Still, Kohler is not all cold water. She likes the new SportClip model -- which does away with the headband -- but not its $35 price tag. She invites Koss to submit a quote. Kohler must wrap up her planagram by mid-February, so the group agrees to reconvene in three weeks at Target's Minneapolis headquarters.
Koss types into his computer. The deadline doesn't leave much time to work on pricing and packaging.
Milwaukee, January 20 -- "I have never been so walking dead," says John Koss, finally back in his office. "It felt like everyone who came through the booth wanted to talk business. Unlike past years."
He's putting CES into perspective. "My goal was to gain a feeling for the attitude of the buyers. If they're optimistic about Koss and Christmas, we can expect business to grow."
He's in a quandary over the pricing conundrum with Target. "She wants a higher average retail price," he notes. Yet she's wary of taking a chance on the untested SportClip. "I'll put it on a string for her if she likes." Huh? "I'll take it right back if it doesn't sell."
Koss takes his relationships with buyers seriously. "I used to get depressed when he didn't come to the booth," he says, talking about Kmart buyer Tom Hooks, who won't acknowledge having been at CES. Still, at Hooks's request, Koss promptly mails new-product information -- and waits. "Your chances are better than 50-50," the buyer tells him.
But Koss has no time to dwell on disappointment. In the month after CES, the sales chief crisscrosses the country, appealing to buyers on their own turf: from San Francisco to Minneapolis, and from Delray Beach, Fla., to Dallas, to Richmond, Va., to Nashville. Valentine's Day finds him in Chicago. He calls on the Good Guys! (a rising San FranciscoÑbased electronics chain), Software Etc., Target, Office Depot, Circuit City, the Army and Airforce Exchange, Brendle's, and Sears. Wal-Mart Canada requests a quote, and Koss puts a note in his computer to plan a trek to Ontario.
Koss's reps are also working the phones and hitting the road. Within weeks of CES, Triad has landed Koss Corp. a new account. An ambitious young rep, Steve "Slammer" Stamy, placed seven SKUs at Minneapolis-based Media Play, a hot new superstore for books, music, electronics, and sports apparel.
John Koss can't say enough about Triad's contacts. "They know who's who in the zoo when buyers change," he says. "They're located in a retail mecca. Software Etc., Best Buy, Musicland, and Target are all in their territory. They know five or six buyers at Target."
* * *
You Can't Just Do It Yourself
"Reps are a conduit," suggests Best Buy's Bob Griffin. "They don't make anything, so they get a bad reputation. But a good rep, he asserts, "can definitely make a line." He mentions Jeff Arundel, Triad's cofounder. "Jeff knows how I work. If I didn't see Jeff, I wouldn't do as much business with any of his vendors."
"There are good sales reps and bad ones," Target's Kohler allows. "Even though the reps are paid by the manufacturer, they have to represent us as well. A rep should be very open with all issues." She won't rate individual rep firms.
Koss, nevertheless, wouldn't dream of going to the Target follow-up meeting without Triad by his side.
Minneapolis, January 27 -- Koss enters the Target meeting with purchasing manager Lillie and a Triad rep. Kohler shares the year-end numbers that show how Koss Corp. stacks up on margin, sell-through, inventory turnover, and product returns. Her opinion hasn't changed on the SportClip. "It's still too expensive," she says. Koss disagrees, but both sides concur that the standard "clam pack" packaging isn't going to tell the SportClip story. Koss knows he ought to have seen that before the show.
Such meetings make up the bulk of "program selling." "You get the stuff placed, and then you have to plan the advertising," Koss explains. Even after the product has hit the store, Koss likes to say, "you still don't know if the dogs will eat the meat." If one model doesn't play with consumers, you must have a substitute.
* * *
Out of Stock Blues
Milwaukee, January 31 -- During a lull in sales calls, Koss takes a visitor shopping.
First stop: Wal-Mart. Apparently outranked by Sony, Koss headphones have been relegated to a bottom rung on the slat wall. "We have plans to change that," Koss says, tidying up the display.
The nearby Target store is brighter than Wal-Mart. Target aims for a department-store look. But Koss's best-selling, $20 headphones, the TD-60 model, are out of stock. Worse, three pegs are wasted on a model that sells poorly.
At Best Buy, Koss's demo, a pair of $39 computer speakers, doesn't work. The Sony speakers operate just fine. John Koss fiddles with wires to no avail. "If something's not working, we want to know right away so we can replace it," he says, walking off to find a manager.
"You can get depressed when you go to a bunch of stores and everything is wrong," says Koss.
That is the gap between sell-in to the buyer and sell-through to the consumer. Sometimes it feels as if your product has fallen into a black hole.
To remedy such problems, Koss has appealed to at least one superstore "rebuyer" (the buyer's assistant). Some vendors rely on the folks who actually stock shelves, the rack jobbers, to make things right. Few sales reps will play housekeeper, but the best make spot checks. "The buyer might say that product's not selling," says Lee Adams, a Koss rep in Bedford, Tex. "And I can say, 'That's because it's in the back room.' I gain credibility, and the buyer fixes the problem."
Delray Beach, Fla., February 1 -- Thanks to the connections of a Florida rep firm, Koss is finally talking with the buyers at Office Depot headquarters. The office-supply chain is bullish on Koss products. "Interested in 'phones, speakers, microphones," John Koss enters into his pocket PC. This could be a $500,000 account. But it's unclear when he'll get an answer.
* * *
It Can Take a While
Hoffman Estates, Ill., February 14 -- Sears buyer Marty Burks confides he wants to give more business to a select few vendors like Koss. Burks had the numbers on the headphone market laid out -- the market size, the best-selling price points, where Sears fits in. Koss is impressed. "He's got the market data down better than anyone else."
