Sales and manufacturing are more alike than we may believe.  Both disciplines have common objectives and problems.  Granted, manufacturers focus on the physical transformation of material, while sales deals more with the psychological and emotional sides of relationships and agreements.  Yet at the core, both sales and manufacturing are in the business of delivering goods or services to an end customer.

Anyone who has been involved with developing sales, carrying the bag, bringing home the bacon, and so on, knows that without a “sale” nothing else matters.  Without someone buying what you produce and cash coming in the door, nothing you do or produce in your company matters.  Ah, but there’s the rub.  All the technical people revolt, this is your call.  If it weren’t for the technical development and all the hard, intellectual work and sweat from the passionate, diligent staff at home, there would be nothing to sell, no differentiating features that set you apart from the competition.  In fact, sales is a necessary evil and sales people get all the glory and pay while the brains and heart of the organization who do all the work are underappreciated.

So here we have the conundrum. The chicken and egg, which is witch, who comes first and what drives what?  Is it true that technology driven companies often suffer from lack luster growth because they have the cart before the horse?

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Munro & Associates would like to introduce our newest associates who joined the team within the past 5 months.  They came from a variety of professional backgrounds, bringing skills and competencies from every corner of the industry.  Each of them was meticulously hand-picked by Sandy Munro and the senior associates at Munro & Associates. 

A Little About Them

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Over the last six months, Munro & Associates has been spending more and more time in Oz as more and more opportunities have been presenting themselves.  An August tour alone, saw us in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, and Adelaide.  So why Australia do you ask?  To the North American market, which is mostly concerned with itself, it may be surprised to find that a country of about 20 million people is doing significantly better from an economic health and growth standpoint than most countries in the world.

So what makes Australia's market, unique?

Firstly, Australia's conservative banking system, which was modeled after Canada's, did not get involved to a large extent in the subprime baking debacle in the buying and selling of those investment derivatives.  However, unlike Canada, whose manufacturing economy depends a lot on trading with the US, Australia's manufacturing and trade is much more diversified.  Being surrounded by the giant Asian market, as well as doing business with Europe, India, and North America, Australia is well poised to avoid roll-on repercussions of any one particular market failing.

Also, like Canada, Australia's economy and dollar value, is strongly driven by commodity trade, with mining in Western Australia creating an ongoing boom in the economy as well as keeping their dollar quite high - almost at parity with the US.

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The people of Munro & Associates bring a wide and varied set of skills and experience to this organization. Although we are spread out from Tokyo to London and points all across the United Sates, this group of men and women share an additional common vision, which is to make our communities a better place.

Volunteering for Meals on Wheels

Dave Oberholtzer has been a volunteer for Meals on Wheels for the past two years.

Alyssa Hawkins of the Auburn Hills Meals on Wheels calls two or three times a month to schedule deliveries or to confirm upcoming scheduled deliveries.  Dave picks up the meals at the Older Persons Commission in Rochester along with the list of names and addresses matched with the types of meals to be delivered. It takes about an hour to make the deliveries (varies with the number of meals and length of the route). The whole process from pickup to return of the empty containers takes about two hours.