Episode 11-FOOD VENDOR SHOW (what's for launch)

So it is time to launch your product to the public—Are you ready?

Have you prepared for it ... mentally?

Jack walks you through his new product's first public outing and how he got ready for it.

Not only the effects of the launch but what happens to you, the inventor.

Contact: [e-mail]

Episode Transcript

(00:15):
So tell me if you've heard thisone before. Hey, when you go
to one of them trade shows,no one ever thinks about it. But
if you want to get their attention, I'd tell you to get a booth
by their food area. That's whati'd do. People are bound to walk
by and knows what a great boothyou have, which I guess probably isn't

(00:36):
a bad idea unless it's a foodshow. Now what Hi, everybody,
Welcome back to the thirty year OvernightSensation. I'm your host, Jack Courage,
and this podcast is a conversation,not a class. If you're a
novice inventor or want to be aninventor, I'll take you through the trials

(00:58):
of designing, manufacturing, selling,and getting your product out into the market.
This podcast is not affront for aproduct development firm or some company trying
to generate money off of your ideas. It's about the trials of inventing and
it's not easy, but you cando it yourself. If I can do

(01:19):
with no formal training, you cando it. You just have to be
smart about it. Let's take alook on where we are this week.
I started with solving a problem fora client grew it into an idea,
made prototypes, then legal, stayedon a strategy, got the manufacturing,
production runs taken care of, wentthrough a soft launch, survived the crazy

(01:44):
period, and now we're at ourfirst public debut. And to say that
the debut was underwhelming might even bean overstatement. Before we step into the
vendor show, let's take a lookat the time just before the first public
outing. Now, before stepping onefoot into this coming vendor show and I'm

(02:06):
talking about I already knew, thanksto the crazy period, that everything was
ready to go, so I hadjust to All I had to do was
just to arrive at the vendor showand set up. Unlike trade shows,
this vendor show was only about gettingcommitments from the buyers and that would be

(02:27):
specified on when they would buy ata later time. But for the showing
of the head covering, since itwas only one item of its kind,
it was more about convincing them tospend their allocated funds on me and not
settle for the standard ball cap soldby my other seven competitors. I was
confident because I had the manufacturing inplace. My short production run test of

(02:53):
the head covering came back with tagsand in a small bag that was just
a little cell fame bag. Itwas per fate. I had set up
a distributor that would handle all theincoming products and US custom fees, which
is always important, as well asthe fulfillment house that would break down the
packages and the shipments, put themin the envelopes and mail them out to

(03:14):
the location of choice once ordered.All fees would negotiated up front. It's
very important to do that. Thefulfillment house would also handle the returns that
would be charged back if there wereproblems. Now for the head covering,
when all was sudden done, Iwould lose money if someone just ordered one

(03:35):
single head covering, mainly because ofthe shipping cost. So even though I
would accept a single unit order onthe order form, I recommended a minimum
of three units per color, andthat for doing that I would pay the
shipping fee and it worked. Ona minimum order of three, I would

(03:57):
not lose money, and since theitem was so light, shipping would be
minimum. Jack. How'd you findall those people? It sounds like a
lot. How'd you do it?Okay? Full stop? This is where
I always get the most questions onhow did I know how to do all
that, the distributors, the fulfillments, the chargebacks, the billings, whatever.

(04:23):
So how did I find all thosepeople? I get that question all
the time, and I've said thisbefore. I found them over time,
mainly through recommendations. I do alot of research too, but once you
get one, they're always in aline for another, and usually they've worked
with somebody and you can get arecommendation. But it doesn't happen all at

(04:45):
once. So take it easy.You learn and you grow by your mistakes.
And nobody like me likes making mistakes, but it's going to happen.
It's all about how you pivot andsee how you can fix that problem once
you've made that mistake, so yourecognize it and then you fix it.

(05:05):
And sometimes, and this does happen, a better result comes from that mistake.
Not always, but it happens enoughthat you keep an open mind to
when you've made a mistake. Yougo, Okay, I made a mistake.
How do I fix it? Andis it better for me? Because
it keeps coming up? But Jack, how do I get that fulfillment house

(05:29):
to help me? I mean,I'm listening to you, but my order
is so small. The answer iseasy. You don't. You don't get
a big fulfillment house to help youwhen your orders are small. You have
to do it yourself until you workup to that level. Rarely do these
things hit all at once, andif they do, if they do hit
big, well, you probably aregoing to need an investor or. You

(05:53):
have an investor, maybe you've gotpartners, or you've got staff. So
it rarely hits all at once,but if it does, there's usually money
involved. You could go factor itand it'll work out. I've done it
alone, with partners and with investors, and I'll tell you the hardest one
for me to do was when Iwas all alone. It's also more fun

(06:15):
if you have partners. Now,not all partners work out, but then
when you do get a good setof partners in business, you'll definitely laugh
more. I've been in some prettygrim occasions and two of my partners,
Brad and Derek, have always keptme laughing, and I can't tell you
how much that helps everything. Seein two ten, I truly was in

(06:40):
the pit of despair. Two thousandand nine, it wiped me out.
I had nothing, and I atthat right time with the economy and everything.
I couldn't find work, and aftera bit my friend called me up.
It been about a year and heknew I was pissed off and I
wasn't very happy, and he saidto me, are you done with your

(07:00):
vacation yet? Let's go to work. And we did. And I can't
thank him enough. Now I canlaugh about it because we did find work.
And I sat around pissed off fora year and the work probably was
there. I was just too madat the world. But you know what,
we got it done and everything's beenfine since Jack boo woo, where's

(07:28):
this going. I'm just saying it'sgreat to have support if you're able to,
and you don't always have to goalone. I've said that because I
was going to the vendor show,the food vendor show, and would look
small and alone compared to the bigsthat would be there. But I had
people behind me that gave me thefortitude to take on this challenge. Because

(07:51):
at small events, little mistakes stickout and pretty much everybody notices it.
So what could possibly go wrong atthis small vendor show? Since I didn't
have the best soft launch, Ihad to mentally prepare for anything. However,
just a few weeks earlier. Iwas really lucky on the timing.
I made it to the National RestaurantShow, and what I saw prepared me

(08:16):
for that very small vendor trade show, which I did want to be seen
making mistakes, and so this waslike a good little test. The National
Restaurant Show is in Chicago and it'smassive. I have not had a client
that has shown there for at leasttwenty years, and I was just reminded

(08:37):
on how big that show was.So I went to it for a few
days just to sniff around and lookat all my possible competitors in the marketplace.
That did not sell to my bigclient or the other two big bohemoth
clients. It was just people thatsold on the periphery and mainly retail.
Also, after a little prep,I found twenty four competitors in apparel at

(09:01):
the show, and some of thosecompetitors were like a reach, like Sketchers
would technically be a competitor because it'san apparel. When I started peeling away
out of the twenty four competitors,there was really only twelve direct competitors in
apparel, and none of them hadanything even close to what I was doing

(09:24):
or what I was attempting to do, which that was a big That was
a big deal for me in myhead anyway. And they were good sized
companies because they could afford to goto this big, big show in Chicago,
which is extremely pricey for a tradeshow. So right there I knew
I had an opportunity. I knewwhat was going to be out there for

(09:48):
at least the next twelve months fromthese what i'd call outside competitors and what
they were showing. So this wasa big lesson. You gotta take the
opportunities that are given to you.You don't always have to start from scratch
to develop the opportunity. Sometimes it'sjust as simple as just one thing.
And for me here at the supertrade Show in Chicago, my opportunity was

(10:16):
seeing what was going to be outthere by big companies that were not direct
competitors and what they had for likethe next twelve months. But the real
shocker came after I walked around abit. Then I really dug in.
I was worried I wasn't gonna getit all in and I could see everything.
The more I rushed around to makesure I wasn't missing a part of
the show, the more I realizedI was lucky. I didn't spend my

(10:39):
money there, even though there weretons of customers that would be there.
My product was developed for people thattend to have thick hair, long hair,
and best supports women with extensions withbeads or dreadlocks, or anyone really
with long hair hair period. Allof the competitors at the show had straight,

(11:01):
cookie cutter products that all overlapped,and while they did consider my market
of people, it clearly wasn't focusedin any of their styles that they were
focused at that show. I swearI would love to see these big companies
catalogs from nineteen ninety five and whathad really changed until now, because overall

(11:26):
it looked kind of the same.Now, that's good for me, But
when I saw Next Stop me inmy tracks, no one the customers at
the show was paying attention to mycompetitor's booths. They were just blowing right
by them. They were there totaste the food. The food apparel industry
has become so stagnant and kind oflike a necessary evil. There's no way

(11:52):
is it a focus. It's justlike, okay, i'll look, I'm
here. But it wasn't something thatthey was sought out, and man,
everybody looked bored in their apparel booths. Customers all wanted the new plant based
food, more robots or the bestmachine that could cut the time down in
cooking, which you know, that'swhat they were there for. That's understandable,

(12:16):
but for me it was a bighelp. Again from my head.
For my small vendor show, Iwas going to need a pitch that was
like ten seconds long, and Iwas only probably going to get one shot
at a customer going by because Iwouldn't be the focus. But I needed
something that would stop them, whatwould give them a second look later at

(12:39):
my product at this very small vendorshow. And after the days there,
I had it. I just couldn't. I didn't want to forget it.
Okay, Now fast forward to mysmall food vendor show. So this is
the first official public outing and itwas small, probably not more than fifty
vendors total, and forty of thosevendors were food and drink. On a

(13:03):
positive note, my only possible competitordidn't even show, so I was the
only one that had apparel. Period. The show was only going to be
two hours long, which to anyoneis not a lot of time. I
stood there for thirty minutes before thefirst person even came close enough that I
could even say hi to. Normally, this would cause a panic, and

(13:28):
I did see some of the panicon the other vendors faces. All this
time and money to get there,and at court of the time had already
elapsed and no one had even comeback to us yet, and that included
the food vendors. So there's alittle bit of tension. But because of
the National Restaurant Show, I wasprepared now to be told the show was

(13:50):
even smaller than I expected. Therewere thirty school buyers were supposed to be
there for the fifty vendors, butactually about twelve schools came and each school
had about three to four people representingeach school, So as you can imagine,
it was pretty small for amount ofpeople the vendors that were there because

(14:11):
each vendor head I was by myself, but each vendor head two or three
people supporting them, So again Isaw it in the other vendors' faces.
Once it became obvious that time wasfleeting, panic did set in and they
started trying too hard. I couldhear it as people started walking toward us,
and I could see it, andI could I could just see them

(14:33):
trying too hard. And then eventhere was one vendor, the flower guy,
he just packed up and left.I just thought everyone once they tried
their food samples, they'd start millingaround. So the trick was to look
positive and you know, attentive.I went a full hour before the first
person even walked up, and Iwas placed in a in the very back

(14:58):
corner, kind straight close to thebathroom, so I did see a little
bit more traffic than these other guys, but still not one person for the
first hour of a two hour gig. The key to the event for me
was to remember why the schools werethere. They were there to taste food.
But as they walked by, Ibrought up the most impertinent thing to

(15:22):
them at that moment, and Iwould start out something like this, Hey,
I see here from Texas. Myproduct complies with the Crown Act that
you just passed in your state.Is hair in safety still an issue?
And this was an easy question,says, hair and safety is always an
issue. Employees hate the hairnet andviol most of them have that damn hairnet

(15:48):
and they hate it. So thiswas a really easy question to draw people
out because they knew it's a constantbitch, and that question did stop them.
Because the ones that did come byme, I did get them to
commit to the product upon the righttime when they were going to be ordered.
Remember, there are only about twelveteams there, and out of those

(16:08):
twelve, I got six to commit. The other six I followed up with
later and I got three more tocommit. Overall, not about outing for
the first public showing, and itdidn't really matter that it was small.
It proved it worked. So thekey here is pretty simple. I had
to pitch down. I kept myhead, I had the product easy to

(16:30):
be seen. But most importantly,I knew my products solution for the buyer.
If hair safety is a problem,then I just solved it for him.
The reason I wanted to talk aboutthis is there's just more than when
you're inventing, and you've gone pastthe inventing stage. There's more than just
developing it and the product. Youneed to be aware of your competition.

(16:55):
You need your products strength and weaknesses, and you've got to be agile to
point that one thing out that they'regoing to remember. Now, the Crown
Act is only in twenty five states. But I still bet the farm on
it, and how my pride wouldkeep managers from having to impose penalties or
firings. You know, one lastthing you had to worry about because it

(17:15):
was easy. You could just saywhere the head covering like serving or cooking
food, and you'll be in compliancewith Hair Safety and the Crown Act.
No matter what type of hair wasworn, this head covering could fit at
all. Still and that's from today, this recording. Until when I started,

(17:36):
I have not received a report ofsomeone that could not wear this head
covering that their hair didn't fit inJack, Are we done yet? Almost
years ago I worked for an iconin the AD industry. He was crotchety,
but he was great. His oneand only point was to find the

(17:56):
one simple attribute that makes your productbetter than the competitors than convey it in
the simplest of terms. See,that's really not tough. What makes it
screwed up, though, is multiplepeople making decision boards ruling by committee.
People get nervous and they think justone point isn't good enough. But really

(18:21):
that's all you really need, onegreat point. So let me tell you
about Sarah at the vendor show check. No, not another story, last
one. So when you're at atrade show or a vendor show, or
in a pitch, I hope you'relucky enough to have a customer like Sarah.
Like I said, I stood therefor an hour and didn't even have

(18:45):
the opportunity to really speak to acustomer other than you know, somebody passed
by and going high because I'm ateye contact. Now, remember the soft
launch was pretty much a disaster.We had not allowed any outside sales.
Now we're at the end or showthat was poorly attended, and at that
exact point in time, it wasvery possible that I wasn't going to get

(19:07):
any commitments and I would have toexplain to the investors, even after getting
the golden ticket the vendor number tosell to this huge company. Even after
all that, I knew that ifI walked away without a commitment or two,
it was gonna be tough, andthere'd be talk about maybe slowing down

(19:27):
or shutting down. Even after everythingI went and even after it was such
a good product. Things like thatdo happen. So then Sarah happened.
She walked by my booth, sawthe clear and open display, looked right
at me and said, I needthis for my employees. And there it

(19:48):
was. It was that simple.She had employees that could use the product
that day in her state of Wisconsin, and they didn't even have the Crown
Act. But her employees had thesame exact problem as that other small university
where this all started from. AndI had the simple solution. We didn't

(20:10):
even talk about the price, justwhen could she order? So there you
have it. As an inventor,it was over for me right then and
there. Whether I sell ten unitsor ten million units, I had done
it. I had the vindication anunknown person who did not know me or
my product saw it in a splitsecond, realized what it was, needed

(20:34):
it and committed to buying it.And honestly, that feeling was worth everything.
And it also gets right when somethinglike that happens. It gets so
quiet in your head. Some peopleare so overjoyed that they miss it because
they've known that they've done it.Like I said, I still got five

(20:55):
more commitments in the last forty fiveminutes of the show, but after that
first one, I knew it wasgonna be okay. Now I just had
to keep focused on the product.Strategy and with a little block, this
might all turn out all right.But and doesn't there always have to be
a butt. But I still haveone last surprise that I never saw it

(21:17):
coming and it was just around thecorner. And I hope you tune in
for the last season finale episode soyou can find out how blind one inventor
can be to something that's big rightin front of him and they never see
it. So until next time,when you're thinking of ideas, never settle,

(21:37):
and when you're struggling, I meanreally struggling, don't leave the show
like the Flower guy. Just staythe course. Keep in mind that's when
most people give up and quit.Take that Flower Guy for leaving early.
Who knows what you would have pickedup. You just got cold feet and
blew it. There's always an anotherway. I'm your host, Jack Courage

(22:02):
the thirty year Overnight Sensation. Stayat it.