A Chat With May’s Profile, Suzanne Vlietstra, president of Hobby Horse Clothing Co.

CS: What’s your biggest current day challenge in the catalog industry?
SV: Benjamin Franklin once said, apparently, “If we don’t hang together, we will most assuredly hang separately.” And I’m looking high and low and hard to find businesses that we should hang together with. And whether that’s co-mailing or whether that’s somebody that’s smart on the cataloging and operations end of things, that’s what I’m looking for. We’ve survived a very long time as a very small, “nichey” catalog or manufacturer, whichever way you want to look at it. And there’s a lot of challenges out there. I think more so probably, or maybe I’m more aware of them, than any other time in the history of my business. It’s very important for me at this point to seek some alliances, beneficial alliances, that are going to help us to stay competitive.