Read and translate the text. Get ready to summarise it. Further come several passages each of which is a story of a founder of a brand

Unit 4

Vocabulary notes

Further come several passages each of which is a story of a founder of a brand. Try to guess who the famous person is.

Unit 3

1. He became a millionaire at an early age. He launched one grocery shop after another in Scotland and always put the money from each successful venture into the development of his business. When he reached 40 he had enough money to buy several tea plantations in Ceylon. Soon he entered the market of the USA and attracted American and English customers with his convenient half-pound and quarter-pound boxes.

2. He came to New York from Bavaria in 1847 at the age of seventeen. In 1850 he travelled to San Francisco where he opened a retail business. He sold canvas for tents and wagon covers, but soon found that there was a huge demand from the miners for a sturdy pair of pants. He made a few pairs out of canvas and later switched to a tough cotton fabric called Serge de Nimes, later just denims. As an experiment he dyed a few pairs indigo blue and borrowed the idea of a tailor in Nevada to add copper rivets. At a price of 3$ a pair the pants with rivets rapidly became the uniform not only of miners but of cowboys, workers, farmers and oil drillers.

3. The start of his career was modest. He made caramels in the back room of a house in Lancaster and sold them from a pushcart. His father directed him:” If you want to make money, you have to do things in a big way.”In 1884 he met an Englishman, named Deices, who was enthusiastic about his homemade caramels and offered to introduce them in England. He took a loan of 700$ and started to manufacture caramels for England. In 1894 he sold caramels to all parts of the world. Soon he bought chocolate-making machinery, hired two expert chocolate makers and began to produce chocolate. The future, his future, lay in chocolate.

canvas - холст

pushcart - телега

rivet - заклёпка

sturdy - прочный

Williams and Sons is a medium-sized British company which manufactures door hinges for the motor industry. The home market share of Williams and Sons is static but overseas trade has always been an attractive option. The company has a showroom and also has always promoted its products at trade fairs, exhibitions and seminars in the UK. They have had some contacts with overseas buyers and other foreign visitors.

Step by step they have decided through reading, talking and listening to other people that there are export possibilities for the company’s product. Several years ago the company decided to study the possibility of selling their product to the US market. First they closely examined several things: their product, human resources, and the prospects of gaining profit.

Then they did more detailed research. The owner of the company attended an international trade exhibition in the US. There he found out the offers of the competitors and met some potential customers. Finally, market research showed that sales opportunities were excellent. The Board of the directors was pleased with the results and decided to get down to business immediately. They made contacts by letter and telephone with possible agents when a crucial problem stopped the work. Their safety and quality tests, quite good for UK and European regulations, were not acceptable in the USA.

Their task was to rewrite test specifications, upgrade their test equipment and retrain personnel.

After long and detailed consultations the Board made the decision to go ahead with the project. Their bank managed to provide additional finance.

The results over the last five years have proven that the Board’s decision was correct. Orders from the USA have increased and the company is now considering the possibility of setting up its own manufacturing plant there. The company is also looking forward to other overseas markets.

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