THE Meeting

I had prepared a speech for our team members. I rehearsed it so many times.

I had to do this “right”

“Hi everyone, thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to meet with us. I have a letter for each of you”.

*Hand out the letter to each person. *

“This letter is regarding the closure of Fireplace Gallery”.

*Pause for them to read.*

You could have heard a pin drop.

___________________________________

But you see, it wasn’t the first time we were having this meeting. We sat down to have a “Business Closure” meeting 1.5 years ago.

It was February 2, 2021. We called a meeting with our team.

We announced that we had decided to close.

We explained the whys and whens.

But before we were finished, we got interrupted with the phone call that changed everything.

Mom had received a call mid-meeting from the hospital. Dad had been there for a week, undergoing some testing for his oxygen levels. The Doctor on the phone said Dad was sick, he had pancreatic cancer that had spread to his liver.

They wanted us to come to the hospital so we could be there when they told him...

Immediately everything got put on hold. Our entire worlds got put on hold.

We rushed to the hospital and didn’t return to work until… July? February 2 till July.

And during that time, our team worked together to keep our business alive.

They continued to work through the uncertainty with very little assistance from us.

They are our eternal heroes.

Back to Aug 2022

Once everyone was finished reading the letter, I started to explain.

The financial damage we endured during Covid was unfixable. Our sales had already been on a downwards trend for some time prior to Covid. Our homebuilders were no longer using as many, if any, gas fireplaces. The majority had made the switch to electric fireplaces.

What used to be a $5000-$20,000 order had shrunk to $995, installation included.

When we analyzed our business and the impacts of the Covid shutdowns, the supply chain uncertainties, PLUS the huge increases we were receiving from our suppliers on a weekly basis, we just couldn’t keep up.

In an effort to preserve what our parents had built, Ashley and I started pouring in our own personal money. Within the span of a couple months, we invested over $250,000 (not including the several months of lost wages).

But we needed so much more to keep the business alive.

And we were financially tapped out.

The craziest thing was - We had every intention of going into the busy season!

September through December are our busiest months for retail sales, and we were gearing up for the season. Ashley placed the orders and we had our Regency dealer meeting where we invited all of our dealer stores and discuss product for the fall.

We had plans.

We were super pumped.

We couldn't lose more - after we had already lost so much.

But we couldn’t make the money work. We couldn’t continue to put more money in.

With rising costs of supplies, building starts decreasing, wages needing to go up

-sales were as good as they were going to be for a long time.

If we were struggling right now, there was no point in continuing.

We explained all of this to our team. Three of the four had masks on so it was impossible to see their facial expressions. But we knew they cared. They knew how hard it was for us. They could see how upset Ashley was during the meeting.

And they were amazing. They understood and supported the decision. We had been together for so many years now, this would be our last adventure all together.