Page 82 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

Billy B. Van and His “Pine Tree” Soap

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ILLY B. VAN used to be in the show business. His job was to make people
laugh. Just as he felt that he was making some progress toward becoming
established in his chosen profession he developed tuberculosis and had to
leave the show in Boston. He had little or no money at that time, so the
members of the company and other friends financed his period of
recuperation in the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Here he regained
his health and in two years was able to go back to the theater for six months.
His long stay in the pine forests gave him two ideas: One, to take the fresh,
fragrant odor of the pines to people who had neither the time nor the money
to get to the pine woods; the other, to build up a business that would support
him comfortably as soon as he could leave the theater.

He decided that soap was the product that would suit his purpose, and he
experimented with many formulas before he found one which would actually
hold the fragrance of the pine needles. After searching around a bit, he
discovered a man who would make the soap for him in quantities. However,
he, Billy B. Van, would have to go out and sell it. At first, he laughed at the
idea of a comedian becoming a salesman. Then he realized that this was what
he had been doing all during his show life—selling; he had been selling
himself to his audience night after night. It should be easier to sell soap, he
reasoned. So each morning he filled his pockets with samples of his soap, his
heart with hope, and started ringing doorbells.

There were difficulties. There always are. The druggists didn’t know his soap
and wouldn’t stock it; the jobbers wouldn’t move it, and he had no money for
advertising. Suddenly the idea came to him that he could introduce his soap
through the hotels. Most of his life had been spent in hotels and he knew
hotel managers from one end of the country to the other. But the hotel
managers thought it a huge joke—Billy B. Van selling soap! He soon found
that there was no short-cut to prosperity selling to friends. He finally secured
permission to place a trial order in a hotel. Around each cake of soap he
wrapped a circular stating: “This soap will keep everything clean but your