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Newsletter/Meeting-Announcement
| Date: | 3/28/98 |
| Speaker: | Chuck Taylor, VP of Product Development and Design for The Sharper Image |
| Topic: | How to Sell Your Inventions to The Sharper Image |
| Room: | 139 Bannan Hall |
The Sharper Image is known for its catalog of high-tech consumer gadgets, products with a quality feel, reflecting the tastes of its founder, Richard Thalheimer.
The Sharper Image clientele is "early adopters", so it has an insatiable appetite for new products for which it is willing to pay premium prices. The TSI staff may see over a thousand new products each month in their quest for the latest thing in a broad range of fields. They sell products in the categories of travel, health, fitness, security, recreation, entertainment, kitchen items, novelty gifts and apparel.
Chuck will explain how to prepare your presentations for The Sharper Image so that they will receive the best response possible in this highly competitive environment. (It would, of course, be counter- productive to present products to Chuck during this meeting, as such a presentation would not have benefited from his coaching.)
Chuck will share anecdotes about inventors who have profited by their association with The Sharper Image, as well as some of TSI's secrets of success. Can you guess how many millions of dollars a year it costs to send out the The Sharper Image Catalog? Would you guess that the catalog's primary purpose is to fuel sales through their retail outlets (which account for over 75% of sales)? He'll share the lessons learned from the failure of The Sharper Image SPA Catalog and the success of The Sharper Image Home Collection.
Chuck joined The Sharper Image in 1992 after having collaborated with them in developing their motorized tie rack, nylon luggage, sound soothers, and ultrasonic devices to banish dirt and pests. Chuck has a BS in physics with a minor in mechanical engineering and an MBA in marketing. Early in his career, he was a product designer and mechanical engineer at General Electric, working on products as diverse as major appliances and electric trains. Since then, he has worked for Honeywell and Vivitar, developing and marketing electronic flash units. Chuck was in charge of product development for TeleQuest, a manufacturer of designer residential phones and answering machines.
As a product development expert, Chuck Taylor knows how to make a widget work and how to make it sell!
