Selling Your Product to an Exclusive Club
While at a restaurant in December 2004, Chandler Powell saw his parents struggle to read the menu. He imagined that a lighted magnifying glass would help, though he couldn’t find one for sale. A month later, the then 21-year-old college junior attended a musical in a dimly lit theatre and had difficulty reading the program. Again, he thought of a lighted magnifying glass, and again, none were for sale nearby. When he later found several types offered online by retailers, his entrepreneurial spirit kicked in. He would create his own lighted magnifying glass and sell it at a venue where it was sorely needed.Mr. Powell says he set his sites on the U.S. symphony market because it attracts mainly older folks who are likely to benefit from a tool that would enhance their vision. Since symphonies are nonprofit organizations, Mr. Powell suspected they might not be able to pay for his product. But just as companies purchase ads in symphony programs, he figured such businesses might invest in the glasses if their logos were printed on them, and offer them free to the audience.
Once a contract was drawn up and certified by a lawyer, Mr. Powell planned to pitch his product. But he says he didn’t know which symphonies to target and who to contact at each. He randomly selected a few he found via the Internet and began cold-calling them. But every one resulted only in promises to consider the product, and two months passed without a single contract signed. “This was a world that we did not understand,” says Mr. Powell. “We found that most symphonies are run like family businesses. They are very close-knit, and they really don’t like outsiders.”
Photo by _sarchi.
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