Shelf life

"Shelf Life is the unforgettable story of A.J. Scribante, the founder of MAJERS, a revolutionary company whose cutting-edge information and marketing systems helped manufacturers and grocers move their products through American supermarket shelves. Before being sold to the A.C. Nielsen division of Dun and Bradstreet Corporation for $65 million in December 1986, MAJERS had six hundred employees, seven offices, and three hundred-fifty clients. But A.J. Scribante's success story had very humble roots. Growing up in a succession of small Midwestern towns, he served in the navy, graduated from Kansas State University, and moved to Omaha, Nebraska, where as a young chemical salesman for Union Carbide he was soon distracted by a need for a life's mission, manifested by a desire to fill shelves." "He began with a process for freezing ice cream with liquid nitrogen (one of the chemicals he was selling). But his first entrepreneurial enterprise only got him fired. So he struck out on his own, selling almost everything that crossed his path before finding what he was certain would be his gold mine: bleach. Seeking to discover how to best market his Brite*Eyes bleach in various markets, Scribante began clipping grocery store ads from newspapers around the Midwest, and, in a flash of entrepreneurial inspiration - which practically everyone around him took as a crazy idea - began compiling the ads in a booklet to show fellow suppliers, grocers, and manufacturers the price differences for products in far-flung markets. The booklet of ads evolved into MAJERS, a full-service computerized marketing information company whose clients included Pepsi, Coca-Cola, General Foods, and Pillsbury. His amazing story is enlightening, instructive, inspirational, and a very fun read."--Jacket.