How does a small, unknown outfit with no track record approach a giant big box retailer?
Tremendous persistence. We called Wal-Mart every day, five times a day for 60 days before the buyer took our call. He said he would give us a meeting if we promised to stop calling. Just a few weeks ago, we were in Phoenix meeting with PetSmart. They’re excited about potentially launching our product, but it took 40 phone calls from one of our salespeople to get the meeting. If anyone wants to know the trick to getting into major retail, it’s persistence. That’s pretty much it. We have a rule here in sales: You should never assume anyone’s ever going to call you back or return any email of any sort. Didn’t they ask about product effectiveness? Oh, we had already proven that our product was 30 percent better than chemical fertilizers. TerraCycle was independently rated by the Zerofootprint Foundation, Eco-Options Foundation and others as the most eco-friendly consumer good. But unlike most eco-friendly items, ours is not more expensive because of the way it’s made. For example, if we us
