Passion Is Free So Why Do So Few Have It?

This morning we had our quarterly employee meetings with Jay. We reveiwed our first quarter's successes and are now focused on the many opportuntites we have to make our second quarter even stronger than the first. We look forward to our weekly department meetings as well but this 'state of the union' helps us see the bigger picture and motivates us to focus on what we can do to help our entire family.

- We are so excited to know that we have already had 604 employee ideas submitted with 80% completed! This pace would generate over 2400 ideas this year which is about 1000 more than any other year ever! EDGE is working harder than ever for us!

- We are enjoying the rewards of our recycling/repurpose/redesign program. How can we measure that? In 2006 each employee generated 1.3 tons of landfill matter. This year we are on a pace of .4 tons per employee generated! This is a huge impact on the environment!

- We had more positive reaction to our showroom, options and new products at Market than ever before. Some comments were "with your new Silhouettes Upholstery program it will give me the opportunity to achieve just the right custom piece for my clients and it will ship in the same 14-21 day period!" Another commented "customers that are investing in their homes today do not want to settle for something close to what they want, with Silhouettes Upholstery if they want a different arm or a decorative leg, we can provide that for them and not start over trying to find an entirely new piece for them". Lastly and maybe the most important is that "this will save me time and that will let me focus on more sales!".

- We have 40 individuals coming to HCC University next week. We can not wait to show them what you have experienced already. A few in the group are coming for their 'masters degree' because they have not seen Hickory Chair in over 3 years! I bet they will be amazed at how we have evolved since their last visit!

- We have openings this summer in our future events so please share this with your co-workers that have not attended HCC University before. If you would like to come again, please speak with your Hickory Chair sales representative. Our upcoming dates are:

May 31st - June 2nd

July 20th - July 22nd

August 2nd - August 4th

So, after reading all of this, I hope you can feel the passion of everyone here at Hickory Chair. We are very excited about implementing your wishes and are focused on giving you the product, service and loyalty you need to please your clients. We wonder what this world would be like if more people could be as passionate as you are about your design and we are about making each piece for you.

Thank you for reading today's message and sharing it with a friend! Passion is free...