Page 32 - TOB Magazine March/April 2013

68
TOBACCO OUTLET BUSINESS
MARCH/APRIL 2013
H ow does a high school kid
go from selling custom-
printed hats to running a
novelty product distribution business
with offices in China, Canada and the
U.S? Todd Green, owner and CEO
of Greenfield, Indiana-based Novelty
Inc., makes that one-sentence back-
story sound merely like the natural
culmination of a series of logical steps.
First, you pitch the custom-
printed hats you’ve developed to area
convenience stores. Then you leverage
your father’s expertise in the direct
store delivery business (distributing
Dolly Madison baked goods to retail
outlets in the Midwest) to grow your
sales regionally. Next—and by now
you’re a 20-year-old college student—
you come up with a few new product
ideas and head to Korea to sort out the
manufacturing end. Simple, right?
When pressed, Green concedes
that his entrepreneurial journey
was not exactly typical teenage life.
“I remember people in Korea and
Taiwan at the time saying that I was
the youngest American they’d ever
seen,” he says. “I was young and not
very well-traveled when I took that
first trip so it was a little intimidating,
but my desire to build my business was
very strong.”
To Wal-Mart and Beyond
That early effort paid off. Today,
Novelty Inc. is a vertically integrated
supplier of novelty items that develops
approximately 1,000 new products
a year—many of which are tobacco
The Nuances ofNovelties
Novelty Inc.’s Todd Green shares his insights
on picking winners in the high-margin impulse
sale arena.
By Jennifer Gelfand