Getting back to the routine...

Last week's sales meeting was great- the overall energy was higher than I have felt in the past few years. Haro MTB, Haro BMX, Premium Products and Masi all seemed to be received well by the sales reps and the consensus is that things are looking good for the next group of products coming out this Fall.

Something romantic to set the mood...


MTB Brand Manager, Jill Hamilton, along with her partner in crime, MTB Product Manager- Pat Crosby.


Eastern Regional Sales Manager, James Ayres, looking terribly brilliant as always.


BMX Brand Manager Tony D, looking spiffy as always... probably mouthing the words "get that thing outta my face"...


THE Boss- Joe Hawk- opening the Sales Meeting first night. (Note the Corona in the background...)


The parent company- Haro Bikes. This year is the 30th anniversary of Haro- that's pretty damned cool.

Ok- more pics and tales to follow.

Two days in to this week and it's already a doozy. Lots of follow-up projects after the meeting and in preparation for Interbike. I'll be in Vancouver, BC in mid August to help with the Norco sales meeting as they plan their distribution of Har and Masi up in Canada. I'll be in the city for a couple days, so let me know if you're in the area for a possible drink/ coffee somewhere.

Alright... I'm calling it quits for tonight. More regular posting to follow now... I promise.

Tim

Yes, I'm that busy...

Yes, with all that has been going into preparing for our sales meeting this week, I've been floored with work that has left it nearly impossible for me to blog very much. It sucks too because the tour has been pretty cool the past few days.

Sastre wins today and CSC has the Schleck brothers flogging Evans as well. I sure wish that Cadel would've tried some aggression this year. If he loses this Tour it will be for two reasons alone; 1) Silence-Lotto does not have the team to support a GC contender and B) he has gifted the race to Sastre, or whoever wins, by riding too conservatively. Christain Vande Velde is one of my new favorite riders too. He's exceeded ALL of my expectations of him and has surprised many by how well he has done. Garmin-Chipotle has to be applauded for the performance of the team. They've done a stellar job- nobody can doubt their legitimacy.

Sales Meeting begins officially tomorrow night with the opening ceremonies and dinner. It'll be great to get started and move on to the part of the job I really love the most- talking about the bikes! We run through Saturday and then I get Sunday off to relax and HOPEFULLY try to ride a bike again. The PowerPoint presentation is done and I am stopping myself from making any more changes to it... I have to stop!

I had the punkin until this morning when I took her to Y-Camp. I already miss her.


As I've said before- she's my buddy.

Posting may or may not happen over the next few days. I have been trying to set up my camera phone to work with Blogger, but so far it is not working. I'll keep trying because it would be great to be able to do quick posts from the meetings. I am also going to try to get video of my presentation/s... so keep an eye out for that too.

Ok... tomorrow is a LONG day, so it's time for bed.

Tim

More Sales Meeting stuff...

Sales Meeting is still done and I am still glad... though it still took me about an hour to type up all the notes that I took during the meeting. At least now I have some good feedback on the bikes and validation of ideas for further development.

The meeting began with a recap of the previous year and an address from our esteemed Boss Man; Joe Hank... I mean HAWK. What you can't see in the picture is the flip flops he's wearing- they were his dress flip flops at least and not the ones with the bottle opener in the sole.

I get a lot of love from folks at work...

... and they're always happy to see my camera come out of the bag.

This is our MTB Brand Manager, Jill Hamilton, and that's a monkey she's spanking.

This is Dave Law, who was recently promoted to Inside Sales Supervisor. The kid is a great artist, as well as a musician and a pretty darned good salesperson too. We might keep him... if he gets that face-thing fixed.


And this is James Ayres, one of our two Regional Sales Managers. He's only been with the company a short while, but he's already proving to be a pretty good asset... despite the silly looks.

This is Brennan Scully, who used to be in our Warranty Services, but he's now in Sales as an Inside Sales Rep. If you ever meet him, like at Interbike this year- ask him how he got the scab on his forehead...

Ok, that's tonight's update. More to come, including a few product pictures even... because I love you.

Tim

National Sales Meeting DONE!

OHMYGAWD! Sales Meeting is done! Yippee!


I'm glad for two reasons; 1) all the stress of getting ready for the meeting is now over and I can get back to other big issues (like getting ready to leave for Eurobike in Germany and getting my catalog finished) and B) now our sales force has seen all of the new products and all of the changes to the product... and they are STOKED! I am so very happy about how the sales meeting went. I am floored. The excitement was strong all over the place and the new offering of products got a very strong reception. Obviously, as a product guy, that means lots and lots to me and validates all the work that I and the folks who help me with these bikes (Wayne Doran, Pat Crosby, Rick Ortiz, Pete Demos... and others) have put into these things. I'm always pretty excited about the bikes, but this year is special- for a lot of reasons. We've had a pretty extensive "changing of the guard" and these bikes reflect that change... and I'm very excited.

I'll have lots more to talk about very soon, especially about the products... so stay tuned... but right now, I'm simply wiped out and need a little sleep!

I'm planning to do a little bit of a personnel profile for you all. Being around all of the very dynamic people of Haro over the past few days, I was reminded that I get to work with a lot of cool people and almost nobody knows who they are (plus we have a bunch of new faces)... so I'm gonna change that! Stay tuned... and beware!

Tim