What's Your Mantra?

How do you talk to yourself? Your words are incredibly powerful and I bet you're very selective when you talk to your family, friends, and even strangers. My thoughts are that we could be equally or more careful with the words we use when we talk to ourselves. Here's my mantra for today:

I choose to focus on my future, visualizing what will be, looking for the good, going to smile at everyone I cross paths with making my present perfect, living it like I know it is, abundant. I've changed my view of success and know that I have all I need! How about you? How will your day go? Make it great and it will spill into tomorrow, then the next day, and so on....smiling!

Choose your words carefully because all you say, you will think, and all you think will soon be!

What Do You Really Have For Sale?

I've been in sales all my life, literally, I started selling things when I was just 5 years old. I've worked for individuals, companies, and now for myself. Being self employed takes discipline and the ability stay on task. For me, I make a list. If I have to keep in all in my head, my day is spent watching TV, playing on facebook, and talking to friends on the phone. But I digress, let's get back to sales and self-employment. The glove project is primarily a sales job. I had to do my research, and the hands on creating the initial prototype, but the bulk of the journey has been a sales cycle.

You might think you spend your time selling your product, it's features and benefits, and all the wonderful ways it will change the world. My experience has been that what I've really be selling is myself. Yes, it helps when you have to have a good product, but think about "Pet Rocks."

Pet Rocks were a 1970s fad conceived in Los Gatos, CA, by advertising executive Gary Dahl. The first Pet Rocks were ordinary gray stones bought at a builder's supply store and marketed as if they were live pets. The fad lasted about six months, ending with the Christmas season in December 1975. During its short run, the Pet Rock made Dahl a millionaire. I bring up the pet rock because is this product really something needed, useful, and life changing? I think we would all agree, at first blush, the answer is no.

My success has come from my ability to pick up the phone, keep calling when nobody has called me back, maintaining a professional attitude, and doing what I say I will do in every follow-up situation. As long as we are still humans interacting with other humans, the sale will depend on you. Once you have established that you are credible, reliable, and pleasant to work with, you will be able to sell most anything you create, even if all it does is make someone happy, like the Pet Rock did. After all, happiness is clearly needed, useful, and life changing!

It's Not What You Know

Now that you've decided who to trust, you need to focus on who you know. it's the everyday people who can play a major role in your success. Here are a few people it's good to know on a first name basis:

1. An expert or two in your field. I was lucky enough to meet Amilya Antonetti (http://www.amilya.com/) a year ago and she's been a great sense of security to me. Knowing I have Amilya in my phone to call if I need an answer before having a meeting or returning an e-mail. More recently, I've had the pleasure of meeting Mark Reyland (http://www.inventoropinion.blogspot.com/) who is a "Process Guru." What I mean by that, is he knows all the ins and outs of creating, researching, and manufacturing. He has taught me so much about the process of getting a product to market.
2. Your Banker. I am personal friends with the CEO of my credit union. I started out as a vendor, recruiting for him and as we worked together, we became friends. I made the choice to move my personal banking accounts to this credit union and it's been a blessing ever since. When the people who can help you with money know you, and have some say so in a loan approval, it makes life SO much easier. Get to know the people who can say "Yes!" to your financial needs.
3. An Accountant. Having a personal relationship with your accountant is essential to them understanding your business and how to handle your taxes from start-up to your mega million dollar empire. My accountant is actually one of Dave's ex-girlfriends. I know, it may seem strange, but she's known us for so many years, she can guide us through this world of what would be IRS hell. It's also lucky for us she specialized in start up companies.
4. A Lawyer. Yes, knowing someone who is a lawyer is essential. If they practice law in the field of IP, that's even better, but even a lawyer in another field who considers you a friend, can likely find answers for you. Dave was involved in a multi-car accident some years ago, and though it seemed nobody was seriously hurt, one passenger took legal action against all involved. We had no money, and at the time of the accident, Dave had no auto insurance. I called a friend of mine from Rotary who was a real estate attorney. He wrote a letter explaining we had no assets, had since obtained insurance, and pointed out that Dave was on his way to his National Guard weekend drill. That one page letter written by a friend had Dave dropped from the suit, and all it cost us was dinner! Make friends with an attorney, preferably one who specializes in patent law.

There are many more professional people you want to have in your network, but these four are essential. Start building that golden Rolodex and remember, the "who" are people. Get a little personal and become friends. It's so much easier to ask for help when the last time you communicated, it was to just say, "Hello!"

How Do You Know Who To Trust?

The simple answer is, you don't. This is as true in life as it is in bringing a product to market.

You have to trust someone and often, more than one person. You have to work the business of being an inventor and that means letting go of the idea that this great idea is your "baby." The passion and attachment is like the rocket-fire that launches the space shuttle. Certainly necessary for launch, but once it's off the ground, the rockets shut off and the business of piloting a shuttle into space takes over. The business is the education, consulting with experts, getting paperwork signed, experience, and asking tough questions. As a woman, I sometimes have a hard time asking questions I think will lead people to believe I am not trusting them, but maybe I'm not. Maybe that need to question is my intuition, or spidey-senses taking care of me. If part of what you need to do is not your strong point, employ someone whose it is. When you can't trust, you are operating from a standpoint of fear. Do you really want to move through life in fear?

You have to trust people to get you where you want to go. You can't do it all alone, so leave your emotions (and ego) at the door and walk through, to do good business. If you can do that, you can get this one going and get on to launching your next great idea! If I can do it, so can you. Start!

Keep Copies Of Everything!

I finalized my manufacturing agreement last week along with sending in my first official order. I wrote everything up on the official order forms and promptly made copies of all of it before mailing it to my manufacturer.

I learned a very long time ago that record keeping is the single most important function of any relationship, business especially, but friendship, marriage, family, you name it. Keep the paperwork!

I've had a disability check not come for weeks (43 days) only to learn that the copy I made of my doctors report was easily faxed and a check issued within 24 hours. The representative told me that people never have copies of their medical paperwork and usually have to go back to their doctor to have it reissued.

Another good example is keeping and printing an e-mail from my former employer advising me that there is no longer modified duty available for me to do so they have to put me on temporary disability (hence the earlier paragraph). The insurance company hired to settle the the workers compensation claim advised me, in writing, that I was not eligible for a settlement because I quit my job while there was still modified duty available. Ha! I had them caught in a lie, in an effort to bully or harass me. I sent a rebuttal with a copy of the earlier e-mail and they ended up settling for more than was originally discussed.

These examples have nothing to do with my glove business, but they are the most recent incidence of how my keeping records served me. Keep copies of e-mails, letters, agreements, and anything that ties you to them, or them to the other guy. In this day and age of hi-tech communication, a piece of paper could still be worth it's weight in gold. Have you seen the going price for gold lately? My point exactly!

Supporting Inventing Moms

Jennifer Albin is the amazing woman behind Reinventing Mom. This is the home base of the reinventing mom radio show and community. Are you a mom inventor or entrepreneur looking for inspiration? Tune into our radio show (beginning in May) for a weekly dose of inspiration. We’ll also be featuring some inspirational moms here.

This site is a work in progress and will launch on May 6, 2009.

You can join now, set up your page, and invite your entrepreneurial friends!
Go to http://reinventingmom.ning.com/ and sign up today!

Another mom went from dinner decisions to packaging options! Tania was a stay at home mom, when her husband lost his job, she sought out a way to provide for her family in this tough economy. She tells the story, "From panic to passion." In just less than a year, she has a product licensed that will be on store shelves before the end of the year with others in development. Follow her blog at http://taniareynaert.blogspot.com/

Finally, here is a group of three women who are visualizing their life as inventors and taking the steps to get them there. Envizion is a group of 3 female inventors - Patrice, Suzy & Amber, who are on a mission to bring the next hot new product to market. If you have a question about their group or about their experiences inventing, you can post your question as a comment on their blog or email them at thoughtfulcreationsllc@comcast.net. http://envizionpdt.blogspot.com/

Through the wonder and magic of the world wide web, remember when we called it that? Laughing! I have not met any of these women personally, but I believe their intentions are pure, good, and honest. If I can support them in their efforts to succeed and help others do the same, I want to do all I can! You go girls, let's get this economy back on it's feet!

Oh, and for that first order, 751 pair ordered. 501 are pre-sold and the other 250 are for sale via our web site and other! Pretty cool, huh?

Today We Place Our First Official Order!

At some point today, we are suppose to sign off on our final design and place our first order with the manufacturer. For those of you who don't know, I negotiated a kind of hybrid deal. I originally was hunting for a licensing deal. It didn't make sense to me to re-invent the wheel, uh-er, the glove, when in fact, that's exactly what we did. I thought it made more sense to take this gross improvement to someone who already made a kids glove and let them keep doing what they do, only a lot better.

What I ended up with was two manufacturers, one well known, one not so much. Of course I wanted the well known one to sweep me off my feet and we would mosey on down the lane making sweet money together. Turns out, the big name was not so nice. The lessor known company made me an offer I couldn't' refuse.

In a nutshell, they have done all of our prototyping for us. We went through four or five rounds until we got to the product we felt was what we wanted and could compete in the industry. They offered to handle fulfillment for us as well. Additionally, they offered us a line of credit to get our supply of gloves to sell directly from our web site and at any face-to-face event we want to do to promote WarmEase ZipperBack Gloves. WOW! Really? I didn't just jump right in feeling like the best mom negotiator of all time...not so fast. First of all, I've done plenty of negotiating in previous careers, and nobody goes this far out on a limb for someone they don't even know. Secondly, if they really believed in this product why didn't they just license it and do it themselves.

I sat down with the CEO and asked him point blank, "Why are you doing all of this?" His answer was straight forward and he said, "Kathy, you've done all the work. You have so much more to lose in this venture than we ever will. Even if we produce 1000 or 1500 pair of gloves and you drop off the face of the earth, we've lost very little. Based on your track record over the last year, continuing to call and e-mail when we are less than timely, making sales before you even had a product to sell, and basically, doing all the things I know you'll continue to do to make this venture extremely lucrative. Ultimately, nobody can sell these gloves like you can." Well, then, okay. What do you say to that answer? I can tell you what I said. I simply replied, "Thank you. Thank you for believing in our product and me." 'Nuff said!

So today we place that order, 501 pair sold and hopefully another 500 pair in initial inventory. I'll let you know on Friday what the final numbers come out to be!