It is not often in life that you make decisions that you are forced to live with for 12 months. Granted, my faith in Christ is eternal and my marriage is “until death do us part”, but other than that, I don’t have too many things that I don’t change often. In fact change, for me and my family, is almost addicting. Because of this you can be sure that Muddy will adopt our personal philosophy about change. Doing the same thing over and over again almost makes me ill. Planning our year, without the ability to change it until next January, feels about the same.

That brings me to my point; Hunting is not a typical industry. Most of my past business experience came from more stable industries. We didn’t experience the wide swing of no sales to great sales and then back to almost no sales in the same year. Our sales curve looks like a pyramid. Not real easy to plan that on paper. It’s even harder to pick the right product and price it at the right price when the real sales are months down the road. No measurable feedback comes for at least half of a year.

However, I’m now done. Muddy will show our new products and the numerous upgrades we made to existing gear at the ATA show in January. We will continue to show these products at around 20 dealer and consumer shows before the first wave of buying happens. I’ll have a pretty good idea by then if the last few agonizing days of finalizing prices and product offerings worked. I have no clue right now.

I do know that your comments played a huge role in our product offering. It is almost incredible how much a customer will tell a manufacturer if we just shut up and listen. It is one of my favorite duties as CEO of Muddy. Good or bad, I appreciate the time a person takes to honestly provide feedback. Of course the few guys, who seem to almost attack companies on various web sites, drive me nuts. However, we are usually blessed with a loyal customer coming to our aid with the truth. Thanks to all of you who helped us combat idiocy on the web.

Our commercial contest is over! It was fun to see what guys came up with. If you haven’t checked them out, you can do so on this web site. The winners get some big prizes for their hard work. I am in the planning stages of the 2010 contest, any input would be welcome.

Hope you buy Muddy in 2010. Of course, that is all I can do at this point.

Larry