IB partners with Chamberlain Research Consultants (CRC) to poll a pre-selected group of 100 companies each month. Chamberlain researcher Tony Trout structures the questionnaire, summarizes the data, and has created a Web site so participating company presidents can receive “live” data as it is collected.
If you are one of our IB100 companies, we want you to know how critical your ongoing contributions are to this project, and we thank you, too, for filling out the monthly survey in a timely manner.
The IB100 group includes cross-industry, business-to-business, and business-to-consumer entities, and a few significant nonprofits. The first [monthly] polling was done in June 2009. This latest poll was conducted in mid-April 2010.
IB Asks
Commentary from Our Participants
We thank our execs for these notes:
Hotelier: Demand is trickling up but the consumer is not buying unless they get steep discounts. Banks are still turning their backs to small businesses.
Manufacturer: Things have seemed to improve over the last few weeks. Orders are increasing in size and numbers.
Other Comments
From execs who wish not to be identified by role:
- Things are definitely improving, but we won’t know for sure until the home-buyer tax credit expires and we can get a firm read on how much sustainable demand there really is in the market.
- Our total growth for the first quarter was 53% year-over-year. We see continued demand for [our industry’s] services through the remainder of the year.
- On track to set a record pace for number of leads this year, and leads are very high quality. However, the sales process is slower than average and it is touch-and-go, week-by-week, until the design and sales process works through to get jobs under construction.
- I don’t believe we have hit bottom yet. I expect more to happen to bring down the current situation.
- We are starting to see some positive indicators in terms of our sales.
- Year-to-date, we are behind, but recently have been scoring gains on week-to-week comparisons.
- [Our product] will need to be purchased soon, and we’re ready for hoped-for increases in sales.
- Very slow improvement.
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