happens in the eyes of potential lenses and I see what happens at trade shows when people hear that you're an
inventure so to speak how it sort of can put a Target on your back in a lot of ways and that there's a lot of
misconceptions out there that inventors you know aren't professionals or entrepreneurs and and maybe don't know
you know really what they're doing so they can be taken advantage of um they can be thought of I think in a lot of
ways as being sort of you know the nerdy inventor in the in the office you know
kind of tinkering with with their products but and I think I think while that's all fun and interesting I think
it can really hurt us when it go when it comes to licensing and yeah we'll stick with the
license ing can hurt us in a lot of ways because I do think we can be taken advantage of um with different people in
the industry who would love to get a little piece of your money because they know how passionate we are about our
products and our ideas and um they know that we will morgage our houses to make these happen and so that there's that
whole video I would really encourage you guys to watch because I think it's important that we as inventures even if
it is not your mindset that you start to think of yourself as an Entre r preneur
as opposed to being an inventor and it's one of those things where I really feel like when you do the action the feelings
will follow and so what I mean by that is it is important to be a pro out of
the gate it is important when you do get in the door or even when you're just reaching out to potential lenes that you
are set up for success and by just kind of the very very basic Foundation that I
think we all need and it can be done in a couple days really with all the tools and resources that are out there that
are really free and so simple to use nowadays um we can set up a website or a
landing page we can get a LinkedIn profile we can have a professionally
made logo done we can um gosh what were all the things that I
was thinking one of the the resources is if you guys I'm I'm curious how many of you are familiar and just raise your
hand how many of you use canva is that something that is really common for
everybody so like about half um I have to tell you if you're not familiar with
it I don't know how I would do my business without it it is the single
best tool I could ever recommend to anybody um it's free I do the I elevated
my membership it's I think I pay $12 a month but it is invaluable and it has saved me so much money and so much time
and made me look like I'm so professional when I'm so so not it's one of those it's a graphic design tool that
can do all the things I just said you can create a website on it you can create a landing page you can create a
logo you can create a cell sheet you can create really anything around your business very quickly and easily with
that tool so if you haven't explored it it's something that I just highly highly recommend but if you're very and it's so
easy to use I'm not very techy at all and I was able to pick it up really quickly and there's a lot of tutorials
around it but if that's something that you just don't feel comfortable with then I really recommend doing sort of an
Outsourcing looking for Freelancers whether it's through Fiverr or upwork but just to to really put all those
elements in place before you go meet someone so that if they do want to research you before the meeting that
they look that they realize oh wait this person really is the real deal okay this is this is a formidable potential
partner for us let's really take a closer look at it I think that's super super important and I have actually sort
of interviewed some drtv companies that I've worked with in the past um I've spoken to HSN and QVC the buying teams
there because they know that I work with a lot of Adventures and I and I want to know how important that is so really
straight from the horse's mouth they emphasize that that that means a lot to them that they want to
know that if they're really considering a product even though many times a licensing deal
after it happens you kind of go away go off to the side if they know that you are a formidable partner they're going
to look at look at the product and look at you a little bit closer so again these are all things that you can do so
easily the LinkedIn profile is a must it's almost like business cards are a thing of the past now that is everybody
goes on to LinkedIn if you don't have a profile there that's kind of a little I don't want to say a red flag but it's
you know H because pretty much everybody does so if you haven't done that absolutely do that just you can do it
very simply again it can be free or you can elevate it if you want to um the basic website I know that that
can intimidate a lot of people and maybe you guys have already done it but in case you haven't doesn't even have to be
a website because these days just a single landing page can look and feel like a website and can be done so
quickly and easily and again if it's something that intimidates you get on to Fiverr and find someone that they'll
they'll do it for10 or $20 and it'll be done like that so it's you know
definitely tap into some of those um resources that are out there may I ask a
question sure thank you um yes so nice to meet you um you were talking about
the website um I have a website for my art business uh that's what my invention has to do with with art um would you
recommend to create a website exclusively for the invention for the product and not something that would be
inside in this case my art website as another like tab if you will um I would
recommend that yes uh because it shows that if they were to look it up that
that you're really all in on this that this is you know you take this seriously and you know it inside and out so if
it's something that wouldn't be that difficult for you to do that is what I would recommend at the very least you
can have a tab on your website that you know you can direct to um but I do think
it's important I really do okay good question great thank you
uhuh um and if you you know landing page or website I've spoken about canva but
whether it's Squarespace or Wix they all have free programs where you can very
quickly have a landing page or a website done and it's free and so just you know website Builders within within the
platform so definit definitely do that and you know what it's really kind of fun and there's something to setting
yourself up in that way that makes you feel like wow this is really going to happen and it gives you sort of a
momentum behind you that really kind of propels you to the next level and just
keeps you go so it's you know you feel like a professional and it's just it does there is something to that mindset
that really can can get you on a road to success and get you started in the right direction even if you're not licensing I
would recommend doing those things great thank
you the other thing I would say when it comes to setting yourself up for success and being a professional um another
video that I've done that that is probably one of my more popular videos is on product
validation and maybe you're way past that step and you've already done that
or maybe you haven't done it but you feel like you're past that step and you don't want to go back and do that
product validation to in my eyes and in my experience is probably the single
most important step in the in the invention process and yet it's also
probably the single most overlooked step it's something that we shy away from and
don't want to do because God forbid what if our product idea is not validated
what if we find out something we don't want to find out and also it doesn't seem like it's that fun like I'd rather
get into the fun tinkering and venting part of the business but in my video
you'll see that there's I I do a fstep this is something I literally truly do for all of my inventions and it's a
five-step process and the reason I bring it up right now with with the topic of Licensing is because in doing that
product validation at this point it's really not even about finding out whether your product's going to succeed or not the
information that you get by going through those five steps is so incredibly valuable if you're going to
license a product because you're going to through this process you're going to learn everything you need to know about
the market Niche specifically you're going to understand the competitive landscape who's out there who's doing
well and what are they doing right and what doing wrong you're going to understand or you're actually going to
gather data that's going to tell you whether your product is going to be successful or not and that data is going
to be incredibly valuable when you go meet with a potential ly if you there's a step that I talk about where even if
your product doesn't exist you can create a landing page of sorts or you can create a social media post and put
it up into Pinterest or Facebook and find out how many people click how many
people think that's an interesting idea so what is your click-through rate and for a potential for someone analyzing
your product or reviewing your product if you come in with that data that's huge because you're making
it easier for them to say yes so you may during that process find out that the
data is not so great and so that's why I I love you know if you can do that step early on before you spend time and money
and energy on this particular product obviously that's the best thing you can
do but um if you're this far along you can still go back and do all
of this just for the sake of gathering all that information because you have to think these lenses see so many products
thousands of products depending on how big they are every year and the person that comes in with the turnkey package
and has all of their ducks in a row and understands what the opportunities
are understands what the threats are the the competitors and it can be like I
really value bringing up negative information in those meetings and saying you know this is what could trip us up
but here's my thought on this because you know what they're going to do some research also and they're going to uncover that and if you didn't bring
that up in the beginning then that's kind of a little again a little bit of a red flag to them but if you show that
you know this Market inside and out and here's why you're so passionate about this product and why you think this
product can do well that goes a long way and again that makes you a more formidable partner it also helps you in
the negotiating God willing that it comes to that um because the more data you have
showing that this will be successful the higher those percentages are going to go up one thing I didn't mention when I was
sort of laying the foundation of the website and the LinkedIn and all of those things coming up with a product name and I'm
assuming a lot of people do that right out of the gate so if you already have that if you trademark that if it's
catchy if it's great I would trademark it ahead and I also and a lot of people
don't think to do this but it's so important I would snap up all the social media handles for whatever your name is
even if you're not going to use them but when you go into a licensing deal and you say I own Instagram Facebook Twitter
and again it costs you nothing but if you can grab it before somebody else does and you can bring that into
that meeting showing that you've already secured all that that's valuable too so again like everything that I'm talking
about is really just making it easier for them to say yes and that's obviously
ultimately the goal hi Mar I I have a question yes
Andre hi thank you so much for being here so as far as sharing things out on
social media if um but if we have something that's very like gadgety and
maybe too easy for someone just to to steal have you found ways of maybe
having a smaller sample of people so it's not a public
disclosure yeah I mean you can there's a lot of ways to do do that I mean there
is you can do a select group when you're doing a a survey if you're doing a market survey you can always do that um
I in the beginning was very
gunshy31 so I'll put it up at $49.99 and $29.99 and you know and interestingly
many times the higher price ends up getting a higher clickthrough that's a
whole another another story but it's that's interesting testing taglines testing names of the product and just
seeing what resonates I mean it's such a valuable tool that we all have at our
disposal for nothing um and that really means a lot to these lenses when you
bring that in you say I test Ed in and look what happened and I mean you can screen print and show them the data
right there okay so it's a great question and it comes up all the time and there's you know is there a
foolproof way to do that and have nobody see it and you know no risk at all
unfortunately no but I will say um you know my experience has been and Alan
maybe you can attest to this as well or maybe you feel differently but do products get knocked off yes they do
sometimes but most typically they don't get knocked off until they've already been proven
successful companies don't take that risk it's more they want to sit back and see what's doing well and then they go
knock it off so I did spend a couple years trying to protect myself and losing out on a lot of opportunities
because I was so guarded and then once I said okay this is not working for me I need to actually put my ideas out there
and make them happen that's when it all happened for me I did want to add just a little bit to that
from my own personal experience especially with Allstar products and putting it out there in a big way I I'm
obsessive compulsive I watch things very closely so there was eight different products that went went in the same
season that mine did and so I watched how they did and what was going on and
over time every single one of them was knocked off including mine I call them whacka a lot of these are little
companies where somebody sees it's selling and they say oh let me buy that
they send a sample to China and they ask a factory can you make me some of these X price and they said sure you know make
me 10,000 and they start whacko and you know you can send a cease and assist letter and they'll they'll go away and
they'll come up somewhere else so you do have to get a little bit of a thick skin and realize that that is that's a sign
of success as you just said they don't go knocking off something that's not selling very well and even if you're
patented you're going to be knocked off so I think if you get too paranoid about
the whole thing you'll just have a product sitting in the garage Gathering dust so I say 100% of nothing is still
nothing so I would much rather take some risk put it out there and say oh look some people are knocking it off and and
there's ways to deal with that depending on the circumstances and situations and budget and all of those things but um so
I'm just saying that's a long way of saying I definitely agree with you on that one for sure yeah and I and again this is one of
those where I'm a little outside the box um and and I people criticize before
this part but I mean I have 35 Plus products that I've developed and I own
one patent and in hindsight I would own zero patents because it is so true that
unless you have deep deep Deep Pockets a patent is worthless if you
can't defend it and uh my very first sort of mentor had that issue she
developed the head Tingler you guys remember that with the kind of hanger thing that massaged your head and she
got knocked off and it ended up costing her and this was a long time ago it'd be much much more than that now but
$750,000 to defend it and it took so long and by the time she by the time the
court case was done she'd been knocked off six other times so it's just like to your point of the wack-a-mole like I
don't know I don't have 750,000 and years and years to to spend on that
I'd much rather take a little chunk of money and put it toward marketing and sales and I I believe in trademarks
wholeheartedly because that nobody can take that away from you I mean I look at Spanx that's
such a great example it's there is so much shapewear out there it all does the
same thing but if you're buying shaper you want Spanx because of what great marketing what great name it is
Pictionary when Mattel bought Pictionary um the only thing they
licensed or when they licensed Pictionary they didn't want anything except for the name that's all they took
and so the name can be so much more valuable even than the product itself many times so that's a in my eyes a much
better protection um takes a lot less time and a lot less money and all of that too yes
Rhonda uh in regards to that mentioned while ago about snatching up the handles
for your on these social media platforms how you do that so like I just um I did one
yesterday actually um for a new product that I'm coming up with all you do is
like on Instagram you just create a new account and you just do a search to see if that's available and if it's
available you grab it so you basically just register your name with that name
it's really simple your the logo name or the brand that you're you're going to be
selling under you account and that name and Marcy would you that simple would
you also buy some URLs you know some domain names because that's not from oh gosh I probably own 50 of them maybe 60
I buy them all day long just when I come up with an idea just in case and I'll just buy it for the year and it'll just
buy in and it costs all of sometimes it's $3 sometimes it's you know nothing
um but just to to snap that URL up and and sometimes I end up changing the name
of the product and then I just don't renew it um but I like to have it just
in case and I and I will buy it in all the different ways the net.com do you
know uh Robert I think had your hand up yes so I'm thinking about lady that you
said invented that and paid $750,000 that sounds so ex exorbitant if
she had decided just to leave it alone number one she'd be
$750,000 ahead what would she have been behind what would have been the loss and
the cost if she had done nothing and let him just go ahead and copy she'd probably be a lot further
ahead because she would have just kept if you just keep plowing ahead and it's all about getting your product out there
and building that brand identity and that brand and awareness and you know your story if if you're going to stay
attached to the product who you are and what your story
is nobody can take that away from you so yeah you could have some foreign company
come knock it off but in the eyes of the consumer that you're selling to if
you've created some kind of a connection or some kind of brand awareness many times they just would rather buy your
product than buy the knockoff and I know I know mine will be knocked off I mean I just know it period and
and and some of the people in the group know that I have a sense of humor and I come up with Funnies and I'm afraid I
just came up with it one with Allen so here it is folks so the what was the
name of the lady that came up with that what was her name or it called The Tingler oh her first name was Wendy so
I'm thinking that after she lost all that [Music] $750,000 she likely she was scratching
her head oh I'm
sure I would like to add I would like to add just a real quick Counterpoint I
mean because there can be another way to look at this um kamima Edmark famous
very successful inventor of the Topsy Tail and she built a business around it she's actually in the Dallas Fort Worth
areaa and she had gotten that product to where it was selling multiple millions of dollars per year I'm making these
numbers up maybe it's 20 or $30 million doar a year and she had knockoffs
occurring in two different ways first a significant sized company was knocking her off with trade dressed looking a lot
the like and some re some of her retailers were selling the knockoff in
their stores and so she was Furious but she gathered her team together by that I
mean her Council her attorneys and she said what are our options what should we
do about this and they kind of did the math they said there's three options one is to do nothing if we do nothing
they're probably going to carve I'm making these figures up 20% of our Market away every year so that means we're going to lose you know $5 million
worth of business every year that we should have um if we go after the knockoffs
when we go to court and we file a you know infring patent infringement lawsuit and all that's going to cost us let's
say x Millions dollars um and and that was their second option and they said their third one was what they called the
nuclear option and that was to send a cease and assist letter to their retailers saying this is a knockoff
please do not be selling that's an easy one right they ultimately went for the nuclear option in their case because
they did the math their their attorney said you know I we feel like if we go
and Prevail in court it's going to cost cost us a fair number of millions of dollars but at the end of the day we
will come out ahead that way you know if if we Prevail than if we just choose to
do nothing so you know there can be made a case for that but we are talking multiple millions of dollars in most
cases and I just remember even in Texas that's a fairly cheap State this is probably 10 years ago now the average
patent infringement lawsuit started at $1.4 million that's basically simply
taking it to court so that it comes back to saying 90% of the time or more what
you just said Li Too Short you probably go on to other things um and sometimes
if you've got the First Market presence people will know it's a knockoff and it may not do that well anyways so anyway
those are my thoughts on it just wanted to give that as a second sort of thought yeah so you know I guess I guess
I look at it and say what do we have control over because for us to try to
think that we can control all those people out there that might knock us off and if they do you know that you could
just make yourself crazy and Analysis paralysis but what we do have control over is creating a brand creating a name
getting it out there creating a connection with the audience um which is
so much easier to do today than it's ever been so there's a lot of you know variables that we can control and that
will help us be successful and so I I just you know really recommend doing kind of a deep dive on on what that is
for you in your particular product I have a just a related question because
Amazon has become such a big player in at least especially in the United States
and I I see here on Amazon you have many things with your name right right the first word of the product is your name
so that's to me that's that's great maybe that's a big part of your success but maybe you can
say have you have to had to deal with Amazon because they do have a built-in program to help protect sellers do you
have anything to say either that you've done or other people have done I don't know if the trademark helps or the copy
I think the copyright might help the patent might help it's different with Amazon because they they control their whole
store yeah they are so I will tell you if you're looking on Amazon and you're
seeing my items that's not me that I mean it's my product but it's somebody
somehow getting my product and putting it on Amazon oh so what I have done
because I'm an Amazon influencer also is when I see it up there rather than me going and fighting them and all that
I'll just talk about my product on Amazon live and I'll make money on it that way okay so it was kind of one of
those can't beet them join them things in in my opinion I mean I I would make myself crazy and I'd have no time to
develop new products or do anything else if I spent all my time trying to knock those guys down so instead I kind of go
around and do it a different way but to your point one thing I have been very impressed with about Amazon it's not
something that I've gone down the path with myself but I'm not sure if um you guys are familiar with the lay and go
Cosmo I'm sure most men are not but the laying go is she she's become a friend
of mine over the years it's it's a hugely successful product on Amazon and
it's um basically she originally invented it for Legos when her kids were growing up and the Lego would be
everywhere and she'd want to clean up when company was coming so she created sort of this mat that her kids could do
Legos on and then if she wanted to clean up she would just pull the drawstring and the mat would just suck it all
together and it would all be cleaned up so she took that same idea and did it for makeup and cosmetics she's also done
it for Nail Care and different things but the makeup in cosmetics one has
become wildly successful on Amazon she has been knocked off I cannot remember remember the number of times but
directly on Amazon and she was explaining to me all of U the things that Amazon was doing to combat that and
I was really quite impressed and they have I mean because they can take things off that fast so if if there is an
infringement going on in my case it's not that someone's infringing first of all I don't have a patent for my
products as I just described so there wouldn't be a true infringement um but in my case it's
actually my product it's just someone else selling it so it's a different kind of a different situation but I I know
that it is a huge priority for Amazon to be knocking down those which as
inventors it's important for us to know that too to really make sure that you're not infringing on something you know
when you're talking to China about creating something it is important to
find out what kind of you know do they have clearance to be creating it and
asking those hard questions of future Manu ufacturers because you could go through all this time and expense to
create something and you put it up on Amazon and it gets taken down like that because um somebody else did protect it
and you didn't look into the and that wasn't looked into because the Chinese
manufacturers most of the time will create whatever you ask them to create so you just kind of need to to make sure
that that you're doing it legally on your part great and I just want to say a lot I have heard hard har stories of
unethical Chinese companies because your trademark is only good in the United States if you only file in the United
States they will take and they will register your trademark in China uh it's just something that happened to the
minions uh and they had to become the little yellow people because they they
registered minions someone else a Chinese company registered it yeah yep I
do hear that more and more unfortunately
H that's that's the fun stuff um okay let's see what else what
else what else in setting yourself up for Success we went over okay so
basically talked about being a professional you know really looking like a pro but also acting like a pro by
knowing your Market knowing the competitors knowing everything there is to know about the space that you're in
um the other piece to that is is knowing everything there is to know about the
company that you're pitching to and that's where a lot of people I think Miss and I think it might be the most
important of everything that I've talked about so far and I really like this part
I I get that kind of nerdy um detective hat on and if I know I'm going to go
meet with a company I will spend a couple days really researching that company and so I get in I go on LinkedIn
and I will look at all all the people that work for the company usually you know the higher Executives and see what
is everybody posting about on LinkedIn because that's you know that's your clue
to what's important to that company right now and I will research their competitors so that I know what their
threats are and so I can kind of present to that um I will read I go on the
website of course and go all the way to the bottom and anything about press releases or me Media or invent uh
investors investors is a big one investors is that what it is it's
investor can't think anyway where they their quarterly earnings and you know
I'll listen to those actual um recordings you can you can listen to them and in those quarterly earnings
reports you find out what their challenges are you find out what their strategic moves are going to be in the
coming year that's a big one um like when I was going into Bed Bath and
Beyond I knew everything there was you could possibly know about Bed Bath and Beyond who was fired who was hired and
why and where they're going strategically and are they're going to um you know what kind of categories do
they have aoid in do they need more products in all of that is gold and so
when you go into a meeting they don't know that you've done all of that but when you start presenting and you're
speaking to all their hot buttons because you you know them because you've done that research everybody perks up
and that's again it's making it so much easier for them to say yes to you so just give yourself that unfair Advantage
it's not really unfair it's fair but give yourself that Advantage by going into that presentation armed with and
and a lot of times the people you're presenting to don't even know that information because you know sometimes these companies are so big they don't
know what everybody else is doing um but that's just super important because um
you know you're dead in the water if you go in and you're talking about a subject that that is just so not on their radar
you're you're pitching a product that maybe they've tried it already and it s and it failed that's a bad example but I
think you know what I mean of just really being in tune with what's important to them when you
present very very important um and again that LinkedIn is just such a wealth of
information but also looking at all those little you know P small
Publications that other people might not think to go to um any interviews I will also do a search on podcasts because
many times um either the person that you're going to meet with or the higher ups at that company were interviewed on
podcasts and if you listen to those podcasts you can gain some really valuable information about where they're
headed because they're usually talking about what's exciting and what they're you know what's up next for this company
so that can be really helpful as well um in terms of what do they look for uh
in a lot of ways we have kind of covered that because they do look when you come in and and I know
this is true every time I meet with my buyers at HSN and I'm presenting new products they have a hard time keeping
up with the market and and knowing what's happening and so when I go in there armed with all of this information
about the market and about why I believe in this product they're so happy it's like a a bre like a sigh of relief for
them because you're doing their homework for them so so coming in with that is is
really important we talked about trademarking the name and having all the social media handles that's also like
wow they've already done all that we know we don't have to go do that research to understand whether we can
protect like if you have come up with this great name is it going to be available in social media you've already
done that for them and then the other thing is the proven success if you're coming in with that market data that
shows that there is an interest level for this product um especially if you've done that market testing through
Facebook ads or or Pinterest um they love that and um you know so really it's
about if you can be that TurnKey solution for them even if your product
isn't as great or as Innovative as the next guy sometimes that whole solution is just wow it's you know given to us on
a silver platter and and we do it um I will give an example to say that
um one of the first products I licensed I licensed without I literally first of
all the product didn't even exist I didn't have a prototype I certainly didn't have any IP around it um but
I knew the market inside and out I created a sell sheet that looked like the product existed I knew who the
competitors were and what was what they were missing and I knew that that market was a really strong Market that had this
kind of trajectory and that if I had a mouse trap that was much better than
anything out there how could it not succeed and so that that brings me to
the next bullet point and tying these in together of how do you find potential
lenses so what I did with that particular product is and I do this a lot is I'm a big believer in trade shows
for inventors um and not even necessarily exhibiting at the trade show I I I did exhibit one
time but I go to the trade shows and I go with my binder that's got my cell
sheets or my inventions what whatever I think might be important for somebody to see in there I will research the
exhibitor list up front find out who's going to be there that might relate to my category and I will try to set up
meetings ahead of time if I want to present the product to them but many times that doesn't happen but if you go
there and you have a cell sheet or a prototype I didn't have a prototype at that time um and I went to and I didn't
have a meeting set up but I went to that booth and I said I have something that I
think you guys are going to really be interested in and I've walked all the show the floor the um the entire trade
show and there's nothing else like that and anyway they took me in the back room and I presented it and I showed them
this the cell sheet and they basically did it right then and there and so so um
that was a case of again it was coming in with that TurnKey solution of I've
done the research for you and I had a great name that was another thing and I did own all they ended up changing the
name I will tell you I like my name better but um I did have all the social media I had all of that and so I really
I tell that story because I really do attribute that licensing deal to all the
things that we've just talked about and I think at the time it was years ago so it wasn't wouldn't be probably
considered professional in today's terms but what I brought in there I had business cards and all that did make it
seem like I was this kind of bigger than I was I would say the other thing I want
to add on to that is lenses and QVC's and hsns and really
any any um even brick and mortar they like the bigger picture so if you're
coming in with one product that's great but when I bring a product I always I
never go with just one I always say this is where it's going if this product does
well here's my thoughts on version two version three and an upsell and uh I
mean when I when I pitch to drtv companies I have every upsell every but wait there's
more um that's a really big deal to them because they're only going to say yes to your
product if they think it's going to be successful so that's where their head is so if it's successful then what so if
you can show them that this has legs Beyond this one product and that you're forward thinking like that that kind of
opens their eyes to oh that's a good idea oh I hadn't thought about that and it just really um again shows that
you're a formidable partner but also shows that this business has other places to go that you really can't
expand the brand even if you're not going to be the one to create it if you don't have the wherewithal or the time
or the energy just putting it down on paper in a presentation as a bullet point of here's ideas of where it can
go many times that's all it takes for them to just see that bigger
picture so that's um that's and that's again that's a
question that I have asked drtv and home shopping buyers is that important to you
and that's a big one for them they want to know that there's
more now um continuing with continuing on with where to find them so um as I've
said trade shows is big for me that's you know always looking at those exhibitor lists but many times I'll
discover potential Partners when I'm at the trade show that I would have never considered
but walking the floor and seeing you know maybe they're opening up a maybe they're
typically in this product category but you start to see that oh they're starting to go into this product category so then all of a sudden your
product makes a lot of sense because clearly they're inching into that but they haven't really gone big into that
so you're presenting something that allows them to um go deeper into
whatever that product category is so I do recommend if you can get to the trade shows it's amazing what happens there
and also because everybody who's there anyone with a booth they're in the mindset of doing business and making
stuff happen there's just that energy there so everybody's in a kind of a good mood and and wanting to build business
um as opposed to when you're you know beh in your house or behind in your office trying to reach out trying to get
someone to answer an email and you know they're busy with their life not thinking about what you're doing so at
the trade show everybody's same mindset so that's just a great place to be and then the other thing we've talked
a lot about LinkedIn and so that is I do do a lot of investigative work on LinkedIn to see what companies might
that I've never heard of might be within my Niche so I spend a lot of time on there the other thing yes Robert I am I
am dying to know and I'm hoping most everybody is too what was that first item that you didn't even have a
prototype and I'm just wondering what it was I mean here you don't even have it
so whoever licenses from you is going to have to make it and and all that and I'm
curious about what the name was what your name was or what they what they made it yeah so that this was a product
um that my name for it was the Polish parlor and it was a basically Nail Care
rotating Nail Care caddy acrylic organizer but it was an all-in-one manicure pedicure station with manicure
soaking tub and all these lots of different little um gadgets to it lot
lot of many uses and um they ended up changing the name from polish parlor to the clearly Chic nail boutique and this
is a big company that that licensed it um and it's still for sale and it's been
sold everywhere basically um but um the way that I the way that I
presented it is I did hire a company that was a 3D rendering company I knew
exactly what I wanted it to look like and I basically had them create it and it took took a few days I knew I was
going to this trade show so I had them do the 3D rendering and again this was years ago when that wasn't so common so
so hunting down a company that could do that for me was a little difficult and then communicating my idea to them and
getting it right was a little difficult but they did it and so with within probably a week I had the 3D rendering
and when it came I went oh my gosh if I didn't know better I would think this product existed it was so realistic and
so I took that and I put it into a sell sheet with all the market data and you know the the category and where it's
going and um the price point I I didn't have I didn't know what it was would
cost to produce at that point I could do a little research to to find out generally but I knew they would know
because it was their c i me it was very much in their wheelhouse so um it was funny at some
point I had to tell them that the product didn't exist and they were actually quite impressed that I um was
able to make it look so real and all of that and they said that's not a problem we can produce this no problem so they
did you you did or didn't have a patent on that one because didn't you say you got one p no yes and that that was on a
product my first product that I was on the Kelly Rippa invention reality show on or for um it was called the style and
Go Hair Care valet and so that was 12 years ago and that it's interesting if
anybody doubts Pinterest I don't know if any of you do anything on Pinterest I posted on
Pinterest again it didn't exist it was a prototype and I made it look like it existed but I did that exactly what I'm
talking about where I put it up there just to see what would happen and my target email list people that signed up
because they wanted to be notified when this thing was actually available went to 8,000 immediately it was so quick I
went wow this has legs and so that I could present that to people and say within x amount of days I had 8,000
people waiting for this product and so that was so valuable that was just you know a big deal and that product ended
up being sold at Lowe's and bed bath and um QVC and HSN and everywhere um but my
point about Pinterest is I posted that 12 years ago right now 12 years later
it's still my top pin I get thousands and thousands of people repinning it
whereas you put something on Tik Tok it's It's Gone in 30 seconds the average lifespan of something on Instagram is 48
Hours on Facebook I think it's five days Pinterest 12 years and it's still going
crazy by the way Nate posted in the comments exactly what you just said about Tik Tok Twitter is 15 to 18
minutes Facebook is oh really you just posted that's so funny yeah yeah he put a really good note about how quickly
things go away yes and so if that's if that's still being pinned you're you're
gonna be still getting sales well I don't sell it anymore that's the but here's the thing what's
funny about that is I hadn't been paying attention I moved on and just kind of
forgot about it and I I had so many different pins up there I just decided to do sort of an audit recently and it
came up I went oh my God this thing is being repin I just was stunned so now
I'm taking that data and I've actually to a couple different drtv companies who
are interested in Reviving it it was too big and bulky and there was a lot wrong with it for today's world but it'd be
very easy to streamline it and make it much less expensive and less bulky and all of that and it could do really well
great and it's again it's that data and same um my second biggest pin or second
most successful pin is a jewelry case that I created called The Jewelry portfolio and it was my Pinterest data
that I brought to the HSN buying team that was so impressive to them that it got the Green Light Just based on that
data so just knowing how many people are clicking they just want to know because
they can't find that on their own sorry to interrupt I was wondering when you do
this research on these companies do you end up rating like which ones you would
prefer to talk to first or is it kind of like a shotgun deal where you're just trying to see you're trying to get to
everybody just so it's it's seen by different companies yeah I'm not one who wants
that likes to put all my eggs in one basket so I do um I don't necessarily
blanket the market um but I do try to hone in on three or
four um and interestingly this conversation this topic is making it sound like I do a ton of Licensing deals
I I much prefer to bring products to Market myself I do the licensing deals
when it doesn't fit what I'm doing at that time but I think it's a good idea so I'll find a company and put it out
there but if licensing was my number one priority I would probably look at about
five companies at a time um I do think it's great when you can play them off
one another and there's You Know You're Building excitement and this one wants it and this one wants it um as opposed
to having your eggs all in one basket how do you decide which path you go
of the five you mean if if you did five um out of like doing it on your own or with companies oh oh good question um
well it really depends on what your personal goals are and you know what
what your bandwidth is is this a side hustle is it just a second string stream of income or is this something that you
want to go all in on and build a brand around and so that you know it's such a
you know and do you have the the resources to manufacture it yourself and all of that but I will say and I'm going
to either do a book or a something on it at some point um I so bootstrapped
everything that I did I did not have I spent hardly any of my own money it was
all getting people to believe in me and fronting things with the promise of what
my vision was and they wanted to be a part of it so you know getting people to front the molds because I told told them
I felt like this is what could happen with this product if they do me coming to them with the data from Pinterest and
Facebook and saying look what happened imagine if we do this together you know it was all of that
people believing that got me to where I am really that's awesome and so I just
that's one thing I love to tell inventors because you can do it on such
little money if you believe in yourself and if you put yourself out there in that professional way because that's why
people believed um and got behind me because it was just and I usually start
every every topic that I ever speak on with me talking about knowing what your
why is because when you know what that why is you do get professional really
quick and you do you know pull out all the stops to get people to help you and get behind you and believe in you and
without that it's just so easy to get distracted and you know put things on the back burner and so that's that was
super important for me and continues to be really important for me Marcy did you
say that I mean at your point now I can see how you can do this like when Barack Obama got his book deal I think they had
like four of the biggest book publishers around the table and they all put a
number on paper and I guess the highest bidder went I don't know how it worked but are you saying that you're able to
somehow um interview multiple ones or talk to one and let them know that you
have multiple people interested can you just talk about that because that's one of the trickiest things once you finally
get interest from a few different companies so are you asking do you let
the other one know that you have interest is that what you're saying how are how are you dealing with this issue
of you have a great product and it sounded like you said up to five companies you contact what I mean I know
some of them may want to spend a few thousand doll with an attorney to do a search I don't know there's so many
little things that happen with these companies I just don't know how to always manage if if you do have
something that has multiple parties [Music]
interested um well and me saying that I would choose five that I would choose
five if that's all I was doing was licensing more typically I do like two
or three four maybe um but a lot of times I really hope in on who that is
that I think would be the best partner given what my what I think the product
can do and you know who's the strongest in that particular Niche um and also
really understanding who's behind that company I'm looking at licensing my whole travel line for various reasons so
I'm looking at a lot of luggage and travel companies right now and so it's interesting I feel like I'm more
interviewing them you know I want to know and and I do want to get to those points about what you need what you need
to be demanding and and wanting so that kind of goes to what you're saying is great um when you're meeting with them
you're you know you want to go with the company that's going to perform for you
and perform for you in the most timely manner um and that's one of the tips
that I have is that that I wish somebody had told me is like putting that time frame around when they're going to
launch the produ because they can t they can tie that product up and and launch it three years
from now where maybe there was this next company that was ready to launch it they might not have been as big but they were
ready to launch it immediately so really evaluating all those little nuances of
what your licensing contract would be I don't know if I'm answering your question I did want to make a request to
honor Marcy's time um by kind of holding questions and let her finish like the
presentation you had in mind and respect that you know we've run over the time here a little bit Marcy I want to respect your time and I do have if
there's another question Evelyn would be the next person in line but I thought I'd let you kind of get to the rest of what you wanted to present to us if if
we could sure yeah and I'll and I'll make it quick and then yes any questions just let me know the the one resource I
wanted to mention and I'm curious how many of you guys know of are you guys familiar with Market blast raise your hand if you are
couple I happen to think that is a tremendous opportunity for inventors So
speaking of where do you find potential lenses Market blast and I did a lot of research on them before I would toot
their horn um and I I actually have met with the owner of the company multiple times to make sure that they're on the
up and up and make sure I believe in what they're doing and I wholeheartedly do um they are it's Market blast.com I
think it is and basically I don't know if you're familiar with Edison Nation way back when but basically what they
were was like a middleman in between the inventors and these big companies that
were looking to license products like a Wolf Gang Puck needed more cooking
inventions to put under his line so Edison Nation would put out a search for cooking gadgets and then would marry the
two together and hopefully an inventur Gadget would end up as a Wolf Gang Puck item the way Edison nation was
structured I I actually won one of their searches so I I know this i w and as seen on TV search and basically they
take 50% so that's how that worked and there was a lot of nuances to the to the contracts what Market blast does is all
they do they are a platform they put together a platform to marry inventors with all these companies out there that
are looking for Innovation and there are a ton of them and basically you can go
on and submit your invention through Market blast and all of these comp two
two specific companies and then Market blast is out of it and if they're interested they reach out to you and
you're now dealing directly with that company so you can go on there and just poke around a little bit and you'll see
all the different they call them hunts so all the different hunts that they have going on it could be anything from
I mean Allstar products is has a hunt going on right now um Zulily has a hunt
um there's pet product different pet companies big companies that are looking
for items so go on and see if there happens to be a hunt in place I actually have a hunt on there right now um that I
can talk about later but um anyway there's tons of opportunity on
there and once Market once Market Blast has done their job they're out of the equation and you're working with that
company so I love this because I on a personal level cannot stand these
invention marketing companies that say they're going to get you in front of all these people and all you have to do is give them this many thousands of dollar
makes me so angry I don't even know what to do so this takes them out of the
picture that you do not need them you're going straight to the big companies and
what does it cost so it's free um and it's so interesting I keep asking the owner like are you sure that this is a
business model that's going to make sense for you but it is free I think I forget how many your first x three hunts
I think are free and then after that you pay a certain amount the Hunts but it's
no more than like5 or $10 and so it's just this you know nominal submission fee but you're getting straight to these
potential lenses so of all the resources I've talked about so far that's probably the most valuable one because you know
these companies are actively looking and you have a product that fits their Niche
hopefully so I did want to mention that um and I will mention because I have that hunt on right now the reason I have
a hunt on there is is something Allan alluded to earlier and that is that I am
doing a partnership with a company called market. live which is a live shopping platform and I'm going to be
hosting a new series called invent her live so it is for female inventors and
it launches during women inventors month which is February and it's going to be a weekly series and so we are looking for
female inventors that have a great story and a great product and basically on
every episode I'm going to have three female inventors within a given category whether it's beauty or home or kitchen or whatever it
is and we're going to do a sit down kind of pull back the curtain on what it took to to take an idea to the store shelf so
that we can kind of educate and Inspire other women and men to you know follow
their dream of bringing a product to life and then the second half of that segment we will actually be doing a live
shopping uh what do you call segment on their product and so we'll be selling
their product live on market. live so I'm really excited about that and I figured Market blast would be just a
great way for me to get feelers out there with with female inventors so that's what I'm doing there and then um
seguing into the tips just and these are just little tidbits that I'm just going to throw out there not they don't
necessarily relate to each other but these were things that I wish I knew um the first one is the idea of that you
can spell out exclusion in a licensing deal that for instance when I did a
licensing deal I could say but I want to keep HSN as mine so I'm going to still sell on HSN but you have everything else
and sometimes they'll do it and sometimes they won't I find most times they do do they will do that and so for
some people it might be just I want to be able to sell in my local Hometown because maybe you have kids and you want
them to be able to sell your product can be that simple but I do think um that
can keep you in the game a little bit and and make it kind of fun and make it more of a partnership in a lot of ways
rather than just turning it over and you know going the other way um I talked a little bit about
minimum excuse me what what are your expectations of them I think what
happens is we get so excited that someone's interested in our product and oh my gosh they're going to do it this
is so great and so you are just signing on the dotted line and waiting for that check to come in sometimes it does and
sometimes it doesn't um sometimes it's big and sometimes it's little but what do you so thinking about what is that
minimum I mean you're letting go of your product your baby that you have been working on for all these years and
thrown so much money and time and energy and sweat blood all of that and what if
if you're a very small fish and they're very big pond and they don't Market it very much and they don't so at the end
of the year they've sold 10 units so make sure that you're spelling out like
really go within yourself to think about what are your expectations for your product what is your dream for your
product and what's the minimum that you would accept in your one year two year
three whatever that contract happens to look like I just want you to have the confidence in yourself and the belief in
what you've done all this time to to really stand up for that when you go and
negotiate that deal that's super important the other thing is and we touched on it already but timing
standards when is it going to launch what are their plans for manufacturing
because again they can tie it up for a very long time when you could have you know that's opportunity lost so really
make sure that's spelled out another thing is deductions this was this was a big one that I wish I
knew but when I say deductions what I mean by that I'm going to use HSN as an example again um so I licensed a few of
my products to uh a manufacturer basically and we agreed on a certain
percentage and then when it all went live on HSN they said oh we didn't know
that HSN charges a 1% media fee we didn't know that we were going to have to film b-roll footage for the Airing we
didn't know there was all these we didn't knows and so at the end of the day my check was this big because they
just kept deducting deducting deducting pretending that they didn't know
so absolutely ask them what deductions might be pulled out
uh Bed Bath and Beyond can be notoriously difficult because they discount so much so if you have a
product that is going to be going into Bed Bath and Beyond whoever you license
with might come back to you and say well they needed this kind of discount so we had to deduct that so if you spell all
of that out UPF front there's no surprises when it comes to your
royalty and those deductions might be in there but at least you know about them and you can make an intelligent decision
if you don't know know and then they come and hit you when you're least expected it is just a big disappointment
I can say that firsthand and then another one that I didn't think about that is really
important is if you have a product that has a mold that you're doing a licensing
deal and they're going to create the mold at the end of the day if the licensing deal goes away or if they stop
selling it or whatever happens who owns that mold who paid for it who that's a
big a big point of discussion at the very least because what if you want to
keep selling it do you have to do they on the mold now you have to go recreate it and put
up these thousands of dollars for that mold and I don't know the answer to that it's going to be different in different
situations but it's something that you definitely need to think about and bring up I think most inventors just assume it
was their idea so they're going to get it back not usually the case
um it can be if it's spelled out so that's why I wanted to bring that up I'm sure there are a million other
little things like that but those were those are the big ones that stand out as stand out at me as being important
across the board I think in in any licensing deal to have all of that and
Allan you probably know many more beyond that but those were the ones that those are great the only thing I I did want to
hit because again first of all I want as always to thank you for being so generous with your time and coming here
and speaking to our group and I did over forget to mention that you are on the podcast this week so for those who would
like to know more of several things you spoke to are on the podcast alen becky.
podcast and you can listen to the episode that Marcy did on the podcast
last week that's on this week um and I did also want to honor that Evelyn had
patiently raised her hand to ask a question so I did say I would allow the one more question and then I have a
couple things and then I I do want to again respond uh respect your time so Evelyn you've got the floor with your
question all right hello hi Marcy um hi Evelyn hi I have an enhancement for uh
gentleman's um handkerchief it's contactless it's it's a great idea um
however I'm sure it'll be knocked off I Am A trickler for timelines because I
feel like that is protection I am I when do you get the social media
handles when do you get the URL when do you file for the trademarks when do you file for the trademarks in China I'm
trying to understand the exact way for these timelines and you know so that the
products can be successful and you know we we the timelines are just so
important for our protection so I'm trying to understand when do you exactly
do these things you do it all before you meet with the license or or do you wait
or um when when so many of the things you mentioned
I would do right away why not if you have a great name that you love for this
item you have nothing to lose by snapping up the handles you can always let them go and the URLs if you decide
that you don't want it and you just because you have it doesn't mean you have to use it but you're just making sure nobody else can get it and that
it's yours to be able to add to the pie when you're presenting to a
ly okay so there's no reason not to do that immediately that part of it okay um
I also believe and and it depends how strong your trademark is and all that but I as as and I there's a video that I
did um about patents versus trademarks that explains why I believe so strongly
in it um that I would file for that sooner than later also so okay because
that that can be very valuable in the negotiations and it doesn't take long so I what troubles me is and is
That's So common is that the whole timeline of patents and how long that takes and then you've got if you do the
provisional you've got those 12 months and so that ends up you know the clock is ticking and you end up maybe making
decisions that and this is happening with a lot of my women inventors um they're feeling so under
the gun because of the timing that they're not making necessarily the smartest decisions because they are
trying to meet that timeline and so then they file too early and the product ends up changing and then they have to start
all over again and it's wasted time wasted money and that's that ham that inventor hamster wheel that happens
that's another reason that I have a hard time with patents is because it just keeps you from moving forward so again
like I get excited about all those things you just brought up because those are the thing is I keep saying what can
you control because that the patents and the getting knocked off and all that you that's out of your control right but
what you can control is putting together a great website coming up with a great name grabbing those social media
channels doing some market research doing a survey I really believe in surveys of what people like and don't
like I do a ton of research on reviews of other products in my category to see
what people like and what they don't like about those other products so how can I design mine a little bit better
how can I capitalize on that information to make my product heads and shoulders above anything else things like that you
have complete control over and it's all fun to do okay thank you
that's that's fantastic I would like to kind of wrap this up in respect your time and we always enjoy Marcy so much
and she's just such a font of information uh sharing all this with us so again I want want to share thank you
