With every crisis there are winners and losers. Costco, Amazon, Home Depot, Proctor & Gamble, Zoom and others were huge winners while airlines, health clubs, most restaurants, bars, movie theatres, sporting events and concerts were huge losers. In the restaurant business, you had to be very savvy to make money. There is an Olive Garden close to my house with a booming to-go business.
People had to adjust on the fly. How many plants dropped what they were doing and switched to making sanitizers and face masks? Oil companies pushed other areas like natural gas. It was nice to be at home and concentrate on just selling. I made a lot of calls trying to figure a way to stop the bleeding and grow the future. We were down 30% in April, and things didn’t get better until June. Too bad we didn’t have a mad rush on 8×10 safety valves. Maybe we should have gone in the toilet paper business.
1983 was the biggest disaster for the valve business. In May of ’83, we were down 60% in sales. Things didn’t recover for the next two years. Imagine there wasn’t enough oil. We were looking to take on anything that would sell or we could repair.
One of the things that we do very well is take care of the customer. We do it so well that people come to us praying that we can sell them something. WINNER.
Another thing we do is answer your requests with speed. It is rare that it takes us more than a day to get back to you. If it is going to take longer, we will tell you. Usually it takes less than 30 minutes. We have nine inside sales people to handle your requests. WINNER.
You can’t sell from an empty wagon. Ours is overflowing. We sell new ones from the Kunkle, Consolidated, Crosby, Anderson Greenwood, Farris, Apollo, Aquatrol and Kingston factories. We have more Kunkle valves than our competitors combined. We have in stock brand-new, high-pressure Consolidated boiler valves that take six months to a year to deliver.
If that wasn’t enough, we have new and used surplus valves to save your customers money and make more sales for you. Do you need parts? We have them, also. WINNER.
Safety valves need to be repaired. There is no law saying how often this is required, but every three years is a good guideline. We can test your customers’ valves while they are running to see if they are in tip-top shape. WINNER.
Hopefully, by the time this newsletter hits your desk we will be well under way to getting vaccinated. If you have your health, you have everything. WINNER.
Many thanks for your trust in us all these years. We strive to be the best we can be. We are constantly
trying to make things perfect. We hope we have made your lives a little easier. Thank you very much. WINNER.
Allen Tanis
President