Tip 14 – “Establish a Goal”
Blog By Edward Ayres
Anthony Robbins says, “Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.” Often inventors jump feet first into the business of inventing. They know they need a patent and they want their product on store shelves, but they never truly establish a goal. You need to!
Do you want to grow your own business? Do you want to structure strategic alliances, or pursue a licensing agreement? A goal gives you an objective to focus on, and once it’s set you can formulate a plan to achieve it. When establishing your goal consider how much time you have to devout to your invention, your financial resources, and what you consider invention success?
Often, when an invention is first thought of it’s normal for the inventor to consider patenting, manufacturing and distributing the product themselves. This is what I refer to as the DIY method. It requires you to finalize your invention’s design, contract with a manufacturing company, and establish your marketing, sales, and legal teams to introduce your invention to the world. Once the product is on the shelf, and revenue is generated, it must be reinvested into the company to grow your inventory and market presence. This can be a time consuming and expensive goal but if you’re successful it may be worth it.
Instead of the DIY method your goal may be to establish strategic alliances with people and companies in order to develop mutually beneficial relationships. Putting this goal into action requires you to contract with a manufacturing company and then work diligently at trying to establish partnerships. The purposes of these alliances are to utilize each company or person’s networks to get your invention to store shelves. This method is also very resource dependent and with many pitfalls to avoid and obstacles to overcome.
If your goal is to invent for profit, and not ego, there is another method. You can pursue a licensing agreement with an established company. They’ll mass produce your invention, get it to store shelves, and pay you a royalty. With licensing, the actual time, money and effort required from the inventor is significantly less than the first two methods. However, the licensing company will keep the majority of the profit but they’ll pay the inventor a fair royalty. This is why a large target market is important. While you may only get a small piece of the pie, if it comes from a large enough pie it can certainly add up.
We recommend that the goal for first-time, independent inventors be to license their invention. With licensing your out-of-pocket expense and the time required is significantly less than other methods, and often more in line with the resources and risk tolerance of independent inventors.
Inventor Process helps inventors license their products for royalties. We work with manufacturers and As Seen On TV industry companies to maximize the odds of success for our clients. We can help you succeed.
We hope you enjoyed Tip #14. Please consider sharing this information as it may benefit an inventor you know. If you have questions please don’t hesitate to contact us. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Check back next week for Tip #15.
