing a large advertising campaign to get their name out there in the marketplace more prominently. I'm sure that without paying field rep commissions, there will be quite a bit of cash in the coffers to cover a significant ad campaign. And don't forget, not only consumers see these ads, also other potential retailers.
I, for one, am looking forward to the changes. A long as the communication between HL and me as a retailer is quick, thorough, open and responsive,
it should benefit all three tiers, (supplier, retailer, customer).

Sandy, there will be less change than you realize. A lot of the country has not had reps for a long time. In our case, the idiot rep refuses to leave his office in Chicago. They won't even call the dealers that they are getting a % on, so getting rid of those reps will improve things. There are really good reps, like Nelson & Terry in Michigan, but they unfortunately are in the minority.

Thanks, Roland, for the insight. Hearing from a retailer's PoV is helpful.
Judy

For us it will make very little - if any - difference. There are no retailers here, never mind field reps.

I think Roland hit the nail on the head there. Communication is crucial and needs to be right. And so far at least my experience with that is not brilliant. But maybe this new organization makes a difference! Lets hope so!

The trend today is to eliminate the middle man, and that is not just on the TV commericals. In talking with my snow blower dealer a couple of years ago as I was undating my older model of 23 years I was at first puzzled. I moved from 5 HP to 8 HP, 24" wide to 26" wide and added a head light and heated handles. Both seemed to have been made state side. After 23 years the price had gone from $1,200 to $1,400. I finally asked the dealer what was I missing in this discussion? He told me that the middle man was gone! You must remember that computer technology permits this to occur. As others have pointed out, if the communication and service from Wells is excellent, we the collectors and Harbour Lights as a product line should benefit from thses changes that are going on.

I wish Tony and the folks in Maine all the best with this change.

Too bad we can't get rid of the middle man in our federal, state, and local governments. I think we have a double standard here.