Bob Serling – Reverse Inventing

Reverse Inventing

How to make a small fortune with your big ideas — in half the time

and at a fraction of the cost of conventional inventing techniques

People tell me I have the best business in the world.

Why? Just take a look at one of my typical days…

I wake up in the morning, read the sports page and comics while having tea and some fruit, then walk into my office at home and make a phone call. Immediately, my top engineer is dispatched to China for a month to work out the manufacturing specifications for my toy.

At the same time, my industrial engineer — one of the top engineers in the business — is working on a chemical compound for a component of my toy that will make a brilliant, glowing ball of sparks that’s both cold and safe.

My patent attorney? She’s making sure that all the proper protections are in place so no one tries to create a competing product. She’s also closing deals with six of the top celebrities in this field to feature their names and companies on my toy.

Then there’s my graphic design team. They’re hard at work creating an attractive, eye-popping package that kids will love. And a collection of full-page, full-color ads that will run in kids magazines. Oh… and another team of creatives is working up story boards for the television commercials that will spread the word to millions of kids every morning during cartoon shows.

Once all that work is complete, hundreds of other employees roll into action for me. A team of sales people spreads out all over the world — some in person, some on the phone — to make sure that Toys-R-Us, Wal-Mart, Kaybee Toys, Target, CVS, Walgreens and dozens of smaller drug store chains, department stores and gift shops are stocking their shelves with my toy.

Behind the scenes, the production line is rolling, cranking out hundreds of thousands of copies of my toy, all featuring the six celebrities whose popularity makes this toy sell like hot cakes. More employees are working the production line assembling my toy, inserting the toys into their packaging, loading the packages into boxes, putting the boxes onto pallets, and then shipping them around the world to the stores that will sell them.

But here’s the best part…

I use the term “my” employees, and they are, because they’re all devoted to making my toy successful. BUT — I’m not in charge of any of them, I don’t pay a penny of their salaries, they don’t report to me and I’m not responsible for seeing that any of the tasks I’ve listed here get done.

That’s because I’ve licensed my toy idea to a major toy company and all these employees are working on my behalf… but I don’t have to pay their salaries or lift a finger!

Is this the best “job” in the world or what?

This is how I make my living. By inventing ideas for products, carefully test marketing to prove in advance that there’s a large market of customers hungry to buy my products, and then licensing them to other companies for a sizable advance plus a percentage of the profits.

In addition, because of the experience I’ve accumulated, other companies pay me substantial fees and royalties to handle licensing their products for them. Just this week, one of the most highly regarded training organizations in the world agreed to give me the exclusive worldwide licensing rights to a group of their products. Actually, I shouldn’t say “give me”, because they paid me a hefty retainer to represent them.

Because most of my licensing deals are done over the phone, I work out of my home and easily get everything done with just one assistant. So you’ll never catch me in a suit and tie (which I hate). Instead, I’m wearing a pair of jeans and a comfortable shirt.

Frankly, I couldn’t imagine a better “job”. I get to think up ideas for all kinds of products and companies pay me substantial fees to use them. So I don’t have to do any of the tasks that I don’t like or I’m not good at. And I never have to risk any of my own money.

I mean, is this the best job you’ve ever heard of? It certainly is to me.

Now, don’t get me wrong, while the process is reasonably simple, it does require a lot of hard work. But at the same time, I can pick and choose when I work, where I work from, and take as much time as I want to be with my family, take vacations, or indulge my passion for nature photography.

Does this sound like the kind of work and lifestyle you’d like to have?

Here’s how nearly anyone — including you — can

enjoy this type of work and lifestyle

If you have a million dollar product idea… or if you’re a reasonably creative person… or if you look at products and wonder “why the heck didn’t they include this feature on it?”… then you can make a great living licensing your ideas to companies like I do.

The truth is, just about anyone who is willing to apply themselves and learn my system can succeed at this. You can even do it part time, just a few hours a week to begin with.

You see, I didn’t have a lick of experience when I started and I’m not an engineer or graphic designer — in fact, I have less than one semester of college. But what I do have is a step-by-step system that allows me to invent dozens of ideas each month, weed out only those with the strongest chance of success, and get them in front of top companies that are eager to license them.

Now, you may be wondering if there are very many companies to license your ideas to. And the answer is an emphatic “Yes!”

Here’s why — and if you get nothing else out of reading this, this is the most important piece of the puzzle. This is the key to why anyone with a good idea can make an excellent living as a product developer (that’s the professional term, rather than “inventor”). So please be sure to read the next paragraph twice.

Because of the explosive growth in global business, much of it brought on by the internet, smart companies realize that in order to stay ahead of the competition, they must bring new ideas to market at a rapidly increasing pace. And since they recognize that a great idea can come from anywhere, they eagerly welcome marketable ideas from outside developers they can use to get a leg up on their competition.

This is a great deal for these companies and for you, the product developer. The companies can tap into an unlimited stream of profitable new ideas without paying the salaries of a massive research and development staff. And as a product developer, you and I can make six to seven figures doing just the fun part of inventing ideas — without any of the cost or risk of building a company with a load of employees.

That’s a pretty sweet deal all around!

BUT — there’s one problem that can derail your success in an instant. And the sad part is, almost every inventor and product developer falls victim to this. In order to avoid this potentially disastrous problem and make sure all your product development efforts are as successful as possible, here’s what you must know…

The secret to making millions with your ideas

There are hundreds of books, courses, and web sites on inventing and licensing products. But the problem is, they’re all based on “old school” conventional wisdom. And that conventional wisdom is completely backwards.

What’s worse is that the old school way of inventing absolutely guarantees that 98% of all new product ideas will fail. Need proof? The United States Patent and Trademark office issues 456,000 patents every year. Yet, according to the U.S. Patent Office, only 2% of those products ever make it to market!

What’s responsible for such dismal results? Quite simply, the conventional wisdom for developing products and taking them to market is backwards. And it kills 98% of great product ideas before they ever have a chance.

But this doesn’t have to happen. Because my “reverse inventing” process is completely different. It turns the conventional wisdom on its ear and makes the inventing and licensing process far more effective. So effective that my success rate hovers around 70% — far surpassing the anemic industry rate of just 2%. And I guarantee it will give you the ability to invent as many hot new product ideas as you’ll ever need and license them to major corporations for substantial royalties.

Here’s a quick overview of my “reverse inventing” process:

1. Use one of these methods for creating your initial idea:
   1. Find a problem that affects a large group of people (the larger, the better), then create a product that solves that problem.
   2. Find a hot-selling product or service that’s already being sold to a large market by large corporations — then improve that product by adding a new or different feature.
2. “Reverse” your focus by spending 90% of your effort test marketing your product to prove that customers absolutely love it, NOT on patents or expensive prototypes. (Neglecting this critical point is why 98% of all products never make it to market).
3. License your “customer proven” product to a large corporation that already sells other products in your target market. You collect an upfront fee, then royalties for as many years as your product is sold.
4. Repeat steps 1 through 3 over and over again.

Now, if you’re a business owner, you follow the exact same steps, except instead of licensing out your product, you sell it to your customers. Not only will this process make you a lot of money, but it will leave your competitors wondering what hit them.

What I’ve just shown you is simple, yet incredibly powerful. In my humble opinion (OK, maybe not so humble :-), it’s your fastest, safest way to make a small fortune from your big ideas. In fact, here’s just a sampling of some of the ways I’ve applied this process to generate millions in revenue.

Four case studies of “reverse inventing” in action

Case Study #1: Skateboard Toy

You may have heard of the toy skateboard I created and licensed to a major toy company. It featured the logo of Tony Hawk and half a dozen other high profile skateboarders and was sold in Toys-R-Us, Wal-Mart, Kaybee Toys, Target and thousands of drug stores and other retailers all over the world. How did I pull this off despite having no previous experience in the toy industry? By applying the “reverse inventing” steps I showed you above. Plus, I currently have a couple new toys and gift items being considered by major corporations.

Case Study #2: Educational Software

I co-founded a software company, licensed the software out at first, and then sold the company for $6.4 million in just 17 months. That company is still going strong and boasts an impressive customer list that includes General Electric, Cars.com, Johnson & Johnson, Kaiser Permanente, Pioneer, Sunguard and more. Here again, I had zero previous experience in the software or education fields.

Case Study #3: Marketing Campaigns

Although I’m strongly involved in creating and licensing ideas for products and services, I’m probably best known for licensing marketing campaigns to my clients — and for having taught thousands of people how to do this.

There’s a letter I wrote that has now become known as “The $25 Million Letter”. People call it this because this one-and-a-half page letter landed an agreement for a $25 million contract the first time my client sent it out. But equally important, I’ve taken this same letter, made slight modifications to it and licensed it out to clients in 14 different industries. And collected handsome fees and royalties each time.

I also created a licensing strategy for the late Corey Rudl that pulled in $1 million profit for his business in the first week — and a total of $2.6 million in a few months. And I made a hefty six figures just for my idea.

Or how about the 3 word phrase I created for a prominent sales training company that paid me a quick $15k to use it? Can you think of a faster way to make a serious profit than that? I could give you many more examples of marketing ideas and campaigns that I’ve licensed out, but I’m sure you get the picture.

Case Study #4: Licensing Agent

A minute ago, I mentioned that one of the world’s elite training companies has hired me to license their materials to large corporations. And that I get a five-figure retainer plus a significant percentage of the profits for doing this.

Well the deal is even better than what I described. Because what I didn’t mention is that a deal like this can easily continue for ten years or more. Which means I collect my royalties for years to come. And the more corporations I can find to license these training materials to, the more money I make.

But what makes it even sweeter is that not only can I act as a licensing agent for a company’s materials like this, but I can also do this for dozens of other companies’ products as well.

After all, the licensing process is nearly identical regardless of which industry you want to use it in. So there’s nothing stopping you from acting as a licensing agent — just as I do — for a wide variety of products. Which means that you don’t even have to come up with your own ideas for what to license. All you need is the ability to take other companies’ great ideas and license them for an upfront fee and a percentage of the profits.

Here’s how you can duplicate my simple process

and make serious money with your big ideas

What I’ve just shared with you should give you a strong understanding of how immense the opportunity is that licensing inventions and products makes available to you. And how anyone can tap into this to make serious money with licensing.

However, as with anything that’s worth doing properly, while it is simple, it isn’t necessarily easy. Licensing your big ideas takes real work. There are many steps and many nuances to each step.

If you make a serious mistake during any of these steps, it can make all the difference between success or failure. Believe me, I’m made many such mistakes over the years and I know from first-hand experience how just one mistake can derail your entire project.

On the other hand, developing and licensing inventions and products isn’t exactly rocket science. The fact is, I have less than one semester of college and I managed to figure the process out through trial and error.

Now you could probably figure it out on your own too, but it would take you years, just like it did for me. Or, you can get in-depth training and coaching, master the entire process in the shortest time possible, and quickly be licensing out your big ideas and get paid handsomely in return.

All of this is available through my new program, Reverse Inventing: How to make a small fortune with your big ideas — in half the time and at a fraction of the cost of conventional inventing techniques.

In order to make sure you’re capitalizing on every licensing opportunity, I’ll be taking you through my “reverse inventing” process step-by-step, giving you in-depth training, and providing thorough personal support and coaching. So let me show you what we’ll be covering in this unique program.

Comprehensive training in all aspects of creating ideas

and licensing them for substantial profits

In order to benefit from the full profit potential of licensing your big ideas, you’ll discover exactly how to use my proprietary process to “reverse” the conventional licensing wisdom and…

• Create powerful product ideas on demand — as many as you’d like, and as often as you’d like
• Test the market and know for certain whether your idea will be a winner before you invest any time or money in it
• Avoid the costly, time-consuming mistakes caused by the old style of inventing products
• Make a quick, accurate “go/no go” decision that lets you capitalize on winning products and kill the losers before they can do you damage
• Chart a simple, extremely effective marketing path that maximizes your licensing income
• Make a six or seven figure income in a fraction of the time it would take following the conventional wisdom

What you’ll discover will give you the ability to create breakthrough product ideas on demand, test the market quickly and inexpensively, kill the losers and invest only in the winners, and successfully license your products for substantial royalties in the fastest time possible.

Here are just some of the tools you’ll get to accomplish this…

• My proprietary “Roadshow Process” for creating hot new product ideas on demand. Just spend a couple hours visiting your favorite stores, web sites or social networking sites, take a few notes or pictures with your smart phone, then apply my foolproof “roadshow” technique and you’ll have a wealth of highly profitable product and service ideas.
  The “Roadshow Process” is one of the key secrets that’s allowed me to successfully license around 70% of my products. That’s massive compared to the 2% of new inventions the U.S. patent office says ever make it to market.
  That’s because the “Roadshow Process” focuses on finding products that are already selling well and inventing improvements for them instead of relying on a lightning bolt of inspiration to strike you out of the blue. Most importantly, by focusing on improving products that are already selling well, you know for certain there’s a huge market for them. And you know exactly who to license them to — the company whose product you’re improving or their competition.
  Best of all, the “Roadshow Process” is so easy to use, anyone can create highly profitable products right from the start. Yet it’s the critical difference that ensures you make money licensing your products and services while other inventors/licensors spin their wheels and often get nowhere.
• How to cash in with the product ideas you already have. Do you already have an idea for a product? Make it even better. Follow the simple steps I give you and you can easily turn an average product idea into a top seller.
• My “3-tier formula” for determining which of your product ideas will be the most profitable. Once you see how easy it is to create hot product ideas on demand, you’ll quickly have more great ideas than you can work on at one time. Which is the best, most profitable idea? Just plug in my formula and get the answer immediately.
• The home-run question. Many “good” products could easily be made “great” with a minor tweak here or there. This powerful question will get you the critical information you need to turn acceptable results into home-runs that increase your bottom line profits fast.
• The single most important component for gauging the selling power of your product. There are a lot of conventional ways to attempt to measure the actual selling power of your product. Unfortunately, most of them have built in biases that almost always produce unreliable results. Don’t get fooled — this powerful “reverse inventing” technique will make sure you know beyond a shadow of a doubt whether your product is a “go” or “no go” before you invest serious time, money, or effort in it.
• How to get literally millions of dollars worth of research for free. Don’t waste your time or money on expensive research firms. I’ll show you how to cut research time down to just a few hours, costs down to zero, and still get powerful, proven research that will let you create and market winning products with complete confidence.
• 5 deadly licensing mistakes that will wreak havoc on your bank account. Plus simple solutions for avoiding them — and even turning them into powerful advantages for your products.
• How to replace the high cost of prototypes with dirt-cheap “as if” models that actually get your deals signed faster. Every book or course I’ve ever seen on product development tells you that it’s impossible to succeed without a prototype. But nothing could be further from the truth. For my last product, the prototype would have cost $13,000, but using my dirt-cheap “as if” model approach, I created a demonstration model that was actually superior to a prototype for just $121 — and closed the deal within 48 hours.
• BONUS: How to eliminate prototypes and cut your costs to the bare minimum using my proprietary Reverse Inventing ProtoSheet. I’ll give you more details on this in a few minutes.
• Test marketing techniques that guarantee a winning product. You can follow the conventional wisdom and sink tens of thousands of dollars into patents, prototypes, and manufacturing. Or you can “reverse” the entire process and prove whether or not real customers love your product, so you know for certain that it will be a hot seller before you invest significant time, effort, and money.
  My proprietary test marketing techniques focus on one thing only: finding out if real customers will pay their hard-earned money for your product. Once you can show for certain that customers will pay for your product, it’s practically a slam dunk to get it licensed. But without this critical information, your product is likely to end up in the inventor’s graveyard, part of the 98% of products that never make it to market.
• How to accurately estimate manufacturing costs. Even though I don’t advise you to manufacture your own product, you must provide this critical information to potential licensees. Blow this step and you lose the deal. But demonstrate that you’ve done it properly, and it paves your way to a lucrative licensing deal.
• Patents and trademarks. When you need them, when you don’t, and inexpensive alternatives that still give you significant protection. Plus, my “progressive” patenting formula that helps you keep your costs to the bare minimum when you do need to file patent and trademark applications. You won’t find this money-saving technique anywhere else.
• Accelerating the time to profit from your product to just a few weeks or months, rather than the year or more it takes with conventional techniques. Why waste time with costly, useless tasks when you could be producing substantial profits in short order. You’ll discover how to eliminate the bulk of the steps that conventional inventing employs and “reverse” the process to focus only on the meaningful steps that cut months off the process and increase your likelihood of success at the same time.
• How to find the best companies to license to. Some companies will put you through a grueling obstacle course to get a deal done, while others make the licensing process a breeze. Discover how to tell the difference — before you contact them — and get a highly profitable deal done the frictionless way.
• Should you sell your product idea outright or license it? I’m strongly in favor of licensing for many reasons — all of which I cover in the program materials. Still, there are times when it’s better to sell your product outright. I’ll show you how to tell what’s best for your product, along with straightforward advice for getting the best deal possible when you do sell.
• The “invisible ingredient” for cutting licensing deals with large corporations — including the Fortune 500. If you think that big corporations won’t do business with “small fry” like you or me, you’re seriously mistaken. Large companies, including Fortune 500 corporations, are constantly in need of offering new products and services to keep ahead of their competition. I’ll reveal an “invisible ingredient” that gives you instant credibility, removes all concerns about your company, and paves the way to cutting lucrative deals with the kind of companies that can make you the most money as quickly as possible.
• My “spread the risk” technique that makes product licensing your safest, surest way to amass a small fortune in record time. Conventional licensing strategies and techniques may work, but they take years to produce results and could cost you an arm and a leg. Discover my proprietary “spread the risk” technique that cuts the process to minimum time, requires only a small investment, and works like crazy.
• How to get an appointment to show your product to any company, from smaller companies to Fortune 500 corporations. If you can’t get an appointment to demonstrate your product, you’re dead in the water. Fortunately, my appointment setting technique makes it easy. I’ve used it dozens of times to get appointments with companies of all sizes — including many of the top corporations in the world. I guarantee it will work just as well for you.
• How to create and deliver a winning presentation. When it comes to powerful presentations, simple is better. At the same time, you must deliver all the critical information a company needs to make a positive decision. My 5-step presentation process is incredibly simple, yet deadly accurate. Just plug in the details of your own product and you’re well on your way to closing a lucrative licensing deal.
• How to make serious money without any ideas of your own — by acting as a Licensing Agent. Once you understand the licensing process, you don’t even need ideas of your own to make serious profits. As I mentioned above, I recently signed an agreement to act as a Licensing Agent for one of the most well-respected and recognized training companies in the world. The transition from licensing your own ideas to brokering licensing deals for others couldn’t be easier — and I’ll lay it all out for you in step-by-step detail.
• Plus much, much more!

How this program is delivered

The Reverse Inventing Coaching Program is an 8-week program designed to give you the in-depth training, coaching and personal support you need to be successful with licensing in the shortest time possible. During this program, which I’ll conduct personally, I’ll share everything I do to produce a seven figure income with licensing.