Invent It, Sell It, Bank It!: Make Your Million-Dollar Idea Into a Reality (38 page)

Set up a Twitter account.

Set up a Pinterest page, if applicable.

Research and follow some of your favorite brands to see what they’re doing online and how it’s effective.

Create a shareable branded piece of content like an icon, logo, or image with a catchy phrase that will entertain or inspire people enough to compel them to pass it on to others.

12

KEEP THE DREAM GOING—EXPAND AND DIVERSIFY

You did it. Your product is selling in stores and online. Your factory is going full speed ahead. Your marketing efforts are helping you reach more and more fans and customers every day. You have achieved the dream. You’re done!

Actually, if you’re like most entrepreneurs, you’re not done. This really is only just the beginning. As I said in the start of this book, if you can create one amazing product and build a sustainable business with it, you have reason to be proud. Not many people get to see their invention make its way into the mass market and experience the elation of creating something that makes people’s lives just a little bit better, whether it’s by providing the solution to a problem, improving or enhancing their space with a new design, or even just giving them a reason to laugh.

For most inventors, however, the satisfying taste of success will only whet the appetite (as well as that of your buyers) for more. If you managed to bring a product to market successfully once, why couldn’t you do it again? You can, and it’ll be easier the
second time. And the best thing about it is that you don’t even have to start from scratch.

I hadn’t even thought about creating another product after just six months of selling my jewelry organizer. It started selling well as soon as it appeared on the shelves at JCPenney and other brick-and-mortar retailers. It was after it appeared on the Home Shopping Network, however, and they could barely keep it in stock, that my Home Shopping Network buyer sat me down to ask me what more I had planned—what other new products were coming? More?

There was nothing more. I hadn’t ever thought about creating another product. I hadn’t planned to branch out with other inventions—I just wanted to make the best earring organizer possible and be successful with it. Her question took me completely off guard. But as we discussed earlier, buyers have a business to run, too, and they’re always looking for new and exciting products. I started to get excited. Yes! Of course I could think of more products! My mind started going and it hasn’t stopped.

Once I got over my initial surprise, the next product almost invented itself. I simply added an interchangeable bracelet bar and necklace bar to the original organizer. It sold great, too. We started getting customer requests for a cover for it. Done. Within a few more months, I created my first spinning cosmetic organizer, which went on HSN, and into Linens ’n Things under their private label.

USE YOUR ORIGINAL PRODUCT FOR INSPIRATION

There is no need to panic if until now you have invested all of your energy into developing one perfect product and have given little thought to anything else. Add-ons and extensions can be an inventor’s personal gold mine, especially if you have patented
your product and technology. You don’t need to look far for new product ideas. Stick to what you know and create more marketable, successful products along the same lines of what is already working. Start with add-ons and companion pieces to enhance your idea that is already selling well.

Many successful entrepreneurs and companies have followed this business model. After Aaron Krause hit it big with his Scrub Daddy cleaning sponges, we started thinking about what other products we could make out of this special patented foam that no one else could make or use but us. The result was an extension product called the Scrub Daisy, a wand filled with soap, with a little foam flower at the end that fit perfectly into most glasses so that the bottom could be properly cleaned. Soon we were coming out with scented Scrub Daddies and ones in different colors. And who knows, maybe we’ll adapt Aaron’s invention to clean items well beyond what can fit into a kitchen sink, like floors, cars, or windows. After all, he was washing a car when the idea for the Scrub Daddy hit him!

Once you create a product that succeeds, the possibilities are endless. As time goes on, you can learn more about your market and consumer demand, you can enhance your technology, and you can use that knowledge to make improvements and to fuel an endless stream of creation and innovation. I started with one earring organizer, and today I have launched over 400 products. I started with one in each arena, and expanded from small to large, from a full cheval-style mirror with jewelry storage inside that holds 350 pieces, to a double-sided spinning mirror cabinet that holds more than 750 pieces. When you become good at one thing, it’s easy to make more and more in the same genre.

Expand upon a Great Idea

There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel every time you want to branch out beyond your initial product or into new markets. Your invention provides a service to one market, so think about how you can adapt that same service to another one. For example, once I had a full line of various jewelry organizers, I looked around and saw that the cosmetics market didn’t have any good organizational solutions, either. I remembered my mother’s sink strewn about with all the compacts, brushes, eye shadows, and lipsticks. I had created a patented deluxe Silver Safekeeper jewelry box with swing-out doors that allows you to see up to 350 pieces of jewelry in an instant. Nothing piles on top of each other; it’s all beautifully displayed like a fine store display, but at home.

It was so popular that I decided to adapt the exact same type of design with the swing-out doors for cosmetics. So I created my deluxe cosmetic organizer, and it too is a great-selling item in my line. Every time I have a concept that works, I think about what else I can do with it. Throughout my entire career, products have just snowballed. With the massive success of the Fill-A-Bowl at QVC, Michael’s craft store, and many other places, I created a Fill-a-Jar, a Fill-a-Tray, a Fill-a-Trivet, a Fill-a-Frame, and a Fill-a-Fork and Spoon. The Fill-A items became a huge line of their own. It was the same thing with my closet organizers, my travel bags, and so on. I never tried to invent a need; I simply listened to what people complained about the most, and then invented a solution.

Do What You Know

I specifically targeted my products to women because it was a market that I knew, and because a large percent of the viewers of QVC were women. I was also constantly hearing from women
about how grateful they were to finally have products that helped them eradicate the clutter and disorder that kept making its way into their busy lives. And what are the five purchases most women make above all else? Clothes, shoes, makeup, jewelry, and food. So it made sense to focus on creating products that were related to those five categories.

BIDE YOUR TIME BEFORE BRANCHING OUT TOO FAR

I stuck to making plastic products for a long time because I knew how injection molding worked. It took several years before I decided the business and my brand were entrenched enough to risk experimenting with new materials and markets. It’s extremely important not to get so caught up in the high of success that you throw caution to the wind and overextend yourself. If you started selling an unbelievable pair of scissors that became the next hot gadget, you might consider branching out into gardening shears or kitchen knives. Paper shredders, however, might be a risky stretch unless you’ve got a ready-made “in.” In the beginning of your career, don’t be afraid to branch out, but stick with familiar mediums and markets. As you grow and succeed, you will make the connections you need to successfully step into new arenas.

Eventually, I did start creating products out of wood overseas. They weren’t too risky, for at their core they were still extensions of my previously successful lines. People really appreciated my Deluxe Silver Safekeeper antitarnish jewelry box and I knew they loved the earring organizer. Why not take both and turn it into one? So I made a box, and enhanced its aesthetic appeal by making it out of wood. It had sliding earring stands, and the entire box would swivel open all at once so you could see your whole collection at once.

When it did well, I started thinking about how to make it
even better. So far I had created products that sat on women’s bathroom counters or vanities. But what could we do that was bigger and better? My customers were big jewelry lovers and wanted
even more
storage. That’s when I designed my full-length mirror Gold and Silver Safekeeper Jewelry Cabinet. It’s still wood, and it still incorporates everything people loved about the earring organizer. And like the jewelry box, everything is in clear view and hanging like a store display, except now it is a cheval-style, full-length floor-standing mirror that opens up to reveal a jewelry cabinet inside.

The next step was to create the same cabinet that would hang on the wall. On both, the mirrored door locks and hides your entire jewelry collection, up to 350 pieces. It has earring bars, hooks for necklaces, shelves for bracelets, and slots for rings. It looks completely different from my original tabletop product, but in reality it’s a first cousin. But customers wanted even
more
! So I made the big daddy of them all, a full-length jewelry cabinet with the same cheval-style standing mirror, but this one spins on a base and has doors on each side. One side holds all your necklaces, the other side holds all your earrings, rings, cuffs, pins, and more. It holds more than 800 pieces, all in clear view.

It’s like a formula: (1) start with one concept, design an extension or add-on to create a second one; (2) now blend the two to make a third. In this way, you can ultimately grow your business by developing extensions of products that have already seen success and have established a track record.

CONCLUSION

“The world always seems brighter when you’ve just made something that wasn’t there before.”