Hi, I’m Paul Darley, thanks for coming to watch the November issue of Inside Darley.
I’m starting this episode with our first attachment the NFPA’s 2017 Fire Loss Report. This report is an overview of the United States 2017 Fire Experience. There is a lot of great information in this report, for instance, US Fire Departments responded to 1.3 million fires in 2017 which was down 2% the year before. One interesting point in the report is that only 4% of calls were for fires the majority 64% were EMS-related calls. Fire departments are increasingly being deployed to non-fire calls.
The FEMSA/FAMA Annual Conference was at the end of September, but I’m still finding myself thinking about the discussions and what I learned. Our second attachment is a presentation that has been on my mind from the Sage Policy Group Inc. They are an economic consulting group that investigates the economic situation of an industry. They speculate the economy won’t see a recession until 2020. They were very thorough and presented a lot of compelling information.
Sears a giant in the retail world is shutting down. They were a giant in Chicago and Darley was modeled from their successful catalog business model. The third attachment is an article from ChiefExecutive called “7 ways retailer CEOs can avoid being the next Sears”. The article dives into ways companies can keep up with the changing world and what pitfalls to avoid. Here at Darley, we are always looking for ways to reinvent ourselves, in fact over 50% of our sales are coming from products we didn’t offer two years ago.
Hurricane Michael was devastating, and we have seen a lot of destruction from that. We have been working closely with personnel from Tyndall Air Force Base and Panama City fire department to send aid in the form of the Darley Water box. If you know of any areas that need safe drinking water contact us, so we can find a way to be of assistance.
Veterans Day is coming up it’s on November the 11th. We are proud of all the veterans that work at Darley. Veterans make up 90% of our defense sales team. They are a great group of people, and we are proud to have them on our team.
Finally, my favorite holiday is Halloween, and I have a tradition of offering the kids a veggie tray before I give them their candy. The kids are always good sports, and their reactions are a lot of fun, stick around at the end of the video for that.
Thanks for tuning in to this issue of Inside Darley, if there is anything we can be doing to assist you we hope you reach out to us.
