Business Metamorphosis LLC Newsletter

Business Metamorphosis LLC BML Logo

In This Issue

Which Ideas to patent

Effective Emails

Finding your Customers

Quick Links

Our Blog

ITTR

Penguin

YouTube Channel

Checkout the latest posting to our new YouTube Channel. Its about how to grow ideas into businesses using the "Three Circle Model"

Newsletter - October 2012

This newsletter is for the benefit of: our customers both current and past, our workers , board members and friends including those of you we haven't talked to recently. Please feel free to forward to others who might be interested in our activities. Please realize that this newsletter contains only our opinions on patent matters. We are not authorized to give legal advice. If you are seeking such advice please contact an attorney.

I have lots of ideas which should I patent?

Often when someone invents something new particularly if it is a broad improvement in a technology instead of an evolutionary improvement to an existing product, there are multiple opportunities to file patent applications on different aspects of the basic idea.

For example when Edison invented the electric light it wasn't just the lamp he invented. He needed to invent an entire electrical system including generation, distribution , wires and cables etc.

Since patents are expensive to obtain and maintain the cost of filing on multiple ideas quickly becomes prohibitive except for very large companies.

Also it is often not clear what the most fundamental of the components of the invention or the most valuable one are. This issue needs to be given some significant thought before any patent applications are drafted.

I like to think of this problem in the form of the Alpha Cookie which is discussed in detail in my October 2010 newsletter.

The "Cookie" is the patent space which contains all the possible inventions resulting from the new technology. The chocolate chips in the cookie are the individual inventions. The goal of an orderly commercialization process is to decide which chips to commercialize and in what order.

Obviously it makes no sense to patent inventions you have no intention to commercialize. Those ideas can be disclosed publicly which will give you (and everyone else) the right to use them without worrying that someone has them patented.

Of the ideas which do have commercial value, you may find that the potential market values vary widely as do such issues as the time needed to commercialize them.

The goal of a rational IP policy should be to protect the most valuable of the the inventions and those closest to commercialization. Often that means employing a patententing strategy that starts with a system or Omnibus patent and then is followed by patents on the individual components of the system.

A series of patents on a test for ADHD for which I was one of the inventors employed this strategy. There were ultimately 13 patents filed on from the basic invention behind this test.

Whether you choose to file Omnibus patents or not you need to carefully evaluate the inventions and make rational decisions on whether and when to file patent applications on them or make use of other protection strategies such as those linked here. We can help.

To learn more just send us an email to

rblazey@businessmetamorphosis.com or give us a call at (585) 520-3539

The Power of Effective Emails

And Premium Social Media

In our patent brokerage business its very important to be able to tell our client's story to potential buyers of their technology. Often these people have never heard of either us or our client.

We try to develop links to these key individuals through our networks and through social media, but even so our first attempts to contact them are if not "cold calls" are at least lukewarm.

Recently I have come across a book on effective email strategy that I would estimate has improved the effectiveness of our mailings by at least 70%. We have been able to get responses from very high level people who have never heard of us or our clients are very busy and have every reason to be skeptical.

Still these people reply to our emails and sometimes even call us. The book I refer to is Power Sales Writing by Sue Hershkowitz-Coore.

The author who calls herself "Speaker Sue" teaches a series of techniques that are all built around a five simple step system. I'll not attempt to explain her system here, for that you will need to buy the book. But I will tell you how it changed the way I write email.

Her method is unlike the way most of us write emails. We tend to focus on our business and what we have to sell to the customer, Sue turns the email on its head and writes it from the customers point of view--

Here are "Speaker Sue's 5 questions"

Why am I writing? [That will matter to the reader]
What do I want to say?
What do I want to accomplish?
What is the next step?
Have I provided a reason why this person would be delighted to do what I ask or say?

When you have answered these 5 questions you weave them together into the email. As I've followed this method I've learned to avoid some common errors I was making. Particularly step 4 where I would often leave the next step up to the customer or make it vague or even absent. Now I always make sure the next step is both clear and easy for the customer to do (call, email , check a box or whatever). Step 5 is also very important. Sue calls this step the "Delighter". In order to answer it correctly you will have to understand your prospects motivation and that can be very valueable.

Sue offers lots more advice besides how to write effective emails. She also teaches you how to followup, how to use social media and many other great techniques.

A great adjunct to Speaker Sue is LinkedIn premium. Most of us are already on LinkedIn and know how useful it can be. But I never realized the power of the premium service until one of my clients said he would buy it for me. I'd always thought it was too much for my small budget to cover. What I leasned, was not only does LI premium allow you to send "InMail" to folks outside my network.

The folks who have never heard of you are more likely to answer an email from a LI premium account. I don't know why this is but it seems to be the case.

So here are two techniques that should increase the effectiveness of your business emails. Give them a try. We hope they work for you as well as they have for us.

And if you would like us to use these and other tools to help find buyers for your invention [or sellers with something you need] , please give us a call or write

Email : rblazey@ittrifecta.com

Phone: (585) 520-3539

www.ITTrifecta.com

Identifying your Customer Base

One of the things that every company needs to know is who their target customers are. Companies that have been in business for some time have a pretty good idea of who is buying from them but they often don't have nearly as good an idea of who Might be buying from them that isn't currently doing so.

Startups have no track record to draw upon so they can only guess as to who their most likely customers might be. At Penguin we have a product called Market Sonar which is used in Voice of the Customer surveys to find out what customers are really thinking.

When coupled with databases of hypothetical customer sets this makes a powerful tool for finding out which customers are most likely to be impressed by your new product (and which are not).

We once had client whom we helped identify 5 groups of potential customers using demographic information and materials supplied by the client. We then selected representative individuals from each of the 5 groups and called them using a carefully prepared script to determine their possible interest in the clients new product.

The client was very surprised at the results of the survey. The group he thought would be his best customers hated his new product [because they were sure they could fix the problem it solved better themselves]. However another group that the client had not given serious consideration to was so fascinated by the product that 10% of them requested a sales call.

Market Sonar will help you determine WHO is most interested in your product. Before you spend a lot of time and money marketing to the wrong audience isn't it worth finding out who likes your product and who doesn't and also what they like and dislike about it?

Just contact us at the Rochester Penguin Group. Or call me at (585) 520-3539

We appreciate your responses to our newsletters. Please send us your comments. We are always interested in what you want to know.

Sincerely,

Richard Blazey
Business Metamorphosis LLC

Referrals Welcome

We are never too busy for your referrals. If you know someone who could benefit from any of our services, please introduce them to us by phone or by email. It will be much appreciated.