A shoe company wanted to expand its business. The top management decided to send a team of marketing professionals to assess market feasibility in a remote, small and poor region. After a study of about two months, the team sent a report that there was no market for shoes in that region because no one wore shoes.
Another shoe company also sent its marketing team to the same place. After a study of about two months, the team concluded that the place had a great market potential because no one wore shoes.
Opportunity never knocks on the door.
You have to knock opportunities’ doors, and they are all around you.
– Thomas J. Watson
Did you know?
Jan Matzeliger (1852-1889) invented an automatic method for creating shoes. Born in Surinam he came to the United States at 19 and secured an apprenticeship at a shoe factory. This gave him the inspiration for his invention as the shoe industry was consistently stalled by the labor intensive job to build lasts-wooden molds shaped like the customer’s foot. His lasting machine could turn out up to ten times more pairs of shoes per day than a single hand laster. This made shoes cheaper and more readily available to a greater number of people.
A 29-cent stamp honouring Matzeliger was issued in 1991, in Lynn, Massachusetts. This stamp is part of the Black Heritage Stamp Series. Initiated in 1978, the USPS continues to issue a stamp featuring a notable Black American every February in conjunction with Black History Month and at other times during the year. Courtesy USPS.
Visit https://www.stampcommunity.org/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=54271 for more postage stamps on footwear – shoes, sneakers, and other foot coverings.