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1000 Tadpoles taught me about business |
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 It was the spring of ‘60 in Chicago and the winter snow was finally gone. I lived in a new subdivision with bulldozers, half finished houses and holes in the ground just about everywhere. Life was as good as it gets for an 8 year old boy.
One day my friend Bill and I rode our bikes to the very edge of the universe - about 1 mile from our homes. Back then 8 year olds could wander a mile away and no one thought anything of it as long as we were home for dinner. We were investigating a future ranch style home’s basement (at that time only a hole in the ground) that had filled with about two feet of water. It was then that we saw them. TADPOLES! Thousands of them! We took a few home to show our friends and parents. Our friends thought the tadpoles were the coolest thing they had seen in their entire lives. Our parents weren’t quite as excited.
Bill and I figured that since the kids thought the tadpoles were so great, we could get some more and sell them. That was the beginning of B & B Tadpoles. We never did decide if it was “Bill & Bruce” or “Bruce & Bill”. We were friends, what did it matter! The next day, we went back to the secret source of our future wealth and caught a couple dozen tadpoles. We were going to be rich. We had, however, failed to account for one fact. In 1960, kids didn’t have any money. We didn’t sell any tadpoles our first two days.
Undaunted, we decided to change our target demographics. Actually, what we said was “Parents have money, let’s sell tadpoles to them.” The only problem with this sales strategy was that the parents were not at all interested in owning tadpoles. Two more days, no sales. Even worse, some of the tadpoles were starting to grow legs and turn into frogs! We had to come up with a new USP (unique selling proposition) or we were going to loose our entire inventory. We went into an intense brainstorming session and hit upon the solution. We hand printed 40 handbills and went house to house the next day. It was a huge success. It had taken four days, an eternity when you’re eight, but we had finally figured out who our customer was and how to talk to them. For the next two weeks we went to our secret hole in the ground each morning and collected 100 or so tadpoles. We opened our tadpole stand at noon and sold them all by dinner time. Life was as good as it gets.
I think it was a Thursday. Bill and I came up over the little ridge of dirt that hid our tadpole nursery from the street. They were gone. In the place of our pond was a newly poured basement. We never looked for another tadpole pond. Sometimes you just need to move on and not look back. Besides, summer had just started and their were so many other adventures awaiting us.
It was the spring of ‘68 and the winter snow was finally gone. Bill had moved away a couple years back. I had a brand new drivers licence in my wallet. I drove the family car over to the house that had been built on top of our tadpole pond. I was too early to pick up my girlfriend so I just sat in the car and remembered that spring so long ago. Life was as good as it gets.
It is all about reminding your customer why they want to do business with you. |
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Bruce Wiggins
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www.usprintingseattle.com
"Making duplicate copies and computer printouts of things no one wanted even one of in the first place is giving America a new sense of purpose." Andy Rooney |
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 09 / 2010
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