Overview:

Building a $5 Million Profitable Niche in Cosmetics Reset Work*:  As president, associate led effort to penetrate and grow this niche.  Initial project was tough to win and tough to deliver, but resulted in 8 more major projects in the same niche.

     Problems / Challenges Faced:

• Cosmetic Resets tend to be major, once a year, efforts to change displays to a whole new “look”
• Much is at stake for manufacturer.  Very competitive, high margin business
• Very difficult for manufacturer to trust a new merchandising organization.  Puts the decision maker's job at risk

     Solution:

• Associate’s company focused on the strengths of existing reps (part time soccer moms.)
• Associate’s company learned to stay away from work that their reps didn’t like or were not suited for. 
  • E.g. Associate had a relative that was close to the head of Home Depot, but chose not to do work in home depot because his rep base was soccer moms. 
  • It is a much better idea to set up a partnership with someone else who has the capabilities you need.
• The only real failure he had with this work was when he allowed a retailer to push him into taking some work when they were too busy and reps did not like working with the product
• Always did a test project / time study for any work they took on.

Results:

• Completed first reset successfully, even though it was difficult
• It became fairly easy to sell to subsequent manufacturers on using his company for cosmetics resets
• Associate’s company was able to attain expert status quickly in this narrow area
• Associate’s company won a great deal of additional merchandising work as a result of doing successful resets
• Associate’s company did consistent work for 3 major and 6 mid tier manufacturers, including:
  • Revlon
  • L’Oreal
  • Covergirl
  • Max Factor
• Built niche from $0 to $5 million in annual revenue
• Work was difficult to execute and he had to have reps that liked the work, but it was very profitable