(FORTUNE Small Business) – Stand outside Bendel's at 56th Street and Fifth Avenue in New York City early in the morning on four red-letter days a year, and you'll see the hopeful--or the desperate. Hundreds of designers from around the world are decked out in their four-inch spikes and rhinestone belts, clutching precious creations packed into hatboxes and garment bags. A sacrificial ritual, maybe. But it's second nature to any business beginner hoping to be anointed as the Next Big Thing, whether that thing is a better mousetrap, chocolate mousse, or mohair stole, and whether it belongs in a hardware store, a supermarket, or a catalog. Even today's great brands started with grueling gruntwork. Makeup maven Bobbi Brown called on contacts from magazines; Paul Mitchell co-founder John Paul DeJoria went salon to salon; Hugh Hefner sent hundreds of letters pitching his magazine. (See "The Rest Is History," page 41.)

Like other big retailers, most department stores won't even make appointments with unknowns. But Henri Bendel, the exclusive Manhattan emporium, stages these "Open See" occasions every quarter to discover new talent. The fashion followers know the fairy tales--how such fabulousi as Todd Oldham and Anna Sui got their starts. "This is the opportunity of a lifetime," declares Lynne Shapiro-Goldman, who took the day off from her sales-clerking job at Bloomingdale's for a chance to peddle her crystal-beaded bracelets. (It was worth it; she made the cut.)

Although Bendel's opens its stately glass doors wide in welcome, few supplicants remain within. Of 500 designers who braved the most recent Open See, only 12 got the nod. Others fell prey to The Shark, as colleagues teasingly call buyer Allyson Cohen. Cohen, who views the future in five-minute segments, has seen it all: braille T-shirts, odoriferous recycled pants, and sarongs with underwire to support the derriere. She's polite but crisp, with lines like, "I don't think that fits our clientele." Translation (in a whisper to a reporter): "Did you not die when you saw that last one?" Cohen wants to make sure the rejects don't return.

Making it outside the fashion world is no easier. In fact, it has never been harder. Toy buyers see almost 10,000 entries a year; maybe 100 get a try. Supermarkets' purchasing agents saw about 20,000 new arrivals last year--10 times the number introduced in 1980--and picked approximately 2,000. It's "like getting through the Khyber Pass," says Stanford marketing professor Jim Lattin.

Navigating the passage is especially tricky for small businesses. Besides the number of competitors, rampant consolidation means that those competitors are bigger. And there are fewer outlets to target. Size counts. The more products on your roster, the more clout you have. When Bob Ramsay of Kenosha, Wis.-based Romance Foods brought his fresh pasta to Albertson's, he says he was told, "We only deal with the big guys.'' An Albertson's spokeswoman says this is inaccurate and adds, "We are thrilled to work with small businesses." But many small vendors tell similar stories about a variety of retailers. Deep pockets count too. Supermarkets charge fees per product, which increase with prime locations such as an aisle end; department stores charge for rack space. Warns Darien, Conn., consultant Liz Conover, "Pay the piper, or you'll never get a second order.'' Some ploys are legal; some, like those buyer-wooing fishing trips or BMW leases, may not be.

Then there are the obstacles that entrepreneurs create for themselves. Buyers moan that would-be sellers don't learn enough about a market or a store, can't keep their spiel to the bare minimum (20 minutes or less), and simply don't have tough enough skin. "You have to smile even though you've been kicked out,'' says New York City-based retail analyst and former buyer Walter Loeb. "Then come back and smile again."

The stories that follow feature big smiles, tough skin, and guerrilla tactics--in addition to the traditional three P's of marketing: price, presentation, and product distinction. Don't imitate our role models; originality counts with today's benumbed buyers. But just as our entrepreneurs found inspiration in mentors ranging from the Dalai Lama to Frank Perdue, you can learn from the pioneers in this story.

The Letter Writer

Back in 1990, Brooks O'Kane confronted a glass-cleaner ceiling. He had married into a modest plate-glass business in Lawrence, Mass., and discovered its secret weapon: a dynamite cleaning solution called ClearVue that was mixed in the back of the shop according to an old family formula. Lawrence Plate Glass hawked the cleaner locally, bringing in a mere $62,000 in its best year. O'Kane saw opportunity. He decided to leapfrog an entire spectrum of retailers and distributors and target Wal-Mart. "I had tons of enthusiasm and an abundance of ignorance," he recalls. First he figured on a traditional package: letter, price list, the works. But he could picture the piles of mail for the bored buyer. Instead, O'Kane turned to his favorite book, one he had devoured in 36 hours: Made in America, the story of Sam Walton. Feeling that he knew this "humble, salt-of-the-earth guy," O'Kane wrote a letter on a sheet torn from a memo pad. As best he remembers, the single draft (he didn't make a copy) said: "Dear Sam, I'm just a young guy starting out with the best darn glass cleaner on the face of the planet. I know you don't do the buying, but I know you still have some influence."

O'Kane addressed his missive and a sample to Walton at Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. "I had nothing to lose," he says. He was hoping that at least someone would be charmed by his chutzpah. O'Kane never learned whether his letter even made it to the tycoon's desk. (Walton died not long after.) But two weeks after O'Kane sent his letter, a Wal-Mart buyer called (collect). The company wanted 15,000 cases. That was more than ClearVue had done in the previous six years combined. Today, ClearVue also sells at New England's biggest chains, such as Stop & Shop and Shaw's, and O'Kane says he's about to wrap up a deal to sell the grocery-distribution rights of ClearVue and his other brands to a major public company.

Now 40, O'Kane still follows in his hero's folksy footsteps. He's got 18,000 people on the mailing list for his offbeat (in fact, slightly warped) direct-mail newsletter. The ClearVue Sun features sales slogans like "Friends don't let friends use Windex."

The Back Rubber

The best thing Susie Wang got for her Sweet Sixteen was her working papers--the document that California requires for you to get your first job. The San Francisco native, a self-proclaimed beauty junkie, immediately sprinted to a makeup counter at the nearest mall and applied for a job. Before her first semester at the University of California at Berkeley, Wang had worked at Lancome, Shiseido, and Chanel and done makeup for fashion shows and beauty contests, including Miss USA. Meanwhile, she had noticed one thing: The harsh chemicals in the beauty products irritated her own hypersensitive skin. Puttering in her Berkeley kitchen, she blended beauty potions from fruits, studied natural health books, and applied some beauty secrets handed down by her grandmother. Her college boyfriend, a biosystems and chemical engineer, helped her figure out how to get the products to stay fresh on the shelf without preservatives.

Calling the line Aqua Dessa--for water goddess--Wang began working the phones, calling store buyers by the dozens over two months. She got nowhere. One day, reviving her spirits with a home facial, she had an epiphany: Maybe those stressed-out buyers who were too busy to return calls would welcome the same pampering.

She left a voice mail inviting a Nordstrom buyer who had been ignoring her calls to schedule a complimentary facial and massage. The woman rang back right away. There was only one problem: Wang couldn't afford to book the buyer a day at a real spa. Instead, she did the treatments herself, reserving a spa room at Nordstrom, dimming the lights to a soothing level, setting up a miniwaterfall, and kneading away with her Aqua Dessa products, straight out of their homemade packages. One hour later, the buyer placed an order for 12 of each of Wang's 25 products.

Last year Wang sold almost $1 million worth of product at stores such as Sephora and at spa resorts. She has had two offers to buy her business; for now she's holding on.

The Showman

At 6'9" Gordon Weinberger would stand out in most crowds. But when he prowls supermarket aisles in his jester's cap and patchwork shorts, tooting on a whistle, bellowing "Ooooo-la-la," and tossing four-inch pies to startled shoppers, he's impossible to ignore.

Groomed as a PR executive in New England, Weinberger has a knack for showmanship that has been a key ingredient in his success. In 1991 and 1992 he won a baking contest, using his grandmother's apple pie recipe, in Londonderry, N.H., where he lives. Hoping to be "the Ben & Jerry's of pies," he raised money from friends and family and put $30,000 on credit cards in 1994 to open Gordon's Pies in Londonderry.

At small stores the pies sold well, but they were costly to make, and Weinberger couldn't crack the chains. By 1997 he owed $400,000 to 72 vendors--everyone from a box manufacturer who was out $30,000 to a local egg farmer who was waiting on $20. But when Weinberger consulted a bankruptcy lawyer who was a family friend, the story took a twist. She advised him that his debts were peanuts compared to those of the big guys. The attorney, Pam Coleman, left the law to join him, and they set off in an old schoolbus painted in psychedelic patterns that Ken Kesey would have envied. They drove 1,500 miles a week and visited nine to 10 supermarkets daily. At each stop they met bakery and store managers, shook customers' hands, and gave out pies in the parking lot, taking their cue from stories that Weinberger loved about chicken czar Frank Perdue, who visited supermarkets with his product in one hand and the competitor's in the other and ask shoppers, "Which breast is bigger?"

Weinberger's strategy was a success: Customers clamored for Gordon's pies. But supermarket execs wouldn't bite. "We already have Sara Lee and Mrs. Smith," they told him. Weinberger kept at it, getting to his office at 7 a.m. to cold-call executives before their secretaries could get in to reroute him. One morning, with some kind of cosmic alignment on his side, he dialed Phil Francis, the then-president of Shaw's, and got him on the first ring. Francis agreed to a meeting, and a nervous Weinberger managed to wow him with his "infectious optimism," Francis says (and a tasty sample). He ordered 40 tractor-trailers full. That meant $1 million in sales--enough to pay off the vendors and cover operating costs.

Today Gordon's sells more than $5 million worth of pies from Florida to Maine. Weinberger still boards his Pie Bus, but he adds a note of realism to his jester-cap-and-shorts antics: "This is done out of necessity. I did not choose this."

The Contestant

Star Search may not be on prime-time television, but the idea lives on in Haystack Toys' Great American Toy Hunt. Witness winner Gabe Ruegg. Last year the 25-year-old Ruegg was working in Kinko's and snowboarding while he figured out what to do with his life. Today he's selling Air Maze, a toy he has tinkered with since he was seven years old, and is expecting to collect royalties.

Ruegg spent hundreds of boyhood hours in his Boulder, Colo., basement, constructing an elaborate maze of tunnels and rooms built from garbage bags and inflated by a fan. (His mother claims she had no idea.) Later, as an industrial design major at Hampshire College, Ruegg revived the maze. His class loved it, and he even got a grant from the Smithsonian. Still, the idea of selling his masterwork was daunting. Unlike some of our other pavement pounders, Ruegg says he "didn't have time to write letters to 400 toy companies."

Dan Lauer can relate. The co-founder of Haystack Toys of St. Louis launched the annual Toy Hunt to find ideas in overlooked places. Lauer started his own firm in 1999, naming it for the proverbial needle in a haystack. He should know: He wrote 700 letters to toymakers who never answered. Lauer proceeded on his own to launch Waterbabies, a lifelike doll that was the No. 2 seller among babydolls, after Cabbage Patch Kids, during the 1990s. Lauer started his toy search to spare other inventors the pain of rejection--for a share of the profits, of course.

Ruegg heard about the Haystack contest from his mother, who gave him a newspaper clipping, and he drove 660 miles with his Air Maze stashed in his Volkswagen Golf. At the Hunt, which traveled to seven cities to find top toys in 1999, his gizmo and four others were selected from more than 1,000 entries to be made and distributed by Haystack. Ruegg won $5,000 and will get 5% of the wholesale price in royalties. The Air Maze took off last holiday season. FAO Schwarz buyer Marnie Lawrence says it hit the top 25% in holiday catalog sales. It's sold by Zany Brainy and Hammacher Schlemmer, among others.

Industry experts say Ruegg might have found a much sweeter deal--maybe 20 times the up-front amount--if he'd signed with a big company. But Ruegg isn't complaining. "I got what I was looking for with very little effort," he says. "I see my toy in FAO Schwarz--how much cooler does it get than that?"

The Birdie Masters

In a sport where plaid pants and alligator shirts never go out of style, changing the official footwear required a bit of a revolution. At least that's what Bill Ward and Myron Gerber found when they tried to sell a new plastic golf cleat. Golfers had been wearing metal spikes since Walter Hagen donned a pair in the 1919 U.S. Open, caring little that they chewed up the greens like a Cuisinart.

But Ward thought he'd found a friendlier alternative in Softspikes, invented in 1992 by two Idaho guys, a golf-course owner and an inventor. When Ward played at the Idaho course, he saw the shoes and was convinced they could, as he put it, "change the face" of golf. After he convinced golfing buddy Gerber, they snapped up worldwide marketing rights in 1993 and started proselytizing. But sales remained subpar--until the partners realized they were swinging from the wrong tee. Instead of targeting golfers, who cared about performance, they took aim at the folks who had a vested interest in protecting their turf: greens superintendents and other officials. The Softspikes marketers contacted 1,000 country clubs and preached the Softspikes gospel to those who have to keep the greens pristine.

But their masterstroke came when Ward suggested that the clubs ban metal spikes for 60 days and require players to wear Softspikes; he'd provide them for free. "We bet on the fact that once people tried Softspikes cleats they would like them," says Ward.

The stroke of luck came in the form of the greens chairman at the prestigious Wynstone Golf course in North Barrington, Ill., who agreed to take the 60-day challenge. Club members weren't thrilled; one wore socks on the course in protest. But before long, the members saw improvement--and then-greens chairman Bill Webbe saw 10% savings in maintenance costs. When the trial was over, the club voted to stay metal-free. Other topnotch clubs followed in their footsteps, including the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Lake Manassas, Va. Softspikes spent $500,000 on freebies from 1994 to 1995, and by 1996, sales had tripled to $6 million.

Today, 10,000 of the nation's 14,000 golf courses have banned metal spikes in favor of plastic. CEO Jon Hyman, 43, now the driving force behind Softspikes, dubs the Ward-Gerber approach "mandate marketing": getting an industry to adopt a product innovation and ban the use of older versions. Taking it a step further, he has convinced the National Collegiate Athletic Association to switch to plastic and has built Softspikes into a $30 million company.

Final Footnote

Our entrepreneurs came up with some creative tactics to break doors down. Of course, there's a fine line between innovative and annoying. Even our role models admit they've made major gaffes. Take pie guy Gordon Weinberger, who subscribes to the Dalai Lama's suggestion that you have to know the rules so you can break them. Maybe he didn't know this one; He visited the largest grocery chain in New England wearing an $800 suit, then stripped down to his skivvies in front of the buyer, and changed into baker's garb. The buyer didn't share Weinberger's sense of humor, and the meeting was over. It took three years to patch up that relationship, says Weinberger. But now the chain is his biggest client. One virtue to a mistake: You get noticed. And in these highly competitive days, that is no small victory. www.fsb.com Sharpen your sales pitch. Read the Executive Coach on fsb.com every Tuesday for expert tips.