Walk into your local grocery store and you will see a wide variety of products from all over the world. The question arises, how do these products make it in to big retail stores? With the millions of products out there, differentiation is key to getting the attention of major retailers and department stores. An article from Inc. discusses five different companies who have successfully made the difficult leap from small startup to successful business. Below you can find the story of Darlene Tenes who took advantage of every opportunity she was given and ultimately got her products on the shelves.

According to Inc.:

Six years ago, Darlene Tenes decided she'd like to decorate her Christmas tree with glass ornaments that had Latino flair. The problem was that she couldn't find any online or in the stores around her home in San Jose, Calif. On a lark, she designed a couple and, by using the website Alibaba, an online forum for offshore outsourcing, found a manufacturer in China who could make them for her. She soon recognized that there could be demand for her line of ornaments she called CasaQ, that included designs like Pancho Claus and a star piñata. So Tenes started reaching out to local retailers and museums, who began selling her ornaments, which cost upwards of $25.

Tenes' big break came two years ago when she attended a Latina business conference that was sponsored by Macy's. The keynote speaker at lunch was a Macy's executive and before the applause had ended, Tenes had high-tailed it over to the executive to give her a 15-second pitch about her ornaments, which she described as similar to ornaments made by Christopher Radko, a well-known product line Macy's already carried. Intrigued, the executive asked Tenes to send her samples – which she did as soon as she got home.

When Tenes followed up a week later, the Macy's exec told her she loved the ornaments. But it wasn't for another 10 months, in which Tenes made phone call after phone call to other execs in charge of purchasing, that she was finally invited to headquarters in New York City to make her final pitch. Arriving early, Tenes went shopping in the store and talked to a floor manager to get prepped for her meeting with the purchasing execs. The extra homework paid off, as Macy's agreed to place an order and carry CasaQ ornaments in 25 stores over the 2010 holiday season. "Getting into Macy's has added great visibility and credibility for my product line," says Tenes, who is already ramping up her orders for this year's holiday season.

 

Read other stories about successful entrepreneurs.