How Did One Letter Sign Up 5,000 Honda Dealers?

David Senra says there is no Honda without Takeo Fujisawa, the partner who stopped the company running out of money. Reading Sol Sanders, he says Soichiro Honda was happy that a thing of his own invention was useful and was not paying much attention to profits. He gave motorcycles on credit. Months later the buyer had disappeared or the shop had gone out of business. Honda was facing bankruptcy because many of the products sold were never paid for.

Fujisawa made the wholesale shops pay up front and built a distribution network from scratch. Fewer than 200 bicycle shops and other distributors carried the product. He wrote a letter to 18,000 bicycle shop owners. The letter said their fathers had once known little about the bicycle, had learned to ride, make, and repair it, and had made a living from that shop, and that Honda was launching a motor-driven bicycle and would help them sell it and repair it. Senra says the letter worked almost overnight. The replies set up a network of 5,000 dealers.