The Players
Robbin Quick, company owner, and Quick’s mother, Catherine Erps, production manager. The two got help from the New River Valley Small Business Development Center and the Giles business incubator.

The Problem
Quick and Erps had to expand their product line. Mother and daughter started the business selling custom draperies plus a novelty item that Erps designed — flannel and fleece-lined coats for pets. But two products weren’t enough to keep the tiny business afloat — or get the attention of wholesalers.

The Background
The dog coats, priced at $18 to $26, sold well enough — especially the orange and maroon ones with the Virginia Tech logo. But the coats were a seasonal product, and they weren’t enough to keep Erps and the company’s one employee busy.

So Quick and Erps started producing pet beds and travel bags to carry pet supplies, and they began making gift items such as wine-bottle covers and clutch purses. But Quick’s attempts to convince local retailers to make wholesale purchases failed miserably. Merchants weren’t interested in doing business with a company that made so few products, she says. They kept asking her for a copy of her product catalog. She didn’t have one. Plus, her products weren’t packaged and ready to go on the shelf. "There’s a gap between having a product made and having it retail ready," she says.

The Solution
Quick continued to add new products. The newest is a diaper bag she and her mother designed that looks like a backpack and unfolds into a changing pad. It can carry all the needed supplies — diapers, toys and a change of clothes — and is designed to fit the changing tables found in stores, airports and other public places.

Quick came up with the idea last spring after watching a mother struggle to change her baby’s diaper while in an airport lobby. She’s been working since October with an Alexandria company, Momease, to find wholesale buyers. The 110-store Babies "R" Us chain, part of the New Jersey-based Toys "R" Us, is interested.

The mother-daughter team is also trying to find better outlets for their other products. Quick wants Virginia Tech’s bookstore to sell the pet accessories. She’s working with a buyer for several gift shops in South Carolina to place items there.

Plus, she is assembling a product catalog by joining with a handful of other small businesses in Southwest Virginia. The others are companies like hers that make just a few products — such as candles, handmade dolls, baskets and baby gifts. Combining their products will help get more attention from the buyers who decide what makes it to a retail store shelf.

"When you go to the buyers and the trade shows, you really need to offer a variety of products," Quick says. "They’re not just going to buy that one product from you. We didn’t realize that."

Quick says she got help from Jonathan Simmons, a consultant with the New River Valley Small Business Development Center. It was Simmons who got Quick and the Alexandria business together to work on the diaper bag idea. Anita Hines, director of the Giles business incubator, steered her to advisors who taught her how to package her products for retail sale, she says.

If the company grows, it will be good news for a few workers from the region’s dying textile industry, Quick adds. "If I can get the sales coming in and get some of these home sewers work, we’ll be doing well."

If you have a case study in small-business problem solving, e-mail llarance@va-business.com.