Business was a bit better one day, a bit worse the next day, then better again on the following day. But it wasn't really good and Charlie was concerned. He needed more orders.

An obvious approach might be to lower prices. But unless that brought in a large chunk of new orders, lower prices simply cut into profits and Charlie needed more profits.

To increase order flow, Charlie could develop new products with improved performance. The cost of materials for new products would probably be low because component prices in general were low. But developing new products required more engineering and Charlie didn't want to spend money for more engineering. Besides, developing new products and getting them into production, then into the market, took time. And Charlie was in a hurry.

He began to study consumer products, which, as far as he could tell, were doing rather well. The supermarkets appeared to be full of people spending money and shopping mall parking lots seemed to be full all the time. It sometimes required several drive-arounds before one could find a suitable parking space.

What's the key? he wondered. And then it came to him: slogans. Consumer product vendors had slogans. The supermarkets used slogans. Even different sections in a supermarket boasted slogans. "We know our meat," boasted the butcher shop-as if the folks there didn't want you to bring them carpentry problems. "Fred knows produce," exclaimed a banner over the fruits and vegetables. And the hardware section gushed, "We offer solutions."

"Solutions"! Now there was an idea. But then Charlie noticed that all his competitors offered solutions. You couldn't pick up a copy of EE Times without noticing that everybody offered solutions. You could hardly find a capacitor or an IC or a power supply, these days-only component solutions or power solutions or test solutions. The industry was awash in solutions.

And then he saw it. Sales. The supermarkets were always offering sales. Every week, supermarket circulars shouted their sales. That's what Charlie would do; he would offer product sales.

There was one product Charlie noticed that was particularly inspiring. Every week, it appeared in a different sale. Sometimes it was heralded as part of "our biggest sale of the year." One week it was offered at $2 for 2 pounds. The next week, Charlie noted, you could get 32 ounces for $2, and the following week featured the product at $1 a pound, then, a week later, you could buy a full 16 ounces for a dollar.

That was the way to go. Charlie would feature sales.

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