Episode 17 - STRATEGY (grow where the money is)

This week Jack discusses using strategy that is not etched in stone and adapting to your sales enviroment.  He also explains why improving your product as you go helps sales and the sales strategy.

Episode Transcript

(00:15):
So tell me if you've heard thisone before. I got this great idea
for sports fans, but I can'tfind a buyer and I just don't think
I'll be able to afford licensing.Jack, is it time to hang up
my cleats? You're not thinking bigenough, and I have that problem all
the time. If your product favorsa certain sport, then hit college,

(00:37):
hit high school, and look forother similar sports that you can expand into
because you can do it. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the thirty
year Overnight Sensation. I'm your host, Jack Courage, and this podcast is
a conversation, not a class.If you're a novice inventor or want to
be an inventor, I'll take youthrough the steps of design, manufacturing,

(01:00):
selling, and getting your product outinto the market. This podcast is not
a front for a subscription service orsome company trying to generate money off of
your ideas. It's about the trialsof inventing and it's not easy, but
you can do it yourself. Youjust have to be smart about it.

(01:22):
So where have we been? Ihad the sports craze idea, went through
the prototyping, manufacturing, touched onlegal and now here we're going to close
out this product with strategy, andwhat the heck happened to the hand?
Flag? Sounds more like ready fire, aim, doesn't it. I left
strategy at the end because I viewit only second to creating the original idea,

(01:49):
So Jock, that's stupid. Whylave until the end? You need
it at the beginning. Actually youneeded the entire time. But I will
show depending on your product and whatyou want, that strategy usually evolves and
that plays into once again, Iknow you've heard it a lot, being
flexible, which is really important.As I said a few weeks ago,

(02:14):
the sponsors and the licensers for thewomen's national team were few in number.
Since I was going nowhere with theleague, I contacted all the licenseurs to
see if they needed something, anythingbesides the standard stuff that they were already
selling or about to sell. Thatchewed up a lot of time, so

(02:34):
when we did get down to theone licenser that was listening and looking for
maybe one more new thing, Ihad to start putting a backup plan together
just in case that one turned usdown. So now we're about a month
away from where we could get everythingstill made and shipped out for sale and
a reasonable time frame before the firstevent. And this as this was happening,

(03:00):
word was leaking out on the women'steam's performances and they weren't very inspiring.
You cannot believe the chill effect thatcame right over the licenseurs. No
one ever knows who's going to reallywin. But at that point, the
team sentiment against America remained the samekind of as in twenty nineteen, if

(03:23):
not worse. On top of theirplay wasn't it wasn't doing as good as
it needed to be at that point. The last Licenser met with me on
my team, they were on thefence, not on our product, but
using the games to further their brand. They liked the way we adapted the

(03:44):
spirit of the flag because the flagwas a no go. But they had
made a bold decision after seeing us. They were only going to sell products
for adults that they had already plannedon. They did not see this product
as one hundred percent adult, whichI agreed with at that point. They
were not going to focus on anyproduct for kids, which was still a

(04:10):
little shocking to me, but Ihad to agree. Now. If if
this had taken off as a crazebefore you know, I could see it
being adopted by adults later. It'sa goofy item, but I designed it
mainly for kids, and that's whatI had in mind when I presented it
to them. Seriously, they hadexcluded kids in this sales goal based on

(04:34):
the reports at that time. Theywere not putting one more set on anything
and they hoped at least to breakeven. But they were lucky because they
stopped and they did and just keptwhat they had going on, and so
were we. It only got worsefor the women's team and we both dodged

(04:55):
a bullet. This Licenser was thelast place that was going to take a
chance on us, so we wereout of luck for the World Cup,
and at the time that wasn't reallybroken up about that. Incidentally, once
the World Cup happened, England didget it right though, and that was
the perfect thing to look at.Their team was nicknamed and I hope I

(05:16):
can say right the Lionesses, andpeople started selling Lioneers, lion everything,
and it was pretty cute and I'mnot going to be surprised if there's more
Lionesses if I'm saying that right forthis summer's twenty twenty four Olympic Women's soccers
game. I think they nailed itand hit it out of the park.

(05:39):
Even now, for twenty twenty four, what does the US women's Olympic soccer
team have in a fun way fortheir fans to rally behind. Unless something
changes drastically, I doubt will evenbe on our American flag, And to
me that personally, that's a shame. As we started to get down to

(05:59):
just a few license ours, Istarted to hatch another plan in case this
one went south. Now that itdid not work out, it was time
to move on. Wait for it, we found a place to move on
to hockey. I had a smallinn at the Tampa Bay Lightning a thanks
time, which I know sounds strange, but hear me out. Our hand

(06:23):
flag is a good product for whatit is, so I was not going
to toss it aside and say nextplease. As we were further developing and
perfecting the hand flag, we improvedthe product. I thought if I added
some more reflectance to the flag bannerpart of it, maybe there'd be some
secondary sales, you know, likesafety features. While the hand flag seemed

(06:46):
to be winding down with the women'ssoccer license ours. I had to keep
thinking of a backup plan, andthis does drive my friends crazy. That's
right, JP. I almost nevertake a day off until it's outright sold.
I'm almost always thinking of backup plans, alternates, anything. Now Sometimes

(07:09):
when I need to think but notreally think, I'll catch a movie.
I don't know when the last movieyou went to see, but the movie
trailers and the ads are about ahalf hour long nowadays before the movie even
starts. And I'd picked a veryvery long movie since i was traveling in
the Midwest, not in a downtowncity. There was a guy in the

(07:30):
row ahead of me, and hewas wearing his construction clothes. Nothing wrong
with that and actually pretty common.But as the lights turned down halfway for
the movie trailers, and this iskind of important to where I'm going with
it, the guy in front ofme started to glow. See he had

(07:51):
the gray safety reflectant screen onto hissweatshirt. I said, okay, we
can do that to the hand flagalready exists. That'd be easy to incorporate.
Maybe we do it on one sideor both sides. But I asked
myself, one traditional place has lowerlighting where the same effect could be happening.

(08:13):
You got it indoor hockey games.That's what I was thinking at that
moment. Now, truth be told, I think these would work at basketball
arenas you know. But starting out, it just made sense to me to
take a glove to a hockey gamebecause at least it looks cold, and
that's where you'd wear a glove versusmaybe a basketball court. So now I

(08:35):
had my new area of attack.My team really pressed a manufacturer to get
the right reflected materials and it wasn'tcheap. Also, that reflectant was very
hard to print on, but wecame up with some alternatives and now we
could add images and print on thatreflectant. Now, usually I would change

(08:56):
the name of the product if thepurpose changed, like going from a normal
flag to a reflected banner or areflectant pennant. In this case, we
didn't. We would just offer thehand flag in all three forms. It
was mid season for the hockey team, but I was shooting for either the
playoffs or next season. We reallyput a lot of time in the reflecting

(09:18):
aspect. We could now produce ahand flag that had the team flag on
the front and the reflective on theback, or both sides, both be
reflective. I even went so farto have a dozen made and went to
a minor league hockey game and justpassed them out in my section. Everyone
was great. They let me takepictures to prove my point that the half

(09:41):
lighting in the stands in an everyman'ssmall town hockey game worked and they glowed
like the guy in the theater.Funnier and it was funny and not expected.
When the house lights went all theway down and the lights streamed across
like they do to jazz up theevent, the gloves looked like cell phones

(10:03):
glowing in the dark, and wecould still see the team logo. For
me, the designer, that night, I felt like the product was a
complete success for what it was andhow it was made. I had produced
a product that would be great atan outdoor park in the day, and
then one that would work at night, both inside and outside the park.

(10:26):
That's great, Jack, But whyhaven't I seen it? Funny? You
should ask. We went round andround with the lightning to get it in
their hands for a game night orthe playoffs. Unfortunately, we could not
get the price down to what theyneeded. Now. I could have been
a real jerk here, and itwould have hurt me in the long run.
This was a billion dollar team whosehandouts were more expensive on promotional nights,

(10:52):
but they were known commodities such asa ball cap, Barbie Dolls,
Jerseys Wayian shirt, which never makessense to me, but okay, at
that point, they were just notgoing to take a chance on an unproven
product, and I wasn't going togive it away for free or a discount.
We had developed a solid product andyes it may be stupid, but

(11:16):
it was fun. And don't forgetI had sold it to some unsuspecting people
for five bucks. So it beinggiven away as a promotional product at a
night, a sports night, itwasn't out of reach because people had paid
for it and they weren't expecting anythingin that. They just I was fun

(11:37):
and it hit the moment, justlike a promotional product can be. As
one of my business partners says,Brad got the best one liners. It
just wasn't time for it yet.Wow. Why Jack, I'm all broken
up. You're a loser. Youlost? No, not really. I

(11:58):
may not be happy that I didn'tsell it right there to the women's national
team's license orner or this pro hockeyteam but I still own this product for
at least the next fifteen years.And as I said, it was a
solid product and I'm grateful for this. My business partners and investors are behind
the product and think it will haveit a future even if we burned up

(12:22):
cash now, which is not aluxury you get when you're starting out.
So with that luxury of investors,I will, as I say every episode,
stay at it until it hits becauseI've got a few more years.
So let's take a look at nothaving the luxury that I had to wait

(12:45):
it out. Let's take a lookat it as a new inventor would.
And if the exact same thing justhappened to you, why go into this
in the strategy episode. The reasonis it's not over. So let's combine
the two strategies a bit. You'rethe new inventor, had the product,

(13:05):
selling it locally and regionally, plussome sales on the internet. You pitch
a national team and it goes nowhere, and you spend valuable resources pitching a
pro team and again you're stopped.What do you do for the new inventor?
You'd have more options than you dideven a month ago prior, because

(13:26):
you had perfected the product with reflectivematerial, and now you can sell the
product for day and night activities.So this is what it's about about being
flexible. If it were me,and it has been many times, I
would stay on the local, regionalpath and continue to grow it all the

(13:48):
time using social media and your simplewebsite to keep getting and growing publicity.
But I would add once again,another step or another layer. If it
was a hand flag, most wouldview it as patriotic. I would hatch
a plan to get it in smalltour shops throughout the country, specific high

(14:09):
profile shops. Jack. It's noteasy. People say no a lot.
I don't know about it. Idon't like no. Yes, they do
say no, but you've got atough enough buttercup. I would pick ten
or twenty tourist shops across the countryand send them samples with your costs.

(14:31):
To get them again, I wouldput them on consignment for trade that they
would put it in a high profilespot and really give your product a chance
while it's on consignment. And rememberthis consignment usually ends by the second order
because you've proved it they're selling itgenerally or they're not, and they'll move
on with You. In an earlierepisode, I mentioned a place like Mount

(14:54):
Rushmore, but that is just one. There are many places to try,
and most will pass. But imaginehow your product profile would raise if you
were selling at the Alamo or thePony Express Museum in Saint Joe, or
maybe the Arch of Saint Louis ormaybe even in Gettysburg. I could go
on and on with the list.It's twenty of them right off the top

(15:16):
of my head. Now, someof these places are run by small personal
staff and others by big corporations,so it's hit or miss. But the
more calls you make, followed upby sending samples and falling up by a
pleasant demeanor, the product will grow. Also along the way, you may
get suggestions for add ons or actuallynew ideas that could form into a product

(15:39):
line, all the while continuing togrow your regions. This is also the
time to take side jobs, startingwith you know, people saying I want
something with the state flag or maybea flag something else you hadn't even thought
of it that you could have printedand done pretty easily. It's another level

(16:00):
that you may or may not growto until you're ready and if you've protected
yourself. You can keep trying togrow steadily. So what is the strategy.
It doesn't seem to be a secret, does it. Your strategy is
to grow where the money is.Maybe the tourist shops don't work out,

(16:22):
but because of them helping getting yourproduct awareness out, you now start selling
to like fundraisers or events. Soyou stop selling at the tourist shops because
maybe they aren't helping out, butthen you're doing more and more fundraising or
special events. So the key hereis when you're starting out, if your

(16:45):
product is strong, it will havea life cycle, and just follow it
into the areas where the money's comingfrom, not where you think it should
come from. It sounds so easy, doesn't it, But believe me,
it's really not. Sometimes I thinkthe easier the plan is, the harder
it is to stay on that path. But if you're thrifty, nimble,

(17:11):
and flexible, I promise you youwill have an easier time. Or in
my case, something's nagging you inthe back of your mind. I call
these things itches that don't physically happen, but they bother me all the same.
And I did leave one thing outfrom what the hockey team said and

(17:33):
I do listen to my clients.Even if maybe I think it's an excuse,
I still write it down and Ikeep it as a category because you
just never know when it's gonna comeback and could possibly help you. But
they said in passing their promotional productsare generally and this is in general,
unisex for everyone, and they thoughtthe hand flag tended to lean a bit

(17:56):
more masculine. I said, masculine. That seemed a little like an odd
comment to me, but it didstick with me. Maybe it was an
excuse, maybe it was an objectionthat I didn't overcome properly. Either way,
I thought, hey, you know, maybe they're right. Maybe just

(18:18):
maybe I needed a ying for ayang. Maybe the hand flag would sell
better if I had a feminist version, a balance. I wondered, you
know what would that look like?And guess what, I didn't have to
wonder for long. So until nexttime, when you're thinking of ideas,

(18:41):
never settle. And when you're stuck, and I mean really struggling, just
stay the course. Keep in mindwhen it gets tough, that's when most
people give up and quit. There'salways another way. I'm your host,
Jack Courage. The third year overnightsensation stay at it M