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Speaker 1: Might have some new insight from the business coal face

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Speaker 1: of this country. The Sales Teams is a survey five

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Speaker 1: hundred liters eight thousand reps. The word is it's still

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Speaker 1: very tough, no kidding, but there is lights if you

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Speaker 1: look at the indicator. CEO and founder Mike Stokes is

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Speaker 1: with us on this morning.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Mike.

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Speaker 1: This optimism we find in your survey and the recovery

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Speaker 1: coming our way in the latter part of twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: five that driven by hope or fact.

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Speaker 2: A little bit of both. I think I would call

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Speaker 2: it realistic hope. So there is optimism there, but there's

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Speaker 2: also a realization that there are some challenges still, particularly

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Speaker 2: in the first six months of the year.

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Speaker 1: And does it very widely depending on the industry you're

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Speaker 1: dealing with.

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Speaker 2: No, pretty much right offs Streer industry. We saw really

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Speaker 2: tough the year last year. But the optimism is the

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Speaker 2: same for this year.

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Speaker 1: And so the banks are saying first half as hard,

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Speaker 1: second half is better. You would agree with that. Your

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Speaker 1: survey suggests that year.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we're strongly seeing that minute earliest that sales letters

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Speaker 2: saying in the survey that the earliest will from a

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Speaker 2: recession will be second half of the year, but a

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Speaker 2: number of still saying twenty twenty six as well.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so thirty nine percent of companies, this is how

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Speaker 1: bad it got. Thirty nine percent of companies got growth

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Speaker 1: last year. That's not many. So it was as bad

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Speaker 1: as it gets.

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Speaker 2: It was the lowest we've seen since we started the

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Speaker 2: survey in two thousand and eight, so it was tough.

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Speaker 2: And not only that, it was thirty two percent that

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Speaker 2: declined in revenue, so some pre start numbers there.

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Speaker 1: So when we talk about the stuff you know, at

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Speaker 1: our level, inflation, interest rates, the commercial level in the

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Speaker 1: real world, all that sort of stuff, is that what

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Speaker 1: affects you guys as well?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely so. I think the biggest the biggest hit

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Speaker 2: that we had from a sales perspective, a revenue perspective

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Speaker 2: last year was the budgets declined. Companies took a lot

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Speaker 2: more time to make decisions about whether they would purchase

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Speaker 2: specifically you know, good size investments, and what we noted

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Speaker 2: that that really that because of the nature of the

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Speaker 2: reduction in demand salespeople really only hit about forty three

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Speaker 2: percent of them at their targets for last year.

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Speaker 1: Is that budget thing psychological. I mean, if I feel bad, therefore,

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Speaker 1: what do I do? I know, I'll cut my budget

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Speaker 1: and so it becomes a vicious cycle.

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Speaker 2: Definitely a confidence thing, Definitely a confidence thing, and it

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Speaker 2: certainly is a vicious cycle. Sales leaders and salespeople who

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Speaker 2: notes a pretty optimistic bunch. So if they're saying that

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Speaker 2: we still got some challenges ahead, it's likely to be

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Speaker 2: the case.

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Speaker 1: And what about the comparison between New Zealand and Australia.

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Speaker 1: What can you tell us Australia was similar.

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Speaker 2: They were expecting a better last year than they got,

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Speaker 2: which was interesting. But their optimism is slightly higher than

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Speaker 2: in New Zealand, slightly higher than what we see.

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Speaker 1: All right, Mike, appreciate the insight. Mike Stakes indicated CEO

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Speaker 1: and the founder.

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