packer to handle, so Rodrigues decided to take over production to help
maintain quality control. To do that,
he had to hire someone to take other
responsibilities off his plate, so he
brought in a seasoned sales consultant. Things seemed to be going great.
The consultant said he had placed the
product line in a long list of retail
stores, including setting up new accounts at 27 Whole Foods locations.
Then Rodrigues started noticing
sales dropping. If they were getting
into all these stores, how could sales
be going down, he wondered. So he
called his sales guru to find out what
was going on. After getting no clear
answer, Rodrigues had his assistant
start calling stores. One by one, they
found out that most of the stores they
were told the product was being sold
in had never even been approached
about it. Out of the 27 Whole Foods
stores, there were only five that were actually carrying the Mary’s Gone Crack-
ers line. Rodrigues continued contacting all the stores that were supposedly
selling their product and found that a shocking total of 800 stores had never
even taken on the brand. In addition, when Rodrigues looked more closely he
found that everything from $500 dinners to $30 pens had been expensed to
the company on top of the consultant’s monthly salary. So they fired him—and
he filed a lawsuit against the company for $58,000 in lost pay. All of this was a
huge financial hit to the fledgling, start-up company.
OREGON
TILTH
®
