Onward Dog!!

My eyes are going to pop out of my sockets. This is what happens when you have a long holiday and the rest of the world is working except for you. Worse when the rest of the world in my case refers to Europe or any other country that doesn’t celebrate Chinese New Year.

Add to that I’ve been doing my usual procrastinating, so now my table’s piled up with loads of work to be finished.

Sigh, I should have known and planned better.

I feel like that ant that played all summer instead of collecting and foraging for the winter. It died in the end, I think. From cold and starvation. Was it an ant or was it some other animal or insect? Oh well…

So here I am reviewing targets and plans, picking through product pricing through an ultra fine-toothed comb. Replace a product or complement it or do the same as we’ve always been doing? Raise the price (costs have gone up) and face repercussions? I know what the repercussions are, being in this price-sensitive industry: my dealers will run. But then again, we in the industry know that dealers are never loyal to a brand. Sigh…but I still have my commitments to my principals. So here I am caught in a needless tug-of-war: on the one hand, we’ve built the brand up from nothing to a respectable name but because the new management (there was a buyout in the Western world) prices have increased. If they increased gradually and less often, it would be understandable, but nooooo! These blurdy Americans have to hike everything up exponentially. So now I’m faced with another price hike. I could replace the brand, but it would mean building from ground up again a new brand.

It’s a decision I don’t want to make and ultimately will push my directors to make. After all, they are the founders of this company and the sentimental ones. I just want to make sure I do my job and do it as best I can.

And I haven’t even started with the other principal who was also bought over by another company. More brands, more products, more change in direction. Change I can take, if only they didn’t all come at the same time. I’d be able to divide my time and resources so much better.

Sigh…