President Obama’s first 100 days in office were commemorated and scrutinized last week, as is customary in the US. Last Friday, May 1, 2009, Baselodge Group celebrated the completion of our third year in business. That is 1,095 days, but who’s counting?

As all businesses must do, we have planned for the future, adapted as we have encountered challenges, and looked back to learn from our mistakes.

So, in the spirit of commemorating this milestone, we ask three questions.

What have we done wrong?

As manufacturers’ representatives, we are only as good as the suppliers we represent. Our function is to have a strong working knowledge of our suppliers’ capabilities and to find customers in need of those capabilities. When we match up our customers with our suppliers, we have done our job.

The biggest mistake we made early in our growth was to select a couple of suppliers that were not the right fit for us. I will refrain from saying they were bad suppliers and just stick with they were not right for us. Because we live and work in a specific geographic territory, it is vital that we maintain our reputation as a company that does what it says. In other words, we must be trustworthy. When we signed on to be the sales representatives of a couple of firms whose capabilities were not as great as their brochures depicted and whose cost structures did not allow our customers to meet their goals, we had to make changes. We made those changes…promptly.

What have we done right?

For the most part we have selected very good suppliers with strong capabilities and with institutional commitments to do right by their customers. Three shining examples of this to me are South Bay Circuits for electronics manufacturing, Fedcor Global for user input devices and many other services, and Extrusion Technology (X-Tech) for aluminum extrusion and mechanical systems. Each of these three suppliers has strong technical people in place to support our customers, well run factory operations, and customer support people who understand what it takes to win and keep business.

All of our other suppliers are also excellent manufacturers that add value to our customers. Again, as a manufacturers’ rep firm, we are only as good as our suppliers. Our suppliers are good.

Where are we going?

In keeping with what we have done right and wrong, our future depends on our continuing to offer an ever increasing complementary lineup of custom manufacturers. We frequently field calls from suppliers interested in representation in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and New Mexico. We treat each call seriously and make a determination about whether that firm’s services fill some missing niche in what we currently offer to our customers.

When business conditions allow us to expand, we plan to add additional outside salespeople to take the message of our suppliers into the broader marketplace.

Also, we continue to lay the foundation for growing our presence in the contract pharmaceutical manufacturing, nutraceutical manufacturing, and biotech manufacturing markets. Dr. Sam Lockwood is developing our corporate strategy on these fronts.

Conclusion

As we commemorate these three years since we first hung our shingle, we continue to focus on fulfilling our promises. That is what it is really all about. Our customers are our most precious resource. This is the reason we have associated with excellent suppliers and continue to build a strong line card. By so doing we become a valuable part of our customers’ supply chains. As we recurrently fulfill our promises, we engender trust in our customers. When that happens, our customers, our suppliers, and Baselodge Group all thrive.

Thank you to all of our clients and suppliers for making these first three years exciting and fulfilling. We look forward to many more years of service.