I’ve been doing a lot of writing for other blogs lately, so my posting here has dropped off a bunch, and I want to do something to change that. What is that something? Get up early and write more.
I had a meeting with a new client yesterday. This man retired after 20 years in a corporate job for a major international company. Then he got really creative. For the last few years he’s been working on hobby-type projects—just stuff that interested him—and prototyping different products. One of the products is ready for market, well designed, a fun name, very interesting. (I’ll share more about this in separate post soon). One of the products is a learning system that he’s currently applied to teaching the use of foreign language verbs, and while I don’t do patent work, I think this system may be patentable. The third product is a journaling system that has a wonderfully modular set of components that he could produce and market and also license to others.
I LOVE this kind of person. The way their brains work. The joy they bring to creating products is contagious.
I couldn’t help myself, I started tossing out all kinds of ways to increase sales, leverage content, and share this client’s creativity with the world. What was scheduled for a 1 hour meeting lasted for 2.5 (until his parking time was up and I had another appointment – otherwise we might still be there…). I love how that happens when there is no hourly-billing happening.
So, the level of our business relationship is moving into more of a coaching/consulting relationship instead of being limited to me just drafting contracts and protecting the IP. I’ll now be helping him craft his larger strategy and prioritize which elements should be developed first. Hopefully, this will allow him to spend more of his time doing the things he loves – creating new products and building prototypes.
That’s good. It’s valuable for both of us.
I’m happy to accept more clients like this. If that’s you, come on down. 🙂
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