The Right Name

Fred did …

Fred had an idea … an idea for a new type of business. And he wrote a term paper about it … but didn’t get a very good mark as his professor thought it would never take flight.

Nevertheless, six years later Fred decided to go for it. And he approached the biggest potential customer he could think of … but he didn’t want them to think he was just a small operation … so he gave his new company the most impressive sounding name he could think of.

The potential customer was … The Federal Reserve System or the Fed. The Fed is the US government’s central bank. And it was really important for Fed to get cheques and documents between district banks all across the US as fast as possible … but, at the time, that took days.

Fred pitched his idea with his new company name but the Fed said “no”. Undaunted, Fred still kept the new company name .. and kept plugging away. And soon found a whole bunch of other clients, who were very interested in his service.

Today, Fred’s company has over 700 airplanes, and over half a million employees delivering over 15 million packages every day … and still operates under the same name he originally used to pitch the Fed … Federal Express or Fedex.

Fedex is a Great Idea because you are never too small to think big.