Features

Welcome Page
John's Journal
Backyard Survival
Special Reports
Guides & Lodges
Writing
Free Tips
Links

Book Selections

Hunting
Fishing

Fun & Games

Trivia Game

Contact Us

Subscribe
Comments
E-mail Us

 
Free Tips...
 

GOT A GREAT IDEA FOR A PRODUCT? HERE'S HOW TO SELL IT

Twice last week I had outdoorsmen bring great new products sportsmen needed to me for my suggestions and help as to how they could make fortunes with these new products they had invented.

Each month three to eight outdoorsmen who have invented helpful new products will seek my advice on how to take a new product or a new idea to the mass market. Since I realize that many outdoorsmen invent new products for our industry and don't know how to market these new inventions, here's some tips that will help you if you have a great new-product idea.

* Remember that no one else will make you rich. Just because you've come up with a new idea, a better way to do something or a new hunting or fishing product, you won't necessarily find the world your oyster or that people will give you thousands of dollars for this new invention.

* Understand that you don't have to spend the $8,000 required to get your new invention patented to keep someone from stealing it from you. Most people consider only products with proven value the only ideas worth stealing. Until you can prove that someone will buy your product and pay more for it than it costs for you to manufacture it, then that idea or product has no value.

* Add up the total cost of your product. Often an outdoor inventor makes the mistake of not knowing the true cost of the product he or she has invented. The inventor often doesn't consider: the time required to invent a product; the time spent in making the product; the cost of putting that product in some type of container or packaging to sell it and then shipping that product to a dealer or a distributor; the cost of advertising; the worth of the inventor's time to try to market that product; the profit margins that an inventor must build into a three-step distribution program for a distributor and a dealer to get that product to consumers; and the warehouse space required to inventory the product once it's built.

A product that costs $10 to make more than likely will have to sell for $30 to turn a profit after the adding in of all the costs of manufacturing, packaging, marketing and shipping. Often outdoorsmen won't pay $30 each for products they can build for themselves for $10 each.

Let's look at an approach that works when you have a new idea for an outdoor product. Build 10 of the products to see if you can sell them. Take the profits from the 10 products, build 20, and sell them. Keep doubling your business until you can sell 1,000 of the product within six months.

Then you can take the product and its sales record to a major marketer in the hunting-and-fishing industry to learn if that company has any interest in buying your product. Major companies in the outdoor industry have very strong distribution systems and can sell more of your whiz-its faster than you can. They can put your whizits in major discount houses, catalogue houses and sporting-goods stores.

Yes, you'll only make a very small profit off each of your products sold when you use this system to sell your idea, your product and your marketing system to a major company or corporation in the outdoor industry. However, because that company may take responsibility for manufacturing and marketing your product, over time you will make more than if you sell the product yourself.

For more tips from the pros
visit Night Hawk's Free Tips page.