Pro Commerce

Shoe Goo

I met a couple at the next table at dinner in a neighborhood restaurant.  They had owned a shoe repair shop nearby since the early 1970’s.  We connected when I mentioned being one of the founding partners in a business called Shoe Goo.

A group of us founded Shoe Goo in 1973 in Menlo Park California.  A group of us were runners who ran together on the track between the Portola Institute and the Stanford Research Institute. I was one of four board members of Portola, an education research group.  The chief was Dick Raymond who was a key runner (Dick died a few months ago).  Others included Doug Engelbart from SRI now noted for inventing the ‘mouse’ and Bill English, first manager of Xerox Parc where the modern computer screen interface was invented.  Another runner was the founder of Runner’s World magazine who moved to Portland and helped found Nike.

The importance of this running group has to do with the shoes we all wore: sneakers, also called tennis shoes. Sneakers, when used for running, wear out quickly.  We were running long distances in those days.  I ran 6 miles around Golden Gate Park every Saturday and Sunday with friends, in sneakers.

The solution was found by Dick Raymond who created a product called Shoe Goo.  A black plastic gel in a tube that we used to put on the worn out heels of our shoes.

We started marketing Shoe Goo in the same designed tube that still carries its name.  Another friend who was a hot shot in marketing, Paul Hawken, offered to be one of the partners and do the marketing which was becoming hard for Dick who had plenty of other things we were doing.  Sales grew rapidly for two year, then Paul announced that we had to sell the product to Kiwi because we were in too vulnerable a spot with only with one supplier of our raw material.  

We all took double or triple our investment (a few thousand dollars) and thanked Paul.  Dick was not so obliging and held a grudge against Paul for years.

Our new friends in the shoe repair business told a story that I had never heard about Shoe Goo.  They said Shoe Goo was great for creating an adhesive surface.  If you couldn’t get a new sole or heel to attach to a shoe bottom, put Shoe Goo on the surface and leave it overnight.  The next day anything could be glued to it with traditional shoe repair glues.

Now you’ve read my story.  Look on Wikipedia.  You’ll find a product of the same name with the same design with a completely different history from Southern California.  It is in the top hundred products by sales volume on Amazon in sports goods.

Kiwi had a similar product on Amazon called Kiwi Shoe and Boot Repair which now has a different label.

What is the real story about Shoe Goo?

Parable of Tokyo cleaning service

 

In the mid 1970’s I had one of my favorite painting contractors develop a technique that has become a standard in the painting contractor industry.  

I looked at the individual estimates he made for prospective clients and saw that he could use one standard checklist form.  He did.  The form emphasized the interconnectedness of many paint issues.  Fail to repair gutters and the lifespan of the painting job goes down.  Use a darker color and the lifespan of the painting job goes down. Cut back shrubs and the job costs less. There were a whole range of job components that had an impact on the total price and quality.

A few years later I got a building cleaning service client in Tokyo.  The fellow was just starting out.  That is uniquely difficult in Tokyo where corporate loyalty is deeply ingrained.  Fortunately there was a building boom in Tokyo at the time and some new buildings were potential clients.

My client had a few buildings to clean as a start.  I modified the painting contractor idea to fit this Tokyo client.

I had his workers complete a checklist for each office that was cleaned to be left in the office every month.  The checklist showed all the detailed and intricate cleaning functions that my client’s workers performed.  Japanese are the most fanatic cleanliness people on the planet.

These cleaning checklists became very popular and resulted in countless letters of recommendation for my client as well as frequent conversation in the buildings with employees expressing their thanks.

In less than two years, my client was a major cleaning service in Tokyo.  He is now, decades later,  one of the top three maintenance companies in Japan.

Parable of Michael

I think my readers owe a debt of gratitude to Michael Padway.  

Michael is a long  time friend and client.  We often have a chance to relax and chat about his latest brilliant business exploits.

I sometimes add a few stories from my several thousand business clients to the discussion.

Yesterday, Michael suggested that these stories are parables.  People whose parents are in business get to hear stories like these at home and at meals.  Michael’s parents were both in business.  With Michael’s introduction, I once did a job for his father’s insurance headhunting firm.  

Others, without business parents, may need parables like these to succeed in business.

The first parable is about Michael’s law firm, which he ran with his brother.  The firm did auto liability claims.  Usually a victim of an auto accident was the plaintiff against an insurance company.

Michael ran a powerful ad on post-mid-night TV that generated many responsive phone calls every day.  The firm had lawyers on the phones full time screening callers to see if they had viable lawsuits.  This phone answering was costly to the firm, because it required expensive lawyers to do the screening.

Michael’s solution was to make a high quality professional video tape (an important medium in the days before DVD’s and the Internet) and sent it immediately to everyone who phoned in with a case.  The video helped the potential plaintiff decide if they had a viable case.  If they did, they were given a quick pitch on why Michael’s firm could be good for them and what they could expect on the way a lawsuit would progress with medical exams and legal filings.

It was a brilliant screening, selling and training mechanism and increased the number of viable cases while reducing legal hours in getting good clients.

With that success in hand, Michael added an even more brilliant video.  

He created a video to prepare his plaintiffs for depositions.  Depositions with cross examinations are part of nearly every lawsuit.  They require preparation time that is expensive; most clients are anxious about being cross examined under oath.  The deposition video was a stunning success in preparing plaintiffs.

Such a success that Michael’s firm was able to sell the video far and wide in the legal profession.

In-house money saving option becomes outside revenue producer.