&VIEWS

E'VE HAD time, during the past year. to review business past year, ons from a point of max- operations a imum effectiveness a: we have reduced,n. lj"ii?l,Til:

HARRY MENDENHALL executive vice president Lumber Merchants Association of Northern California

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ventory carried and have eliminated lq I ancl rr!1 --r. ! lines of inventory with slow turns. " /*- t", Personnel have been cut back to the extent of getting the job done with fewer but better people.

We have learned to run lean. We've had a long period in which to experiment and to develop the most effective type of operation. There have been very few businesses closed as a result of the recession although, next to the automobile industry, we are the hardest hit by the recession. Hundreds of automobile agencies have closed because of the lack of auto sales. We are more fortunate because most building material dealers have learned to be flexible. We adjust to the demands or the needs of the time.

Now that we are efficient in our operations, let's look ahead to the rest of 1982. Indications point to a slow improvement in business. Housing starts will be around 1.6 million by the end of the year but these will be mostly in the apartments, town houses, condos and single family residences of approximately 1200 square feet. (Less for more.) Most building material dealers have adjusted to service to the home owner since CONTRACTOR is a word found in the dictionary but not in real life. Stores have been changed to the building supply center concept with maximum emphasis on service. Sure it will be nice to have some contractor trade, but the future indicates that these sales will be lean while home owner and remodeling will continue to increase.

We are settled into the home owner pattern and can only improve on what we have started. The need to be the best at what we are must be the goal of every LMA member.

The association plans to provide total efforts toward helping you achieve your goals in 1982. The industry must remain a close knit group where one dealer can depend on another for information and guidance, a prime reason for our existence.

We will undergo many changes this year but they will be the reverse of what we have had in the past and those to which we have become accustomed. Deregulation and removal of controls on industries in general will leave room for the unscrupulous to run rampant until detected. We are bound by our own business ethics to provide fair treatment and service to our customers. Let's continue to do our best to be the cornerstone of the community; to be that pillar of honest business upon rvhich members of the community depend.

GREEN or DRY r DIRECT MILL SHIPMENTS . LCL o CARGO o RAIL o TRUCK & TRAILER o PRESSURE TREATED LUMBER

Yard & Offices: End of Alrport Rd.

P.O. Box 723, Uklah, Ca. 95482

Phone CORDES LANGLEY, ROGER HOWARD:

Imporied And Domestic Woods

Our aim is to fill your requirements, promptly, with competitively priced quality products.

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Hardware Profitab I Lity

(Continued J'rom page 9) selling floor are comments by Don Hutson, president of the Sales Education Institute, a consultant group. "One of the ways to generate more sales in an increasingly competitive market is choosing the right employees and motivating them properly. "

Explaining that all motivation is self-motivation, he recommends "Find out what people want and give it to them. Create an environment that makes people motivate themselves. "

Directing himself to purchasing, C.M. Silkey, vice president, sales, Budrow & Co., advises a retailer to learn the consumer demandin agiven market.

"The luxury of buying by instinct is history. Now, to survive, a retailer must weigh each itemfs profitability, not by G.M.R.O.I.I. (gross margin return on inventory investment), but I.C.M.R.O.C.A. (item contribution margin return on capital assets)."

To accomplish this, Silkey feels the retailer must surrender some margin points, either by going to the bank and paying, or by going to a distributor who is dedicated to selling through rather than to the retailer."

Productive use of every cubic foot in a store is the recommendation of Paul Hitzelberger, vice president of retailing for Coast to Coast Stores. "Make the store's walls work harder. By simply increasing wall display height from 8' to l0', a store can add 2590 more working wall space for a minimal cost."

"D-i-y business is going to continue being good," according to Frost & Sullivan. a research firm.

"The target d-i-y groups, those in the 25-44 and 45-64 age groups, will maintain a population bulge that augurs well for d-i-y retailers. But competition will be increasinglY keen,"

Retailers should beware of raising profit dollars by cutting back on salesfloor personnel. This advice comes from Harvey Yaffe, president of Dale Systems, Inc. , retail advisers, who adds "Our professional shoPpers report that clerks quicklY become abrupt and customers dissatisfied for lack of service when personnel drops below a critical point."

The hardware/home center retailer is faced with an enigma: stock what the customer wants, emPhasize service, develop new markets, maintain a tight control on accounting, purchasing, advertising, employee relations. Wow! We didn't know Superman had become a hardware dealer.