Wake up, sleepyhead! 2006 is gone, and you're still a-bed. Select Comfort's (NASDAQ:SCSS) Q1 2007 earnings results are about to be read. Expect them out on Wednesday.

So ends my contribution to National Poetry Month. Did I win a prize?

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell or waffle? An unlucky 13 analysts follow Select Comfort, giving it five buy ratings and eight holds.
  • Revenues. On average, they're looking for 3% quarterly sales growth to $218.6 million.
  • Earnings. Profits are predicted to fall a penny to $0.20 per share.

What management says:
There's change afoot in the top ranks at Select Comfort. Earlier this month, the company announced its Consumer Sales Channels manager's departure, effective end-of-June. Shelly Ibach will be taking over retail sales, while CFO Jim Raabe will don three more hats and keep an eye on direct marketing, e-commerce, and commercial channels.

Funny none of this was mentioned in the firm's mid-quarter conference call, which took place just two weeks earlier. What the company did mention in that call was that it reaffirmed past guidance and still expects to report 12%-15% sales growth this year, along with earnings per share of about $1.05 -- 20% greater than in 2006.

What management does:
That news -- especially the expectation of a 20% rise in profits -- should provide some reassurance to investors upset at the firm's Q4 2006 performance, which reversed the trend of rising margins and sent each of the rolling gross, operating, and net numbers tumbling.

Margins

10/05

12/05

4/06

7/06

9/06

12/06

Gross

59.4%

58.9%

59.8%

60.5%

61.2%

60.9%

Operating

9.4%

10.1%

10.4%

10.7%

11.2%

10.8%

Net

5.9%

6.3%

6.4%

6.5%

6.5%

5.9%
All data courtesy of Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's. Data reflects trailing-12-month performance for the quarters ended in the named months.

One Fool says:
Or should it? Reassure investors, I mean.

According to fellow Fool Rick Munarriz, who broke down the call for our readers back in March, Select Comfort is projecting "negative comps" early this year, with growth only resuming in the latter part of 2007. On the one hand, the shake-up in management suggests that Select Comfort is indeed revamping its sales strategy to get growth going again. On the other hand, the division of responsibilities, and the adding of hat upon hat to the CFO's primary job, gets me to feeling nervous about whether this revamp will work. Moreover, Rick's observation that "when a company warns that growth will pick up over the course of the year. Usually, that's a way to camouflage current softness" echoes my own experience. Better pull those sheets up tight, investors. It may be a rough few months before we see good news here.

Ever wonder how Select Comfort stacks up against its archrivals in the publicly traded world of bedding? We did. And in fact, Motley Fool Hidden Gems co-advisor Tom Gardner made a compare-and-contrast discussion of Select Comfort versus Tempur-Pedic (NYSE:TPX) and Sealy (NYSE:ZZ) a central part of his thesis when re-recommending Select Comfort back in November. Find out how he thinks the competition stacks up when you claim your free, 30-day trial subscription to Hidden Gems.

Fool contributor Rich Smith does not own shares of any company named above.