Welcome to Edition #67 of Did You Know? (DYK), the weekly newsletter by Gorick Ng, Harvard career adviser and Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author of The Unspoken Rules, where we deconstruct the untold story of how someone (or something) became successful—and what you can do to follow in their footsteps.
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Did You Know? Sell to one person
Your story this week
Did you know? This 111-year-old company doubled its revenue 3 times in 3 years.
7 billion views on TikTok and counting. Parking lot campouts for exclusive drops. You may have heard of the drinkware product that’s taken the internet by storm: the Stanley Cup.
The only thing larger than this massive, insulated cup’s viral fame? The company’s revenue.
For 107 years, Stanley was a sleepy company.
Then, in 2021, the company doubled its revenue, jumping from $94M to $194M USD.
Then, in 2022, the company doubled its revenue again—to $402M.
Then, in 2023, the company doubled its revenue once again—to $750M.
How?
By taking a generic cup—and marketing it to women.
The cup in question is called the Quencher. It holds 40 ounces of liquid and features a handle and a straw.
In 2019, the Quencher sold so poorly that Stanley pulled it from shelves and stopped marketing it.
Then, four women turned the entire story around.
Ashlee LeSueur, co-founder of an online commerce blog called The Buy Guide, discovered the Quencher in 2017 at a store—and was convinced that it was the “perfect” cup for “women on the go.” So, LeSueur and her fellow co-founders “began gifting it to friends and recommending it to [blog] followers.”
Then, when they learned that Stanley was thinking of discontinuing the Quencher, the co-founders of The Buy Guide contacted Lauren Solomon, an account manager at Stanley, and pitched the idea of taking what was historically a men’s brand—and marketing it to women, instead.
Solomon was sold. There was just one problem: Executives at Stanley “had no interest in changing their business strategy for that year because there were three Instagrammers who thought they should change it.”
“Why don’t you test the idea?” Solomon suggested to the women.
So, The Buy Guide’s co-founders bought 5,000 Quencher cups wholesale—and tried to sell them to their own audience.
Five days later, they sold out.
Then, they ordered another 5,000 cups—and sold out again, this time in just one hour.
With the data in hand, Solomon arranged a meeting between The Buy Guide team and Stanley’s executives in January of 2020.
Their pitch? To use affiliate and influencer marketing—a strategy Stanley hadn’t tried before—to sell the Quencher to women. “It will blow your mind what women selling to women looks like,” The Buy Guide urged the executives.
The executives were skeptical—but then relented.
Fast forward, and Stanley decided to restock the Quencher, market through influencer channels, and release the cup in more colors than the brand’s classic green.
Fast forward, and Stanley decided to restock the Quencher, market through influencer channels, and release the cup in more colors than the brand’s classic green. “The Buy Guide proved to be amazing partners and helped us create the Quencher phenomenon,” Terence Reilly, Stanley president later reflected.
By the end of 2020, the Quencher jumped from Stanley’s worst seller to its best seller—and the rest is history.
What does this mean for you? The next time you find yourself struggling to get an idea approved at work, remember the Quencher—and how it all came down to finding the right audience.
Your strategy this week
Did you know? Sell to one person!
It took Stanley 4 years to discover that its worst-selling product could be its best-selling product if only it focused on selling to a more specific audience: women.
Your ideas don’t have to wait so long!
Try filling in these blanks:
(1) “I’m trying to sell the product / service / idea of _______.”
- E.g., “At work, I’m trying to sell the idea that we need an employee resource group focused on early career professionals.”
(2) “I could try pitching this idea to everyone, but the person who’d be most excited is _______.”
- E.g., “I could try pitching this idea to everyone, but the person who’d be most excited is David the COO because he’s regularly spoken about the importance of building a deep leadership bench, starting at the entry levels.”
Now, approach them and gauge their excitement!
You may be wrong at first, as was the case with the creators of MadLibs and Listerine. But stay focused on finding a specific person and you’ll soon realize that your idea isn’t for everyone—but for a specific someone.
(Or! Maybe you’ll find the opposite to be true like Celeste Ng, this Amazon Book of the Year author, did.)
I know it because I’ve experienced it: When I first started writing The Unspoken Rules, I thought, as many authors do, that my audience would be everyone. It wasn’t until I shopped my idea around enough that I realized that the most excited people were fellow first-gen professionals. That’s not to say that non-first-gens cannot benefit!
As a friend told me, “What is a must for some is good for all.” My book is a must for first-gens, but it’s also good for non-first-gens—and the fact that I now speak to entire companies proves this point. But, had I not started with first-gens, I would have risked never having this broader opportunity because my idea would have never seen the light of day.
Find your audience!
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