I’ve been a busy little bee these last couple of weeks. Sales are through the roof…, which is just fine by me. As I like to joke with my customers; “I’d rather be complaining about too much business than not enough.” In fact, today I hit a major sales milestone. Since I ‘officially’ opened my business in March of 2002, I’ve sold over $1,000,000.00 in parts and accessories for the new Triumph Bonneville. To say the least, I’m totally blow-away with how fast this little venture of mine has grown.
Now, for those of you who have the impression that the whole $1M goes into my pocket, think again. That is my total gross sales… a far-far cry from my net earnings. But still, let’s just say that I’m not starving. But then again, I’m not rolling in cash. The true wealth in what I’m doing is being able to do something I enjoy doing. I feel blessed every day I roll out of bed.
Kudos to Classic Cycle in Roseville, Michigan. Suzanne & Lauren (pictured) threw a very nice Holiday party. I got there a little late, but still there were a few customers milling around and tons of good food. The shop had a new 06 Speed Triple in white that was pretty damn cool IMHO. The white bodywork really complemented the black chassis and engine. The shop tricked it out with some factory accessories and I’m sure it will not last long on the floor before some wise shopper snaps it up. Hell, it just might be me!
While I was in the back workshop, Classic Cycle’s ace mechanic Todd was showing me a wrecked Rocket III he was rebuilding. The bike was stripped of it’s bodywork and Todd started telling me how he thought the Rocket III would make a pretty cool sportbike with a little restyling.
Talk about great minds thinking alike… I too think the R3 has great sportbike potential. Todd had some excellent ideas about relocating the fuel tank to the airbox location and replacing the airbox with some long velocity stacks. Cut-up the forward control mounts and move them to the mid-control position. And for God sake, ditch all the cheesy plastic bodywork. I of course suggested a 3-1 header with snaking head pipes in ceramic black. As Todd was throwing out ideas, I kept muttering, “I see the vision. I see the vision.”
So as we enter into the New Year, I wish all of you good health, happiness and excellent riding weather in 2006. And thank you so very much for your support these last few years.
This isn’t as easy as one might expect. Trying to come up with something informative, witty and grammatically correct on a timely basis is a tall order. The truth is that my daily life has become somewhat routine… ahhh, down-right boring at times. He’s a run-down of a typical weekday:
I haven’t got a good night’s sleep since the Carter administration, so I typically get up around 6:00am. First order of business is to log onto PayPal and download the overnight orders. Next I visit the various NTB forums to see what type of nonsense has popped-up overnight. And then there is answering email. That can be a real chore at times. I try to be as thorough and informative as I can, but there are times where there is so much email to answer, I have to be somewhat brief with my responses. Then comes the highlight of my day; taking a good dump and a hot shower… exactly in that order! Next up is breakfast around 7:00am. I almost always eat my meals out. I’m too lazy to cook and I’m not very good at it either. I need my morning coffee. Can’t go without it. I have 3 or 4 really good restaurants nearby, and I’m on a very friendly basis with the waitresses. I always joke with them that they are the closest things I have to family.
So, by 8:00am I’m usually back in the office and ready to tackle the tasks of the day. If I have anything I need to order anything from the UK or elsewhere in Europe, this is the time I do so as it’s early afternoon there. Then I process any backorders pending. As you’ll read in a moment, my deliveries arrive later in the day, so I go through all the backorders and fill them as I can from whatever arrived the previous day. Sometimes not all of the backordered items arrive in the same shipment, so I maintain an area in my storeroom with bins for each backorder. If I get in everything that is needed, then it’s a simple matter of boxing everything up, labeling the box and setting it aside for shipping later in the day.
Once all the backorders are processed, I turn to the new orders. This involves entering the orders into my computer and generating two copies of the invoice. One hardcopy goes into a file of invoices and the other either is affixed to the shipping carton, or in the case of any backorders, filed in the backorder folder. This system works really well for me as the volume of my business has grown so much over the years; it’s impossible for me to remember every shipment. So if anyone contacts me to inquire about the status of his or her order, I can check my backorder file. If there is no invoice there, which tells me it’s been shipped, so I turn to my shipping receipts for tracking information.
Now one might think that boxing-up an order is a simple matter of placing something or things into a carton, sealing it and slapping on a label. Sometimes it is just that simple, but many times it gets more complex. Some items I sell were never intended to fit the NTB. Mirrors are an excellent example of this. My Bar-End Mirrors are intended for 7/8” bars. NTB’s require 1” bars, so I need to add a spacer to each one. Not a difficult task, but a necessary one. And the Chrome Oval Mirrors are made for Harleys, so I have to add the proper hardware and instructions to each set before shipping. Larger items such as mufflers, crash bars and seats require me to individually box each one. That can get a bit time consuming and needs to be done right to avoid shipping damage.
So here I am, like a 300 lb. version of a Santa’s elf, packaging goodies with a twinkle in my eye and a tune on my lips. And then the phone rings! Lord-o-Mighty, does that phone ever ring. I average about 4 or 5 calls per hour from customers placing orders or asking for technical help. And for those of you who have ever spoken to me on the phone, you know how much I love to gab. If I could only turn that energy into writing of this blog. Now some people just don’t like placing their orders on-line. Fear of identity theft is the most common comment I get from those who phone-in. Others have questions before they order, so calling-in works best in those cases. Let me digress a bit about phone-in customers.
I answer the phone “Good [morning], SEL-MOTION.” From the customer; “Hi, is this Mike?” I cannot express to you enough how happy that makes me. You see, it’s not motorcycle parts I sell… its Mike Selman. Sales trainers refer to this as Relationship Selling. It’s about creating a level of trust between the customer and seller. This is particularly pleasing to me when it’s a new customer calling in. It tells me that someone has referred this customer to me and made a point of mentioning asking for Mike. By far and away, the bulk of my new customers are referred to me by previous customers or Triumph dealers. Occasionally I get the “Is this RaceDweeb?” somewhere in the conversation, which tells me this is someone who knows of me from the NTB chat rooms. That’s great too. I realize that there is some items I sell that can be bought elsewhere, sometime for less money. There will always be someone out there who will undercut my price… so I try very hard to bring extra value to what I sell. That might be the extra hardware to simplify installation, or detailed instructions, or maybe just a friendly voice on the other end of the phone.
OK… I’ve got my backorders filled, new orders processed and filled, and a dozen or so phone calls under my belt. It’s now mid-day and time for the deliveries to start. As the shipments come in, I have to unbox everything, check for damage or defects and place everything into inventory. There is paperwork to be processed to which takes a few minutes. And of course, there is a mountain of shipping cartons and packing materials that need to be cleaned up. All of this interrupted every few minutes by phone calls.
Now to the low point of the day. Shipping. I currently am dropping off my packages at the Post office and/or UPS. Ultimately I will switch over to pick-up service, but after several hours in the office, I just need to get out for a little while. The ladies at the Lathrup Village PO are the best employees I’ve ever had. They’re great and always bring a huge smile to my face. Hey, it’s just dawning on me that they are a perfect example of the relationship selling I spoke of earlier. I drive past a FedEx office to get to the PO because of the great service I get from them. But the low point is waiting in line, especially now during the holiday season. I hate waiting in lines. I also try to get there before the afternoon pick-up from the main Post Office in Southfield, MI. This way the packages are shipped out the same day. Next stop; UPS. Here again, the staff is wonderful and extremely helpful, but I have to enter all the shipping info into their computers and wait in line some more. Once all the shipping is taken care of, it’s time for lunch. Boy, do I ever cherish my lunchtime. No cell phones thank you. It’s my time to decompress.
I’m usually back in the office by mid-afternoon and next I turn my attention to paperwork and purchasing. A quick check of the unfilled backorders and inventory on-hand and I’m ready to start calling in my orders to my US-based suppliers. Now for those of you out there who have ordered something on-line only to get an email from me informing you I’m backordered on said item and it will be a little while before I can ship, ponder this. I call in an order for, say, 40 sets of mirrors. My credit card gets charged a couple of grand. And I wait, and wait, with no product in sight. No word from the manufacturer that they are backordered. No conclusive delivery date given when I call back to ask. Nothing until one day a box shows up at my door. Frustrating as hell. So if you ever do get an email from me informing you of a backorder situation, please bare in mind that I do no manufacture the goods I sell and I’m totally at the mercy of my suppliers to deliver in a timely fashion.
By 6:00pm, I’m spent. I need a nap to save my life. I’m not a big dinner eater, but I do like to get out with friends every now and then. Evenings is also the only time of the weekday that I can get out on a motorcycle and ride (7 months out of the year). During riding season and on those bad weather days I’m not riding, I’m in the garage working on bikes to the wee hours. As with lunchtime, this is a quite time for me. I rarely answer the phone after 8:00. During non-riding season such as now, I park myself in front of the TV during primetime and channel surf. Like in the song; 100+ channels and nothing on. If I need to order anything from the Pacific Rim, around midnight is the perfect time to do so.
Just taking the 15 minutes or so to type this out (including two phone-in orders) has got me behind schedule. But there is something therapeutic about writing this Blog, and think of the time and money I saved not having to spend an hour on the Psychologist’s couch. Now if I could only find a spare hour to hit the gym! So thank you one and all for your time and attention, and let me leave you with this holiday message:
I wish you a Merry Christmas, a Happy Chanukah, a Joyous Ramadan, a Prosperous Kwanza, and to all you atheists out there… have a nice day.
Kudos to Classic Cycle in Roseville, Michigan. Suzanne & Lauren (pictured) threw a very nice Holiday party. I got there a little late, but still there were a few customers milling around and tons of good food. The shop had a new 06 Speed Triple in white that was pretty damn cool IMHO. The white bodywork really complemented the black chassis and engine. The shop tricked it out with some factory accessories and I’m sure it will not last long on the floor before some wise shopper snaps it up. Hell, it just might be me!
Talk about great minds thinking alike… I too think the R3 has great sportbike potential. Todd had some excellent ideas about relocating the fuel tank to the airbox location and replacing the airbox with some long velocity stacks. Cut-up the forward control mounts and move them to the mid-control position. And for God sake, ditch all the cheesy plastic bodywork. I of course suggested a 3-1 header with snaking head pipes in ceramic black. As Todd was throwing out ideas, I kept muttering, “I see the vision. I see the vision.”
