Follow the Gum

William Wrigley moved to Chicago in 1981 with high ambitions to sell soap door to door.

To sweeten the deal, he offered a little incentive: a free can of baking powder with every purchase. But then something strange happened. People seemed more interested in the baking powder than the soap itself.

So he pivoted. He made baking powder his main product—and this time, he used chewing gum as the new freebie.

And guess what? People liked the gum even more than the baking powder.

That was his lightbulb moment. Wrigley realized that what people actually wanted—what they were willing to pay attention to—was the gum. So he pivoted again, this time for good.

He went all in on chewing gum. And that pivot—based on listening to the market—turned into one of the most iconic brands in American history.

Now, what’s the takeaway here?

If you want strong business volume in these crazy, constantly evolving times, you need to know where the strongest opportunities are.

Maybe your company’s doing just fine right now—maybe you’ve built a solid reputation, and your phone rings often enough to keep the lights on. But you wonder if you could get a plan together would you be able to grow beyond that?

Maybe you're still the face of everything—every sale, every problem, chasing leads.

Or maybe you’ve hit a weird lull—work isn’t as steady as it used to be, and you need to shake things up and get something new going.

People still need projects to be done or materials to be delivered. There is business out there, even if the latest headlines aren’t reflecting it. 

What if the ultimate business development tactic is having the courage to deprioritize what you have traditionally been known for and seize the emerging trends that could make you 100 times more successful if you made a plan to go for it?

If you want a strong business, you need a strong market.

The soap market? Meh. The chewing gum market? On fire.

You probably won’t be pivoting to gum any time soon—but if you're in business, especially in the building industry, you've already found a market that works. The key now is to keep finding the strongest parts of that market—and double down.

Because within every building business—whether you're a contractor, a manufacturer, a supplier, or a specialist—there are clients, regions, and types of work that are way more profitable than others.

Markets are constantly shifting. New tech. New regulations. Changing customer expectations. These all open the door to innovation.

The big question is: Are you paying attention to what your market is actually telling you?

One of the best business development questions you can ask is:

Where do you consistently make the most money?

What type of project has the fewest change orders, the happiest clients, and the best margins?

What have customers asked you for in the past that you’ve said no to—because it wasn’t in your wheelhouse?

What if that thing—that annoying request or oddball idea—was actually your chewing gum?

We worked with one builder who specialized in luxury custom homes. Their brand was all about craftsmanship and over the top quality home solutions. But when they looked at the numbers, they found that their most profitable work was actually in ADUs. 

Smaller projects, faster timeline, tighter scope. And when the state changed the law to allow additional dwelling units on urban properties to increase low income housing opportunities, it opened the floodgates of demand.

So what’d they do? They spun up a sister brand that focused only on premium ADUs, set up a marketing campaign focusing solely on them —and guess what? It took off.

Same quality. Same team. But with a streamlined product and clearer message. And now they’ve got two thriving business units feeding off each other.

One of the biggest challenges we see—especially in family-owned or legacy building companies—is the tendency to stay rooted in the past. Your company has a proud history. You’ve been doing this for 20, 30, even 50 years.

Your reputation alone based on successful projects in the past (sometimes the distant past) isn’t enough to carry you into the future.

Marketing is not just about pretty logos or updated websites. It’s about evolving your message, your offering, and your delivery to match what your most valuable clients actually need right now.

Your prospects don’t care that you’ve been around forever if your offering doesn’t solve their problem today.

When your marketing aligns with real market demand, your sales process gets easier. 

The next time you have a spare hour to sit down with a cup of coffee, jot down the answers to these questions:

• What have people asked us for that we’ve ignored?
• What’s working better than we thought?
• What market trend are we resisting that we should probably explore?

You might just find your version of chewing gum.

The smartest way to grow in uncertain times isn’t to double down on what you’ve always done—but to recognize when the market is shifting, let go of legacy habits, and reposition your business around emerging trends with greater potential. Because sometimes, the best biz dev tactic is the courage to refocus.

Keep building great things, keep faith in yourself in these uneasy times, and don’t be afraid to follow the gum.

Written by Rusty George, with no help from Artificial Intelligence. Well, maybe he ran a few sentences through the rinse cycle to check grammar from time to time, but he's only human.

Rusty George leads a branding, website design and marketing agency serving Seattle and Tacoma area construction companies, subcontractors, manufacturers, material fabricators and suppliers. His goal is to help the building industry become more attractive to the skilled workforce of the future. Reach out to us at any time to discuss how your values might benefit your messaging and marketing tactics, and how we can help you stand out from the crowd.