Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). Our first question is from John Healy from FTN Midwest Securities. Your question please.
John Healy - FTN Midwest Securities
Good morning. Jeff, I was hoping you could help us a little bit with the guidance for the quarter. I know you called out the Northwest - Delta contract and that probably helped the direct sales business. But could you try to size that for us a little bit, as well as maybe try to break down what you are impeding in your guidance for organic growth changes in the third quarter? Any help you could give us there would be appreciated.
Jeff Wright
Sure. This is Jeff. Let me see if I can provide a little bit of guidance and Rick can add to my thoughts.
From a direct sale perspective, as we mentioned, the bulk of the Delta - Northwest rollout will be happening in the third quarter. As you know, the last few quarters, our direct sales business on a quarter-over-quarter business has been below prior year. In the third quarter, we're expecting revenues will be up on a quarter-over-quarter basis. So, third quarter revenues will be higher than last year's third quarter.
I think last year we were a little over $18 million of direct sale revenue. At this point, we're anticipating something in the $20 million to maybe as high as $21 million type of range. So we'll be up nicely.
On the rental side of the business, as we mentioned, we are expecting our rental organic growth will continue to decline further due to the recent acceleration of job losses as everyone knows in the economy in November and December. Quite frankly, it's getting a little bit difficult to put an exact percentage on that, but we do expect a continued progression, a continued decline, and then we're going to continue to focus on our controllables, which is continue to focus on route sales, solid customer retention and our new account sales efforts.
John Healy - FTN Midwest Securities
That's helpful. I know you talked last quarter about the cost reduction efforts, the first round of them. I thought the phrase that you used in the 1Q call was that they were to help short-term profits or profits in the near term. This next round of cost savings seems a bit more substantial to me. At some point, this economy is going to turn and your business is going to turn around.
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