The Z Factor by Edwin J. Sprague

Author:Edwin J. Sprague
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Career Press
Published: 2012-04-04T04:00:00+00:00

11

Feed the Tuna Mayo

Z-11 Be an Ideas Guy: Commit to Your “What if?” Idea

“Good morning,” said Lisa, our veteran trade-show host. “Have you guys read the Show News magazine yet?”

We shook our heads.

“Do you have one?”

“I don’t think so?” I responded.

With her hands on her hips, standing at the edge of our booth she hesitated, then grinned. “Come on, then,” she said as she motioned for us to follow. “Let’s go down to the New Product Center.”

Intrigued, we started on the quarter-mile trek when Lisa turned and asked me again as she swiftly walked two paces ahead.

“You really haven’t read it yet?”

Again I shook my head. I didn’t want to tell her but I honestly didn’t know what the hell the Show News magazine was. I wished she’d stop asking me. It was Saturday morning and only 15 minutes until the opening of the show’s third day. We were just two days in, and my feet were blistered and my voice already hoarse from pitching my invention to the mass of exhibit guests who had crowded our booth. I was exhausted. We all were. Lisa, however, a petite brunette, was fresh as a daisy.

This was the largest golf trade show in the world—the PGA Merchandising Show in Orlando, Florida, a remarkable gathering of more than 65,000 PGA professionals, manufacturing executives, retail buyers, product evaluators, decision-makers, and industry leaders all under one roof. The building was bursting with big guns: Nike, Callaway, Titleist, Top Flite, Taylor Made, Ping, Adidas. You name them and they were there. Big industry hitters from every continent were there to compete on a massive global platform. Nearly one million square feet and 10 miles of aisles overflowed with everything new in golf. And I mean everything. Thousands of new ideas and products were poised for launch, countless fresh teaching techniques and technological training advances revealed, distribution secrets unlocked, and competition unleashed. Every company, big and small, was there with the same goal—the Holy Grail: retail shelf space. It was a head-to-head, high-stakes competition guaranteed to find only a few new winners.

Many years ago I made a commitment to take to market one of those little million-dollar ideas we all get but don’t know what to do with. Back then, a good idea for me was nothing more than that—a good idea. It’s because I had no idea what to do with one. Now I hate to admit it, but it used to be that when I’d get a good idea I would keep it a secret for an indeterminate amount of time. Then, for some unapparent reason, I would just tell someone about it. I wouldn’t do anything about it. I’d just tell someone about it and then say something like “Somebody could sell a million of these.”

Sound familiar?

I’ll bet you had an idea once and then years later saw it on the shelf at Walmart. Or maybe you ran across it on the pages of the Ladies’ Home Journal while sitting in a doctor’s office.

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