So I was at a tradeshow a few weeks ago, it was manufacturing technology convention. A lot of our shows are full of manufacturing companies, the folks walking around, often are self made entrepreneurs. The atmosphere is fun, people are open to new ideas to improve their processes, they are practical people and so many of them started in their garage or with a buddy in a small shop. Some of them now run multiple locations and employ hundreds of people.
Time after time they cynically walk up to us and ask what our product does and as we launch into our pitch they stand politely and listen while ready to make a dash to something more exciting at any minute. Until we show them how the leg structure in our tile has been specially formed to allow users to run cords underneath. And when you tuck a cord underneath there's no lump, there’s no possibility of the cord shifting, you can run machinery over the tiles and the cords are protected. All of a sudden, they get really excited. They call their friends and colleagues over, they jump up and down on our tiles and remark how good they feel to stand on. Then one of them brings up a story of an employee recently who was walking with a pile of metal parts or moving a piece of equipment and tripped over a cord. They fell, everything they were carrying fell, sometimes they were hurt but they were definitely always pissed off.
Our mats are great, they are anti-fatigue, anti-slip, environmentally friendly, fire resistant and color coded. I know they are great but the fact that they can organize and cover up cords in an industrial environment make them a uniquely powerful safety tool. No other mat on the market does this.
To be honest, when this mat was being developed 25 years ago, the leg structure was originally designed for weight dispersion and ergonomics. I think it is funny how this accidental feature ended up becoming one of our best solutions.
So I am going to march into my bosses office next week and propose a brand overhaul, new name, new logo, we will hereafter be known as
“Cord be Gone” – has a nice ring to it right?