Page 21 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

squeezed and seeded it for him. In that way they not only obtained juice that
had a superior flavor, but they got their raw materials at rock bottom prices.
Most important, however, it gave them a talking point—and a good talking
point may mean the difference between success or failure.

It was not long before the Sneads were selling all the tomato juice they could
make in their kitchen factory, and had to enlarge their facilities. They rented a
plant alongside the railroad tracks and began to think in terms of a nation-
wide market. They considered all the various ways of getting distribution.
They thought of selling through brokers, as so many food product
manufacturers do. But the brokers told them their price was too high. They
thought about employing college men to sell house to house. But that idea
would take too much capital. Finally, they determined to stick to the plan
they had so successfully used on the North Shore.

So they picked out a few social leaders in selected cities, people like the
Drexels and Biddles of Philadelphia, and wrote and told them about
“Morning Glory” Tomato Juice. The idea of serving tomato juice that was
made to order had a real appeal. The orders began to come in. When Mr.
Snead had the endorsement of these prominent people, he went to the
exclusive hotels in those cities and gave them the opportunity to serve the
same brand of tomato juice to their guests as the first families in the city
served on their breakfast tables. With the hotels lined up, the idea of serving
“Morning Glory” Tomato Juice was next suggested to the railroads. The
Pennsylvania Lines, always alert for something better, ordered a trial supply
and featured it on the menus of their crack trains. Next the Illinois Central fell
in line. In that way “Morning Glory” Tomato Juice got advertising worth
thousands of dollars, without the Sneads having to spend a thin dime. Before
long the Snead business was going “big guns.” Today, what started out as a
stop-gap during the worst period of the depression is now a full-fledged
business handling not only tomato juice but other food products as well. This
family’s hard-earned success simply proves the often overlooked truism that
to sell the masses, first sell the classes.

How the Great Wanamaker BusinessStarted