We recently connected with Michelle Lundqvist and Karen Petersen and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Michelle Lundqvist and thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One deeply underappreciated facet of entrepreneurship is the kind of crazy stuff we have to deal with as business owners. Sometimes it’s crazy positive sometimes it’s crazy negative, but crazy experiences unite entrepreneurs regardless of industry. Can you share a crazy story with our readers?

When we first started our business, we knew we needed to get into distribution to grow our business. We set our sights on Harold Import Company, a family owned housewares distribution company located in New Jersey. We went through all the regular channels to become a vendor and we were turned down. So we decided to jump on a plane and fly to New York City. We called them and said that we were “in the neighborhood” and could we just pop in to discuss why we had been turned down. We were ecstatic when they said YES. That next morning we hailed a yellow cab in NYC and had him drive us one hour to the distribution headquarters for our 8 am meeting. It was a snowy cold and windy day and coming from California this was quite a crazy adventure.
The yellow cab waited for us and after our hour meeting, he drove us back to NYC.
Once they found out how gutsy we were to take a yellow cab from NYC in the snow to try to get our Skoy products into their distribution company, they gave us a chance and to this day (12 years later) they are still selling our product line and telling this fun story.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

We started our business 14 years ago with one product, the Skoy Cloth. No one knew what a Swedish Dishcloth was! We spent many years educating people on what this cloth was and why it was so great. We were a little bit ahead of our time as this is a reusable, 100% biodegradable and compostable cloth. The USA was just starting to believe that the environment was important and the impact of waste in our landfills mattered. Our education efforts must have paid off because today there are hundreds of copycat products on the market. People have told us that when someone copies your work, it is the highest form of flattery…. at least it is good for the environment :)!
Today we have a product line and each product has a positive effect on the planet and our tag line is “Kitchen Cleaning made simple with the environment in mind”.
Find out more information about our Skoy Products at Skoycloth.com

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

We once had a buyer at a big grocery chain on the east coast where we had a fun rhetoric back and forth, but he would never take our product. We tried for years and sent him many samples. We hadn’t communicated for over a year and sent him the below email.

“My puppy was bitten by a rattlesnake yesterday and it got me thinking of you!
How is business? Would you like to take another look at Skoy? I am attaching info for you!
For nothing else… it is not for lack of trying”

He thought it was hilarious and asked us to send him samples… again! Which we did! However this time we included a little yellow envelope that had the words “rattle snake eggs – do not open” with the samples. This is a little joke item that we purchased and you wind up the little washer with rubber band which is inside the envelope. When he received the samples and this envelope (which he opened in front of 3 other coworkers) they got the fright of their lives. The sound of the rubber band unwinding in the envelope… sounds like a rattle snake. This sales/marketing tactic was fun personal and worked! He took our products in!!

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

We feel that we have a good reputation because we care about our customers and we will always go the extra mile to make sure our customer is happy. We have quality products that we believe in wholeheartedly and that passion shows.

Contact Info:

• Website: skoycloth.com
• Instagram: @skoyproducts
• Facebook: facebook.com/skoycloth
• Linkedin: Skoy Enterprises, LLC
• Twitter: @skoycloth
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/SkoyCloths

Image Credits
John Reidy