On-location @ L.L. Bean

There are moments in our work life where all the dots are connected and we stop and say YES, THIS IS IT. Most of the time I keep these moments to myself. But our recent shoot with L.L. Bean in Freeport, Maine was one of those experiences.

My company has been commissioned to produce a series that features innovative companies and L.L. Bean (one of our staff's favorites) was high on the list. We pursued them years ago to no success but this year they wholeheartedly agreed to collaborate with us. I'm not in the position to reveal all what we learned about the inner workings of L.L. Bean, the icon company, that will be showcased in our series. But we did learn some fascinating facts about L.L. Bean, the man, the entrepreneur, the visionary, the enterprise.


b-roll clip of the "Bean Boot" tester machine at L.L. Bean's product testing labs in Freeport, Maine (June 2010)

L.L. (Leon Leonwood) Bean begin his company in 1912. And he started by making a hunter boot for himself because he was unsatisfied with boots available and tired of having cold, wet feet during his trips in the New England woods. After collaborating with a local shoe cobbler he mass produced 100 pairs of his new boot and mailed them out to hunters who ordered the boot via a 3 page catalog.

Each order was shipped with with a customer satisfaction guarantee. Consequently 90 pairs were returned and L.L. (true to his word) refunded the money and took the customer feedback and redesigned a new boot, which became known as the "Bean Boot." This boot is still a part of the L.L. Bean product line today, nearly a hundred years later.

L.L. didn't give up, he persevered. Now this privately held international company earns over $1.78 billion in revenue annually (according to 2006 statistics via wikipedia). A man I'd like to have met.