Inspiration drawn from reading about other people’s paths to success has fueled a long list of books from business celebrities. Lee Iacocca, Jack Welch and Sam Walton were early contributors. More recent best-sellers have come from Howard Schultz and Sheryl Sandberg.
Condensed versions often can inspire just as much. In a recent issue of Fortunemagazine, designer Kenneth Cole described how he dropped out of law school to help in his father’s shoe factory before eventually launching his own business.
“I designed shoes, made prototypes, and committed to ordering 40,000 pairs of shoes. There wasn’t a mechanism to get trademarks researched and registered quickly, so I used my name as the company name.
“Back then, shoes were previewed at Market Week. You either took a room at the New York Hilton, where the trade show was, or you had a big fancy showroom. I didn’t have the money for either. So I called a friend and said, ‘If I can figure out a way to park your 40-foot trailer across the street from the Hilton, will you lend it to me?’
“He said yes, so I contacted the mayor’s office and was told we couldn’t park the trailer unless we were a utility company servicing the streets or a production company shooting a film, thus promoting New York City. So I went to a stationery store, and $14 later I had new letterhead that changed our name to Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc. I used the letterhead to apply for a permit to shoot ‘The Birth of a Shoe Company,’ and on Dec. 2, 1982, we opened a 40-foot mobile showroom just north of the Hilton.
“We had shoes, klieg lights, stanchions and a cameraman. Sometimes there was film in the camera and sometimes not. The buyers came, and I used a telephone booth outside the trailer to periodically adjust the orders by color and size.
“I sold 40,000 pairs of shoes in 3½ days and was off and running. We had $5 million in sales that first year and made a profit of $1 million. Today, the company is still named Kenneth Cole Productions to remind us of the importance of storytelling and resourcefulness.”
