Bin There

James and Madeline did.

James was a chemist and Madeline his wife was a homemaker … and they talked about everything. He’d talk about working with rubber … and she’d talk about the challenges of being a glorified maid …. So naturally, being a team, they started thinking about making things out of rubber that might help around the house …. And they tried lots of things until finally hitting upon the one … a red rubber dust pan … now metal dust pans of the day were the standard but easily got warped and damaged … the red rubber dust pan was vastly superior .. … the only problem was it cost $1 while the metal pans cost just 39 cents … so no store would carry them … well James started going door-to-door to sell them… and out of the first 10 homes he went to … 9 bought one … for a dollar each … soon those same stores saw the light and started carry the rubber dustpan … and with sales taking off James and Madeline needed to find a manufacturer … and that’s when luck bounced their way … as an executive of a toy balloon manufacturer looking to diversify his failing company saw the rubber dustpan on a store shelf and sought James and Madeline out. They worked out a deal and James became president of the merged companies.

Today, the company that started out with James & Madeline selling a red rubber dustpan … now makes hundreds of products and has sales over $6 billion annually … Rubbermaid.

Rubbermaid is a great idea … because when people say no you just have to bounce back … and, if you do, you can clean up financially.