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There's a long list of famous products that were originally invented for other uses. Examples include Listerine (for sweaty feet in 1888), Play-Doh (for cleaning wallpaper in the 1930s), aluminum foil (to mark racing pigeons in 1903), Viagra (for hypertension in the 1990s), and even Polywater (for scuba diving suits in 1973). The point isn't that we should waste all our sales and marketing time chasing bizarre alternative uses for our products, but that we should understand their basic characteristics and constantly think outside the box, ever vigilant for opportunities--especially within our narrow markets. Tab Tryon of Dynamic Sales Associates in Florida (now mentioned in consecutive Friday Faxes!), provides an example with Polywater Splice Shield. Tab reports: "My son Andrew is taking an engineering class at UCF (University of Central Florida). This term's project was The Great Orange Race. Move an orange from one part of the fountain to another. My son's group, of which he was the project leader, decided to do a underwater ROV (remote operated vehicle). Other groups chose to do boats. His first call was to me asking for that stuff I sell that seals connections for splicing wire. They needed to seal the connection on the batteries in the sump pumps used to propel the ROV. Well, they did great. All tests the night before went as planned. Their professor told them they are the first to have a working underwater sub/ROV in his time at UCF. And they received an A on the project. Thank you and your Polywater Team for helping out. --Tab." We don't propose to chase the underwater ROV market with Splice Shield. The market is undoubtedly small, and is certainly outside our field of expertise. What Tab and Andrew did, however, was solve a new problem with an existing product by understanding its characteristics and basic function. Eventually this type of thinking identifies field opportunities of real substance. Then the lab can get involved to fine-tune a product with optimal performance. This is where Polywater excels. Congratulations to Andrew and Tab. Let's keep those new product ideas coming. |
