Chris Herrington made his first sales pitch in 1986 to Giorgio on Rodeo Drive, without a business card.
About all he had was a post office box in Beverly Hills, and a night job at a restaurant.
“If they knew I was a server at Cheesecake Factory, things wouldn’t have gone down well with them,” Herrington said.
He brought along a sample of his fledgling business: a custom white teddy bear wearing a yellow Giorgio T-shirt. The colors were based on Giorgio’s yellow and white striped storefront awnings.
Months later, Giorgio’s perfume counter ordered 36 bears for a Mother’s Day gift basket promotion.
This year, Irvine-based Herrington Teddy Bear Co. is set to sell 500,000 to 1 million teddy bears, according to Herrington.
“Chris was willing to take risks,” said Debra Valencia, a design consultant to Herrington Teddy Bear. “Instead of waiting for customers, he decided to go to them.”
Giorgio Beverly Hills’ owner Fred Hayman liked the teddy bears so much he used 140,000 of them for the company’s nationwide Christmas promotion.
Herrington Teddy Bear has yearly sales of about $5 million and employs about 15 people.
The company received the small company honor at the annual Family Owned Business luncheon put on by the Business Journal and California State University, Fullerton’s Family Business Council. The event was held Nov. 17 at the Hyatt Regency Irvine.
Herrington Teddy Bear, run by Herrington and brother Martin Herrington, is looking to add other stuffed toys as well as mugs, books, games, clothing and accessories.
Chris Herrington, who is founder and president, said his bear idea started at Cheesecake Factory when a woman he had a crush on asked him to make a small T-shirt for her bear.
He bought an infant shirt, persuaded his printer to shrink the Cheesecake Factory logo and stick it on the shirt.
Soon patrons were asking if the teddy bear sitting on the counter was for sale.
In the early days, Chris Herrington operated out of his 300-foot cottage in Venice Beach.
The brothers recently paid $3 million for a 10,000-square-foot Irvine Spectrum building after 11 years in a 5,000-square-foot leased Costa Mesa warehouse.
The Herringtons said they are looking for extra space in Irvine.
The brothers are diligent about the business side, said Greg Kling of Kling, Lee & Pathak CPAs, the company’s accountant since 1985. They scour finance statements, Kling said.
They “set themselves apart from other businesses,it allowed them to see where there were problems with the company, and what they were doing right,” Kling said.
Chris Herrington, a natural salesman, cajoled Giorgio early on into giving him a letter of credit from its bank to fulfill the boutique’s order. Giorgio remains a big customer.
Herrington Teddy Bear also makes bears for Hard Rock Cafe International Inc., DaimlerChrysler AG’s Mercedes-Benz, Cheesecake Factory Inc. and about 300 colleges across the country.
Early on, Chris Herrington said he was so busy developing the company, “It was difficult to take time out and sit down with accounts and create a good business plan for sales, marketing,it affected our growth potential. We could have grown faster.”
He brought in Martin Herrington to handle administration and operations.
“In the mid 1990s, we started writing down a business plan and a yearly budget,” said Martin Herrington, the company’s chief financial officer. “It helped us focus more, although a customer can place a big order and change direction slightly.”
In the early days, the Herringtons lived in the warehouse where they worked. Eventually, they moved from the rough side of Venice to Costa Mesa.
The brothers said they are open to taking the company public. But for now they have no plans to do so, they said.
“You’re always hearing stories about answering to Wall Street. I don’t know if I want to be stuck like that,” Martin Herrington said. “But if it’s the right fit ”
The company is big in Japan with 10% of sales coming from there. Its Web site has a section in Japanese for its fans there.
“The teddy bear is such an American icon, a part of Americana, and our brand awareness is very good” in Japan, Chris Herrington said.
The Herringtons market their teddy bears as collectibles with certificates of authenticity. The bears are made in Shenzhen, China.
“I am not a big teddy bear guy but my son liked it,” said Matt West of CommerceWest Bank, which works with the company. “And they wouldn’t be where they are if their product wasn’t good quality.”
