Introduction: Who Is Talking?

Before you read anything for advice, you need to know who is talking and what their agenda might be. Most people have two agendas, one overt and public, and one personal and covert. Sometimes (rarely) they may be the same thing.

My expressed, public goal in writing this is to help people avoid the heartbreak and wasted years of fruitless efforts that I have observed for at least three decades (perhaps longer, because I was not paying as much attention while I was busy building my own businesses).

That is a noble agenda and worthy of the accolades usually accorded to writers dripping kindness by their own reluctant admission (possibly wrenched out of them by the proximity of a book reviewer, as metal chips are pulled out of the cornea by a powerful magnet). Some writers are so completely altruistic that they may actually be compelled to run after a critic's taxi, or throw themselves over the transom of the book review office, in their modest but persistent effort to spread kindness.

The covert and personal agenda for me is, of course, to help people avoid the heartbreak and wasted years of fruitless efforts, etc., unlike other writers who merely want to enrich themselves or to further spread their fame so they can sell more books. Oh, no... Not I. For proof of this, please note that this information is available free on my web site. Yes, you can download the assembly language version absolutely free, including 128-bit encryption without any additional charge or obligation.

This should leave absolutely no doubt of the purity of my motives, the perfect congruity of my public and private agendas.

Do you believe this?

Great! I have an even better deal for you, in that case. There is this ocean shore property just outside of Wichita that is about to become a major resort as soon as the Environmental Protection Agency signs off on the cleanup of a very tiny, minor toxic spill that is hardly worth mentioning except for the unfortunate newspaper and TV coverage. I would really like for you to have it at half price for cash. Call me right away. I'm sure this deal won't last much longer (pay no attention to the clicking sounds on the line: there is no truth in the rumor that my phones tapped). But please call me "Harry" and bring the cash to the bus station in a brown paper bag.

But for those whose loads are missing no bricks, whose elevators actually reach the top, and who are at home in the penthouse with the lights on, my second agenda is to add another product to what I hope has proven to be a useful line of writings, to sell it and hopefully make more than it cost to market and distribute, and in the process, to make myself feel good about helping some people avoid the heartbreak and wasted years of fruitless efforts that they might otherwise experience. Really.

I don't believe in altruism. Altruism is doing good without getting any benefit for it. If you do a good deed for someone, even if you don't let anyone know about it, and it makes you feel good, then guess what? You did it because you got something back: it made you feel good! Here is real altruism: you do a good deed that no one knows you did and it makes you feel terrible! I don't believe in that. Do you?

I do believe that people should use accurate language, that words have both overt and covert meanings, and that if we the general population begin to accept and assume meanings that the words really do not have, then we are setting ourselves up for manipulation by clever users of those words. You can be made to feel guilty when you have nothing to be guilty about, just because you accept an implied meaning for a word. For example, do you always tend to insert the word "greedy" right in front of the word "capitalist" whenever you see it? Is it hard for you to see the word "profit" without feeling it ought to be qualified with the adjective "obscene"?

I hope not, but unfortunately, a lot of adults who want to turn their ideas into income are carrying this semantic burden from the 1930's, when Karl Marx had such a tremendous influence on the academics. They, in turn, were only too happy to have a better reason for being jealous of successful people who were often less erudite than themselves. So, the vilification of profit and of capitalism was taught to the point of becoming an ingrained fiber of common thought, passed on as if it were a universal rule, instead of an aberration.

After the failure of communism in the Soviet union and Eastern block countries, and with more popular investment in the stock markets and the growth of home-based enterprises in recent years, most thinking adults have come to question the idea that profits are morally reprehensible, and that capitalism is systematic greed. Competition is attracted by profit, and profit drives the mechanism of innovation that keeps raising the standards and makes it difficult to maintain a monopoly without also providing exceptional value.

The problem is not just one for eggheads to debate over glasses of Pinot Noire. The very people who are least likely to care about the fine points of language are the ones who will be most damaged by accepting the covert meanings of words. An inventor who cannot think of the word "profit" without thinking "greed", and "obscene" will always feel guilty about making a profit, and will subconsciously undermine his own marketing and promotional efforts. An investor who believes that capitalists are somehow immoral people will live a false life, hoping he can save his soul by giving to causes that would destroy the very foundation that makes his success possible.

Capitalists are the risk-takers who move society forward, and make it practical to have the technology that extends lives and makes them more enjoyable. Profits are the fuel of innovation, without which no enterprise can survive and provide goods and services for the rest of us to enjoy. Of course the buyers want to pay as little as possible, and naturally the sellers want as much as they can get, but this is precisely what makes the system work so well: hundreds, thousands, millions of people voting with their dollars to elect enterprises to high positions in the market or to dash them into oblivion, depending on the collective perception of how much value one business provides over another.

Is it not interesting how the ultimate collective will of the people actually comes from the individual decisions made in a capitalist system, rather than from any of the state-controlled dictatorships that begin by promising that the masses will have power, and yet always resort to force against these same masses in order to extort power from them?

Yet, people who dote on these dictatorial systems apologize for Stalin and Hitler, or perhaps secretly admire them, as they thrash away against the only system that has proven itself durable enough to outlast brief periods of excess. No system of government or economics will ever be perfect because people themselves have flaws of character and will misuse the best of ideas from time to time. But that provides no license to condemn the ideas: only the particular abuses are fair game for satire.

But enough of this. The reason I am giving you a sweep of random brain waves is so you will get a better idea of who is talking in the rest of the book. You shouldn't take everything here too seriously, for example, especially when I am bombasting away at full attack speed on some pet peeve or other, because I don't take it too seriously either. And yet, I believe the basis of the concepts is valid and true, whether or not I am wise enough to express them clearly.

Just as Evil Exists, so Morons Are. If people want to act against their own best interest, I can pretend to be upset for the purposes of illustration, but there really isn't much any of us can do about it. It's their misfortune and none of my own. (Are you singing, yet?)

And yet... There is truth between these pages, likely of a nature that may not be welcome to some mind sets. I'll try to harden the blows as much as possible: that way, the easily damaged minds will be snuffed with a merciful swift whack, like a moth, and not have to suffer through the repeated low level trauma of relentless painful logic.

When I say "I", I mean myself only, not the people who work for me or anyone else. When I say "we" I don't mean to be imperial (although it might be fun: Mel Brooks said "It's GOOD to be king!"). I mean in general "we" the people in my business including myself who have been involved in dealing with ideas and idea people, financial people, and the others I will explain later.

In most cases, I mean well about people, even those who don't deserve it, so if there is any question about how I meant a thing, just take it I meant it in the most kindly, helpful, and perhaps modest way, especially when I mention myself in any passing reference. If I seem to be bragging, I really don't mean to be. I think that success is reaching your goal, whatever it may be, and I've reached a number of my goals.
But I don't think they are such lofty goals that I should hold them up as universal examples. Some were very modest.

I wanted to have my own electronics company, from the time I was in high school. After working for a TV studio, a two-way radio service firm, and an avionics business, eventually I did it. I wanted to have a book published by one of the publishing houses that I admired, and Stackpole Books published my first hardcover about bullet swaging. Before that, I wanted to sell a magazine article, and my first one was to Popular Electronics decades ago, with hundreds of them following (everything from magazines for truck drivers to commercial fishermen, gun magazines and communications journals). I learned that you could choose a reasonable goal and achieve it, if you were willing to put out the effort and spend the time. That does not mean everything I tried to do worked out. But most of it did because I just wouldn't let it go. Anyone else could have done the same. Some have taken those goals much higher and further.

One "secret" of reaching goals is to get along well with everyone including people I don't like very much, because I tend to think they might be more likeable if they had a better morning. Maybe the first thing this disagreeable moron found when he awoke was a note from his wife explaining why she isn't coming back, just before he stepped on the dog and had to get stitches and a rabies shot, right before rear-ending the patrol car because he was still reading the note with one hand and holding his sore stomach with the other. So I make some allowances for people, whether I like them or not. And it is surprising how often that disagreeable slug turns out to be likeable after all, especially when he happens to put you in contact with just the right publisher or buyer or potential distributor. The world is full of opportunities to lose by treating people badly, so I try not to do that, and suggest that others learn to be agreeable if they wish to get ahead.

But one thing to remember is that some people believe that kindness is weakness. Some believe that if you are polite and try to defuse a tense situation or step away from a fight, you are exposing a soft spot in your character. This attracts bullies, because they are afraid of confrontation with the strong, and have to keep proving to themselves that there is someone they can dominate. I don't just mean at a bar or around the tobacco-spitting crowd. Academics and well-groomed business types can be bullies of a nonphysical sort.

The same technique works for them all: be polite, don't stoop to their level, and when the time is right take them out so hard and fast that they never knew what hit them. Whether you craft a careful coup that crushes their business or debunks their latest publication, or whether you put some of that self-defense martial art into practice at the bar, it is all the same. A Navy buddy and I used to call it "Scorched Earth Policy", borrowing a little Civil War terminology. What we meant was, "Do Unto Others Tenfold What They Do Unto You, And They Shall Think Twice Next Time." The prankster in our division might decide to fill my buddy's dress shoes with shaving cream, and no one would say a word about it until the prankster came back from shore leave to find his entire locker was filled with shaving cream. The message was clear: mess with the bull and you get the horns. Don't let anyone confuse kindness with weakness, if they show any sign of acting on that mistaken assumption. One of my favorite sayings is "He Who Lives By The Sword Gets Shot", but of course that is only an aphorism, not a literal recommendation.

When I say "he" or "him", referring to clients or other folks who come to see me, I don't mean to slight the females. In truth, there are very few women interested in new bullet ideas or custom bullet businesses, or in investing in them. But there are a few. Still, this is a democracy and the majority rules, so I don't have to apologize for using the majority gender in this field. For the rest of this publication, a sexist is a person who determines if you have a hen or a rooster by examining baby chickens: I don't want to hear about it!

And most important, when I say "you", I don't mean to single out the reader and grasp him (or her) by the pronoun to force some assumption or other upon them and then take them to task for it. I say "You may want to do such and thus..." And I mean, if you happen to fit the preceding assumptions about who "you" is, then feel free to take it personally. Otherwise, if it doesn't fit, and "you" is that other guy reading over your shoulder, then please take it that way and turn around and snicker in his face, and make him own up to being the "you" we (you and I) are skewering for his foibles.

Define "you" in the way that is most flattering to yourself, in other words. We all do, anyway, unless we are unbalanced pugilists who go through life spoiling for a fight, because we had a rough childhood and stepped on our Easter chicken before we knew if it was a hen or a rooster.

Now, why should you bother to read anything I would write about making money from ideas?

Ostensively, I have run a tool and die business that also did publishing, software, and business development work for about 30 years. But the tool and die business is a disguise for a company that helps people develop ideas for profit (for both the client and for us, the company)

Before I started Corbin Manufacturing, the concept of a boutique bullet business —custom bullets—was limited to the point of near extinction. No one made equipment you could buy right off the shelf or have made to order with a guarantee of results, to produce virtually any kind of custom bullet from just the idea or concept. You could not buy equipment to make drawn bullet jackets, or even those made from copper tubing, unless you developed it yourself and had a machine shop produce your ideas. Most of the things we build today are still available only from our die works, or perhaps by now a few people may be trying to make cheaper copies here and there.

Few people existed who would even do it without a guarantee of success (that is, you could hire the services of a tool and die maker, but you had to provide all the specifications for the tools, not just the bullet, and if those tools failed to make that bullet, it was your problem). That is how most punch press tooling is made today. You design the tools, you pay for them, and all they are guaranteed to do is to fit your design specs. Whether they actually work or not depends on how well you figured out the design specs. We don't do that. We start with your end product, help you refine and redesign it as needed, and then we make tooling that will produce it. You take no risk of it not working. If we can't do it, then you owe nothing.

So what I have been doing for all these years is listening to the ideas, reading the patents, checking out the drawings and concepts, and helping people who have them translate them into a viable product idea that can be produced in a practical way with affordable tooling. I discuss it with my die-makers and they tell me how likely it is to work, and what we might have to do to make it work. Or if it can't work, they can usually tell me why (too expensive, too slow, too fragile are common reasons). Then I also look into the proper way to market each of these products, how to price them, how to promote them, where and to whom to try to sell them, and how to put together the business that can do it in a profitable way. That is, I offer these services. Not everyone takes advantage of them.

There are around 450 people who have followed my advice and used our services to the recommended level, and they have successful businesses making a living with those ideas today. There have been perhaps fifty people who have started and been unwilling or unable to continue for their own personal reasons, and therefore quit before they could fail. I have not seen anyone actually fail, who followed the seven step plan that we have recommended for decades. I've just seen people fail to try.

The minor details have changed—for example, the use of web sites and e-mail forwarding and auto-responders has become an important part of the marketing—but the basic plan is still sound, still works as advertised, and is still turning ideas into income for a number (which I decline to state, to protect a bit of my turf from potential competitors) of new clients every week. I always have several hundred jobs pending, with many of them repeat sales to those businesses for more calibers, more presses and dies, additional tooling to expand their businesses.

So now I can be more candid and put the humor back in the tattered joke bag from which it was pulled. Of course I have an agenda that benefits my company. It is to sell equipment and services that only we offer. This is not my entire agenda, but it is one of the points added to what I said earlier. I do want to help you become a success, but not for altruistic reasons.

I know that if you make a nice living building custom bullets, my business will most likely receive orders from you in the future as well as when you get set up. In fact, the better success you are, the more I will benefit. People who fail don't buy any more equipment or supplies, don't ask for me to create more web sites for them, and they can't afford to buy the next upgraded level of equipment, either (nor do they have any need for it).

I still feel good about helping people, but I feel even better when those people buy our equipment and sell lots of bullets, make lots of money from their ideas, and then come back with another idea. After all, there are not enough potential bullet makers so that a company could survive for 30 years or more on a onetime sale. We need your continued success to assure our own. It's one of those "win-win" situations of legend and gypsy tale, told in hushed whispers around the campfire but seldom seen outside a telemarketer's offer or a used car lot.

No, that's not right. Every good business deal is a win-win situation, or else why would both sides agree to it? If you like that used Yugo and the salesman told no lies about it that would have changed your mind had you known the truth, then even that deal was a win-win. The dealer got exactly what you both must have agreed the vehicle was worth, or else one of you would have said no and walked off. Right?

My agenda is to ride on the coattails of your success. There, now you have it, all of it. And I hope you are satisfied. You've beaten it out of me.

Having confessed to both the public and the private agendas, I trust that you can make a judgement as to how to interpret my particular biases in the rest of the work. I will state for the record that I often give advice that is counter to my own immediate best interest, because I'm in this for the long run and I hope my customers will be too.

For instance, I don't try to sell bigger or more expensive equipment than I would buy for the same task, having my insider's knowledge of what works best. And if I really think that in a given situation, you would be better off to do something that does not result in purchases from my company, then you can trust me to say so.

I say "for the record" because I don't expect anyone who doesn't already know me, who hasn't dealt with me before, to believe it. Trust comes from experience, and from reputation. If you check around in the industry, you'll find just about everyone finds us trustworthy. Except, if I'm having an unlucky day, you might happen to run across that unbalanced pugilist who goes through life spoiling for a fight. In that case, reputation means nothing. Forget it. Would this kindly old fellow steer you wrong?

You know why I wouldn't? It's because of all those permutations of the Golden Rule. First, if you don't do unto others as you would have them do unto you, then you have no moral basis to protest if you are treated badly. Second, what goes around, comes around. Things you do have a way of making people want to reciprocate, on either side of the equation. I strive to keep a positive balance! It's a lot safer, eh?

And I recommend that all inventors and investors do the same, because it is indeed a small world and you will run into the people you have dealt with in other situations sometimes. Always walk away from a deal with the feeling that you made the other guy want to deal with you again, because he might.

I'm reminded of the story of the young fellow who was taking his friend for a drive, and the friend noticed that he drove with his left tires on the center line.

"Who taught you to drive, anyway?" Asked the friend.

"Why, my Uncle Henry did!" Said the youngster.

Before long, another vehicle came flying over the hill with its wheels on the center line and the two cars passed each other with a great screech of metal, ripping off the doors and fenders as they zipped down the road. The passenger recovered from his shock and asked "What happened?"

The driver slowly turned and looked back over his shoulder. "Why, that was Uncle Henry!"

If you do as I say, you're also doing as I do. Hope it doesn't tear your doors off!

What Are Your Options?

If you have an idea for a better bullet design, a patent on one, or if you are an investor who is considering backing a person who has such an idea or patent, there are a number of ways you can generate income from the idea. But some of them are more likely to be successful than others.

Of course, one of the options is designed to eliminate the need for an investor by selling the idea to an existing company. If you are an investor, you probably don't want that to happen. If so, you are in luck, because the odds are very good that it will not. Most existing businesses do not want to buy someone else's bullet idea because they already have a development department with a room full of new ideas that have yet to be put into production, and are perfectly happy with the sales of the current product line. Or if not, they just want to sell more of the same, not start over with a whole new product.

I will explain why the merit or technical superiority of a new bullet idea is not likely to be much inducement for an existing business to purchase it, in the next chapter. For now, let's just assume that no matter how fantastic the promised performance may be, there are other reasons that weigh heavily against the sale of the idea or patent in this way. Of course, there are exceptions, but examine the alternatives before depending on your case being one of them.

Another option is to find a company, or an individual with the equipment and qualifications, to manufacture the product for you under contract. The main objection I would raise is that you will be paying (in essence) to rent the use of the equipment and in addition will be paying the operator's wages and taxes, and further will be paying a fee to the owner as profit, whereas you may well find that the equipment does not cost that much, and you can either make the bullets yourself or hire a person you can train to do it (it is just repetitive simple work once you set up the dies and punches and explain the process, which of course is done for you in the instructions that come with any die set).

The amount you would likely pay someone else would probably purchase basic equipment that would allow you to get started and make a modest production yourself. Again, there are exceptions, but they are rare. Besides, as soon as you have someone else make your product, you have lost a certain amount of control and security. A dishonest person can easily sell some of your bullets on the side, and you would have a hard time finding out until it was too late.

Contractual agreements are primarily to give honest people a reference to keep them from forgetting what they agreed. If one party is dishonest and wishes to steal your idea, the problem with enforcing the agreement in court is the high cost of attorneys, court fees, and then, even if you win, getting the offending party to actually pay you damages or cease making your product can be harder than it would seem. I've had judgements that were uncontested, clear wins in court that took years to actually pay, and then only paid a fraction of the award because the costs of collection ate up a good deal of it. Still, I would do it again if someone deserved it and I needed entertainment.

When two honest people go to court, the winner probably gets something for his trouble, if only a fraction of what he wanted. But if one of the parties is a practiced and clever crook, the assets may be hidden or cloaked in such a way that you will have a long, long wait and have to be very diligent about re-filing liens on properties, garnishments on income, tracking down the debtor and following his travels, researching how he put all his property in his girlfriend's name, and so forth. In short, the trouble and time you waste on this deadbeat may not be worth it. Besides, that kind of person eventually pulls his tricks on someone that he later discovers is nicknamed "Big Tuna". The chiseller winds up wearing concrete overshoes. Bad apples tend to gravitate to each other.

If your idea is one that can only be produced in high volume, then it isn't a custom bullet, and my advice may not apply. But if it is a custom bullet, which automatically means it is best sold in a limited market at a fairly high price, then I can assure you that having someone else make it is not as cost effective as making it yourself.

But suppose that you really do not have the time or enough money to invest in even the minimal amount of machinery and dies that would be necessary? My first question would be, why do you think you will have time to market the product and handle the orders? How are you going to pay for the production, the packaging, shipping, the necessary base of operations to make this all work? How are you going to advertise and promote the bullets so anyone knows about them?

Far too many "broke" inventors drift in and out of the market, unable to commit to being successful. If you believe in the idea, and can get some objective critique that is positive regarding its market potential (not just its technical merit, which I will show later may be irrelevant to sales) then the best thing to do is make up your mind to stand behind your own idea. Nearly all "broke" investors have resources which they are afraid to commit. They want someone else to take the risks and they want to skim off the profits. Sorry, but the world seldom works that way. Profits are the reward for taking risks, not for having good ideas.

You can have all the good ideas you like, and never make a dime from any of them, unless you are willing to take some risk in bringing them to market. If you get someone else to make the bullets, and you then expect to go see some "money people" with a few boxes of these bullets, convinced that once they try the bullets they will be glad to hand you wads of cash for the honor of selling them, boy, are you in for a surprise!

First, unless you pay the manufacturer up front it is highly unlikely you will get anyone to make samples for you. The fewer you need, the more you will pay per bullet. You may need to pay for tooling, as well. So if you are going to have to do that, why not just buy it yourself and keep the profit that the manufacturer would be making?

Worst case scenario: you don't sell a single bullet and you wind up with some nice equipment. The equipment can be sold for nearly what you paid for it, in most cases, unless you wreck it or rust it up by keeping it in a damp shed all winter. You will have the bullets to shoot. And you will have gained some experience.

The most "broke" investor I ever met still had some assets that would have paid for the launch of his own business, had he believed enough in his own idea to risk them. Most people have a car, a house, or the ability to do useful work in some field. Some of my clients have sold gun collections to finance their business venture. Others have simply borrowed with their car or house as collateral. Yet others have taken a second job and saved enough extra to invest in a few months of working these longer hours. I've worked two and sometimes three jobs, and to this day I put in more hours than most people who work for wages, at several enterprises, just because I enjoy the results and not so much because I need the extra income these days.

But I've seen the jealousy in both the looks and the tone of comments from some people who have observed just the "fun" part my life-style, and it makes me want to sit them down and point out that the decisions they have made to buy a new car or get that expensive entertainment system "right now" on time payments when they really don't need it took away an opportunity to put the money toward saving for an investment in their own business just like I did. Their inability to exercise some restraint in buying whatever they want, right now, is what keeps them paying their huge credit card debts while I own most of what I have, free and clear.

I don't have the latest and greatest of every single thing, but I have good quality toys of the types I really want. Anyone can afford to start their own business if they are willing to put off having all the toys for a while. That's the problem: we are an impatient society and we want it all right now. And with credit cards and easy loans, we can get it.

But then we shouldn't whine about how the other guy, who put all that off and worked twice as many hours for years, is "lucky" or "smarter" or "has it made". Yeah, he has it made because he made it himself by lots of effort and doing without, or at least, getting by with something less than the absolute most awesome new version when a two or three year old model did the job for a fraction of the cost.

I can guarantee just about anyone that I can come up with a workable plan that will result in a paid-for business, ready to make enough money to support itself within 18 months of start up. The problem is, few people have the guts to actually do it.

A neighbor of mine, next to our ocean shore "second home", is constantly looking for a way to make "big money" in a hurry without doing much work, and periodically asks me about some tips on how to do it. But he wants something where little or no hard work is involved. I have no idea how to do that. Everything I know that has been successful at making income has involved significant investment in either money, time, or effort. It is human nature to want something for nothing, but equity in transactions is the nature of economics.

I am always a little surprised when someone thinks I have the secret of easy money. If there is one, it is probably to be in the right place at the right time and be aware enough to take advantage of the situation. But that isn't a plan, it is just a lottery ticket. Sometimes there are smooth, highly profitable deals and sometimes you have to work really hard for very little gain, but it all balances out in the long run.

Obviously you can make money by using money well, taking some intelligent risks. For some reason, my wife can usually make money taking what I consider extreme risks: she plays casino blackjack and usually does very well. But I can't explain that logically, because the odds are always that if you play long enough the house will win.

She says that it's because of her "Irish Luck" (Katherine O'Connell is about as Irish a name as you could find), coupled with playing the odds wisely. She thinks that the odds are tipped in a smart player's favor because of all the idiots who split 10's and take one more hit when the dealer is likely to bust anyway. She figures the odds are what they are because these people figure into it, so that gives her a better chance. But it doesn't seem to work for me! I guess my math background precludes factoring other players' behavior into the card statistics.

You can make money by consistently putting out more effort than others are willing to do. When I was an employee, many decades ago, I made it a point to come in early and leave late and volunteer to do those jobs no one else wanted to do, but I also made sure that the people who owned the business saw it, not just the other employees or the guy I was planning to replace! You can work hard and long and still be lost in the woodwork unless you do it in a way that brings some attention from the people who appreciate it. And if they don't, move on. Don't waste time in a company that doesn't want to reward better than average results. Just remember, results are what count. Putting in lots of extra work but doing things wrong isn't going to help the bottom line.

In your own business, you must be willing to put out more effort than any of your employees, not just to set an example but because no one else can be expected to care as much as you do, and to get the hard things done. Two things I hear over and over are (1) "You're lucky, you can write it off because you have your own business." and (2) "You get to take off for vacations two, three times a year!" Well, guess what: first of all, you will have some explaining to do if you try to write off things that are not actually business expenses, and second, you have to have made enough profit to have something to write off against. And as to vacations, sure, now we can take two or three trips a year, but it took a lot of years of taking no time off and working weekends to get there.

People tend to forget about the dues you pay. They just see the benefits. If you want your own business because you crave the free time, being your own boss, working when you want, remember this: when you are your own boss, you work when you want as well as when you don't. In fact, you seldom quit working. You take it with you all the time. You lay awake in bed thinking about the bills, or the next marketing plan, or what happens if that new investment doesn't pay off.

You worry about hiring good people, and then you worry when you think you might have to fire one of them. Am I contradicting myself here, first telling you that you ought to have your own business and then telling you it isn't easy? No, I think it is well worth the effort. Just be ready for the effort.

The third option, other than selling the idea to a manufacturer or finding someone to build the idea into products for you, is to find an investor to take in as a partner. I will cover this in another chapter, but it doesn't usually work in cases where the "idea man" has little or no monetary investment and the "money man" puts in little or no hands-on labor or technical support. It can work, in rare instances, but I have not seen it in this field.

People are prone to thinking their contribution is all that matters and the other fellow is just slacking off, when things are slow. And when things are good, then people tend to become greedy and feel that the bulk of the reward should be theirs for reasons that can be justified logically: the business would never have come into existence with the ______ (fill in "cash" or "idea", depending on which side you are on).

Unless both partners are working side by side, pooling resources and efforts, and making what they are doing visible to the other partner constantly, there is this feeling of abandonment on both sides, because it takes a while to get positive cash flow.

It is like a marriage: unless both people think they are giving 110% of the effort, it is likely neither one is giving 50%. You have to give what you consider extraordinary effort, because the other person will recognize it only as ordinary effort. It always looks like more when you are the one doing it, and less when seen through someone else's eyes. Knowing that up front takes the sting out of it. Being glad to do it saves the marriage and the partnership.

A fourth way to turn ideas into income is to start a company to make the product and sell it. This is the method I prefer. It has many benefits over the other methods because it has less people involved. People bring their own problems, such as the possibility of dishonesty, idea theft, and fraud, as well as the less egregious issues of honest disagreement over goals and expenses, methods and investments. Personality can be an issue. Like "The Odd Couple", one person may be neat and fastidious about records and workplaces and the other may be a lovable slob who could do just fine in his own bumbling way.

Involving outside labor in your ideas can be a workable concept but you are then at the mercy of their work schedule and delivery times, and have to factor in their price changes and delivery charges. You have lost some degree of control over quality. It is very well to say that you won't accept any shipments that do not meet certain specifications, but you are not Boeing Aircraft and your order isn't going to make or break their quarter, most likely. So, if you reject the order, they might take offense and tell you to take a long walk on a short pier. They lose your business, but they don't care, and you meanwhile just lost all your sales to those folks who expected delivery next week.

Hard decisions! Accept something that isn't quite up to your standards, to keep the orders and cash flow moving, or maintain your standards by insisting on a rework, and take a chance that you will lose the orders and have no income for a while, and possibly get a price jump or another shipment with less than acceptable work and have to start over finding another vendor.

It is one thing to say you will never lower your standards, for any reason, but it is quite another when the amount of lowering isn't going to be much of an issue with the customers and doing so means orders will ship, bills will be paid, and you will stay in business another month. On the other hand, it is a slow death spiral for a business to make a habit of getting by with a little less than they could. Eventually customers do notice. The art of survival sometimes is in knowing when you have to cut a corner and when you should not. But if you do it yourself, you can just put out a little more effort and still fill the orders without cutting anything but your free time and short-term income.

Making it yourself means you maintain your own standards. You find out for yourself, quickly, which features or stages take the most time and whether you might simplify the design or change the tooling in some way to improve production time. Making the bullets yourself means you understand their construction far better than if you only drew them on paper, and you begin to understand the finer points of fabrication in a way you never will if someone else does all the work.

You can also make as few or as many of a given weight or style as you wish, any time, to fill special orders or to see what happens. The production tools become an extension of the laboratory, in that they are extremely versatile at the manual feed level (as opposed to being fairly locked into a single design at the high speed automation level).

If you were just "this close" (holds up finger and thumb with a tiny gap between) to perfection with your special 205 grain .308 rebated boattail 1000 yard bullet and you found that 207.5 grains pushed it into the X ring, or that a slight change in balance made it stable in a 12-twist barrel as well as a 10-twist, then you would be glad you could do those things so easily. You would never find out from having someone else make them, any more than you could with factory bullets.

Having your own production may not be your ideal. Maybe you don't like the actual work itself. Maybe you envision yourself as the "brain" and not the "brawn" behind the business. There is nothing wrong with that concept, but we are talking about turning ideas into income, not chiseling them into concrete forever.

Having a lower volume, modest capital investment in tools for prototypes and production can be a step toward exactly what you desire. It is a way to get there without giving away the farm or involving other people who can make your life miserable. No one said you had to keep making bullets, once you have established a toehold in the market and have proven to the world that the idea will sell.

In fact, you've made the idea much more valuable, and you've established yourself as the originator. I'd rather be first on the market than have a patent on a bullet idea. I can point to all the people who copy it as proving the validity of my idea and I will have a following who scoff at the copycats. Without a patent, I may or may not lose some sales to these copycats, but in this field, I believe I will make more money getting the initial sales and not spending thousands on patent searches and thousands more if anyone needs to be challenged in court.

If you can prove it (and you should be able to if you advertised at all or got any press releases published) you can use your originator status as a selling point and use any mass producer who steals your idea as validation of its value, as in "Get the Original, Stolen by the Best of Companies!" Besides, none of the mass producers wants to make anything that sells under, say, 100,000 bullets a year. The "mass" in mass producer means they must produce what the vast bulk of people will buy, the average shooters, who won't spend much more than they do now on bullets anyway. Your customers for custom bullets are higher end buyers. You are in a different market. Or ought to be.

Making and selling your own bullet idea also means you have established three potential markets, at least. First, you have a market for your bullets. You can farm out the production now, if you like, because you can back it up with your own if necessary. You are not at the mercy of their pricing or delivery, since you don't absolutely require their services to survive.

Second, you have a going concern and not just a pile of tools, if someone comes along who wants to buy you out. Or you might want to contact some other bullet firms who have a history of buying or consolidating with other bullet makers, to sell out to them for a profit (and start another business with a new idea).

Third, you have the ability now to hire people and do contract production for other bullet makers, just as you were planning to do until you decided to make your own business. You can either make an agreement to sell all your bullets to a distributor or private label them for another bullet maker, or you can take jobs from other people who have ideas and don't have the sense to do what you just did!

Of course, you won't cheat or steal from them, and so your reputation will grow and you will be a successful contract manufacturer. Your quality will remain high, your delivery on time, and your cup will runneth over.

I have never quite grasped the reasoning behind those who decide not to go ahead with their business, and sell the tools and dies! To me, it would make far better sense to sell a business than a bunch of tools. After all, I sell tools, and I don't get anything near the multiple or blue sky or good will value of having them assembled into a going business opportunity.

Maybe no one told them how to do it. For a couple of years, after I had sold my electronic communications business, I put together little electronic ideas and built small mail order businesses around each one, sold products for a while, and then advertised the business opportunity for sale. As soon as I got an interested, serious buyer (which means, a good sized deposit or a paid in full check that doesn't bounce) I would go out and spend some of it for a new typewriter, file cabinet, desk and chair, assembly bench, tools, and some good business books on how to do your accounting, how to manage inventory, how to market products, and understanding business taxes.

Then, when the buyers came to pick up the materials, they would get a true turnkey package, ready to plop down in a rented office and start operating, with a list of clients and advertising, vendors and tax returns, as well as the plans for making and testing the device and enough parts to build a number of products.

Then I would immediately start up another small business of a similar nature but a different and noncompetitive product, promote the products, get the sales going, and sell that business in just the same way. The sales price of the business opportunity was far higher than the sum of all the materials, because people were more than willing to pay for the work that went into making the business a reality instead of just an idea. They were paying me, in essence, for taking the risk of it not working.

There was very little chance of that happening because I had a lot of ideas for little, simple electronic gadgets that served useful purposes. None of them were what you would call big sellers, but all of them would sell a steady trickle without a lot of advertising cost. You want concrete examples? One was called the "Voltector" and it was just a little aluminum can somewhat larger than a 35mm roll film canister, which connected to any wire from the battery of a police car, and did nothing until the voltage at the battery began to drop below a level that indicated the car might not start. Police cars used to sit by the road with a radar gun, engine off, using the cigarette lighter outlet for power. But the old tube-type radar guns drew enough power that the battery would slowly go down, and the car might not start. The Voltector would start to emit a low growl that rose to a high pitched squeal as the battery voltage dropped.

Another device was a monitor for radio transmitters, which connected near the tower or antenna and ran a single coaxial cable to a test plug in the building. A standard analog micro-amp meter connected to the plug would be adjusted so that when the transmitter was known to be putting out the right wattage, the needle was in the green. When something went wrong with the transmitter, antenna, or transmission line, the meter reading would drop.

This was just a cheap, easily installed permanent (epoxy filled for waterproof operation) field strength meter, that gave technicians and even nontechnical people a quick status report on police transmitters, fire department radios, broadcast stations, or any other kind of radio signal used for communication or control.

It was such a simple and dumb idea that no one had thought of offering it by mail order to radio shops and owners of transmitters. It filled a need for a quick, easy to use status monitor, even though it did not have any official FCC monitoring purpose or give precise power readings like the instruments one would use to actually tune up the transmitter.

There were lots of similar ideas, inexpensive yet useful gizmos, each of which had its own little company and was sold as such, as a going concern and not as boxes full of parts with soldering irons and test meters. As in the cooperage of old London, "think of it not as barrels and staves, but as the means to riches beyond your wildest dreams of avarice!" Obviously the idea of selling a going concern rather than its tools and inventory is an old one indeed. The wonder is that anyone would fail to see the advantage in it.

Unfortunately, my well of electronic gizmo ideas finally ran dry. Steve Jobs thought of the home computer and Bill Gates thought of buying Seattle DOS and selling it as MS-DOS to IBM, and I thought of learning how to make bullet swage dies. So why are you listening to me? Never mind...

Why Merit May Not Matter

When an inventor comes to me with an idea, the first thing he wants is confirmation of the technical merit of the idea, followed by recommendations for people who would buy it. When an investor comes to me looking for an idea, it is usually with the thought that he can build a production facility or get equipment that will produce the concept quickly in high volume to sell at low cost to the general market.

Sometimes an inventor finds an investor (the idea man gets a money man), and they both come to me, or one comes representing both, with the idea of going high volume, low margin, and taking over the market based on the superior merits of the idea compared to what is already on the market.

But when it comes to mass production, or to selling the idea to a mass producer, merit may be the last thing of any importance.

This may seem to be a contradiction of the most basic philosophy of capitalism. Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door, right? Possibly so, provided you are the one who builds it, and you package it and market it correctly. But what if most of the people in the market for mousetraps can already get quite satisfactory ones at least as cheap as yours, so that there is no overwhelming economic benefit to the existing manufacturers of mousetraps regardless of the technical superiority you offer?

This is usually the situation with most bullet designs, in the mass market. To be mass produced, a bullet has to compete with satisfactory designs that have been around for nearly 200 years in some form or another. The people making them have well established product lines, millions invested already in advertising and promoting the existing products, a wide and deep acceptance of what they already make, paid-for tooling and equipment (in some cases, paid for by your grandfather's tax dollars during World War II), and therefore, they have a huge vested interest in keeping things just as they are, with any changes or improvements coming mostly from the marketing department.

In other words, here you are in the headquarters office with your patented bullet that has golf ball dimples all over it, and you have some kind of proof that this makes it fly twice as far with half the powder. Does anyone really care besides you?

No.

You represent an unwelcome interruption, because they have to somehow keep from dozing off while you plow through all the technical papers you brought, show them the graphs and charts, and pass around samples that will soon go into the trash cans. And usually, being polite people, they need to somehow find the words to gently let you know that they really are not interested, without somehow offending you.

If you are lucky, you'll run into someone blunt enough to tell you exactly why they are not interested, no matter how much it hurts your feelings. That will save you a lot of lost effort that you could be using to make some money another way, if you understand the logic behind it instead of letting your emotions rule your response.

Why are they uninterested? Well, to you, the bullet is a technological miracle for which the handloader would be willing to pay at least as much, if not more, than he pays now for the current crop of common bullets. The benefits are, to you, so obvious and over whelming that anyone would be a fool not to start making and selling the product as soon as possible.

Yet, you don't have to retool an entire production line to make them, figure out how to quickly convince the general public with a new and expensive advertising campaign complete with new color brochures and catalogs and dealer displays and packaging, and how to convey a technical argument to somewhat conventional, conservative buyers who have already been convinced that the existing bullets are the best thing that ever happened. And on top of all that expense and effort, the company will have to pay you something, and in the process very likely irritate and offend some of their own staff people who are already being paid to do that kind of research and development.

That is one reason why a better idea doesn't always sell. There are plenty of better ideas that cost too much to implement compared to the amount they would marginally increase the current return on investment. Merit may not matter, in circumstances where the bottom line is about the same or perhaps better just by making some packaging or distribution changes in the existing line. The mass market consumer, in a conservative, tradition-bound field like the firearms market, may not be all that interested in the bullet that "looks funny".

But the custom bullet market is a whole new game. In this field, merit is just about all that matters. Price isn't even a big issue. Most custom bullets sell for five to ten times what a mass produced bullet costs. The custom market is a market of advanced shooters who do appreciate technical merit, and seek it. But there are not enough of them to justify the interest or investment by a mass producer.

There are enough boutique bullet buyers to create a healthy income for one or two people, though, for the rest of their lives. Since most custom bullets sell for around a dollar (some as much as two dollars each, some as little as fifty cents), they are mostly used by people who place a high value on bullet failure. That is to say, if they buy a cheaper bullet and it fails in the intended use, a high cost will be produced, which justifies paying a high price for a bullet that will work without any question, with far more reliability than the cheaper options.

An example would be the typical big game hunter who goes on a guided hunt. The cost of the average hunt has risen to between $1800 and $10,000 today. Some are higher than that. If you also count the transportation, meals, lodging, taxes, and other fees, an average guided hunt could easily exceed $3000 to $20,000.

Now we are talking some monetary incentive to get the very best possible equipment and bullets! Who cares if a box of 25 bullets costs $37.50? That's less than the bar tab the first night in Zimbabwe. That's a lot less than the tip for the guide, unless the hunter is an incredible tightwad and doesn't plan to come back, or the guide accidently shot the client instead of the elephant.

If this Safari Club member doesn't buy the best possible big game bullet for his particular kind of game and his caliber and rifle type, he is taking a risk that the big trophy that he spent all that money to get, or maybe one of the trophies he plans to take on the trip, will be lost. A bullet failure could also be fatal unless the backup gunner or guide is quick and accurate when that Cape Buffalo suddenly appears in the tall grass fifty feet away and decides to run full speed into the hunter with nothing but horns and skull, bobbing up and down, for a target.

See the difference between average Joe Deerslayer and Safari Sam? One is a mass market buyer who won't buy even the cheapest brand of bullets unless he gets a discount from his favorite dealer, and the other is a boutique bullet buyer who will pay whatever it takes to get the very best, so long as he is convinced it is in fact the best for his purpose. And that is done by marketing and promotion, not by discount pricing.

Aside: Please don't think I'm being disrespectful to deer hunters. Some of us are just as quality conscious as any other hunter of noble game. But you have to go with the averages. Whether it is "politically correct" or not, there are more venison meat hunters than trophy deer seekers, just like there are more men than women involved in the custom bullet business. Doesn't mean women can't do it. Some do it very well. But you can't seriously discuss an issue if you don't acknowledge the facts, and averages are just another fact.

The inventor who has it strongly in his mind that the only way to make money is to sell the idea may spend years going from company to company and being politely rejected. He may eventually convince someone who will quietly make changes that get around the patent and accomplish nearly the same performance, so that a year after the visit, the company has a similar product, amounting to legal theft but so what?

Patent or not, you have to be able to afford to take it to court, and you have to be prepared to battle it out with company lawyers who are on the payroll anyway. There is a more than likely chance you will not prevail, because these people are not stupid in most cases (yeah, sometimes they are... Do you want to count on it?)

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I pay lawyers to do my legal work. I am not giving you any legal advice or in any way providing legal council. If you want advice that has legal weight and authority behind it, hire your own lawyer! But I am telling you this as a business person who has been around for a long time and has seen this business from a lot of angles. It is just my opinion.

Having said that, I can also say that I have just about been brought to tears by the pathos of some of the inventors who have dragged themselves in and sat across the desk from me while going through their show and tell act for what must have been the thousandth time in many years, because in spite of it all, they still have that dogged spark of hope burning, weak and tired though it has become.

It is so sad to watch them nod and not hear a word. I tell them how to start turning that idea into income. But they just can't hear it anymore. They have written their goal in stone. I only hope it isn't on their tombstone. They simply will not open their minds to the thought that perhaps the best person in the world to make and sell their idea is... Them! The one person in all the world who really believes in the idea, is the one person best suited to profit from it. Yet they will not even try. I think they are afraid to find out that it might not work, might not sell after all. But usually, any reasonable idea can be marketed.

It would be less work and less expense than traveling around the country whenever they can scrape together the money and wrangle an appointment with someone who would probably rather not see them, but is too polite to refuse. That doesn't include me, by the way. I want to help. I can help, sometimes, if they let me. I think that a third of the people I see will benefit from it, a third will do fine whether they see me or not, and a third will never get any benefit from anything. It is surprisingly similar to another experience I had, which I will now relate to you.

Once I was involved in a project to write software for a psychologist, who had formed a company to give advancement tests that actually could predict a tendency toward drug use, and thus give the company a legal basis to ask for drug testing for certain individuals. In the process of writing the software, I got to know the psychologist pretty well. He confided in me that his field was a bit of a racket. I asked what he meant by that, and he said there are three general cases of people and three outcomes.

"About a third of the patients just need to talk to someone who will listen and they will get better on their own," he said. "I collect my fee and I hardly say anything."

"Then, another third of them are beyond anyone's help and no matter what anyone does they won't get better. I collect my fee and I hardly say anything."

"Finally, the last third of them can actually benefit from some of the things I have learned. So I earn my money one third of the time, but in two thirds of the cases they get better and in one third no one else could do any better!"

Unholy Partnerships

Most partnerships are miserable failures in this business because they consist of an idea man and a money man, each wanting what the other has, and each thinking what he is contributing is by far the most important immediate asset.

The idea man usually is a handloader and is dead broke. Or thinks he is. Or is too cheap or fearful to risk his own funds. It all amounts to the same thing.

The money man is usually someone who has a smattering of knowledge about handloading, enough to be dangerous, and he is somehow convinced that the idea man has something that he can invest in and turn into a stream of income.

The idea man thinks his idea is brilliant and should make millions. He usually has an extremely unrealistic idea about how big the market is, how interested it is in innovation, and how fast he ought to get rich from his idea or how rich he ought to get.

The money man thinks the idea man is a twisted genius of some kind (at first, but later he thinks the idea man is a con artist, and then an idiot). He believes that with firm financial guidance and good management, the idea man can be steered in a direction that will make them both some money.

The idea man does not wish to be guided or steered. He is, after all, the one with the valuable idea. And usually, he is the one who will do all the work and have to make all the bullets. The idea man considers it more and more evident, as the months go by, that the money man is just going along for the ride and not doing a darn thing but complain about how slow the profits are and how much everything is costing.

The money man thinks that the idea man is slacking off because all the promised sales have not yet appeared two or three months after he handed over a hunk of money. Neither of them knew anything about marketing in the custom bullet field, and both assumed that the world would beat that proverbial path to their door because the idea was so fantastic.

The idea man begins to really get fed up with the constant carping of the money man. All that guy does is complain, but he never comes down to the shop and gets his hands dirty. Of course, if he did, he'd just be in the way because he doesn't know enough about making bullets to be much help.

The money man thinks that six months is more than enough time for this whole thing to have paid off and he's ready to ask for his money back. The idea man needs another five hundred for brochures because someone finally published a column about the new bullet and people are asking for information.

The money man has had it up to his eyeballs and demands his money back. The idea man goes into a rage because the money man is backing out just when things are starting to show real promise. Besides, he never had any money himself and he has all the investment tied up in equipment and supplies and advertising now. In fact, he's been living hand to mouth without any income while making all those bullets.

The money man hires an attorney and sues the idea man for his investment and court costs. The idea man skips town but forgets that he has a house that can be subject to a lien for the judgement upon sale. He vows never to sell it, just to spite the money man. But times are tight and the money man got all the equipment and supplies in the judgement, so the idea man has to sell anyway. The money man gets the rest of his judgement but both of them are bitter enemies forever.

And the idea?

Both the idea man and the money man now think they own it. Whenever either of them tries to bring it to market, the other one threatens to sue. But the idea man can't really afford the legal costs, so eventually the money man winds up selling off the equipment and the idea to some third party, who does it all himself and two years later is happily in the black, making a modest part-time income.

The idea man finds out about it years later when he reads a gun magazine and sees his idea being made by someone he doesn't know. But by now he is trying to interest another money man in yet another idea, so it doesn't matter. He still has no money to hire lawyers and sue people. And now he thinks that is the secret to riches, which shall remain forever beyond his poverty-limited grasp unless he can just convince that next money man to invest in this new idea.

In truth, the idea man had all the money he needed. His house had more than enough equity in it to pay for a modest start-up operation. A few thousand dollars would have done it, including the advertising. But he would have had to work part time at another job during the first two years, and of course, he wouldn't consider that. Likewise, there was no way he would take out a second mortgage on his home! Why, what would happen if he couldn't pay it back? The risk was just too great.

In fact, he could have easily paid it back. It cost less than he usually spent on cigarettes and beer and movies and lunches every month. He could have benefitted from the weight loss, too!

The idea man also had a full time job that he really didn't like, at the time he conceived of the idea. He could have stayed with it two years, lived much more frugally and saved more than enough money to finance his own business without any outside funds. But he was far too impatient for that.

The money man had no business investing in something he didn't really understand. He was not a venture capitalist, but was just a working man like the idea man. The money man had a somewhat better job, and had managed to save more. The only reason he was investing in a business partnership was to get ready to retire early. He hadn't thought about that until the idea man looked him up, an old army buddy.

But the idea man seemed so confident and so convincing. The idea did work. They both went out and shot some prototypes that were made on borrowed equipment. It was impressive. So thoughts of early retirement started working on the money man's mind, and he decided to take the risk. He could afford it. But he really needed to have that money back in a few months in order to maintain his comfort level.

He wasn't prepared for the length of time it would take, and the idea man wasn't prepared to be as frugal with that easy money as he might have been with his own. None of it was really wasted, but then again, there were a lot of expenses that could be been delayed or traded for additional labor. The idea man might have worked with the money man on marketing and mailing, stuffing envelopes, writing letters, contacting vendors, but neither one did a lot of that. They were just lucky that the few writers the idea man did contact produced one new product column.

The story you have just read is real. The names have been changed to protect the writer from harassment. (The money man's real name is "Cash", and the idea man's real name is "Gertrude".)

But if you can overlook the specifics and dwell on the generalities, you can see that partnerships of this nature are a disaster waiting to happen. In my 30 years or more of observing them, I have yet to see one work out in the long run.

There are good partnerships, of course, but I doubt very much that one person is an idea man and the other is a money man. I believe that most of the partnerships I have seen that seemed to be working were between people with equal complimentary skills who both worked hands-on, side by side, and both probably put in about the same amount of money and sweat equity.

When I was young, I took on a partner for money. It was a mistake, but I sold my interest in the corporation and avoided what I could see was a building conflict of goals and personalities before it ever reached the level of a disaster. The corporation was at the peak of its success when I sold my stock, and four years later it was bankrupt. I should have felt vindicated ("Ha, you can't make it without me!") but I just felt a little sad.

I picked the wrong partner, so his failure running my business was my own fault. I learned my lesson, and have never since taken in a partner just for money. It is not that hard to find financing if you are willing to bear the risk yourself. And if the idea is any good, why aren't you?

The Art of Press Releases

Marketing is an art, but it is a rentable and scalable art. You don't have to be or hire the best talent in order to be successful. Most of us can't afford the best talent anyway, but all of us can apply the best techniques within our budget. You can rent bits and pieces of talent to take care of the things you really do not feel up to handling yourself.

For instance, anyone can make copies of a press release and mail them out to 90-100 writers and publishers each month. Getting the names and addresses of the writers and publishers would be a long process except I've already done it and make it available to my clients. Yeah, free, if they actually are buying equipment, but not to anyone who walks in the door. It was a long process... And it never ends, because publicity contacts change jobs, addresses, retire, die. (No one said it was easy to keep up.)

Writing the press release is, at this time, about a $40 task for us, or if you hire a publicity firm you will probably pay from $250 to $500 a month retainer and expenses on top of that. You need a press release at least every two months to be effective. You can write one yourself after you see a couple of examples, most likely. It isn't hard, but you do need to follow a certain format just to avoid appearing too "off the wall" to be taken seriously.

There is no formal press release layout that is required to get you noticed, but there are a few things you should and should not do. First, you need a simple, descriptive title, like "New Cowboy Action Bullet" to sort of anchor what the rest is about. At the top of the page, you need a modified letterhead, which has your company logo, name, address, phone, fax, website, e-mail, and a contact name if it is different from the company name.

This has to be printed in a font and size that can be easily read. I've seen too many letterheads in Old German or Old English just because the amateur producer thought it really looked "cool" in that almost unreadable font (and usually in all-capital letters to make it even harder to decipher). Ariel or Helvetica fonts are best: simple, clear, basic.

On the left top side should be at least 24 point letters stating "PRESS RELEASE" and a couple of spaces under that before the date. You probably don't need a traditional byline with a location because you already stated all that in your upper right company information stack.

Then comes the centered bold title. And about three paragraphs double spaced with the actual information, written as if a third party or a reporter wrote it, talking about the product not as an employee, but as a mildly skeptical, objective voice quoting the statements of the "president" or "owner". Direct statements are mildly qualified, such as "The new bullet is said to improve expansion by...." Rather than just saying it does.

You can freely use such statements as "According to owner Jim Blowgunner, the new bullet was designed on a Cray Supercomputer rented from a dissident National Oceanography Administration scientist" but should avoid saying "This bullet is more accurate than anything in its class".

You can state verifiable facts if you are capable of identifying them yourself (some people think anything that can be proven in any way is a verifiable fact, when the means of proof have to be rather self-evident here).

For example, you can say "The bullets are packaged 25 in a box and weight 230 grains" because anyone who owns a scale, eyes, and can count to 25 can verify it.

You cannot state arcane, hard to verify facts without attributing them to someone at the company. After all, the company spokesperson can say whatever they like, true or not, and it doesn't reflect on the magazine. But the press release is designed to be published as if the magazine itself is saying or reporting the story. Pretend to be that reporter when you write it.

In the press release, be sure to spell out the benefits to the user. Concentrate on benefits, rather than merely on features or superlative generalities. Don't bother to say the bullet is the most accurate, best made, most carefully handcrafted device ever seen on the face of the earth, or anything similar to that. If the benefit is tight tolerances and precision control over diameter and weight, you may have a hard sell. You need to translate it into what that does for the shooter that he won't get from over the counter bullets.

Press releases need to end with a "for more information, contact..." And then put in as many ways to reach you as you have available. Print this on white paper, and use black ink. The header and logo can be color, but the rest should not be. Remember that some editors are getting on in years and may not see as well as you do. Besides, it is just polite to use a font that is clear and readable when the poor fellow has to read all day for a living.

Use at least 11 point type, preferably 12 point, for the body, and make sure that the margins are extra wide at both sides to leave room for editing marks and changes. A one inch margin is none too big. Better would be 1.5-inch margins on the left, right and bottom. Double space the writing. Keep it down to about three paragraphs, not more than one page for sure. If you feel the need to supply more information, do it with a separate "FYI" ("For Your Information") paper.

Feel free to enclose as many black and white photos as you want and can afford (no editor ever minded getting from three to five different shots of the product). But you might just add a personal letter with one or two short paragraphs, letting the editor know that you can send color slides, black and white prints, digital images on CD-ROM or floppy disk in 300 dpi TIFF format, or whatever else your capabilities may be. Offer to send samples if the editor wants them. (I say "editor" but this also applies to writers you may contact.) Don't bother to send color prints or snapshots. Those are useless. Digital images or transparencies are the two ways publications can use color photos.

Press release writing is an art, but it is one you can learn. Besides, it is the cheapest advertising you will ever get. To be effective, you must repeat the mailings on a regular basis, at least every two months, and preferably every month. Of course, if you have no new products, you need to restate the benefits of the old one.

Always look for new firearms, new ammunition, magazine cover stories, and other ways to tie your product to what is hot and happening. You have to do constant magazine scanning to keep up. Your ability to make logical connections between a new firearm or other news-making product and your own is important in maintaining interest in your press releases.

For example, supposed you are selling a certain design of 40 caliber pistol bullet for the 10mm autos. You may realize that the .40 caliber bullet can be used in .38-40 Cowboy Action shooting, so by using the same tools and simply making an appropriate length and weight of bullet, you have a new market and product. In fact, the same bullet might be sold for a different purpose just by putting a cannelure on it in a different location.

Sometimes, the way you sell a bullet is the main benefit to the buyer. Suppose you offer a .45-70 paper patch bullet that you sell three ways: just the bullets, bullets with the patch already applied, and a kit with assorted paper thickness to match different bore variations. Or supposed you sell three different weights of bullet in one caliber and shape (actually you can sell any number of weights with swaging equipment).

Instead of just offering them in boxes of 25 or 50, suppose you announce that you are offering experimenter packs which have 30 bullets, ten of each weight, in one box! That way, a person can shoot at least two 5-shot groups of each weight before deciding which one to buy in larger quantity.

Or suppose you get a very fancy package, a reusable plastic box of some particularly nice design. You sell the box of bullets for an initially higher price but offer to "refill" the box at a discounted price if the customer mails it back. This is more of a ploy to secure the repeat sales than any big saving for you, but it may bring you additional income from people who otherwise could drift away to some other product.

Another thing that helps bring in sales is having a very complete, extensive line of similar products, even though you absolutely know that you won't sell enough of the odd-ball sizes to justify them on their own merits. The tooling becomes part of your advertising cost rather than capital outlay, in effect (but not for tax reporting). For example, suppose you make a fantastic 12 gauge slug. You can probably sell 20 gauge also. Maybe even some 16 gauge. But 10 gauge? And the .410 "gauge"? Still, if you have the capability and can do it, you can advertise "the only source of all sizes from 10 to 410" and issue such a press release.

In fact, why not go all the way and really rattle some cages? It doesn't cost much to get tooling for an 8 gauge and a 6 gauge. I know, no one but that old collector in Maine and the rich oilman with the punt guns will buy any. So what? You bought the right to say can make them, and that will get you more free mentions, worth thousands in advertising, to sell the same old 12 and 20 slugs. People will read that column and say "Hey, this guy makes 8 gauge!" and they'll remember who you are. Recognition is most of the battle.

Then supposed you throw out a new twist in the next press release. You will give away one 6 gauge slug to each customer who buys a box of 12 gauge or 20 gauge slugs before the end of the month of...(pick a month when the magazine will have been out for a few weeks at least prior to the date the deal starts).

I've had more than one discussion with associates who were convinced I was missing a critical mental component or just had no concept of reality when I suggested bringing out an unusual product that we all knew would never sell enough volume to justify its own production cost. But the entire reason for it was to attract attention, the same reason you spend money for advertising, or buy a big sign for your building, or pay more for a good location.

Of course we won't sell very many dummy 1-inch Gatling cartridges, but boy, will we get a lot of mentions in the magazines which will bring inquiries from shooters, giving us an opportunity to show them what else we have to offer. Advertising and promotion take on many forms.

The "bigger picture", the long run, may be far out of the average fellow's line of sight. I do not know whether seeing further ahead can be "learned", or whether (like drawing ability) it is something that a person can only learn to recognize and appreciate in others. I do know that there are people who just don't understand, no matter how carefully it is explained, that the seeds of today are the flowers of tomorrow.

Balancing what you can afford to "overspend" on something that pays no immediate benefit against the likely and probable returns at some foreseeable future time is a touchy business. Some may make unfounded, illogical assumptions about the payoff potential to justify spending far too much time, effort and money on a pet project. Others may see nothing that doesn't pay a connect-the-dots (with only two dots showing) benefit in excess of current cost as being a waste, even if it later is shown that doing it brings in several times as much business in other ways, perhaps attracting new clients who later buy other products.

There is an art or skill involved in making that judgement. There is also a large dose of chance, because we really do not know the future, even if we have a good track record of applying assumptions based on the past. There are paradigm shifts in business just as there is in technology. Recognizing that you can be wrong, no matter how good your past judgement, is the brake that keeps your marketing and promotional train from running off the tracks. The art is in just touching the brake pedal from time to time rather than slamming it on whenever something seems to be lurking at the next crossroad.

The time and money you spend on press releases is just one example of sowing for tomorrow's flowers. It takes some faith that the principles you have learned are going to work again, and it takes some restraint to keep from overspending because, after all, they might not. In most situations, you want to decide in advance what you can afford to spend so that if the worst thing happens, you will still be able to go on and try something else. That is, usually, you don't want to bet your whole stake on one promotion. Steady, repeated smaller doses cure the lack of sales better than a big splash, in most cases.

I'm hedging my words on purpose and hope you notice it. There are some times when you really must make a burn-the-boats, no turning back attack. Sometimes you do bet the farm. But usually those are times when you have no other option that has much chance of working, and you feel confident in the plan, and confident in yourself in case you have to go out and build another farm. Those times, fortunately, are few.

Here is another tip about press releases: make sure you don't fire all the barrels at once! In other words, pace yourself. Say one thing clearly, then wait and send another press release that has another single clear topic. Don't lump all your products and benefits and offers into one press release! What will you say next month?

It is always more effective to present a single product, clearly and simply, than to blast away with a pepperbox of products and features that leaves everyone confused. I know first class stamps have gone up, but you only need about 90 to 100 of them each month. It isn't like you are buying that many thousand dollar ads.

Press releases are best sent to a column writer or editor for new products, for handloading, or something that is related to your product. Don't send them to the editor or publisher unless you have no other choice. Or rather, if you do send them to the general management and writing people, be sure you also send a separate one to the new product or handloading editor. If you don't know who that is, call the magazine and ask.

Here is another tip: you may want to write multiple versions of a press release, with each one geared to a certain audience. For instance, if you send to a cowboy action magazine, the tone and style might be different from American Rifleman or Guns and Ammo. Different magazines have different writing styles. Some like the columns to be light and chatty, some like them serious and formal. Some enjoy a little humor, others do not. Read the magazines (novel thought!) and see which style would best apply. Then write two or three versions of the same press release.

Should you send sample bullets? No, not unless you send a letter to the writer first, and ask if they would like to have some for testing or just to try for a possible future article. It a bit of an imposition to just send a couple of boxes of bullets to someone. You might think it is very generous, but to the busy writer, it is like an intrusion he didn't need and didn't ask for, more or less an insult! It is like saying "Hey, writer, you don't have anything better to do with your time, so how about giving me a free article worth about $10,000 in sales over the next year or so? Here's $50 worth of bullets for your trouble."

When you look at it that way, you might start to see why sending off free samples isn't such a great idea unless you politely ask whether the writer has any interest. You must not expect or demand any articles or other response. If he does it, great. You won the lottery.

With press releases, you may get a 1 or 2 percent response ratio. That is, if you mail out 100 press releases, you could expect 1 or 2 writers to eventually put something in a magazine about it, perhaps to copy the press release entirely or paraphrase it. Does that shock you? You think you wasted 98 to 99 percent of your postage and printing and effort?

No, you didn't. The others read your press release. Now they know something about your product and company. At least the next time you do a mailing, they'll be somewhat familiar with it and not toss it out as fast. Then the third time they'll start to wonder just how persistent you are! And after a year, when they've received at least six and probably twelve press releases from you, it is quite likely they will start a file on you if they have not published anything yet.

Eventually, a story will come along that fits with your products, or a column will have just the right number of empty inches so your press release will fill it. Some of them won't ever publish your information, so you will start to weed them out of the frequent mailings and send them every other time, then every quarter, and perhaps after that, every year one time.

You never want to write them off totally unless they call and threaten to drive a pickup through your computer room if you send them one more press release! But you need to saturation bomb them with press releases for a year, then note who responds, put them on the A list, and move everyone else to the B list. The A list gets every press release, every photo, all the sample offers, and sometimes they get personal letters and such from you. They always get a Christmas card if you send them to anyone.

The B list gets nothing very expensive but they get press releases anyway, every other time. After a year, you adjust the lists again. This time, you move people from the B list who have responded up to the A list, and you change the policy for the B list. Now it only gets a mailing once a quarter.

Another year goes by. You adjust the lists again. Now the people who have never responded go to the new C list, which is like one foot in the trash can. They get a mailing once a year. A list people have by now responded at least twice, or they are brand new and get a year to prove themselves. B list people are now people who responded in some way, once, but just didn't do much after that. They showed interest, though, so they don't go to the C list ever. They get quarterly mailings.

Everyone on all lists should get a special mailing when you have a really new product. And it might pay if you took some time and wrote or called each person on the C list to ask them if they wanted to continue receiving information from you or not. Ask them politely if they would prefer not to receive your press releases. Tell them that in these tight economic times with the high cost of postage a small business like yourself needs to make sure that they are not annoying anyone with unnecessary mailings about things in which they have no interest.

And update your lists frequently by calling magazines and asking them for the name and address of their new products editors, and handloading columnists. Your mailing list for PR is a valuable asset, even with a 1 or 2 percent response rate. One response can be worth a great many paid advertisements. If you say it, the public takes it with a grain of salt. If a writer says it, it is like Moses or even Charlie Heston himself wrote it on a stone tablet. Thou shalt buy.

But first, they will probably send for a brochure. Whether or not they buy depends on what you send back. If you charge for the brochure, you will weed out those who just collect information. Make your best offer, send your coupons, your most eloquent illustrated material showing them the benefits, and of course make it easy for them to check a box, or call, or order on the web. The less people have to write, the more likely they are to buy. Postpaid order cards work, but leave no space for people to send you messages! Otherwise, you'll get to pay a premium for a scribbled note on the only blank spot on the card—and get no order.

Most magazines will sell you reprints of an article or column at a reasonable cost. Usually you need to buy at least 2000 reprints to get the price down to a few cents per copy. But sending out a magazine reprint under the byline of a writer is more effective than sending your own information alone. It gives you some "back up credibility".

All of this may seem to be based on smoke and mirrors, no hard numbers, no absolute black and white figures you can use to judge your ability and effectiveness. But there is a way.

Each customer is a person or company or agency who purchased a certain value of goods or services. You have two absolute numbers: the number of customers, and the value of what they purchased. If you divide the number of customers into the total of what they have purchased, you have a value that could be called "historical average value of each customer", which is a harsh-sounding title indeed, but it tells you in general terms how much an average purchase would be. You might refine this figure a bit by going through the list and charting the weighted mean sale value per customer rather than simply the average of them all, which is a statistical technique to reduce the effect of one big sale or smooth out the curve when you have a handful of very small sales that are not really typical.

What you want to do is find out, within reason, about how much you can expect your average custom to spend. If you are just starting out, this exercise is not a very good predictor for the future, but the technique is worth doing anyway, to establish a trend line and see how you are doing in comparison as the business continues.

You can sum the total of all clients and all purchases, or you can break it down by years, months, quarters, weeks, whatever makes sense to you. With the right software you can have it all to examine. But the important point is to have a benchmark, no matter what time period it covers, so you can repeat it over and over and make a comparison to see how you are doing.

You also have another figure that is written in stone, so to speak. You have a cost for advertising and promotion. If you are a small business, likely the figure is far too low because it only shows the checks you wrote to printing companies, advertising firms or magazines, the money you spent for postage to mail your flyers, the cost of copywriting and photography (but not necessarily the cost of your digital camera, which has to be amortized over its expected life-span to get a realistic cost per unit of time).

The missing figure is the cost of your time spent in getting names, writing press releases, and stuffing envelopes, taking the pile to the post office, standing in line, and so forth. All the things you would have to pay someone else to do, if you didn't do them, represent a cost that you probably don't have in your checkbook.

To get an actual out of pocket expense, you can safely disregard all of that and just use what your checkbook shows as promotion and advertising costs. But if you want to find out the true cost, you can do it in one of two ways. First, you could estimate all the time you spent on the promotional activities, and then assign a value based on what someone would charge you for doing it. Second, you could estimate what you normally make per hour when you are doing something other than these activities, and assume that you have lost that much by not doing them while busy promoting.

The most supportable method, in terms of hard figures, is to actually get a quote from a public relations firm or a local advertising agency for handling exactly what you have already been doing. This isn't a bad idea anyway, since it lets you know if perhaps you ought to let them handle it. If you are fairly sure that spending ten hours a month doing something else would bring in $300 extra dollars, and the agency would only charge you $250 to take care of the promotion work that now eats up those same ten hours of your time, go for it!

My best guess is that in a lot of instances, you'll find the agency will want more like $1500 a month to handle your promotion (a number that isn't entirely made up of guesses, but is based on what I have been quoted from time to time for what I assume would be an average amount of promotional work for a small bullet business).

Whatever you discover your time is worth, or the work you do would be worth if you had to pay some one else to handle it, should be added to the direct cost of your promotions.

Now you have three figures. You have the number of clients, the amount they have spent collectively, and the amount that it cost you to get them. Gee, what more do you need?

You can now divide the number of customers into the amount you have spent to get them, and you have a cost to acquire a customer (average). Let us say that you now have 50 customers, ranging from people who bought $10 worth of sample bullets to a few who bought $200 worth, and the average sale is $50 (that is, you added up all the sales, and they total $2,500).

Are you with me so far? You divided the total sales of $2,500 by the number of customers (50) and the answer was $50 average sale per customer.

Now, you add up all the postage stamps, envelopes, printing costs, and maybe even the price of a mailing list that you bought, and the total comes to $300. (We are talking about a very small, one-person start-up business here, something beneath the dignity of a self-respecting college textbook on business, which would have you starting out with a $10,000 market study.)

Now, you did some checking and estimating and decided that it took you about 5 hours to send out all your press releases, including the time to write them, stamp the envelopes, make the labels, and so forth. You work at a second job (really, the main job right now) where you get $20 an hour, so assuming you could have put in 5 hours there, it would have been worth $100. You also checked with a local ad agency and they were more than happy to do the whole job for $500 including the materials and mailing.

So now you have a couple of ways to value your cost of getting those 50 customers. You can add $300 of your actual checkbook expenses to an estimated $100 for your time, and figure the total cost of promotion was $400. Or you can assume that if you had used the ad agency, you would not have had to spend that $300 for supplies and services, but instead you would have had a $500 one-source check to write. In addition, you would have had 5 hours more time to spend on something profitable, possibly making another $100.

So either way, you either did spend or would have spent $400 total when you add the costs and subtract the income potential. Sounds about right, in that case. You wouldn't expect it to come out exactly the same in real life, but if it is off by very much, the lower cost way to go is certainly showing itself clearly.

Now, divide that expense of promotion by 50 customers that you actually have, and you get a cost per customer of $8. Each customer cost you, on average, eight dollars to acquire. Each customer, on average, bought $50 worth of product, which means that there is $42 per customer left to pay for the cost of providing those products.

You have it written in stone, so to speak. The cost and the value of your promotion is no longer just smoke and mirrors. In retrospect, you can determine exactly what your promotion is worth. Therefore you can make decisions based on fact, at least pertaining to the expansion of your past efforts.

Now of course some of those customers did not cost you anything in promotion, because you bumped into them at the post office and mentioned you had a new bullet they might want to try. And some of them cost you a lot more than $8 because you spent money on brochures and flyers that were thrown away and didn't result in any sales. But on average, you know that if you look at the business as a "black box" with a pipe marked "expense" flowing in, and another pipe marked "income" flowing out, you have just separated a part of the expense and quantified it in terms of how much income it generated.

You can also determine the expense involved in producing the product, by determining the cost of materials and the time required, and then assigning a reasonable replacement cost value to your time (that is, if you were to suddenly take ill and had to hire someone to do your work, what would it cost per unit produced?).

Let us assume that the $42 worth of product actually cost you, in time and materials, including the box and the label and other incidental expenses, $22. That means you have $20 left, which is gross profit at this point. Unless some of it is used for expenses such as increased promotion, new tools and dies, insurance, telephone and power, you will probably have to reduce it by at least 20%, perhaps as much as 40%, for income taxes.

Let's say that you decide to increase your promotion now. Based on current figures, you spend $10 per customer instead of $8, but in the same time period as you measured for the first exercise, you gain 60 new customers. Is this good or bad? Did you spend too much, or did it pay off?

Well, instead of 50 customers for $400, you spent $500 to get 60 customers. That is $8.30 per new customer. It isn't terrible, but it is worse than you did with your first promotion. You would want to evaluate what you sent, how you said it, what it cost, and who you sent it to. Maybe you sent the information to the wrong people, or just sent them too much material. Maybe you could get a better price for printing. Perhaps if you got a bulk mailing permit and did larger mailings, the cost per client would drop. These are just a few of the things you would think about, based on the hard facts and figures.

What if instead of spending $500 to get those 60 new customers, you spent the same $200 and got 10 new customers, but those customers each bought an average of $100?

Or, suppose you had repeat sales from some of your old customers. Do you treat that as a new customer acquired? No, but you could look at the new average sales per customer for the new time period, rather than just the cost for acquiring new customers. Generally, you will find that it is much cheaper to get a sale from an existing customer than it is to acquire a new one. Your customer list is golden. It represents, on average, people who wanted your product enough to buy it and who would probably do so again. Some will not, of course. But some will.

You can keep track of repeat sales, and concentrate your main direct mailing effort on giving these folks advance notice of new products, special deals when you have a limited supply, thank-you notes and follow ups. In short, treat all your customers very well, but treat your repeat customers even better!

What does this have to do with press releases?

Press releases are the lowest cost starting point on the road to repeat customers, assuming you have exhausted all the personal contacts and local sales potential (the world is a much larger market than your local one, so it stands to reason that you will quickly run out of local sales potential).

The Patent People

Still reading, eh? Fine, you asked for it. Don't say I didn't warn you. If you have no sense of humor or are a bleeding heart liberal who believes that the world is owed a living by... Well, anyone and everyone who can afford it in your opinion... In that case, I wouldn't suggest reading any more (ever).

I mean it all in a kindly way, and am writing because I hope the ideas give some guidance to someone, somewhere, who could use it. If my opinions should seem too personal, too harsh or too pendantic... I suppose that most people will recover, with time and therapy, or perhaps forget it all with a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label.

Nondisclosure Agreements

Sometimes we are approached by a person who has what he believes is a potential wealth-creating new idea for a bullet design or application, and the first thing he wants is to have us sign a nondisclosure agreement so he can see what we think of it and have us produce some prototypes to show investors. I have to decline for these reasons, some to protect us, some to protect him:

1) We do not know if we may have already worked with this idea until we see it, and if we cannot see it until we sign a nondisclosure agreement, we are saying we won't do something that we may already have done! In fact, if the idea is actually practical, we probably have produced something like it before. After all these years, thousands of inventors and ideas, and hundreds of successful businesses arising from them with our help, it is highly likely none of us can even remember if we saw the idea before or not. I can hardly remember whether I saw my wife's note to bring home a bottle of water or not (at least the handwriting still looks familiar...). After all these years of helping thousands of people with their projects and never stealing any of them, I can only say that if our reputation isn't enough assurance, then our signature on that paper would be equally worthless.

2. A person looking for investors (which is nearly always the motivation behind the nondisclosure paperwork, the patent filings, and so forth) is attempting to sell an idea in a mature (you could say "ancient") market which has achieved a high level of success with the ideas that have already evolved over the past 200 years of firearms history.

What we would rather do is help someone turn one of those ideas into a product, and sell the product themselves, proving the idea has an actual market and is profitable in production. Then, if he is inclined to find investors, he has a much more attractive set of options, including selling a business opportunity rather than just a design concept. A going business is far more marketable than an idea for a bullet, no matter how good the idea may be.

Everyone has an idea for a better bullet. The only profitable ideas are those that get produced. Very few custom bullets are unprofitable when marketed in a reasonable way, whereas very few bullet ideas—as ideas only—are marketable at all. For us to encourage the whole "intellectual property" marketability concept by participating in the trappings, such as nondisclosures and so forth, is a bit of a sham and I'd rather not do it.

3. We specialize in the custom bullet market and have so many clients who need our help that we cannot afford to waste resources in the field of mass marketing. Firearms is a very conservative, slow-moving field at the mass market level, where the technical merits of a new bullet can be far down the list of desirable features.

At the top would be low-cost high-volume production, which means not making significant changes to the tooling or the marketing system. Mass producers have already spent over 200 years, in some cases, building a product line, distribution system, and brand image. It works fine, so why buy outside ideas? (Products, maybe: you may sell a mass producer 100,000 special bullets a year for a niche market, since it might be just the ticket compared to them developing the idea and producing it themselves in such low quantities.)

Again, getting involved in legal paperwork that is primarily of benefit and concern in regard to the mass market, when our specialty and reason for existence is something else, would just complicate our lives unnecessarily and imply support or participation in an area where we really have no expertise to offer.

If you think it is likely this idea is original with you, and we've never seen it before, and if we did see it you would need some kind of legal protection to keep us from disclosing it to others, then please don't even bother to bring it around. Take it to a mass producer straight away and let them sign. If they steal it, you can have all the fun of suing them, and your lawyer can have all the fun of billing you by the hour... For years to come!

We don't make bullets for a living: we help others do it, and most likely we have seen anything that is likely to work many times before. We have yet to steal any of them and get rich and retire in the Grand Caymans beyond the reach of the local attorney who drew up the nondisclosure paperwork. If that had happened, would I be writing this now?

Here's a flash: people who make custom bullets seldom get rich. They can make a nice living, maybe even better than average. But get rich? The incentive to steal your idea is nonexistent. See that file cabinet, over behind the reception desk? Yes, that five-foot tall beige one with four drawers. Well, it is full of ideas of our own that have no risk of belonging to a client.

I don't have time to work on more than a tiny fraction of them each year. What do we need with more ideas? Give me more die-makers; those are worth stealing away from you if you happen to bring one along! But ideas? Please, we're overstocked. We give them to clients, free. Here, take a bag!

I have a term for people who put their faith in getting a patent and selling their idea, rather than selling the product itself. I call them "Patent People". It is a term of endearment, not ridicule. Sometimes they are looking for the easy way to riches, but often they are just earnest and misguided. I try to help, but they seldom hear my advice. I repeat: I am not a lawyer and my advice is my opinion only. Perhaps they are right not to listen. Judge for yourself—here it is:

Patent People

I would prefer to work with a person to help them develop their idea. We want to make tooling that is affordable, and can be operated in a profitable way by one or two people, filling the modest but steady need for specialty bullets. The factories may someday purchase or copy the idea, but prospects of them doing so are rather low. Niche markets are fairly safe from mass producers.

I can honestly say the money spent on a patent usually should have been put into advertising and packaging your own product. This is a field that, taken in its entirety, might come up to the financial level of a few McDonald's hamburger franchises. It is an old, mature field with conservative buyers who are, for the most part, happy with what they have. Odds of an exotic idea being copied are slim, economic risk is nil, and if you sell the bullets for a few years before the idea is copied by someone who can make it far cheaper and faster on their high speed machinery, you are still money ahead.

The same mass producers who might copy your bullet someday are unlikely to have purchased your patent in any case. It is too easy to prove prior art or just thumb their nose at your limited legal budget while their attorneys, who are already on the payroll, bury you with procedural filings. They may dig up Civil War patents not in the computer records, which show the idea has long passed into government or public ownership. Then your patent makes a nice den decoration but is worthless in court.

Yes, it could happen that you patent an idea and eventually find someone to buy it. Do you think it has military application? Guess what: if it does, and they want it, they can get it. You may never see a penny for your trouble. But even if everyone plays nice, unless you are first cousin to someone in procurement or play golf with the general who happens to think his troops need a longer range bullet (or whatever you are selling), the odds of making anything from patenting and marketing the bullet to the military are, shall we say, remote? They are more likely to purchase small quantities of bullets from you for special projects than to pay you for an idea. That actually happens, sometimes.

I would not be foolish enough to say that a patent is always a waste of money in the bullet field. Sometimes you can get by with just a few thousand dollars in attorney fees and searches and official drawings and application fees, and it so happens your patent has something in it that a third party with deep pockets actually wants.

But I've seen this happen very seldom. I've talked to many more "patent people" who were still drifting in and out of offices with a tenacious grip on their tattered briefcases, year after year, dragging their papers out for one bored executive after another, who try to be polite and look interested until their eyes glaze over.

It is sad: patent people want to believe in their idea, and they do believe that a patent is the key to wealth, but they do not understand how to make money with it. I tell them to take a chance, use some savings, and start a little company to produce and sell your product. If it is done well, you can make a reasonable return on your investment, usually two hundred to five hundred percent a year (the investment is very small compared to the margins). If it doesn't work out, there is good salvage value and trying for a year or two should not cost more than a typical vacation or a second hand car.

Not trying means never knowing. I understand that never knowing could imply always keeping hope alive, and that in some people's minds this is an unspoken and perhaps unwitting reason to pursue the infinitely long road to "easy riches" instead of taking that immediate first step on the short path to harder work and revelation of the actual merit of the idea.

In other words, if you don't try, there is no danger of finding out your idea was not good. This is ego insurance. If no one buys the untried idea, then it is "their" fault. If they do, you are out of it and they are the ones who responsible for the success or failure. Either way, there is no ego risk.

You are not the one baring your soul, taking a hard-money, real-world capital risk, making a product that must support your business. Maybe that is why so many inventors do not want to try to build their product and sell it. If that is you, then you just saved years of expensive therapy, for the price of a small book! Please feel free to send me any part of the savings in large or small bills—I'm not particular.

Another reason could be that they are not business people, and feel no competence in running their own business. That is a perfectly legitimate concern. It may be overcome by making up for certain weaknesses through hiring help for those areas, and focusing on one's strengths in other areas. But sometimes the scope of skills required to run a small business is overwhelming. A person might not know where to begin. There is help for that, also.

A large number of self-help small business books are available. The Small Business Administration has publications basic enough for anyone to grasp. A friend or relative may have experience in the basics of setting up a small home business. And of course, when it comes to getting customers, promoting and advertising your business, Corbin is always here with free or low-cost methods to get the message to the right people, including publicity lists, free web-site ads, free inclusion in our bullet-makers' directory, a seven step plan included in our Market Information Package (the MIP), and help with advertising, logo design, communications issues, pricing, and much more.

If you start asking and reading, let me throw one warning buoy into your newly found channel: I have found that most college texts written about running a business are written by people who have never been successful small business owners. Some of them have at least been involved in business but usually at a level where they did not have to start at the bottom and build it from nothing (a teaching career would tend to preclude such a business career: a successful business career usually preempts one in teaching).

More than a few business texts are written by people who hate capitalism and everything it stands for, as evidenced by the tone of the writing and the nearly complete lack of understanding of the role of profit in business.

So, be wary in your reading. If the first thing the author tells you to do is a market study and casually mentions that it takes a sampling of at least 10,000 people to be statistically meaningful, get another book. This one was written for a much larger business model than we are talking about. In fact, most of the books you find in a college bookstore will be.

Their methods and advice probably work fine for General Motors or even for someone who has a half million dollar war chest for starting a "small" business. But for the person working out of their home, preparing to do a mail order business with no help other than a tax preparer, you can cross out entire chapters and write in "skip this, go to next step" because the studies and tests and preparation they are recommending would cost more than the entire business will make in several years.

You can pick up good ideas, possibly faster than from books, by reading some of the magazines written for home business operators. Even these tend to be written for larger businesses, with more money to spend than you may have when starting. Still, basic accounting principles and some knowledge of the way the tax code works, especially regarding deductions and reporting cost of sales, is a good thing to know. You can have someone else do it all (for a price), but it is better to know firsthand what is going on rather than to hear about it after it has.

A great deal of what a small business person does is like flying a plane without instruments. You just feel your way, do the best you can with the limited resources available, and work smarter, harder and longer to get ahead, so you can start phasing in outside help and marketing ideas. Little airplanes without instruments sometimes crash in bad weather, and many small businesses fail when the outlook clouds up. The authors of business books would say it is because they do not have the resources to pay for the research to support the planning that a larger business would do.

Ah, but then, we have giant businesses filled with people sporting MBA degrees, supplied with huge resources, and these firms apparently get no benefit from some of their massive planning efforts. Otherwise, how did the New Coke fiasco come about? Why are there no current versions of the Edsel? How did the McLean taste-free burger manage to get on the market? I've never met anyone who said they liked it.

I won't even waste time discussing the "new business model" that was collectively debunked by the dot com crash (you remember the mantra: the "old" ideas of the "brick and mortar businesses" are dead and profit is of no immediate concern, only "eyeballs measured by hits" represent the "market" capturing the "hearts and minds" of the new, hip "visitor"). People were willing to risk money just to advertise the vague promise of great profit at some unspecified future time, rather than taking the more traditional risk that an idea which has already been proven profitable on a small scale could be "scaled up" to make more profit. But at least the dot-com era had one thing right: you do want to show your new ideas to as many potential buyers as possible.

However, it is more practical to reach people using free publicity as frequently as possible, than it is to spend all your money on advertising. So you send out press releases to the right people in the firearms media, to writers, editors, publishers, and even to manufacturers of guns that might benefit from their customers using your bullets (to make their gun perform better).

You scrape up as much as you can afford and put together a good color brochure that explains the benefits of your bullet, telling people why they will be better off shooting it than a cheaper, mass produced bullet. You use as many low cost or free resources to spread the word as you can find, such as the internet, trades with other manufacturers in their shipping literature, cross-advertising deals, whatever gets your bullet information in the right hands without costing too much.

And you write, e-mail, call, and send samples to the people who most influence your ultimate customers. That would be gun writers. This is in addition to the impersonal press releases.

Yes, it is a lot of work. But it isn't difficult work. Some people even find it quite enjoyable. You get to read every gun magazine you can find, and locate more that you didn't know existed. You get to keep track of what different writers seem to like in bullets, what they wish existed, what they lament about the current offerings, or what kind of guns and calibers they write about most often. After a while, you have a nice card file dossier on most of the popular writers and magazines. You know who is most interested in the calibers you make, and what they like or do not like about existing bullets. Then you can send them a sample of something that you already have a good idea they will find noteworthy.

Maybe someone wants a very heavy 308, and wishes there are more round nose game bullets in the 200 grain and up range. Maybe someone else wants a bullet that breaks up as soon as it hits the ground so their 224 caliber bullets won't whine away over the next hill when they are shooting ground hogs. So what if your original idea was to make a fragmenting 308 for police and a military 224 that would penetrate armor? The equipment can do the opposite, as well. And here is an opportunity staring you in the face.

Often, the key to business success is the ability to recognize such opportunities, and to use what you have in a slightly different way than you originally intended. Perhaps you will get back to the original idea later, but right now, this is a way to bring in some free publicity and probably some income. Yes, yes... Your original idea was to make the world's fastest 308 for 1000 yard competition, but who cares about it right now?

Here is an opportunity to sow the seeds of publicity, which in turn may sell something you can make right now, which in turn will bring income that lets you do your own thing, later. How many people are so stubborn about what they intend to do, that they ignore these opportunities? Believe me, a lot of people are. It is nearly impossible to get them to deviate from their original path. Too much ego is on the line, perhaps? You need a good opinion of yourself to have confidence in your ideas. But you have to balance it with a little humility and reality, when it spells the difference between going broke and making an immediate profit.

It's Not The Economy!

As I write this chapter, it is July of 2003. The economy is reported to be struggling. The newspapers talk about small gains here, layoffs there, record u