Foreign Agricultural Service – Forestry
The US Department of Agriculture has a commodity based export office know as the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS). The FAS collects export data on Wood Products and other products exported from the US. There are 32 different Forest Products Groups and many more Forest Products Subgroups that the FAS tracks. The subgroups are broken down into all types of hardwood and softwood products, flooring, veneers, plywood, molding, poles, railroad ties, pulpwood and etc.
Wood Product markets were down in 2008 from 2007, but there are some Wood Product Subgroups that went up in 2009. Perhaps there is a Wood Products Exporter in your area that needs the type of timber that you are harvesting. The FAS should be able to help you find the Wood Product Export market that you need to make additional logging company profits!
Contact our Forestry Sales Manager, David Clark, to learn how Tiffin Parts can help you better serve your customers and to be more profitable.
clark1585@intrstar.net
910-230-0680 Office
910-322-0429 Cell
Here’s a link to the FAS web site, which offers a wealth of information and links to other sites as well:
http://www.fas.usda.gov/ffpd/forest.asp
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Weird, Wacky Weather
Whether the weather has been good or bad depends on your perspective. Most would agree that it’s been a tough first six weeks of the year. I was in Alabama and Georgia last week calling on customers and got out the day before the snow hit! Of course, I came home to colder temperatures and more snow than most can imagine as you can see in the picture.
Hawaii was the only one of the 50 states that didn’t have snow last week, yet Vancouver had to truck snow in before the Olympics and with temperatures in the 50s, they have blossoms blooming on the trees.
On the good side, I did read the other day that over 92% of the US is now drought-free. This is the best it’s been since the early 1990s. Here’s hoping that it’s a sign of good things to come in 2010. As the weather clears, more equipment will be running which will be good for employment and in turn the economy!
How much impact does the weather have on your customers and the markets you serve?
Out in the field…February 2010
I’ve spent the past few days calling on customers in Alabama and Georgia. Most were heavy equipment dealers and some were independent repair facilities. At best, cautious optimism rules the day.
The general sentiment seems to be that once the weather clears that logging activity will be up in the Spring over last year since the mills are in dire need of wood. Once their needs are met, there seems to be some sense that the price of wood will drop and the logging segment will fall back to last year’s levels.
It was surprising to hear that several dealers had sold all of their Skidders and were waiting on delivery of more. It was not a surprise to see how little new inventory was sitting on the lots. The most sales activity seems to be with 2 and 3 year old equipment.
If there were bright spots, it seemed to be with equipment that moves dirt, whether it be for road construction or mining. In general, the feeling was that 2010 may be the same as or just slightly better than 2009 and that the market won’t show marked improvement until 2011.
We want to know…what are you seeing in the markets you serve???
Can being smaller be better?
“There are certainly some businesses and some projects that don’t work unless they’re huge, but in your case, I’m not sure that’s true. Big enough is big enough, biggest isn’t necessary.” This is a quote from a post on Seth Godin’s blog. He’s one of the most prolific and thought provoking business writers today.
This thought really hit home. Tiffin Parts isn’t the biggest heavy equipment parts supplier; although, other than the OEMs we do have the largest market share by far in the aftermarket for the primary brands we support. We have niches that we focus on, which we believe provides us with a competitive advantage.
What I think is really the differentiator for us though is that we are small enough to be responsive to our customers’ needs. Do you need a part reconfigured, do you need special packaging, do you need it tomorrow? Even something as basic as needing to talk to a knowledgeable person that can provide assistance…that’s what we strive to offer…superior service.
Because we are right-sized, we can do these things…if we were the biggest, large and bureaucratic, I’m not sure we easily could. We’re here to help you be successful!
What can we do to help?
A time to Reflect…and Help!
This past Sunday, I had the opportunity to attend a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebration. It was inspirational. Did you know that his birth name was Michael. His father changed both their names after a trip to Germany.
The beginning of the New Year is always a good time to reflect and with MLK Day following just a couple of weeks into the year, it offers a chance to help put everything into perspective. What’s really important in life? Giving back when you are able, to those less fortunate or in need, is something we can all do from time to time.
With the recent events in Haiti, I would encourage you to consider helping in any way you possibly can since we truly are all a part of one world community.
Who comes first?
Who's on first?
Who’s most important when making a decision…your customers, your company, yourself? In business, is making a decision based solely on one’s own self interest ever the right decision? I think not! It’s what allowed the Financial industry to get the world economy in trouble. Incentives that encouraged individuals to make decisions that were high risk for their business, but low risk and high reward for themselves. Individual incentives were not appropriately aligned with that of their business. This isn’t exclusive to the Financial industry…it’s a problem throughout the world of business and government.
There’s an argument that decisions should be made for the greater good. I’m a firm believer in Transcendent Leadership, where decisions need to be made with a broader perspective. For instance, if our customers don’t succeed, how can we? We can’t, at least not long term. At Tiffin Parts, we’re here to help you be successful. If you’re successful, we will be too!
For more on this topic, Knowledge at Wharton published a great article from the World Economic Forum in 2007. Here’s a link: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1649
Photo: The great comedy team of Abbott and Costello doing their classic skit: “Who’s on first?”
Blue Angel Speaker
I had the honor of hearing John Foley, a former Blue Angel pilot, present at our parent company’s annual meeting. He shared the framework that the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angel flight demonstration team uses to achieve such high performance.
We’ve all heard about and practiced goal setting, planning and execution strategies (my words, not his), but how many of us have debriefed with our team after every project? The power of examining what was done right, what could have been done better and improving upon it is the key takeaway I had from John’s discussion.
Your input is critical to our being able to serve you better. Let us know your thoughts!
To learn more about the work John is doing, visit his website at: http://www.johnfoleyinc.com
The Market…
What a year we have all gone through in 2009. Most of us follow the “market” or the “economy” and many of us read industry journals…more and more online. Where have we been, what happened and where are we going? We may not have all of these answers for years to come.
I think what’s important is that we get a more focused view of the markets we serve. I just read the other day where many technology and ecommerce stocks had a great 2009. Certainly, the performance of those blue chips affects the perception of what’s happening in the broader market, but is it really a good indicator for the markets we serve? Likely not.
Our view is that the Construction and Agricultural Equipment markets have bottomed with Construction being off nearly 50% since 2006 and some segments off 80 to 90%. The important variable for our business is equipment utilization rates. We estimate that telehandlers for instance peaked at 90% in 2006 and 2007 and fell to 10% in 2009. Optimistically, we are looking for telehandler utilization levels to double in 2010. We think that forestry fared far better in 2009, but only because that segment dropped in prior years before the overall market. Agriculture held up fairly well in North America…people have to eat!
We would like to hear from you…what are you seeing in your markets?
Is there such a thing as Win-Win?
I think there is! Every business needs to operate profitably…even non-profits have to balance income and expenses to survive and prosper. I’ll be perfectly honest with you…we likely don’t have the lowest price on every item we sell. If you look long and hard enough you are bound to find a lower price somewhere. The quality may be lower, it may not be in stock, there may be higher freight costs to get it or perhaps it’s used. There are a lot of factors that affect price.
We surveyed our customers last year and asked them to rank the following factors in order of importance (listed as ranked): Availability, Quality, Price, Speed of Delivery and Technical Support. They gave us high ranks on all of these! One of the main reasons we gained market share in 2009 was that we had the items in stock that our customers needed.
Our mission is to supply our customers with high quality products and superior service at the best value. By living up to this commitment every day, we will continue to be the preferred supplier for our customers by helping them to be successful.
How do you help your customers succeed?
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