Inside the Box

Inside the Box

entrepreneurs by Mark Gordon | Managing Editor

A Sarasota entrepreneur is hoping to turn cardboard into a multimillion-dollar enterprise.

It's just a box.

It's about 15 inches high, 15 inches wide and 10 inches deep. Sure, it's built with sturdy cardboard and some sliding handles and, in the hands of an imaginative inventor, it can be used for storage and shipping.

Still, looking at five of the boxes piled on top of each other, pyramid style, the clearest vision remains that of a box.

But the box's creator, Sarasota entrepreneur Bill Hadley - already a millionaire from, among other successes, developing a spray to take urine out of materials such as rugs and floors - envisions a lot more.

Mostly, Hadley sees sales. Lots of sales.

Hadley calls the box a ShowCart. And now he's taking his ShowCart on the road, targeting the millions of sales and marketing professionals who go to the thousands of trade shows held in hundreds of cities worldwide. "It's kind of an obvious idea," says Hadley, "but a good one."

The ShowCart's selling points are as simple as the box itself: First, they are plastered, NASCAR style, with a company logo and other promotional information, essentially becoming a walking billboard.

A user can then use the box as he travels around a trade show, filling it up with Frisbees, Post-it notes and other assorted goodies and giveaways. "There's only so much you can put in a plastic bag," says Sheri Hirschberg, who Hadley recently hired to run ShowCart's sales.

The box, which can be slid along the floor just like a rolling suitcase, can then serve as a shipping unit, becoming luggage for a plane trip home or even a UPS box. It's made with EZ-Roll wheels and an ergonomic handle.

Hadley is targeting businesses with a presence at trade shows, charging about $3,500 for 300 boxes, with a cost per-cart of $9.70 when buying 1,000 units. The cost varies due to the printing plates used for designs.

"Of all the things I've done, this is probably the neatest," says Hadley, a 2004 nominee for the Review's Technology Innovation Awards for Urine-Off, the above-mentioned urine clean-up solution. "It's the perfect trade show tool."

'A cacophony of color'

So perfect, Hadley says, he'd be surprised if the ShowCart isn't showing $4 million to $5 million in annual sales within a few years. It's being marketed and sold through Hadley's Omni Group LLC, one of several companies he owns. "This market," says Hadley, 59, "is way bigger than anything I thought about."

Hadley wasn't seeking the perfect trade show tool earlier this year when he attended a show in Orlando to promote Urine-Off. He was simply looking to solve the issue he'd long had with trade shows: Finding a way to both store all the stuff and chatzkies he picked up, as well as discovering a way to separate his giveaways from the others.

The latter point was especially pertinent, as Hadley had seen, and quickly forgotten hundreds, if not thousands of products and companies over his trade-show attending career. Nothing had staying power.

"Trade shows are a cacophony of color and noise," says Hadley. "It's almost an overload of the senses."

So Hadley came up with the ShowCart, and he had a few dozen made for the Orlando trade show. And just about every time he handed one out, he got a positive response. So he started thinking bigger.

In May, Hadley had several hundred ShowCarts made up, using the North Carolina plant where Urine-Off and related products are made. In July, Hadley and a staff of three employees took the carts to the TS 2 trade show in Washington D.C. The TS 2 is a prominent trade show for people who go to trade shows.

The ShowCart stole the show.

Hadley says people loved the products so much, they stopped to congratulate him throughout the weekend. And when Hadley and his employees entered the hotel ballroom for the trade show's closing party, they got a standing ovation.

"We were so busy," says Hadley, "we didn't stop to eat, drink or go to the bathroom that first day."

Waterbeds and grease-eating bacteria

Bill Hadley has worked for two people his whole life: His father and the U.S. Navy.

The gig for his dad, while growing up, involved stocking shelves for the family grocery store in rural southeast Michigan. The gig for the Navy, where he was stationed in Jacksonville, was just a temporary stop on the way to bigger things, namely an entrepreneurial career that included owning a waterbed company, a real estate and construction firm and an international franchise operation selling grease-eating bacteria for restaurants.

"Business to me is a way of life," says Hadley, 59. "I enjoy the hell out of it."

Hadley first scratched his business itch when he was in the Navy in the mid-1960s. Saying there wasn't enough to do to keep him busy, Hadley started a plastics company on the side. It was the first time he combined his physics knowledge with his inventive side.

The waterbed company, Waterbed World, followed. Hadley grew that business to 60 employees and several million dollars in annual revenues before selling it in the late 1970s.

Hadley moved to Venice soon after, although he wasn't even close to being retirement-ready. He ran a Century 21 real estate firm and a construction company for about 12 years, selling both in 1988.

And then, in 1991, Hadley turned to grease. He founded Environmental Biotech, a Sarasota-based company that created a grease-eating bacteria to unclog restaurant drains. He grew the business into an international franchise operation with over 100 locations worldwide, including several in England and Japan.

In 2003, when Environmental Biotech sales passed $5 million, Hadley formally introduced Urine-Off. The product was, and still is, a hit. It has been sold on the Home Shopping Network and Hadley recently signed agreements to sell the product in several British airports. In late 2004, demand had gotten so big that Hadley opened a 160,000-square-foot factory in Hickory N.C.

Hadley sold his share of Environmental Biotech earlier this year to a Great Britain-based franchisee. The new owner plans to maintain dual headquarters for the company in England and Sarasota.

Hadley didn't sell his share in Urine-Off or its parent company, Bio-Pro Research. It was in promoting Urine-Off at an Orlando trade show earlier this year where Hadley came up with his latest invention: The ShowCart, a marketing tool for trade show attendees.

Hadley, ever the businessman, doesn't even rule out more after ShowCart.

"I enjoy the chase," Hadley says. "I don't know that I'll ever quit."

Executive Tip

In 40 years of starting, growing and selling businesses, Bill Hadley has seen and been part of dozens of expensive mistakes. And while he recognizes that errors - say, on shipment processing, auditing or deliveries - will happen, he thinks not enough business leaders do enough on the preventive side.

Senior executives and entrepreneurs should be proactive and specific in explaining to employees the ramifications of a potential mistake, Hadley says. That includes what the actual dollar cost will be, as well as the long-term customer service and reputation issues.

"You never recover from lost money or lost time," Hadley says. "Mistakes mean much more then an 'I'm sorry.'"

REVIEW SUMMARY

Industry. Sales/Marketing

Who. Bill Hadley

Key. An entrepreneur with at least three distinct business lives, Hadley's latest product is a marketing tool for trade shows attendees.