Bo Worthy is a true American entrepreneur in Eclectic, Alabama. He owns Worthy Promotional Products, which markets a full line of licensed personal products for the sports industry, including the NFL, SEC, MLB, NBA, NHL and Major League Soccer. And recently, Worthy added NASCAR to the list of licensing labels he serves.
Auburn graduate and former Mayor of Eclectic, Worthy moved to the community when he was in the sixth grade.
He started a Hercules bags company in a small warehouse in downtown Eclectic and moved to a larger facility on U.S. Highway 63 when his business outgrew its original location.
Then, in 2006, he saw a niche in personal care products and started his own product line, Bahama Bo’s.
“The business actually started out of my home,” Worthy said.
But the economic downturn that started that same year proved very challenging and difficult for the up-and-coming business. Financial markets collapsed, and the company was up against incredible headwinds.
In 2010 and 2011, Worthy began looking for other ways to sell his brand. He thought about selling products to stadiums that needed sunscreen for the fall season.
Worthy approached Auburn University and asked about selling the Bahama Bo’s sunscreen in the concession area inside Jordan-Hare Stadium. An Auburn rep told him that the university outsourced the concessions, so Worthy contacted the concession company and sent a sample.
He was offered an order for 14 stadiums if he could print the products with team logos.
But there was a hiccup. Collegiate and professional licenses are very difficult and tedious to acquire.
“I said, ‘Let me work on this, and I’ll call you back.’ I hung up the phone, and I walked next door to my son Matt’s office. I said, ‘Matt, something really good just happened,’” Worthy explained.
Worthy had a vision of what the product line could be if he licensed it, because no company had yet created a full line of personal care products in the licensed sports category.
Undeterred by the setback, Worthy applied for the collegiate licenses and was ready to roll with the new business plan in 60 days.
“It took a lot of hard work, but we were blessed,” he said.
Since then, Worthy Promotional Products has become a major manufacturer and distributor of licensed personal care products.
“When you take all the teams and all the products we have for each team and multiply it out, we manage over 12,000 different items,” said Worthy.
The company now employs 20 people, and Worthy expects that number to double as the family business continues to grow. Two of his sons work for the company as well, he said.
“Matt’s job is to get orders in the door; Chas’s job is to get orders out the door, and my job is to find the money to pay for everything,” he said.
Keeping a clean and efficient warehouse is key to the operation. Using a library style housing system, each product is categorized in a manner that offers quick and accurate access.
“This is what we call our label library, and we run it like a high school library with a Dewey Decimal System,” he explained. “We keep rows and rows of team logos, and each team listed has its own home where we keep extra labels after we do the print run.”
Everything Worthy Promotional Products sells is made in America, and the company ships throughout North America, including Canada and Mexico.
In addition, the man who served as Eclectic’s mayor from 1992 to 2000 continues to support the local community. He recently donated 200 printed lip balms to the Eclectic Youth Football League to be sold at the youth football concession stand.
But the founder of Worthy Promotional Products, LLC, didn’t stop there. In 2010, he published a book about entrepreneurship. Johnny’s Lemonade Stand: How You Can START-UP Your Own Business tells the story of a young child named Johnny Mac Williams who wants to earn money by starting his very own small business.
Worthy used the book to demonstrate the business principles that are essential to successful entrepreneurs of all types. The book is available at Amazon, eBay, Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million.
