W&WP April 2000
Every year, without exception, we receive a handful of nearly completed qualification forms from companies seeking to earn a place in the WOOD 100, Wood & Wood Products' annual report of fast-growing woodworking companies. The number one item that typically separates the nearly completed from the totally completed two-page questionnaires that cross our desks is the blank spaces calling for a company's three-year sales history. More often than not, when we call the contact listed on the form to secure the figures, he or she will tell us that it is company policy not to release sales numbers. We certainly don't begrudge a company the right to decline to have its annual sales published in a magazine circulated to more than 52,000 subscribers, not to mention posted on our Web site for the whole wide world to see. But we do think it's a shame that we are not able to include some of these companies, especially after they share their off-the-record growth numbers with us. Sometimes we hang up the phone shaking our heads wondering why these successful entrepreneurs are so uptight about having their sales numbers published. Are they afraid they will draw new competitors to their market or that their employees will wonder why they are not getting a bigger piece of the pie? Are the numbers they tell us in secret different than what they report to the Internal Revenue Service? We don't know for sure because we never get a straight answer when we ask, except the stock response reminding us about "company policy." If we prod them for a more definitive reason, our reluctant WOOD 100 contact becomes defensive and invariably asks, "How does being in the WOOD 100 benefit my company?" That's a fair question that I think is best answered by some of the executives whose firms have been featured in previous WOOD 100 Reports. Read on to learn what some of last year's representatives have to say. "Employee morale and customer confidence in the company has increased." "It's a great morale booster for the company to appear in a national publication. We have sent press releases to our local papers and have gained new vendors that we were not aware of until they contacted us because of our participation in the WOOD 100." 11th Annual WOOD 100
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Why Participate in the WOOD 100?
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