January 21, 2010
A new year, with new possibilities
By: Bob Ulrich
As we try to climb out of the recession, both physically and mentally, I want to focus on the positive signs that 2010 will be better than 2009.
Through the first nine months of last year, following the worst recession in decades, more than one third of you were optimistic about your full-year sales.
How optimistic? Here’s a breakdown of Modern Tire Dealer’s “State-of-the-Industry Survey” for 3Q 2009.
Retail tire dealers: 37.4% predicted their tire unit sales would be up by an average of 10%, while 37.5% projected their tire dollar sales would be up by an average of 11%.
Wholesale tire dealers: 41% predicted their unit sales would be up by an average of 10%; 45.5% estimated dollar sales would be up by 11%.
There are some 29,000 independent retail and wholesale tire dealerships in the United States. So for more than 10,000 of you, 2009 was likely a decent year for selling tires. Close to half of you also predicted sales would be down in 2009, but hey, it’s a start.
It reminds me of the famous quote explaining the difference between a recession and a depression: “It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose yours.”
(That is a bipartisan quote, by the way. Both Harry Truman, a Democrat, and Ronald Reagan, a Republican, used it in public forums.)
At the annual KeyBank Economic Update in Canton, Ohio, in November, speakers Lynn Hamilton and Dr. Ken Mayland believed the economy was rebounding.
“The financial crisis is behind us, at least I think it is,” said Hamilton, a senior vice president and portfolio manager for KeyBank National Association. “We think earnings are going to recover.”
Mayland, president of Clearview Economics LLC and one of the pre-eminant economic forecasters in the country, said weekly initial claims for unemployment compensation peaked in March, “a strong signal the recession has ended.”
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