Don't believe me? Have you ever made a New Year's Resolution and never followed up?
I know that I personally have been in that position before. A few years back, I wanted to go to the gym and get buff. I had it all planned it out in my mind: I would get up early every other morning and work out for two hours. I justified it in my mind and was excited. Results would come for sure! A few weeks later, I was back into the same old routine of watching television munching on a bag of potato chips.
Now, what went wrong? As soon as I lost my initial excitement, reality began to set in. Believe me, I tried to go the gym. That first day, I got out of bed and went to the gym. After that, I realized that it was HARD getting up early every morning and I fell out of the gym-going habit.
I now go to the gym... because I started taking baby steps. Instead of promising myself to get up early every other day, I went to the gym once a week when I could find time in my busy schedule. Over time, I ramped that up and eventually got to my goal.
The purpose of this blog is to show people about a business strategy known as licensing. The gym example applies nicely to licensing. The entire process of taking one of your ideas and selling is complicated and may seem to be a lot at once. With the initial excitement, you may want to tackle the project on your own and feel that you can take on the world. However, once that excitement fizzles out and reality sets in you will be left feeling ashamed. TAKE BABY STEPS. Below is a list of things that you can do this week to eventually retire through licensing out of your ideas.
Choose from this list of things to do this week (and do only one!):
- Buy Stephen Key's book on licensing (One Simple Idea):
- Write out your money-making idea on 1 page of paper
- If you don't have an idea, write out 5 potential ideas (see example below)
Idea list example (actually taken from my idea notebook):
*Try to go for quantity over quality
- A meter/countdown to tell you when you will die
- A device to track your thoughts throughout the day and tell you how to be more positive
- A device to track your mistakes throughout the day and remind you of them
- Idea generator machine
- Credit card receipt goes to your phone via text RIGHT after you buy something
As you can well see, most of these ideas are not "The Next Big Thing." In fact, some are just plain ridiculous. For this exercise, just let your mind wander and write down the results!
I challenge you to take a baby step in the right direction by doing just one of the things listed above...
and let me know the results!
-Viktor Jiracek
