Book Signing

Last Saturday, we held a book signing to promote The Right Sisters in our local community. We invited family, friends, and business associates and sent a press release to the local newspaper about the event which was held in a coffee house on the main street.

We were delighted with the steady stream of guests who came to wish us well, buy books, and get them signed. Most gratifying, however, was the number of inventors who showed up.

The target audience for The Right Sisters is people who are interested in the inventor's journey, so when these folks arrived in response to the announcement in the newspaper, we knew that we were reaching our intended audience. Some of these inventors had a fledgling idea while others were farther along in the journey. One women told about her mother who had invented a product and applied for the patent but had died unexpectedly. Now the daughter wanted to continue the journey for her mother.

The Right Sisters has the answers these inventors are seeking. They were eager to begin reading the 10 stories told by modern women inventors. For us, talking to other inventors was energizing, so meeting these guests was a reciprocal experience.

Paying for Patent Protection

August is National Inventors Month. In 1998, the United Inventors Association of the USA (UIA-USA), the Academy of Applied Science, and Inventors' Digest magazine initiated a month long event to celebrate invention and creativity.

I found it interesting that during the month that honors inventors, I got a Google alert about a backlog at the US Patent Office that is thwarting inventors' ability to protect their ideas. According to an article on CBS News "the current wait for a patent is, on average, three years, or 36 months."

The consequence of this backlog is that many inventors find their ideas "knocked off" by large prosperous companies. When we interviewed women for The Right Sisters, nine of the ten women had dealt with knock-offs or copies of their products.

The CBS News article goes on to report that the patent office is self-funding, meaning that it operates on the fees charged for patents. The charge for a patent application is around $1000 with a discount for small enterprises. One theory suggests that if fees were higher, thereby increasing the operating budget of USPO, the process would speed up and protection would come more quickly.

This is a crucial IF for independent inventors who operate on a shoestring budget. While we are anxious for protection, we are often dealing with tenuous financial constraints. It's important to recognize that the increase in patent application fees would be added to patent attorney fees that are often necessary to write a strong patent application.

The dilemma this creates for inventors is confusing and difficult to sort out. If you are an inventor, would you be willing to pay higher fees for quicker protection? Why or why not?

US vs. Overseas Manufacturing

When I initiated the production phase of my inventor journey, I was well aware of the debate related to overseas manufacturing. Determined to manufacture my erasers locally, I was delighted when I found a tool and die company a mere 60 miles from my rural Northern California location. I worked with them to create the molds necessary to manufacture the erasers. Not long after the first batch of erasers was produced, the company went belly up financially, leaving me with molds but no way to manufacture the eraser.

I had just left my teaching job and had pumped every bit of money I had into KleenSlate Concepts. About that time, another inventor connected me with a manufacturer based in China. The price was right, and I decided that I'd have to let go of my intention to manufacture locally if I wanted to keep my dream alive. But I was not totally happy with this option.

When we were interviewing women inventors for The Right Sisters, I found that others struggled with this same dilemma: i.e., wanting to manufacture in the US but not being able to afford to on a shoe-string budget. The cost factor loomed large and so we headed out of the country.

However, there is an administrative burden incurred in managing a supplier thousands of miles away. We ended up dealing with quality and delivery problems at great distance and sometimes under the burden of a language or cultural handicaps as well as time differences. Not only did I discover it was more expedient to manufacture here, I also felt it was more politically correct. Certainly, this was a personal bias, but I wanted to say my product was made in the USA.

Well, I'm going to be saying that soon. My friend Wendy Steele, President of TapeWrangler-www.tapewrangler.com- and featured in The Right Sisters, manufactures her own line of products at her manufacturing plant in Traverse City, MI. Wendy's company has our molds now and we will soon be in production. Later this month, I'll be saying, "KleenSlate dry erase paddles are made in the the USA."

Product Promotion: 2 Thoughts

Promoting one's product is a never-ending job for those of us who decide to manufacture and market our own inventions. I'm constantly thinking about promotion, and I thought I'd share two thoughts I had this week.

1. Unexpected Promotional Opportunities. I'm always on the look out for ways to promote my products. Last week, I got a notice from Google Alerts about a blogger who was writing about whiteboards: Jason Berke's wrote a blog entitled "A Brief History of the Dry Erase Marker." I was delighted that Jason chose this topic. I was also pleased to have this unexpected opportunity to promote my Whiteboard Paddles. I added a comment to Jason's post with a link to KleenSlate Concepts. I don't know how many readers Jason has, but a few adds up to many, and I've just let a few more people know about the paddles and KleenSlate. Plus by mentioning him here, I create a link back to my blog that some of his readers might follow. Like I said, "I take every opportunity to promote my product."
2. Give Something When Promoting Your Product. Everyone likes to get a gift, so when I'm promoting, I pass out markers, erasers, discount opportunities and sometimes just a suggestion. For example, when I commented on Jason's post, I let him and his readers know that soap and water is the best way to clean dry erase boards. This little piece of advice was my gift to him. You see in working with customers, they've told me that clean up is always an concern, so I've made a point to respond to that concern. Remember last week, when I wrote about listening your customers at trade shows? You can turn their needs and concerns into a practical piece of advice or a gift.

I'd love to hear how you grasp every opportunity to promote your inventions. Please leave me a comment and if a gift if you like.

Kleen Slate in Africa

I am always looking for opportunities to promote good will and give to those less fortunate than I. So when my friend Rosemary introduced me to Max and Kathryn who work with a school in Ethiopia, I offered to give them several cases of KleenSlate paddles and dry erase markers for the school.

They were excited to get the donation but explained that it was not easy to get things like this to the school. Airfreight is expensive and there is always the danger of customs duties, so they best way to get donations of any kind to the school is to take them in their luggage when they visit the school. As it turned out, they sent the paddles and markers with a colleague, so it was several months before they found out if they teachers had put them to good use.

Kathryn wrote the following message when she arrived at the school and also sent the picture accompanying this post:

I went over to Mekele and took our volunteer teacher, Lynn around the school on her first day there. The teachers were not expecting the tour and we went into a few classrooms at random. Imagine my
delight to see the paddles in action in a genuine, unrehearsed lesson!

The students were learning Amharic. This is not an easy language as instead of having an alphabet like ours, they have symbols which represent sound combinations, and they have to learn about 130 in all.
This class was learning the symbols for ha hi he ho hu h etc. The children were holding up the symbols representing these sounds, and then one would hide their symbol and then the other children would have to say which one was missing. Also the teacher was moving the children into different places in the line so that they could spell out some short words!

This was really excellent. The children were enjoying their classes and all participating well and showing learning is fun!

News like this is incredibly satisfying, and of course a picture is worth a 1000 words.

5 Trade Show Tips

KleenSlate just spent 17 days on the road at four separate trade shows. Early on in my inventor journey, I learned the value of getting to industry specific trade shows. In my case, that meant educational and office supply shows. The most recent round of shows were educational, which brings me to the focus of this post: 5 trade show tips.

You see, it's simply not enough to get to the shows which in some cases cost a bundle to attend. You need to make them profitable. Here are my suggestions for making the most of your time at a trade show.

1. Do your homework. Find out who will be attending the show and what they need. In these tough economic times, it also pays to find out who has money to spend. For example, most schools are taking drastic measures to cut costs, so when I decided to go to these educational trade shows, I needed to find out who had money to spend. With a little investigation, I discovered that there was money in Title I programs, so I made these people my target audience at each trade show.
2. Where comfortable shoes. You are going to be on your feet for hours at a trade show, so invest in the most comfortable shoes possible. It will be money well spent. You need to happy feet to stay upbeat while promoting your product.
3. Give a KISS presentation and then listen: Keep your presentation simple, a maximum of 3 talking points aimed at the target customer(s) you identified by doing your homework. Give your presentation, quickly and smoothly. Then stop and listen to the customer. Ask them questions. Find out what problems they are trying to solve. I asked questions and learned that teachers hated the smell of dry erase markers; they frequently threw them away because the tips collapsed into the marker, and they wanted an eraser on the end. So I created such a marker for my customer.
4. Close the deal. Don't let a potential sale get away. Develop a practiced phrase or two that gets customers to place an order on the spot. If necessary, offer a deal they can't pass up. Keep the ordering process easy.
5. Follow-up. Have someone in place when you get home who can follow-up on every contact you made at the trade show and do it promptly.

Trade shows are one of the best options to show customers our products, but we have to make them work to our advantage.

Innovative Customers

When I invented the Kwik Chek paddles, I envisioned them being put to use in classrooms across the country. Back then I wasn't aware of customer innovations. Since that time, the paddle has been used in a myriad of contexts including with hospital patients who are temporarily unable to speak, to prompt kids about chores, and at least one time to facilitate a date.

I recently learned that the paddles have made it all the way to Afghanistan to take part in the war there. Here is an email message that explains:

I heard about your company through a Google search for white board paddles. I am a Crew Chief on Chinook helicopters for the US Army currently deployed to Afghanistan. These paddles come in handy when you are trying to communicate with ground personnel and passengers over the loud noise of the helicopter. I appreciate your services and will definitely pass on your name when other crew members ask me where I got them.

Thanks!
Tyler Parsons