Page 90 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

cents. So when he heard of a machine which made doormats out of the used
tires, Hadley decided to investigate.

“I had a good many old tires on hand, and if I could make them up into mats,
I thought I could get a little profit from them,” explained Mr. Hadley. He
invested three hundred dollars in the mat-making machine and incidental
equipment, made up a number of mats, stacked them in his warehouse, and
then advertised them in the local newspapers.

“I believed I would sell a number of mats from the advertisement,” said
Hadley, “but didn’t. There were no crowds clamoring for mats, and I was
disappointed because only a few came to buy. I didn’t sell enough to pay for
the advertising. I reasoned this was because people did not know enough
about the mats, and my problem was to get people acquainted with them. So I
tried a window display. But it was hardly noticed. I tried calling from door to
door, and sold a good many, but I couldn’t down the feeling that there was a
better market somewhere.”

James Hadley kept thinking about this better market. He went around to
office buildings and talked with managers. They used mats in the entrances of
the buildings, they told him, and admitted his mat was better than the one
they were using, but they were supplied. “I walked my feet off for two
weeks,” continued Hadley, “before it occurred to me that I wasn’t using the
right kind of merchandising tactics. I changed them. Concentrating my calls
upon business concerns, I adopted a policy of leaving a sample mat with each
concern, to be used for a short period. I then pointed out that since the mats
were made from old tires, each mat was much tougher and stronger than an
ordinary mat, and built up a demonstration to prove the long life of the mats.

“One firm, manufacturing twist drills, wasn’t impressed by this argument.
The purchasing agent told me that if the workers operating surface grinders
preferred my mat to the one being used, I’d get an order. He put my mat on
the floor in front of a surface grinder. If the solution used in operating
grinders gets on the bare floor accidents are inevitable; so when my mat
proved its ability to avoid such accidents, the workers wanted it. Before the
day was up, the purchasing agent phoned and asked me to bring over forty-