But as you know, you’ve been following us for a while. We’re very disciplined. We’re disciplined buyers and the value has got to be there not just from a financial perspective, but how it fits into our strategy and then how it fits into our culture.
Aaron Spychalla: Right. Right. Appreciate that. That’s it for me. Thanks for taking the question. I will turn it over.
Jim Clark: Okay, thanks, Aaron.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of George Gianarikas with Canaccord Genuity. Please proceed with your question.
George Gianarikas: Hi, good morning. And thanks for taking my questions. Thanks for coming to our conference last week.
Jim Clark: Yes. Good morning, George, and thank you. It was great to see you and it was a great conference too. We certainly had a full dance card through the whole thing, and I appreciate the invite.
George Gianarikas: That’s great to hear. So maybe to start, just a couple of questions on the macroeconomic environment. You mentioned that these are – you’ve seen some – you expressed some consternation last quarter about – so just small signs you are seeing in the marketplace that maybe things weren’t exactly going swimmingly. What has changed about the character of the issue that you’ve seen that you expressed some issues about last quarter and also address this quarter as well. Are there – you expressed some issues of close rates, but is there a different – the character of the customer that you’re seeing issues with changing? Or is it sort of the same that you saw last quarter?
Jim Clark: Yes. First of all, it’s – I’ll just sum it up in one word, which is timing. It’s not interest. It’s not quote activity, it’s not project activity. All of those things remain on the same pace that we’ve had for the last couple of years, if you will. And in general, by the way, those – that activity rate has increased kind of quarter-over-quarter. What we’re seeing is a lengthening in the process, if you will, the initial request for a quote the sit down and discussion. And then, if you will, the final decision that lengthening between the final quote and agreement on the project and the actual execution of the project has been lengthening. It’s stable right now, but at an extended kind of arm, if you will.
And we just note – I just brought it up in the sense that from a timing perspective, things that we saw that might have closed in – that we were planning on closing June 20. They are now closing July 18th, things that we thought traditionally, we are going to close on – or through our systems indicated a close on May 12th, didn’t happen until June 26th. We are not losing any projects. We are just seeing that once we get to that point where we are like, okay, we are ready to move forward. We have noticed just in some of our customer base that time between, okay, we are done, let me give you the purchase order has just lengthened a bit. And I think there is lots of factors for it. I think there is lots of reasons for it. Most of them are external.
They could be in new construction. There are things like final funding releases and things like that. As you know, all the banks have tightened up and when you are in a project like that, it’s just taking a couple more checks and signatures for developers as such to get – to keep the timing going. When we are talking about remodels and things like that, we are looking at labor issues, either external subcontractors or even in some cases, internally, just the number of people to get all the paperwork and the process is done. So, I just think it’s fair, we have always been very transparent, and we just wanted to kind of mention it. I do not want to overplay it.
