Please visit our website, www.technacraft.com. I would appreciate comments and criticisms.

Having a web presence is just another step in our continued growth to being the company that we wish to become. If it generates one retail sale per month, it will pay for itself.

Designing it was fun and a nice break from my normal routine. I used Adobe Pagemill. I visited Ed Zimmer's recommended websites-from-hell page and hope I didn't break too many rules for my web site design. I will report on the impact of our website in future columns.

In the past, this time of year has been slow but this year our backlog is growing steadily. Adding and training more staff continues to be an ongoing challenge. We are competing in a sparse labor pool with all the other companies out there and have had to increase our pay rates to compete.

We have announced a price increase to our customers and it seems to have stimulated sales. I need to reread my copy of "The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing" by Nagle and Holden. I know that the Good Catalog Company is charging a very hefty price for our product and also charges $12.00 to ship it. They can't keep them in stock and are always on us to ship them their orders on time.

I have a feeling that had we made the correct pricing decisions way back when, our current balance sheet would look a lot better than it does. We conclude that buying things 2 for a dollar and selling them for 50 cents (or less!) just doesn't generate a profit.

I heard an interesting interview on National Public Radio with a Silicon Valley entrepreneur whose name I forget. He started two companies, the first of which failed. The second is doing great so far. When asked what was the most important trait an entrepreneur should possess he said, "An entrepreneur must above all else be an optimist". I could not agree more!