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• Stephen Key is an author and inventor. He is the author of One Simple Idea. Stephen has a yearlong program called InventRight. They have coaches that coach you through every step. They assist you with contract negotiations. He also has another project in progress called InventYES (Young Entrepreneur Success).  InventYES is a free program geared towards high school students. This should be up and running by August.

• Stephen makes small improvements to existing ideas.

• He sends his ideas to medium sized companies that want to be big companies.

• You can file a provisional patent application. The cost is around $65.

• He normally puts a one-page sale sheet together of his idea; he also creates a video that has a problem and solution. He then sends it to a company and if there is interest, he files the provisional patent application.

• The following industries are inventor friendly: kitchen housewares, hardware, toy, novelty gift, as seen on TV, DYI, and pet products.

• You can even get a freelance graphic designer, create the idea, and make it look like it’s the real deal. The cost is less than $50.

• Always talk to somebody in the sales, marketing or new product development department. Start slow, send them an email with a clear idea of what the benefit is and put that in the subject line. Build a relationship first.

• Get an account on LinkedIn.

• Stephen has many great ideas and when deciding which one to choose he finds often the one with the smallest improvement on an existing idea works well. That way he knows there is a market for it. He also tries to find an industry that is inventor friendly.

• Having a large market is important.

• Have an idea that can be summarized in one sentence; the benefit of it; so it is easy to describe.

• Another thing to consider is: can your product be manufactured easily?

• Once you have the contacts at companies, keep sending ideas, one at a time, don’t confuse them with many products in one presentation.

• If you get rejected on the first attempt, remember you already have a relationship with the company. Thank them and ask them, “Help me understand why?”, “What are you looking for?” Then send them another one.

• You should always show the company the benefits, why would people buy the product?

• You can start with little money.

• Do your research. Check companies online.

• If you are considering doing it on your own, consider the following: look at your skillset, how much time do you have, what do you want to do (big picture), how much control do you want to have?

• Licensing is finding the perfect partner that has all the tools necessary to quickly bring your idea to market.

• There is an inventathon called Make48. Inventors have 48 hours to come up with a solution. For the winner there is possible licensing with the sponsor and there are cash prizes.

• Make sure you love your customer. Plan ahead. Make a good business plan.

• If you are interested in inventing, they should start with visiting all top design schools in the country and reach out to companies that need ideas.

• Every day is a new day. Be excited about the possibilities. You can have very little background; all you need  is what you like and don’t like, process of licensing, connecting to other designers; LinkedIn, communicating with other people; going to inventor’s group in your city, seeing what is new; looking at the opportunity to create for this generation.

• You stay young when you step outside your comfort zone.

• Look at your age as your asset. You have experience and wisdom. Embrace it. Enjoy it.

 

Stephen Key Contact Information

 

Website

www.inventright.com

Email Address

stephenkey@inventright.com

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• Beth Davis is the president of Dakota Resources. Dakota Resources has created financial products that help bring capital to rural areas. They also have an entrepreneur development program that helps create an infrastructure in those local communities and a network across South Dakota that supports entrepreneurial development.

• There are freelance opportunity in the production of radio and television.

• To start a copywriting business, Beth recommends visiting an ad agency or nonprofit organizations. Often nonprofits don’t have in-house staff to do the writing for them.

• Do market research and find out where the need for copywriters exist; who is currently in the market; where the opportunities are, and where the people who hold those opportunities hang out. Invest the majority of your resources where these people hang out.

• Start with a Facebook business page that would refer to a website that would carry examples of your work.

• Invest in a quality website.

• An important quality for any entrepreneur is leveraging the gifts, talents and passion of others. It is really important to know yourself, know what you are good at and then pay other people to do the things you are not good at.

• Letting go of control is probably one of the scariest things for entrepreneurs, but one of the most necessary to grow a business.

• Find other entrepreneurs who are also passionate about what they do.

• There are two things that move people out of poverty or out of a place of scarcity.

• One of the things that Beth encourages people to do is, even if you are an introvert is to go talk to people. Tell people your ideas; tell people what you are working on.

• Growing luck: It is what happens when you risk sharing your dream or sharing your idea.

• Questions are so powerful. People like talking about themselves. Show interest. Ask questions and soon people will be asking questions about you. That creates conversation and dialogue.

• Risking and sharing your dream creates opportunity for connection to luck.

• Luck can be manifested by intention.

• The second one is assets. Invest in savings and invest in education.

• Do something every day that moves you toward your vision. Just keep taking small steps in the right direction.

• If you are truly committed, the universe eventually aligns with you. If you are clear about what your purpose is, you have clarity of vision and you are willing to be open to how that vision is realized then your purpose will be manifested. As long as you are putting energy every day towards that vision and purpose, eventually the alignment will happen.

• We live in a world of networks, not hierarchy.

• You don’t have to be a big manufacturer to make a big impact on your local economy and on your own livelihood.

• Support local businesses.

• Small businesses have always been the major economic development drivers in this country.

• Follow your passion. Connect to what makes you happy. Life is too short to waste time and energy worrying and lamenting about what you don’t have.

• Create it out of your own passion.

 

Beth Davis Contact Information

 

Website

Overview

 

Email Address

beth@dakotaresources.org

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Pat Hiban is the owner of Pat Hiban Group of Keller Williams Realty.  He is also one of the founders of GoBundance.

Sometimes people around you believe in you more than you believe in yourself and if we listen to them and they say, “Do this.” You can do it.

People evolve.

Use the same patterns that you previously learnt in other businesses and apply them to your new business, it can work.

Pat’s pattern is getting the right people on the bus with him.

It is all about the talent that you know.  He found up and coming agents and got them on his team. His agents were better at selling homes than he was.

The people running his businesses are first class.

Have an organizational mind that is not negative, but critical. There is a fine line between being positive and seeing it as possible and also critical. You can do both, however, it takes a balance to do both.

Pat’s goal is to add horizontal lines to his income.  For example, he can add a horizontal line by buying a house and renting it out. He adds another horizontal line by giving people money to start a business and the business starts to pay dividends, etc. You have to think that way from the beginning.

Work smart versus work hard.

It is ok to evolve. It’s ok not to be the same person you were ten years ago.  Recreate yourself.  Go into something different. Remember the patterns that helped you succeed in your first business.  Use those patterns in your new business.

Baby boomers can look to their passion, get a job doing what they are passionate about, and learn the business.

Show your worth by being the best.

Don’t waste your time doing something that you don’t want to do.

Evolution is natural.  It is supposed to happen. We are supposed to evolve.  We are supposed to grow.

When you grow, it hurts but it is natural. It is supposed to happen. Don’t fight it. It may seem drastic to you, but there are stories of people who have evolved and have been successful.

As we get older, we are supposed to become our best self.

Pat Hiban Contact Information

Website

www.gobundance.com

http://www.hiban.com/

Facebook

hibanpat

Instagram

@Iampathiban

Email Address

pat@hiban.com

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• Ivan Misner is the Founder & Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, the world’s largest business networking organization. BNI was founded in 1985. The organization now has over 7,000 chapters throughout every populated continent of the world.

 

• Ivan learned from his trucking business that when money is tight, don’t fib to people. Don’t tell people, “You’ll get the check this week.” People will work with you if you are just honest with them.

 

• You can’t talk your way out of something you behave yourself into.

 

• It took him twenty years to get to the point of success where he is now. He had lots of failures along the way. It is those failures that are the best lessons as what not to do in order to be successful.

 

• Define yourself by your successes, acknowledge your failures, learn from your failures, move on and don’t live in those failures.

 

• Make a plan, it is a road map. However, sometimes there are detours along the way and you have to be willing to go with them.

 

• Set goals and set up a system to measure your performance to achieve your goals easily.

 

• Ivan’s philosophy is to do six things a thousand times and not a thousand things six times.

 

• To start a business, ask yourself these questions. What are you passionate about? What do you like doing? Start with that. Then you look for business opportunities in those areas that you like doing.

 

• He was able to build his BNI brand by writing books, which he is passionate about.

 

• You may not have the answer, but you have to know where to find the answer.

 

• You can start to build a following by writing a blog and building a platform. You do that for a year or so and you’ve built content for your book. Once you have the following, you will have a reputation that can enable you to get the interviews, but it also will give you credibility for jobs and it will open up doors.

 

• Get out and connect with people. Networking is a contact sport. You can’t rely on just your content to replace your contacts.

 

• Build credibility through your blogging and writing, as well as connect with people face to face. This will help you build your business.

 

• VCP Process – (Visibility Credibility Profitability). First you have to be visible in the community. People have to know who you are and what you do. Then you have to establish credibility. That is when people know who you are, what you do and that you are good at it. Profitability is when people know who you are, what you do, that you are good at it and they are willing pass you referrals on an ongoing reciprocal basis.

 

• Networking goes wrong when people try to jump over visibility, jump right over credibility and try to get right to profitability.

 

• Offer help and people will hand you their business card.

 

• Last year in BNI, they passed 6.6 million referrals and generated $8.6 billion dollars worth of business for their members all around the world.

 

• Ignorance on fire is better than knowledge on ice. If you go with what you are passionate about and you are on fire about it, don’t worry if you don’t have all the answers.

 

• Only you can motivate yourself.

 

• If you think you can or you think you can’t, you’ll be right.

 

• The only choice to have to get you where you want to go is to try. Any other choice will get you failure.

 

• We have a lot less control over winning or losing at something than we do over trying or quitting at something. Always try, you can eventually win. If you always quit, you can never win.

 

• To be part of BNI, go to www.bni.com. Find a local chapter, go visit a group.  They allow one person per profession. They get together every week.  They pass each other referrals. The only way to join is to be approved by the local chapter.

 

 

Ivan Misner Contact Information

 

Website

www.ivanmisner.com

www.bni.com

 

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/IvanMisner.BNIFounder

 

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Penny Sansevieri is a promoter of authors from around the world; Guy Kawasaki being one of them.

Many authors write a book to become famous.  Many people want to write a book to build their platform, to get more business and to get more speaking.

A book is a 24/7 promotional tool. It is also a good business card to have.

A book is a great way to get yourself out there.

Book writing can grow your business just as it grew Penny’s.

Penny used the first book she wrote as a positioning tool to get her interviews in newsletters and online print publication. She also used her book to pitch herself to speaking events.

Being in business is not always the easiest thing in the world.  This is part of the reason so many businesses fail because people underestimate the amount of work involved.

Publishing companies have become very risk adverse which means that if you don’t have some kind of a platform, social media or newsletter following, it will be really hard to get a traditional publisher.

Before deciding to go with a traditional publisher, think about the following: are you willing to give up creative control of your book? Are you willing to wait eighteen months for the book to get published?

The positive side of dealing with a traditional publisher is their ability to access distribution channels.

An important question to ask the traditional publisher is what the distribution will look like for the book and make sure to get it in writing.

With self-publishing, you can get access to those distribution channels, but you have to do the work to get there.

Regardless of how you publish a book, you still have to market it on your own.

If you decide not to have an agent, you should get someone to vet the contract.

Read some of the trades like Publisher’s Lunch; it is important to know what is happening with publishing companies.

No matter how you decide to publish, it’s a business. You need to decide what’s right for you and for your business.

The quickest way to get your book published is through self-publishing. 

Depending on what the book is about, you can do a book and a workbook. There are a lot of options out there.

The amount of pages that you should have in your book should be around fifty.

The cost for self-publishing can be as little as $500 for a cover to $2,000 for a cover.  You can pay $100 to do the interior or $500 to do the interior. Ask a consultant to give you some guidance.

If you spend your money wisely, you can have an absolutely beautiful book without having to break the bank.

Penny likes CreateSpace because they are inexpensive, they are efficient and they don’t try to upsell you.

You have to be willing to go the extra mile. You have to be persistent; don’t let the NO’s discourage you.

Marketing is the key.

If a nonfiction book is tied to a business it will probably be fairly successful. If you write a non-fiction book, you need a platform and you need to be an expert.

You can make revenue, but you have to be smart about it. If you are publishing a book, think about publishing more than one book. One book does not an empire make.

Keep the book short and to the point.

If you have a book, get it out there.

A book can be a legacy; a book can be an expression of yourself.

Penny Sansevieri Contact Information

Website

www.amarketingexpert.com

Email

Penny@amarketingexpert.com