Sell Big Retailers – No problem with the right approach

{Don Debelak’s new book, Turning Your Invention into Cash is now available on Amazon for $3.49. Go to Amazon.com and enter inventions Don Debelak to purchase. From the author of Entrepreneur Magazine’s Bringing Your Product to Market.}

By Don Debelak

How the inventor is doing today

Note this article appeared in Entrepreneur magazine in the early 2000s

Note: Graham Kjestrup’s company continues as an industry leader to this day, with a much expanded product, but still based on his original product. Check out his website http://www.nsdinfo.com/Ais101/index.php to see just how well his company has done.

How do you expand on success? For Graham Kjestrup, an entrepreneur in Stanton, California, the answer was inventing a new product. Kjestrup’s company, National Sign Display Manufacturers Inc., produces signs that real estate agents can place in the lawns of homes for sale. In 1999, the company had grown to $3.4 million in sales and was selling its products through about 10,000 sign stores nationwide. Sounds like a picture of success-especially with sales increasing 10 to 15 percent per year-but after 13 years in business, Kjestrup wanted the company to grow even faster. Says the 38-year-old, “There was a cap on just how big the company could grow from the real estate market.”
Kjestrup decided that the fastest way to boost business would be to invent a new product. So in 1999, he developed the SandScrew, a corkscrew-type piece of lightweight steel that screws into any ground surface and holds beach umbrellas, volleyball poles and flag poles. The product had great market-research results, and best of all, Kjestrup could produce it using his existing equipment.

Sell Big Retailers – The Challenge

Soon, though, a challenge presented itself: how to sell this innovation to an entirely new market-drugstores, mass merchants and sporting goods stores. After all, Kjestrup was just a small vendor with one SKU. Sales were slow in summer 2000. Earlier this year, however, Longs Drugs, a 400-store chain on the West Coast, picked up the $9.99 SandScrew. And just recently, Kjestrup received approval from Wal-Mart and Ron Jon Surf Shop as well as interest from Albertson’s and other grocery store chains. Although the SandScrew has only generated about $150,000 in sales to date, Kjestrup expects profits from the product to triple next year.

 A Fresh Start

The road to success isn’t easy, and Kjestrup worked hard to get the SandScrew into big retail stores. Here are some of the steps he took:
Learn the industry. Kjestrup’s first advice for entrepreneurs seeking success in a new market is to educate themselves. “Our product is seasonal, and most of the sales for the following summer are made by November,” Kjestrup explains. “This is different from the sign business, where orders come in every week. [Retail] stores also mark our product up by 100 percent, while sign shops typically only use a 50 percent markup.” Kjestrup also learned that building strong sales in smaller regional stores helped ease mass merchants’ resistance to taking on a one-line company.
Find the key. Research showed Kjestrup that packaging was the most important factor in selling his product. “Without [the right packaging], SandScrew was just a steel tube with a hole,” he says. In fact, Kjestrup spent nearly a year perfecting his packaging before he pursued retail stores.

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