For anyone who has launched a new product into the market, you know how important it is to be able to demonstrate, within 2 seconds, what the features and benefits are of your product. If you can’t do that, you have failed before you begun.
Arman and I attended our first hardware trade show in Boston in August of 2013. We showed up there with 4 Ajustco products and, well, that is all we had. We had just started and hadn’t had time to do anything else since we had just launched in Vegas in May of that year.
The buyer visited our booth numerous times and expressed how much he loved our innovation. He knew that we were going to face a ton of adversity toward gaining space into the builders hardware set of most stores. He suggested we build multiple merchandising displays that would fit into almost any store size. We did just that and when the next show arrived, he was impressed that we actually listened to him and executed.
We needed a turnkey solution that would give the stores a no-brainer feeling to give our innovation a try. It has worked like a charm to this day. We have won numerous awards for our packaging and merchandising at the trade shows and we continue to produce new ideas that help get into stores which gives us the opportunity to then educate the customers once they see our new product in the isles.
It has been a key component to our success and I am glad we put in the time and cash to build these introductory solutions. Now we are starting to be placed into the builders’ hardware sets around the globe. It wouldn’t have happened if we had not first taken that first small step. Best of luck on your ventures.
