Educational Development Corp (EDUC) 2021 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good day, and thank you for standing by, and welcome to the fiscal 2021 annual earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions)

I would now like to turn the call over to Randall White, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Well, thank you very much. Yes, Randall White here. And attending in the room with me are Heather Cobb, our Chief Sales and Marketing Officer; Craig White, our Chief Operating Officer; and Dan O'Keefe, our CFO.

Now normally, we go to a piece where we repeat all the financial information. I think you got it. We're going to try to get to the chase here. We had an incredible year, the best in our history. Our sales were up like 81%. Our earnings were up about 121%. We paid down $7 million in debt and increased our dividend. I don't know what we can do any better here than we've done, and yet our stock has been so like a ridden mule. So I don't know what's going on myself. So I'm really going over a lot of boring numbers that you already have.

Why don't we just open it up for questions? And you just bring it guys, you tell me, what it is that you think. I see some negative reports out there about the company that are not having anything to do with us, but something is causing the market to lose confidence in our company after the best year in our history.

So anybody out there, please jump in and maybe you got some insight on what the market is viewing about the company that makes it a negative on sales. Anybody got any suggestions?

So Angela, we're going to open up the call to questions and answers here immediately. And you can just take the questions as they come in on the question-and-answer session on the leaderboard there.

(Operator Instructions) And you have a question from the line of Randy Freed with R L Capital.

I may have a couple of questions later, but I just jumped on because of what you said on mic. The only thing I can figure out is I talked to Dan on the phone, I can't remember sometime in the last month or so. And I asked him, if you're going to still be reporting sales figures every single month like you have for a while, which usually come out between about the 7th and the 12th or so of the next month? And unless I missed it, I didn't see anything for April.

Well, you didn't miss it. And so why do we stopped recording monthly sales, right? That's your question?

Yes. I'm just -- I'm just more -- I mean, I'm a little curious, but basically, I'm just trying to sort of answer your question. That's the only thing I can figure out, but who knows.

That's a good start. And you're right. I'll tell you, last year that we just missed reporting here, March was down 25%. And then April was up 60%. May was up 160%. "Oh my gosh, we've got to get this information because that's drastic changes." And then it went along that way, and we wound up 81% ahead. And you can see the increase decreased towards the end of the year, but we're up 81%.

So now we're developing a little more a normal pattern, by the way, and the monthly reporting isn't quite as significant. And due to fluctuations in timing, I think we have the month-to-month quarterly reporting through us seems to be a more reliable disclosure of what we're doing here. But it's not hiding anything. Hey, we're at it. We want sales to grow up 81% again. I don't know that we're going to see that, but nobody here is not working towards that goal. So it just doesn't seem as meaningful today because we don't have 100% growth to report. But good question, though.

(Operator Instructions)

You better start asking questions or I'm going to start telling stories. I got a lot of them. Come on, you guys.

Well, okay, you want me to tell you my story of why I think the stock's down? Well, here's the deal. I'm the captain of the good ship paradise, and I'm seeing out the good ship EDC paradise. And we're sailing out through the sea of prosperity, all of my shareholders. And all of a sudden, I look back and I see people, hey, hey I didn't get on. What? Come on.

So I constituted that ship back around the shore, let some more people get on at this good price. So we can steam back out into the sea of prosperity. So that's my story.

I know you guys like my humor. I know you did. Not a question. Not one question. You want to know how tall I am? How much I weigh? Anybody want to know on to the NCAA Hall of Fame induction last weekend in Connecticut? It was me and about 100 basketball superstars. I was the shortest one. Man -- well, you're going to have to listen to some boring stuff from Dan, if you don't ask a question. Thank you. Don't be shy guys.

And we have another question from the line of Randy Freed with R L Capital.

Randall, I'm just jumping in because I don't know if you're going to have questions at the end, too, but I'm just trying to think of things.

So I know you don't give projections, but I'm wondering we're, what, 1, 2 -- 2.5 months into the new fiscal year. So I'm just wondering, is there -- can you give any kind of range of sales or earnings per share or anything at all? I know you really sort of can't do that, but -- and of course, you don't know that. But I -- maybe people were thinking you know what, that year was one year and this year, maybe about the same or less? I mean who knows. I'm just trying to think of another reason for the stock price.

Hey, don't challenge me that I can't do something because I can do anything I want to because I'm old and I'm the CEO.

I don't want to get in any trouble, okay?

You know what, I don't get in trouble. Here's the story. If someone 1 year ago today was on this call and says, "Randall, what do you expect for this year?" Do you think I possibly could have expected that we would be up 81% and the largest year in our history, and go from $113 million to $208 million? I wouldn't have. So to ask me today, I'd know just about as much as I did a year ago today.

But I will tell you this, I'm going to turn you over to Craig White, and then he can give you a little insight on what we think about our growth potential.

Well, so we got a $6 million CapEx project to expand our productivity in the warehouse that's getting ready to go live in the next few weeks. So we can go from our $205 million to roughly $400 million to $450 million without multiple shifts. So we're anticipating growth -- continued growth. We've got that warehouse operations capacity to handle it, and we're ready to go. So we're absolutely expecting continued growth.

That's a forecast, and somebody's out there doing it. I looked down the people on this call. I know some of you guys, surely somebody has a question. You all not reading the papers about things in the industry or other companies in our market segment that might want to ask a question about? Or maybe about headcount and consulting growth?

Or I'm trying to throw out some bones here for you guys because you can bring anything you want to this table. I'll answer any question you have. Okay. [Aaron Dunn], I know you.

We've spoken a couple of times. So since we don't have the numbers for April specifically. Can you just give us an idea of how you see things trending compared to last year? Like especially as you get into the comparable, say, the second, third quarter, fourth quarter, like how -- like what is the plan, basically, to compete with those numbers?

Okay. The first quarter in this year that we just finished was up about 40%, and that was 2 months carrying a month down, and it just exploded on us. So this year, we look at more historically aligned numbers. And I think I was advised that I couldn't tell you that I'm going to be happy with the quarter. So that's not a forecast.

I'm -- guys, I say stuff on here and if you want to come at me, but we spent $6 million to double our capacity. That's what we think. And we put our money in there to be able to handle the business. And now we're -- we've got 60,000 salespeople out there. And we've got a really prolific National Sales Manager, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, who knows how to make those girls jump high and run fast. And so she's been here for about, what, 10 years. And it happened last year. And if you think we're not going to be happy with growth again, well you're wrong.

So as for forecast, I think we're going to have a really good year. What do you think, Dan?

Well, it's cloudy in Oklahoma. How's that for forecast?

It's been raining here. We may have to build an ark down here in Oklahoma, believe it or not. But that's how we feel about it, and we've invested $6 million just to double our capacity.

Okay. Okay. And maybe you could just tell us a little bit about the Investor Relations firm? And what the plan is for them? What they're going to do for you guys over the next year? I know we've talked potentially about a new investor website, but anything on that?

Well, yes. I've been here a long time, probably older than some of you people are, but I've been here 35 years. I'm the third longest tenured CEO in America behind Warren Buffett and Rupert Murdoch. But gosh, we -- I always thought that technology would reach everyone, and we didn't have to go tell our story that you guys find it.

But when we grew to $100 million, we became a different company and were viewed differently, and then $200 million. And so it's not that I don't think that I got the best story out there and tell the best, I do think because of things like in less route and a slight drop and fuel calling me, and I thought it was time maybe to have a professional IR person to guide us a little bit. He can get us in front of people at these regional meetings. That's what we do best. I'd say I'd love to get in some of these sessions and talk about our company because I love this company and what it's been to a lot of people.

Now on your other question about the corporate website, that corporate website is not our main website. You think it is. You want our best corporate websites are? Are those 60,000 salespeople who use that to transact business. Those are income-producing activities. That corporate website is a front door. And I will tell you, it's not a pretty front door. And so about 3 weeks ago, we had this conversation, and we do have in plans to upgrade and make that a little more professional looking.

But today, we have expanded our resources to making our income-producing websites as mobile and competitive because I'm going to tell you what, we've got young women out there now that want a bunch of phone and have it delivered. And so we're trying to be compliant with that. And we have a great story. And I think Steven and his group can help us get in front of the right audience to hear it. So that's why we committed to that. I've never done that before.

And your next question is from Denis Amato.

I have 2 thoughts...

(technical difficulty)

You're breaking up. You're breaking up. We lost him. Did we lose him?

Denis, we're having a hard time hearing you. You're breaking up quite a bit.

(inaudible)

No you're really choppy.

Okay. I don't know what's wrong with the phone.

Oh, that's better.

That's better. That's better.

That's better? I had to go outside. Yes, I had 2 questions for you. One is, I think (inaudible)

Go a little further.

I think we lost you again, Denis.

Can you hear me now?

No.

No? Okay. Well, I'll give you a call directly.

Absolutely. All right. Are you from Tulsa?

No, no, no. I'm Cleveland.

Okay. Cleveland.

Must be cloudy in Cleveland, too.

That [will hire] Oklahoma. All right. Great. We'll talk. Call me.

And your next question is from [David Eckinburg].

Hi. Can you hear me well?

Yes. Great.

All right. So congratulation on the nice financial results. I have been following your company for a little while and have been very impressed by the results that you have published for this fiscal year. And the questions that I have relating to your first question as for why the stock might have gone down despite good results.

I was wondering actually about the industry you're in, like specifically books, physical books, what do you think of the future of physical books? Is it some kind of medium that is declining in terms of usage? How do you envision the future of books? And what is the impact that you think it might have on your company?

David, that's a good question. You know what? About 10 years ago or more, a guy told me, he said -- called me and said, you know what, you're going to be out of business in 10 years because all these books will be out of -- nobody want books because they can read on the iPads -- and maybe didn't have iPads then, but on electronic devices."

But I'll tell you what, 10 years later, and we just had a record year. Because let me tell you something, David, if you think anybody wants to curl up in bed with a good iPad and read for children, I don't think that's happening. Our books are chewable, washable, drop them, and they're good. Electronic device and let me end this with this, the latest surveys or information we have from the industry is that the leading retention from an electronic device is 75% from an actual book.

So if you want your kids reading on an iPad, well, they're going to be 25% behind those guys who buy our books. So just a warning to you. There's a literacy police out there. So be careful about trying to outlaw books because they're not. We've not seen one dip ever in the sale of children's books.

I think electronic devices are more for adults. We get on a plane. We know we have a bunch of books stored up, but a children's book, touchy-feely, curl up in bed, read him a story, that's a book, and it will be forever, but that's my opinion. And has been correct so far. And we think the market -- we did $200 million. We think we could do $1 billion in books, in children's books.

Now that isn't a forecast, that's just why people read books because it's a whole process of running to hold the book. And then the child learns to turn the page. They're going to read right to left. It's a learning process that you go through, and it doesn't happen anywhere but a real book. And so you're skipping some steps in growing up if you don't have a real book. But that's the way we feel about here because we sell books.

All right. So I think it makes sense. That's what I thought as well. A book is something that you can hold and there is, I think, there might be part of the learning process of learning to read is related to the fact that you hold the object and surely the -- yes, it makes sense.

And another question I was wondering is, do you think -- how do you position yourself in relation to other players in the industry like Scholastic and like bigger distributors who sell to libraries and school? Do you have a plan to go buy these bigger players?

Well, I happen to know Scholastic very well -- I do know Scholastic very well and their CEO for many years. Yes, we have a plan. We have a whole school and library division. And by the way, if you want to forecast, let me tell you what, we have about $30 million of sales that we didn't get last year because schools weren't open for book fairs or booths like if you go to the Green Corn Country Festival, there will be a booth of our books where people selling directly to the public at an event, about $30 million.

Well, it's coming back. We're starting to get school and library orders again. Booths are opening up, people are getting out of their house. And so we think there's an upside in that business. And yes, we've had a plan for schools and office for many, many years.

And I have another question, probably the last one for me. I was wondering because right now, what I think, I think that the valuation of your company at this price -- at the price the market closed today. For me it seems, in expenses, relative to the fact that you have had a very nice growth and the fact that the return on capital of your company is above average, I would think.

So my question is, is there a way -- what is your long-term vision or long-term objective for the company? It can be financially speaking or qualitatively speaking. So where would you like to be years or in 10 years that will justify that maybe the multiple would be higher than now?

Yes. Okay. Can I make one other point when you talk about competition with other publishers? We have a division -- we have Usborne Books. We've had them for 35 years, and they are the gold -- absolute gold standard in children's nonfiction. Any publisher in the world will tell you that.

And on the other side of the business, Kane Miller, we were able to buy from other publishers mainly for fiction. So consequently, we buy from the major publishers around the world, and bring them into our line and publish them in the United States. So when we go to Bologna for a conference there were people who present products that they want to be sold in the United States, we get first crack, first crack.

We used to get what's off the bottom of the barrel. Now they come to us because we'll give them an order for 100,000 copies, and I'll tell you that gets your attention. So that's what I'm talking about the other publishers. We're not competing with them, they're funding their products into us, their best ones now, because our market is growing so fast.

So that's about that question. And where do I see long term? I think I'm going to get somebody a little younger on this line to talk about long term. Hey, heather, you're a little younger than me.

Thanks, Randall. You said we could answer it with numbers or qualitative. I just wanted to bring up, going back to some of the forecasts and what we're thinking will happen as far as being prepared to double sales. On the direct sales side, especially, one of the nice things about being indirect sales is that our market is just huge. We can try to get into, not only schools and libraries, but also the homes of families and communities across the nation.

And although we have been around as a direct sales division for over 30 years, I would say one of our long-term goals is to truly become a household name. And that may sound crazy, but we still have of the 55,000 or 60,000 sales consultants we hear story after story that when they host a party, one of the first questions I ask is, how many of you have ever heard of us from Books En More? Or Usborne and Kane Miller books? And they still have several people in each of those parties that have never heard of us.

And so for me, personally, in charge of the sales and marketing, that's one of my long-term goals is to make us a household name so that people come to us first, which they do once they've shopped from us the first time. But just getting it out there, so people know who we are. And that, I think, in turn, will get us to that doubling of sales and more and more sales consultants.

And to reiterate that, I'm driving down the road in my neighborhood yesterday and about 1.5 blocks in my house, there is a big sign or let me know there was always (inaudible) in there, which is me. And I stopped. Well, my wife had already found them and given their children some books. But they had never heard of it. They live a block away from me. I know they live in Tulsa and they never heard of us. So I promise you, there is a large market that we haven't touched.

And on one other thing when Steven Hooser was hired, he interviewed me and he says, what is your 10-year plan? I'm going to tell you what, you look around this room and we got Heather down and Craig, that's my 10-year plan because I might be on the other side of the dirt in 10 years, but I plan on being here, but we have an incredible staff here.

Heather is the best in the great selling industry. Dan comes from a $400 million company with much more financial expertise, well, not more than me, but he brings to the company a lot more expertise. And Craig has been here 25 years. He lives in my house, and he's grown up his business, and he's now the second largest shareholder. And so I have a lot of confidence in the long -- sorry, I was teary-eyed here. I have a lot of confidence. What about -- Heather, what do you think about, blah, blah, blah?

He has told us that he has a lot of confidence in the team that you're hearing today as well as our teams that we work with every single day to pull off all the things that we do.

Yes. Awesome.

And one of the things that we accomplished this last year and our growth of 81%, as Randall was mentioning, was, operationally, we had some challenges a few years with rapid growth. And through the -- Craig, do you want to talk about some of the accomplishments of this last year with our operations and IT?

Yes. So through the rapid growth, obviously, we had to bring on the second shift, which was maybe the most challenging group is getting people to work in that environment -- well, in our country's environment. But we never got more out than 2 days. We shipped every order within 2 days throughout the fall, and that's with 81% growth. So our operations are there. We're now adding the new CapEx project, which will be able to help us double. So operationally, we're doing great.

So I got a little fired up there, but I'll tell you, when you're here 35 years and it's like your children and when someone sells a share of stock, I kind of take it personally. I want to know why. Why would you sell stock in this company today? And I want to tell you guys, you guys are fund managers, you have investors tell me why today you would sell a stock -- a share of EDC. Anybody want to just -- hey, this is an open forum. Tell me.

Our job is to build sales and earnings, and we've done that, increased the sales force 100% and we're moving into the new year with plans to double our sales. So what is it out there that would make someone sell a share of stock and value us at less than a utility? I don't quite -- because people ask me, I'd say, "Sometimes we get painted with the same brush as other people in the industry that has nothing to do with us."

And I don't know if there's an elephant in the room because I just read a report today about that. And guys, we operate a 100% honest ethical company. I'm going to tell you how it works. It's very simple. On a $10 book, retail book, we generally pay about $2.50. And as we grow, that's coming down because of volume. The marketing expense is about 50% of a dollar. That's in the -- either whether you sell it to Barnes & Noble. Barnes & Noble will pay $5 for a $10 retail book thereabouts. And on the UBAM side, the direct sales side, the commissions, overrides and trips and sees, all that comes out to about the same. We make about the same amount of money from non-direct sales as we do selling to retail store. And by the way, we're taking 1,000 people to Hawaii in July, 1,000 people.

And you know what, that was all in those numbers that you've already seen a record profits that's covered all of that, that's all accounted for. So when we pay out -- we paid out $80 million plus in commissions and overrides to our field sales force.

And you're going, oh my gosh. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, what? I hope we pay $180 million next year because the more they make, the more we make. It's a very simple formula. There's nothing deceptive about it. There's -- we don't make any excess claims. It's just a good book at a good price. And that's what you see in these sales figures and product figures. And those 60,000 people, they want to make more. And so that's what I look at down the road.

Really, no more hands? Our stock drops $3 in a week, and nobody has any angle or any thought or a question about that? I mean besides those [ones] we wrote ahead. Oh, thank you, Aaron. Starting to think I'm talking to myself.

So I just -- I have a little bit of insight here. So one -- one of the things, obviously, I think, that's impacting the stock is that it's scene as something that's benefited by the pandemic. And companies, a lot of sectors that have benefited by the pandemic have sold off recently. And the reopening stories are doing better in a lot of cases.

So if you guys were able to continue to perform over the next several quarters, obviously, that's going to do a lot for your stock if your confident. I think that the investor website is going to make a big difference, too. One thing is that just in terms of how -- I know that you're restricted in terms of what you can say about your sales consultants and what they make. But I don't know if there's any investigations that you're doing maybe with your Investor Relations firm in terms of figuring out what it is you can say.

Like just for example, can you say -- can you provide the percentage of revenues produced by your -- 10% of consultants or by consultants that have been with the company for a certain period of time, I'd say, for over a year or over 18 months.

That might help people kind of understand the business. Because right now, if you look at just the consultants, I mean, obviously, there's a lot of turnover in the consultants on a yearly basis. I mean if you look at the 10-K, I think that 90-plus percent were actually acquired during 2020, of the consultants by the end of 2020, 90% of them were acquired during the year.

I don't know have the exact number, but it would really help if people can kind of understand the structure and where -- and obviously, you're restricted on that, but that is something that I think would definitely be helpful. And then the website, to explain things would be helpful as well.

Hey Aaron, I don't confine comment restrictions about anything. I'm going to tell you what happens here. And that is, we started out with 30,000, we ended up with 60,000. And how many people signed up? We have some very aggressive and happy sales consultants that may tell their next-door neighbor, "Wow, I'm doing this, and I made that."

Well, what the FTC doesn't want you to do is say, well, this person earned $400,000, which we have some people who do. And they don't want you to tell you that because what about the person that didn't earn anything? Well, if you want to look at this company, you want to compare my salary? I make money buying a building, [and this should be allowed to], to make $20,000, and I make a little bit more.

So if you want to do averages, that you do the same thing. We have people who sign up and never sell a book. I'm fine with that, we've got samples and little termites out there in each one of their house, maybe molds or whatever, because they love the books and the next thing and maybe a year later. In the meantime, it's another customer. They never sell anything for 6 months, they go off the active list.

And so yes, it's a normal churn like that. And it's not that the 30,000 people we had to start with are gone and we got 60,000 new people, it's not it at all. It's something -- and your selling thing. We're good with that. And again, it's a business, this direct selling business. And what you need to look at is how many active sales people you have. It doesn't matter how many didn't sell. But that's what the FTC wants. We want to see the people who earn the least. Well the people who earn the least would be 0 because they never sold the book. And nobody makes any money until someone sells a book.

And again, you saw the formula 25, 25, 50. It has been that way for 30 years. It's an honest, ethical business and the reason I'm in it, I will tell you this, is not that I'm in love with direct selling, it's because how does a little company in Tulsa, Oklahoma, penetrate a market that's dominated by major publishers?

Well, I saw, [which an exact] selling convention, oh my gosh, I saw these people selling $1 billion and I went wow. And so now we've done this and now we're getting the very best products from the major publishers. We buy from Macmillan. We buy from Quarto. We buy from Random House. We buy from everybody and get their best products. And so that's how we built it. And I think I was going to have Heather talk about that, too, a little bit.

Yes. Aaron, one of the things I did want to touch on is a little bit of your question of not knowing what we can disclose as far as income. So one of the things that being in the direct selling industry that we try to do is we are producing an annual, what we're calling our income disclosure statement. While it's not required, it is something that is requested of the various different direct selling companies.

Here's the challenge with that. Everyone reports different numbers. You don't -- they're not asking you to report the exact same statistics or the exact same averages. And so we kind of get an opportunity to present our own finding. But even in doing so, we're as open and honest with everyone as we possibly can be with what the potential is for the company.

I will tell you that our #1 earner is definitely in the 6 figures. Our top 1% to 1.5% of our earners are average 6-figure earners. But we're a direct selling company. And so as Randall said, we have plenty of people that don't ever really sell anything. That's just the way that the market goes. That's just the way that the industry is. So depending on if there's specifics that you're looking for, we definitely can pull some of those numbers. But we do already provide some of those to our field so that they can be fully aware and we can be as transparent as possible with what the opportunity looks like.

One other point on this is you have to look at this company differently. Look at -- we don't expect 30,000 people on average of $100 million, $3,000. We don't expect them to sell $6,000 to double our sales. What we want them to do is have 30,000 more sell $3,000. That's the direct selling model. And when you do that, you throw it up against the wall and some of it sticks. There's people who think, "Oh, man, I want to do that." Yes, well they never do and that's fine. We don't lose any money, and there's books out there. That's the way this works. And the only thing you really need to look at is how many people do we have selling?

Well, We got about 60,000. We had about 30,000 a year ago, and that's how we double our sales. Can we double that next year? I don't know. There's -- I think it's unlimited number of people especially with what's happened in the past year. So many people got laid off or work from home and some of them joined us.

Some of them stayed here because we're more stable than where they work. So all these things go into a forecast, which we're -- we're kind of anxious ourselves to see how this all falls out. But I'll tell you what, we help it because Heather knows how to provide incentivation.

And I'll also expand a little bit, Aaron, too. In the 10-K, we disclosed that our 60,000 consultants, we have different levels of consultant statuses. And the first level is a consultant that signs up. And as Randall said, some might sign up and have a goal of having an extra money for a pizza night or can go out for pizza with their family. Some might want to just have enough money to put their kids through ballet lessons and things like that.

But then as you'll see in our different levels, some of them look at it more of a business and want to recruit consultants below them and grow their income possibilities. And that's what you see with the different level of leaderships in our consultants. And we have several levels of leaderships and those -- once you're moving into the leadership levels, you are serious about the business and wanting to make this not just a nontraditional supplemental income, but trying to make this a primary income source.

And we have a lot of consultants now that this is their business. This is their life. This is how they feed their families and buy houses and cars. And it's a full-time activity.

And have retired their husbands in some cases. But it's most people will not in the last year or so that I've been doing this for 30 years, and people sign up they never thought they'd make any money and they want to get some good books. The first thing you know, start making a little money and go, well, that's kind of fun too. And I go around the regionals and their husbands come in and say, well, you know what, I come home and she hasn't had dinner.

Oh, man. Okay. So I'll try to explain to them that we try to -- this business is try to do for the family, not to the family. And to get the husbands onboard, and you might be surprised how many are not. They still want 6:00 diner on the table and don't want to help their wives in the business.

There's all kind of things that go into what affects how successful a person is. But by and large, you need the family support behind you because if you involve in a couple of hours in the evening, then maybe the husband has to babysit, which we call parenting, not babysitting, by the way. And so many, many things go into this.

I don't -- I'm not going to [break] selling, but they're in the way for this company to have $200 million in sales and have the major publishers in the world contact us to look at their very best book they have coming out because they see what kind of sales that we're generating.

You can imagine 6 years ago, 6, 7 years ago, we're doing $25 million. And 6 years ago, we might end up $875,000 pretax for the whole year. So we have people contacting us to consider. We had a publisher that's larger than Usborne, flew to Tulsa met with me and he said, I'll bring my staff over here just to create books for you. That's the kind of market they see in our company. So our product line keeps getting better, which is another factor that I don't -- people understand that they came to us and say, wow, look at this.

Heather, your story about that? That's a good one. Went to [Bologna] and a major company contacted her and said, come by here first because we think we have a great book and we want you to have first crack at it. Well that didn't happen a few years ago. So that just builds the strength of our line, and it just keeps getting better.

So we think the -- we think it's going to continue and grow. We are in the direct selling industry, most of which are beauty and health products, not us. That's not what we do. And so we're engaged by that somewhat. That's okay. I don't care what they do, none of my business. I know what we do. And I go out to regionals and I'll tell them. If you find one thing about this company that's not 100% honest and ethical, you tell me and I'll fix it because that's not me. That's not what I do.

And I'll tell you, if there's 1,000 direct selling companies, we're probably 999 on list to be contacted by the FTC for something because we just don't. Our books are priced on the back from the publisher, and they sell at the same price in the bookstore as they do when we've got a salesperson out there in the field. That can't be more fair. It's -- you pay the very same price to buy from a sales consultant as you would from the bookstore. You just don't have to go to the bookstore.

You can -- she can tailor an entire library for you with the knowledge he has of our products. So direct selling has been a very nice tool for us. We use it. We use it honestly and ethically, and that's how we built this business.

Did I put you all to sleep?

All right. So this is -- Angela has our last call for questions.

(Operator Instructions)

Going, going, oh, we don't have an auction here do we? All right, you guys. I love this company. I've been here 35 years. And I want it to be $1 billion. I want to have $1 billion of educational books in the hands of families across America. And I never thought that would happen, but I didn't know we were going to sell $200 million last year either.

So I've got big goals and big dreams here and never, never doubt how impossible it all may be. So we're at it, and we have a very confident staff here to make it happen. So, no questions?

Okay. It's a good group. I see the guys on the line, and I appreciate you listening to our story, and I -- this company is way undervalued, guys. And -- but that's your job, not mine. Our job is to produce the results we did. Now whether or not you present it to your fund people or not, it's -- we've done what we can do and I can tell you what, we're 100% at it to do it again. So thank you, guys, for listening to our story and look forward to the next call.

Thank you, everyone.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.