Here are suggestions that inventors need to make or understand when it comes to inventing if they are to be successful.

1. Understand that inventing is business. Treat it as one.

2. Really research your idea before submitting it to a company. Don’t tell them “There’s nothing like this!” By spending 2 minutes on the web, they find several articles exactly like yours.

3. Understand that each company has a different method and time frame for reviewing submissions. Do not send a proposal in the mail on Monday and call them on Tuesday at 8:30 am to find out when they will send you a contract. It is a simple task to ask the company to which you are submitting material for review “What is your typical response time for reviewing submissions?”

4. Don’t be married to your product and be totally against changes to make it marketable.

5. Put your contact information on every article you send them. Don’t make them guess who’s sorry.

6. Do not send unsolicited prototypes. Let them know that a prototype is available upon request. You can’t expect a company to pay for the shipping of every prototype you receive without requesting it.

7. Understand that every idea is not a million dollar idea. Yes, there are million dollar ideas, but they are not the majority of ideas. Be realistic in your expectations

8. Realize that everyone who rejects your idea is not stupid.

9. Don’t send a 20 page explanation of your product. Be concise and clear on your sales sheet. If it takes more than two pages to explain your idea, you have a problem.

10. Know who you are sending your presentation to at the company. Don’t assume they’ll figure it out for you if you send it to the company.

11. Not having an idea / plan of who to contact to license your product before spending the money on a provisional patent. A large number of inventors pay for a provisional patent, knowing that they do not have the money for a full patent and have not investigated who might be interested in obtaining a license. They spend 6 months out of the year looking for company contacts, which means they only have 6 months to try to earn some interest before time runs out. They had no intention of paying for a patent and are now forced to drop it or pay for a patent. If you do it right, you have all 12 months to find a company.

12. Be patient and don’t call every other day to ask if your product has been reviewed. They may be on vacation, sick, or very busy. They are not sitting waiting for their package.

13. Don’t assume that the person reading your sell sheet will magically know all the selling points / benefits of your product that you left out. Example: What if your idea revolves around fishing and they don’t fish and they don’t know anything about it?

14. Keep a concise record of who you contacted at the company and what you sent them. Several Inventrs ship packages and two days later they couldn’t tell you what they shipped or to whom. The person from that company calls and they are trying to remember who this person is while talking on the phone.

15. When contacting a business, remember that they own the business, not you. Write your letter to the company from a realistic perspective, give them real facts, not what you want them to be. Do not write your letter in a threatening tone or from the point of view that they are crazy if they reject you. Don’t fill your letter with information that you don’t really need, like how you came up with the idea, how long it took to build your prototype, etc. They are only interested in whether it will make them money. DO NOT USE THE PHRASE “My idea is worth MILLIONS !!!” Let them decide for themselves what it’s worth.

16. Don’t send prototypes to broken companies and say, “I’m sure you can fix the bugs in this.”