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THE
ONLINE INVENTOR – November Issue
(c)
2004 Market Launchers, Inc.
http://www.marketlaunchers.com/customer-testimonials.html
Editor:
Paul Niemann
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EDITOR’S
NOTES: We
bring you 3 more great articles in this edition, but first, here’s some
important news for you as an inventor …
I’ve
brought together representatives from 7 companies who are looking for new
products to acquire or license, and some of them are VERY BIG companies. I’m
currently setting up a private web page where you will be able to have YOUR
INVENTIONS posted on this page so that these companies will them. It’s a
3-month window of opportunity for you … you will receive all the details
next Wednesday via e-mail.
In
this issue, Article # 1 is written for an audience of internet marketers, but
the message is appropriate for inventors, too. It could save you from a lot of
hassles – and save you from losing a ton of money inventing the wrong types
of products.
Article
# 2 is written by a very successful inventor, Mike Marks of InventionCity.com.
Mike is one of the roughly 2% of inventors who profit from their inventions.
The article is from his book, Inventing:
First Steps.
Article
# 3 is from my syndicated newspaper
column and book, INVENTION MYSTERIES:
The Little-Known Stories Behind Well-Known Inventions.
Enjoy!
Best
Regards,
Paul
Niemann
President
of MarketLaunchers.com
800-337-5758
http://www.marketlaunchers.com/customer-testimonials.html
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FAMOUS
/ INFAMOUS Quotes ...
“Inventions
have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further
developments,”
Roman engineer Julius Sextus Frontinus in 10 A.D.
“That’s
an amazing invention, but who would ever want to use one of them?”
President Rutherford B. Hayes when Alexander Graham Bell presented him with a
working model of his invention in 1876. Bell’s went on to become the most
valuable patent in history.
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Article
# 1: “It’s
Essential You Only Market Products That People Want,” by Willie Crawford
Article
# 2: “Guesstimate
of Invention Value,” by Mike Marks,
author of the book, Inventing: First
Steps
Article
# 3: “Which
Presidents are Better Inventors: Republicans or Democrats?” by Paul Niemann,
author of the book, Invention Mysteries
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Article
# 1: “It’s
Essential You Only Market Products That People Want,” by Willie Crawford
Is
your online business generating the standard of living that you envisioned
when you first started? Are you working the hours you want and meeting your
income goals? Are people buying
the things that you offer them like hotcakes?
If
your answer to the above questions is "no" then there's a good
chance that you're either marketing the wrong product, or you're marketing it
in the wrong
way. Countless online marketers are marketing the wrong products and
don't even realize it. Let's take a look at why that's so and how you can
remedy it.
There
is a fairly simple "formula" for determining what products or
services you should be offering your customers. I once heard Marlon Sanders
express it perfectly. He said, "Whatever
they're buying, that's what I'm selling."
He meant, he lets his market tell him what they want and that's what he
offers them. Brilliantly simple!
Don't
offer what you think your market needs or wants. If you do, you’re going
about it all wrong. They don't
buy what they need -- they do buy what they want.
However, they
Did
you catch the second part of that last sentence? The often-overlooked factors
are that they must want it, must be willing to pay for it, and must be able to
pay for it. Miss any of these
three elements and you have a product that isn't going to make you a success.
The part that I see a lot of marketers miss is the third part. They
have a product that the market wants but they offer it to segments of the
market that can't afford it... or are convinced that they can't afford it.
These
marketers go on a crusade trying to convince their market that this product is
just what they need and that the product will make their lives perfect.
These marketers
refuse
to acknowledge that even if their market does *need* their product, they won't
pay for it. That's a losing
formula.
Many
marketers who create their own products also do it all wrong. Don't
create a product and then go in search of a market.
Research the market first to let them prove to you what they really
want. You can do this by doing
surveys, or observing what is being heavily promoted in the pay per click
search engines. You can also notice what problems your market is discussing on
discussion forums and in e-mails. They will often show you a problem that they
want solved.
Once
you've identified a problem, confirm there is sufficient demand to make it
worthwhile for you to create a solution.
Make sure that the market for that type of product is not already
over-saturated, but don't be afraid of competition.
Competition proves that there is demand.
When you notice a niche that no one is serving, ask why that might be.
When
you see an "unfilled niche," it's very possible that the product
idea you have has been tried before and proved not viable.
You don't really want to be a "trailblazer" or
"pioneer." Top Internet
marketers know that pioneers get arrows in their backs.
Top Internet marketers "go for the low hanging fruit."
Consider fast food restaurants in any major city. They generally locate
where all of the other restaurants are and just point out what is different
about their cuisine. That gives
them a greater chance for success since other restaurants have already
validated that the location is a winner.
So
the formula that you want to follow is simply to let the market tell you what
it wants and then offer it to them. They
tell you this everyday if you're really listening.
Really listen, and then respond to what they are telling you and you're
virtually assured to be a success. Just
make your motto, "Whatever they're buying, that's what I'm selling."
Copyright
2004 Willie Crawford
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# # #
About
the Author:
Willie
Crawford is a corporate president, published author, seminar speaker and host,
tele-seminar speaker and host, retired military officer, karate black belt,
network marketing trainer, and lifetime student of marketing.
He shows people how to actually generate substantial income on-line
using very simple systems. An
example of such a system can be studied and duplicated at:
http://ProfitMagician.com
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Article
# 2: “Guesstimate
of Invention Value,” by Mike Marks, author of the book, Inventing:
First Steps
The
basic equation for guesstimating the value of your invention is:
Market
Size X Market Share X Wholesale Price X Royalty = Maximum Invention Value of
License
Market
Size X Market Share X Wholesale Price X Net Profit =
Maximum Value of New Business
This
number needs to be tempered by your odds of success.
As a last step multiply your final number by a gut feeling on your odds
of success. If you are willing to
devote several full time years of your life and have no doubt that you’ll
achieve maximum success your odds might be 75%.
If you are merely willing to put in a little effort and see where it
goes then odds of 5% might be reasonable.
Example
of SuperWidget:
A
widget is a thingamajig that does something-or-other.
In this example a typical widget sells for $20.
We’ve done our homework and believe that 10 million widgets are sold
each year. Our new SuperWidget is
so incredibly good that everyone who sees our prototype says they’ll buy
SuperWidgets instead of old-fashioned widgets.
We expect SuperWidget to sell for the same $20 price as the old
fashioned widgets. A royalty of
4% is on the high side for the widget industry but plausible because
SuperWidget is so super. Our
guesstimate of value looks like this:
50
million units (5 year market size) X 50% (market share) X $20/unit
= $500 million X 4% (inventor royalty)
= $20 million Maximum Value of Invention License
Use
50% for odds of success:
$20
million X 50% = $10 million potential return
I’d
say a potential return of $10 million merits serious attention.
Actually that depends on how much that potential return costs me.
If I need to spend $10 million in real dollars to earn a weighted
(theoretical) return of $10 million, then it’s hardly a good investment.
Now
remember how we came up with this number.
It’s not something you’d want to bet your life on.
You can’t count on it in any way at all.
It simply serves as a yardstick for determining whether or not your
effort will be well spent. Remember
our VC number, we’re looking for 5X to 10X our investment.
The
Utility of 10%:
Whenever
you’re in doubt about assigning odds of success or market share and you have
no particular reason for choosing one number over another, choose 10%.
It’s easy and plausible to imagine you’ve got a 10% chance of
success and will manage to get 10% of a given market.
Empirically, in my experience, 10% also seems pretty accurate.
Some
Words on Sweat
All
inventors should heed the words of Thomas Edison:
"Inventing is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration."
In
other words, the idea is the easy part. I would add further, that once an
inventor starts perspiring, it's hard to stop. Each hour or dollar spent
developing an idea can become justification to spend yet another hour, yet
another dollar, until fatigue, an empty bank account, or just possibly
success, ends the cycle.
When
you have a great idea it’s hard to be realistic about its chances of
success. It’s even harder when
you hear stories about how persistence pays off.
Persistence does pay off … if the requirements for success are there.
Other times persistence can lead to throwing away hard-to-find time and
good money.
Work
hard. Get honest input from
people you trust. Be honest with
yourself. If the idea seems
unlikely to succeed you should drop.
#
# # #
About
the Author:
For more than a decade Mike
Marks has
been active in creating and marketing new products and forming new businesses.
As a co-founder of WorkTools,
Inc. Endeavor
Products Company, Sandjam'R
and Accentra
he has managed the design, manufacturing, marketing, patenting and licensing
of products such as the Gator-Grip®
Universal Socket and the Black & Decker PowerShot®
staple gun. Over the past seven years products developed by WorkTools have
generated over $300 million in retail sales and over $5 million in royalties. In
his book, Inventing: First Steps,
he tells you how to evaluate, protect and prototype your invention on a tight
budget. 75-page printed book costs $29.95 including S&H and is sent via
first class mail. 75-page e-book (Adobe PDF file) sent via email within 24
hours, costs $18.95 w/ processing charge.
To order your own copy of Mike’s new e-book, please visit
http://store.yahoo.com/i-city/infirstep.html
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Article
# 3:
“Which Presidents are Better Inventors: Republicans or Democrats?
With
the 2004 elections upon us, the Political Division of Invention
Mysteries World Headquarters has issued its prediction for the
presidential election.
Several
Votes
will be awarded as follows:
In
chronological order, we begin with Thomas
Jefferson, who was by far the greatest presidential inventor in
Abe
Lincoln invented a solution to help him navigate a boat through shallow waters
while he was an Illinois Congressman. He was issued Patent # 6,469 for “A
Device for Buoying Vessels Over Shoals” in 1849.
Even
though
Enter
another Republican president, Rutherford B. Hayes. President Hayes was not an
inventor, but we
deduct two votes from his party under the “Acts Unbecoming of a President”
clause instituted at the beginning of this column. Some might even say that
Hayes’s offense, like Johnson’s, was an impeachable
one. What was his crime?
Upon
seeing a demonstration of Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone in 1876, Hayes
failed to realize its benefits at first. He remarked, “That’s
an amazing invention, but who would ever want to use one of them?”
By
the way, the “B” in his middle name stands for “Birchard.”
Another
Republican,
Teddy Roosevelt, gets two votes for the teddy bear that bears his name.
Deduct
three votes for the Republican Party for Richard
Nixon’s impeachment and subsequent resignation. His negative votes get
cancelled out by Democrat Bill Clinton’s impeachment, though.
So
there you have it – the entire 215-year history of presidential inventions
in a nutshell. Now it’s
time to count up the votes to see which party will occupy the White House for
the next four years. Drumroll, please.
The
votes are in, and it doesn’t look good for either party. The Republicans,
with Lincoln, Hayes, Roosevelt and Nixon, have minus one vote, while the
Democrats have minus three votes because of
He
was a member of – and I’m not making this up – the
“Democratic-Republican Party.” When
I
think we need a re-count.
About
the Author:
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Click here to get your own web page for your invention.
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