Page 7 - The Bootstrapper Bible

ChangeThis million outdoor apparel company based in Ventura, California. Although heʼs now a highly successful businessman, Chouinard still climbs regularly, testing his companyʼs new products while honing its most important tool: his own matchless knowledge of climbersʼ needs. TRUE STORY 4: I AM A SALESPERSON Shereé Thomas had a personal question in mind when she called the customer service line of the company that makes Breathe Right nasal strips. But when she found herself talking to the companyʼs medical director, she went beyond her question and revved up a sales pitch for a liquid she had invented that neutralizes the smell of cigarette smoke on clothes and hair. A couple of switchboard clicks later, Thomas was on the line with the companyʼs president. And three weeks after that, the company had signed a licensing agreement to invest $4 million to manufacture, market, and distribute Banish, the product Thomas mixed up in her chemist-grandfatherʼs garage. Through the licensing deal, this Cedar Park, Texas, bootstrap- per will rack up around six figures in annual royalty payments. Her investment in the sale: a phone call to the companyʼs toll-free line—and a personal commitment never to stop selling. TRUE STORY 5: THE JOURNEY IS THE REWARD Charles Foley was 18 when he told his mother he expected to invent things that would be used everywhere. At 67, the inventor has 130 patents to his credit, including one for the venerable party game Twister, which he invented in the 1960s and still sells today. But Foley, of Charlotte, North Carolina, is still at the inventing game. He recently revived a | iss. 6.01 | i | U | X | + | h 7/103 f