Ugly sweater can sell 10 million dollars.

Guide: Since their inception in 1999, the 100 million-dollar company has sold too many things, such as dolls and livestrong bracelets, and what sports fans like recently, they start selling.
13 months ago, Michael Lewis, founder and CEO of Forever Collectibles, had no idea that an ugly sweater could have been successful in the market. In his eyes, the sweater was just a conceptual costume for a holiday party.

But last Christmas, he found that his young staff (most of his employees were young, with an average age of 25) wore them in their offices. These employees seem to like the sweater very much, they often wear it and look happy. Finally one day, a young employee inside the company suggested to him that they should also sell the sweater.

A year later, the proposal was finally adopted, and by selling the ugly sweater, Forever collectibles received 10 million dollars in income.

The New Jersey company is not the first to adjust itself to the trend. Since their founding in 1999, the 100 million-dollar firm has sold too many things, such as dolls and livestrong bracelets, and what sports fans like recently, they start selling.

In fact, when planning to set up a business, Lewis set a fast-changing tone for companies, regardless of what is popular in the current market, they will be the first to respond. But even so, they almost brushed off the holiday sweater. Ironically, the whole company is the most resistant to this sweater, unexpectedly is Lewis himself. Although he had set the tone for the company, he still thought the sweater was too ugly at first, and did not sell it in the slightest. How did he accept the product? Who made him change his mind about the sweater?

Prelude

July 2001, When forever Collectibles was founded just two years ago, Lewis and 5 employees went to Seattle to watch the baseball All-Star Game. Of course, each of them is a fan, but apart from watching the game, the main purpose of their trip is to do business. Their task was to set up a table to sell teddy bears (10 dollars each) on the pitch, and the teddy bears were licensed by MLB to mark the Baseball League.

Lewis recalls: "One time I looked back at the other booth and found that there was a long line in front of the booth, about 75 people were lining up to buy their goods, and I thought, ' What's this TM? ’”

It turns out that when the booth was sold, the MLB of the contestants were priced at $25 per doll. "I bought a doll and brought it to China," said Lewis. "He came to China with a doll to meet his production partners to see how much the production cost of such a doll, and he hoped forever collectibles himself could sell such dolls."

After that, Lewis ushered in his turn, describing the transition with the famous "carriage metaphor". If you have not heard of this analogy, you must have heard the analogy of the conclusion that the decision of your business model is not the product you sell, but the problem you solve for the consumer.

The details of this analogy are as follows:

The big problem with rail traffic today is not that the demand for railways has been replaced by other transport facilities (such as cars and airplanes), and that the railway has fallen from itself. They are positioning themselves as "the railway industry", not "the transportation industry". And their erroneous self-image stems from their thoughts, which are guided by railway thinking rather than transport thinking. In other words, they focus on the product, not the consumer ...

The "Wagon analogy" is a variant of the above example. In the carriage era, the carriage maker crowned the entire business world. And when the motor vehicle appeared, the wagon was eliminated. "What did the wagon makers do wrong? They didn't realize they were really in that industry," said Lewis. ”

At Seattle's All-Star Game, Lewis, who had never been to business school, realised that Forever Collectibles's industry was not the teddy bear sales industry, but the industry that sold all kinds of sporting goods. He realized that the company could not sell only teddy bears, but should enrich the product category.

For Lewis, the conceptual shift changed his entire career, and he decided to lead the company to a critical transition. Before the establishment of forever collectibles, he had served as an overstatement in Puma and Adidas. He set up the apex in 1989, and the company won the NFL's trademark authorisation in the early 1990. "We were developing very well, so Nike and Reebok decided to get the NFL's authorization," says Lewis. So apex of this small business began to slowly drown in the brutal competition. ”

So when he set up forever collectibles, he had an idea in his head that he had to do something completely different. It wants to find a blank business model, a business model that does not have the same competitors as Nike and Reebok. "I very much believe in this saying, ' You have to learn at work, don't repeat mistakes, and don't repeat what you've done before," he says. ’”

While working for companies such as Adidas, Puma and Apex, Lewis has a good relationship with many university teams and professional sports teams, and is able to work closely with manufacturers from China. But he didn't want to repeat what he had done before. "I said to myself, ' I don't want to hire a professional or experienced person, I want to train new people myself," he says. ’”

His experience tells him that people who manage sports mandates prefer a variety of product categories. So he gave forever collectibles a rule to expand as many product categories as possible, whether teddy bears, dolls, or anything else, as long as consumers and authorized people like them, they sell.

"Our job is to empower brand-makers to feel that we are different and to be able to bring something different," he says. We want to bring innovation and speed to the market constantly. No one can be faster than us in accepting new fields. ”

Lewis believes that the speed with which they accept new things, thanks to younger teams, only 4 of all his 180 employees are over 40 years of age. For most forever collectibles employees, this is their first job. It likens the situation to 8-year-olds watching roller skating and 40-year-olds watching roller-skating, he says: "Children will try without fear." 40-year-olds are worried about breaking their knees or getting their heads first. ”

In practical work, young people are more flexible when dealing with urgent tasks. In addition, most forever collectibles employees are single, and if they need to work late into the night or do not go home for four consecutive days, or fly to China on a business trip, they will not have a family tie.

The transition from teddy bear to Doll doll was the first attempt by Lewis in the business model. When Lance Armstrong Livestrong the wrist band began to heat up in 2005, Forever Collectibles again quickly shifted its position and began producing similar products, except that the wrist band was printed on the logo of various university or professional sports teams. Eventually, they got 20 million dollars in revenue from the product.

2010, rubber bracelet began to pop, Forever collectibles immediately to respond. Succeeded in obtaining 60 million dollars in revenue within 90 days. "We have no experience in this field at all, but we decided to try," said Lewis. When something new becomes popular, we immediately start to follow the trend. ”

After seeing these experiences, it is even harder to understand why Lewis resisted those sweaters at the very beginning. Why do people who are constantly embracing popular trends need reminders and encouragement to start selling a popular product?

First, this is a clothing product. Lewis's previous background was apparel products. He knows that the sports organization has worked with a lot of garment companies, although no one company produces this ugly sweater, but he still has concerns. In the eyes of sports trademark advocates, Lewis argues, clothing is the last thing they want. He was not even sure whether the authorities would allow it to produce the sweater.

After all, big companies like Nike are also making clothes. Moreover, this sweater is very simple to produce, but it is very difficult to achieve larger market size.

Secondly, in product design, this product also has great difficulty. The biggest feature of this sweater is that ... Ugly。 How do you put a strictly designed logo on this ugly sweater? and use this "ugly" to highlight the brand value of the sports team?

In addition, Lewis must also consider what would happen to his brand if the product failed. In the eyes of the sports brand, Forever collectibles The greatest value is the ability to bring them income. The last thing Lewis wants to see is that these Forever are questioning the power of collectibles, and if a product fails, that worry becomes a real problem. The results of the success of the partners will begin to question Forever collectibles, and damage the company's hard-earned reputation.

Although Lewis has been hesitant, his employees have been persuading him. Eventually, he drew a sketch of the sweater and sent it to a Chinese factory for proofing.

Less than 48 hours later, a specimen was sent to Lewis's hands. This sample changed everything. "My gut tells me that this product is successful and it breaks all my worries and concerns," he recalls. I started thinking about how to execute and sell the strategy. ”

Soon after, more samples were sent. Lewis's intuition is correct. Even the sports brand authorized to see the sample also believe that this product can achieve great success.

On the issue of sales, Lewis took a different approach than before. Instead of defining these sweaters as a popular commodity, he used it as a collection for limited sales. His decision comes from Porsche Panamera Exclusive Series's sales strategy, which is limited to 100 vehicles worldwide. The target consumers of these sweaters are avid senior fans of a sports team.

Lewis decided that they would produce only 30,000 sweaters, and in the future he admitted that the figure was somewhat arbitrary. "I'm trying to find a number that adapts to market demand, but it doesn't have a detailed survey and analysis of the market, so it's not that scientific," he says. ”

Yet it is this arbitrary figure that has increased the value of the sweater. The official retail price for this sweater is 59.99 dollars, but in the market some people are selling at 159.99 dollars. "I've never seen anything like it," said Lewis. In particular, the medium sweater, which originally cost 60 dollars, but because of the shortage of goods, its price has reached 120-180 U.S. dollars. ”

In future work, this experience will likely continue to affect Lewis.

"We may be able to control the quantity and quality of the product in the future," he said. It is clear that this will make the product more valuable, and it will make our partners more profitable and increase their brand value. Such a halt to mass production would likely be the next wave. ”

This is our story today, a product of great success, almost strangled by an entrepreneur who had a passion for new trends, and now the entrepreneur has become the biggest spokesperson for the product.

For entrepreneurs, you shouldn't be afraid to let employees change your mind, even if you are the most experienced person in the whole building, you can learn something new from your employees.

via INC, translate | fast carp)