Successful entrepreneurs are great salesmen, but great salesmen aren’t always successful entrepreneurs. Great entrepreneurs possess certain traits: a willingness to work hard, vision, persuasiveness, a good business acumen and the ability to inspire and motivate.
William Wrigley, Jr. of Wrigley’s chewing gum fame was an entrepreneur’s entrepreneur. His pet slogan was simple: “To be always pleasant, always patient, always on time, and never to argue.”
Time Magazine in 1932 wrote that William Wrigley, Jr. was an American legend and “the perfect example of the Poor Boy who made good.” Pretty heady stuff for a boy who ran away at age 11, got expelled from school several times, and who began working full-time at age 13 in his father’s soap manufacturing business for $1.50 a week.
A 1915 photograph of William Wrigley Jr., millionaire and gum magnate. (Public Domain)
Batter Up
Wrigley Jr. was born in Philadelphia in 1861 and raised by an aunt and uncle after his father enlisted with the Union army in the Civil War. Following the war, Wrigley Sr. created a soap manufacturing business. It didn’t take his son long to decide he would prefer sales to stirring boiling liquid soap.
After pressing his father for an opportunity to be a salesman, Wrigley Jr. earned his initial sale following a persistent two-hour presentation. That first sale yielded $1.80 but was worth much more to young Wrigley. He learned that all prospects say “no” at first, but what counts is “what they say last.”
The future millionaire who later made his fortune five cents at a time was a gifted salesman who was pleasant, patient and had a knack for building personal relationships and accommodating his customers’ needs.
Wrigley Jr. quickly learned the value of offering customers incentives. When selling his father’s soap, he offered customers a free can of baking powder for each box of soap they purchased. The senior Wrigley appreciated the increase in soap sales but felt the soap was good enough to sell on its own without offering sales inducements. Wrigley Jr. disagreed and continued offering customers “premiums” when buying his father’s soap.
The Wm Wrigley, Jr. Company, Chicago
While working as his father’s soap distributor in Chicago, Wrigley Jr. was soon selling more baking powder than soap. He decided to create his own company, the Wm Wrigley, Jr. Company. Baking powder became his new base product and two packages of Zeno chewing gum were his incentive for every can of baking powder sold.
Chewing gum sticks were just becoming popular in the early 1890s, and once again Wrigley learned that the product he was giving away proved more popular than his primary product. Never one to miss an entrepreneurial opportunity, Wrigley partnered with Zeno Gum to offer his own brands of gum, Lotta and Vassar. Juicy Fruit and Spearmint followed soon after.
A short 2008 biography titled, “William Wrigley, Jr: The Great American Legend” notes that a fifth flavor named Choco combining chocolate and corn was also briefly considered. Fortunately, that flavor died a quick death. Following the introduction of his Juicy Fruit and Spearmint flavors, Wrigley chose to focus his entrepreneurial energies on branding and selling chewing gum exclusively.
Wrigley’s business motto was simple: “Tell ‘em quick and tell ‘em often.” Known today as the father of modern advertising, Wrigley frequently piled company profits into print ads, posters and marketing gimmicks, spending more than $100 million in advertising during his career.
The Chicago entrepreneur believed that brand recognition builds consumer demand. His strategy didn’t work overnight, but his perseverance and shrewdness eventually paid off after a $284,000 marketing investment during an economically depressed 1907 bought him $1.5 million in advertising.
Within one year his Spearmint gum sales soared to $1 million in 1908, though the flavor had been around since 1893. By 1910, Wrigley’s Spearmint gum was America’s top selling chewing gum. In 1911, Wrigley bought Zeno Gum and began manufacturing his own products. Wrigley’s Doublemint gum was introduced in 1914.
Wrigley also employed unique marketing gimmicks to increase the name recognition of his gum flavors. One stunt was buying one mile worth of ad space on 117 billboards between Atlantic City and Trenton, New Jersey. Another one was mailing sticks of gum to anyone listed in a U.S. 1915 telephone directory in what is believed to be America’s first-ever direct marketing campaign.
The Chicago marketing whiz has also been credited with the savvy idea of placing gum displays at checkout counters as customers wait in line to pay for other purchases, a practice still in use today.
A typical advertisement for Wrigley's gum had bright colors, recognizable packaging, and a catchy slogan. Advertisements were kept up to date. This one refers to Independence Day 1920. (Public Domain)
An International Sensation
Wrigley’s company began expanding globally. First came Canada (1910), followed by the opening of factories in Australia (1915), Great Britain (1927) and New Zealand (1939).
His international expansion relied heavily on advertising, just as it had domestically. Ads appeared in 30 separate languages. International customers had different tastes than Americans so Wrigley introduced different flavors in those markets.
The Wrigley brand followed two main principles when expanding their worldwide reach: “Even in a little thing like a stick of gum, quality is important,” Wrigley often reminded his employees. The second motto: “We are a five-cent business, and nobody in this company can ever afford to forget it.”
To the Victor Go the Spoils
The name Wrigley may be synonymous with chewing gum, but it means more than that in Chicago and California. In January 1916, Wrigley joined with two friends to purchase the Chicago Cubs, buying a 10 percent share for $50,000. He spent many afternoons at Cubs stadium, joking with friends and handing out cigars to Cubs players.
Fans and spectators have made decades of memories at Wrigley Field. (Ryan Dickey/CC BY-SA 2.0)
In 1921 he bought controlling interest in the team and five years later the stadium was renamed Wrigley Field in honor of its popular owner, who invested more than $5 million in the franchise. During that time, Wrigley supervised the installation of permanent bench seating, expanded box seats and built an upper deck into the stadium. Those improvements earned Wrigley Field the nickname, “The Friendly Confines.”
After purchasing space at the corner of Michigan Avenue on the Chicago river, in 1918, Wrigley began building the 30-story Wrigley Building—one of Chicago’s most famous landmarks. By its completion in 1921, it was fully leased and Wrigley immediately began constructing another building beside it. He connected the two in 1924. Today that stretch of downtown Chicago is known as The Magnificent Mile.
In 1919 the energetic chewing gum magnate bought controlling interest in California’s Catalina Island for three million dollars. Wrigley saw the raw potential of the island and supervised many improvements such as the addition of public utilities and a power plant, enlarging the steamboat fleet, and building a hotel and casino. His wife Ada oversaw the creation of a lush garden that encompassed 37 acres and exhibited exotic plants and birds from around the world.
In a typical stroke of Wrigley luck, the island also contained abundant sources of silver, copper, and zinc, which helped create jobs for local residents and supplied materials for numerous building projects on the island. Thanks to his efforts, Catalina Island remains a popular tourist resort today.
Wrigley Legacy
William Wrigley, Jr passed away Jan. 26, 1932 at his winter home in Phoenix as one of America’s most successful and popular entrepreneurs. His estate at his passing was estimated at over $20 million, or over $450 million in today’s dollars. He owned five homes, and his Pasadena mansion is the headquarters of the annual Tournament of Roses parade.
The publication “Famous Leaders of Industry described Wrigley this way: “His moral and physical courage, his steady perseverance, and unfailing good humor and optimism, his love of hard work and good-fashioned American grit and gumption, his faith in his fellow man—all these qualities are strong in William Wrigley, Jr. Because of them he succeeded, where countless failed.”
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Dean George is a freelance writer based in Indiana and he and his wife have two sons, three grandchildren, and one bodacious American Eskimo puppy. Dean's personal blog is DeanRiffs.com and he may be reached at [email protected]
