Small Business Stories - Freedom Grill

Ivy Hartman: The Freedom Grill has got people taking about here at the SEMA show 2007 and all over the country. [Video playing] Bob Cremer: When I first saw these guys a year ago I thought they're the craziest people on earth and them more we were around them all week last year, where I got to think, may be these guys, they have got something going and we got to take a look at. Scott Salter: I was loading up the grill to go to the game and my wife stopped me in my tracks, said, what are you doing? You not putting greasy, smelly grill on the back of our brand new truck. So I started thinking about a better way to get a grill to the game and came up with the way to use - the receiver hitch on the back of the vehicle and a swing arm and mount a grill on it. What we did was -- when we came up with the concept, we drew it up and the first thing we did was, went and found a real patent -- we didn't to try to file to patent ourselves, and we paid money for that, good money and got it filed and really within about a year-and-half of the patent issued and that was a surprise to all the people I know that it just rarely happens that quickly. So that was to me a massage, that we really have something, I can quit my full time job and go make this thing happen. Ivy Hartman: The official grill of tailgating is part of the sizzle here at SEMA show, but this small business is especially hot when it comes to marketing and branding. Scott Salter: We couldn't afford to be the official grill of the NFL, we couldn't afford to be the official grill of NASCAR but the common thread was tailgating so we trademarked the term the official grill of tailgating and we are. Ivy Hartman: And that's not all they put their mark on. Scott Salter: It was a small company, you have no advertising dollars so you got to find innovative ways to get you get your brand out into the marketplace. One thing we did is we came up with our own line of sauces for a couple of reasons to make this look obviously like we really know barbeque and two -- it allows us to get to our brand, a Freedom Grill brand in front of potential customers and places where they don't expect to see it, like butcher shops where they're going to get their meat for their tailgate parties, now I've got a line of sauces actually four different flavors with the Freedom Grill brand in grocery stores and butcher shops and different types of sauce retailers across the country and that's just another way to get your brand our without spending any money. Our customer buys a Freedom Grill, they put on the back of the vehicle, they drive down the road where thousands of people see it and then when they get to the game in the race, they're cooking in front of tens of thousands of other potential customers, so that viral aspect of my products, my customers are my best sales channel and they are the ones doing all the selling for me. Ivy Hartman: Scott is an expert of marketing and teaches marketing at the college level. His experience with secondary education, led into a resourceful way to save money on research and development for his small business. Scott Salter: So without any money what I did was that I put together a contest, and went around to a lot of design schools and talked to the professors and said how about real world experience just put a contest together with your students and see who comes up with the best design for this concept. Well, one of local art institutes in Southern California jumped at the opportunity, so instead of spending literally hundreds and thousand dollars on professional design, I spent about 2000 dollars and a couple of grills and got over 50 concepts, 40 of which were horrible but 10 were pretty good and one was just fantastic, so literally industrial design that you couldn't get on your own for 2000 dollars and a couple of grills. Ivy Hartman: And so another successful entrepreneur is born and a consumer's dream is fulfilled. Millie Van Steenberg: Oh I love it; I think it's practical. If you are a family that likes to go out and just have a good time on vacationing, it would be fantastic, on the other hand if you're just a couple heading out for the day, you throw in some drinks in the back and you got your kitchen right there with you so it's fantastic. Scott Salter: Our goal is to ensure that if a man dies on the road, it won't be from hunger. Ivy Hartman: Reporting from the 2007 SEMA show in Las Vegas, I'm Ivy Hartman on sbtv.com.