万花筒 2011-02-08&02-10 创业小贴士

 Welcome back to Job Club ,I'm Tory Johnson in New York. And We've been discussing how entrepreneurs can have the  best shot at success. Many of you have submitted questions to ask at ABC News.com about your business efforts, and I've asked Scott Gerbert to join us once again, to help me answer them. All right, Scott, are you ready?

 
Absolutely ready!
 
Good. The first question is from Dolores in Pennsylvania. She writes, My sister and I are starting a pajama business and are  having a hard time finding a sewer 1 to make the samples, and a manufacturer in our area. We wanna keep it in the USA and be able to offer jobs to people out of work. Hope you can help us find the right people. Important question, Scott, so where should Dlores start looking to find those reliable resources to get her business going.
 
Well, I always  say that on-line forms and social media are the best ways to connect with other vendors 3,with partners and other such folks. So the first thing I would say, is going to Google,do a basic search to find, who's the sewing forum 4, who's hosting the, a place to be if you're in that world, and look on-line to see if there are alike-minded individuals that also have similar problems looking for vendors. Ask people on these forums 5. Go to twitter, look for key search words, as well, and try to find folks that are basically creating a dialogue about sewer subject.
 
Sure, and also probably just going door-to-door and asking people to make samples for her , so she can see the quality of their work.
 
Absolutely,I mean there's definitely different meet-ups, different organizations. They're going to focus on this exact, eh, you know, type of product, so definitely put yourself out there. Look continue to try to pun the  payment and find those folks that are looking to create those  kind of products.
 
Sure, and she'll discover she's not the only one, who had the same concern and yet, she can benefit from other people's solutions, so that's very smart. Okay. Next, Kim from Wisconsin, she has this question, I was wondering if you could help me get started on how to write a book. I live with Crohn's disease and I want to help other people understand this disease. Scott, you've just written your book. How dose Kim get started?
 
Well, there is two routes--you can go self publishing or you can go after a publisher. Let's take the first one. Self publishing is something that you can go to sites like, lulu.com or Amazon, to tried to find ways to write a topic, create your own cover artwork, get an editor as a freelancer 6, find a way to create you  manuscript, get it all polished and put it up as your own product. Obviously, there is a way that you wanna get rid of all of the fees, that's why you wanna do it on the main publisher like lulu or Amazon to make sure you don't have a lot of cost. If you wanna go the direction of a published book, my suggestion first is to build your platform. What does that mean is creating a video blog if you start to push out there. Create a syndicated column by pitching different outlets 7 out there that would focus on your topic, because the name of the game of the publishing world is platform, platform, platform. They need to know that you have relevance 8 to a market, that people care about what you have to say, and that people frankly 9 are going to buy your book.
 
And that's something she could start right now, she could even start a group on Facebook, and talk to(Absolutely) people about the Crohn's disease and build that following up.
 
Absolutely, it takes an army to get a book published, I can tell you that.(That's right.) But it's very very key that you connect with people because they'll also be best influencers and folks to spread the world of mouths once you book is out there in the world.
 
All right, and when she writes that book we will have her here to talk about it. Okay. Finally we have a question from Maggie in Colorado. She says,I spent 10 years as professional civil engineer, until I had my two girls. I am now a stay-at-home mom and realtor. I have recently had a great idea for a new learning illness-prevention product for children. Can you recommend the process for  developing the prototype obtaining a patent and who to contact as far as marketing 10 the product? Scott, She wants to know everything, but perhaps you can tell Maggie where she should get started.
 
Well, No.1 is talk to your lawyer or find somebody who's willing to give you a legal counsel. A patenting is a very very time-consuming and expensive process you wanna make sure that you're getting great advice from the start, as well as making sure you've everything in place before you start patent process, in terms of creating the actual product. You know, it is not more than ever investors 11 are not willing to take a risk. Eh, most of them anyway, aren't putting something brand new into the market without any level of  distribution. So try to find some strategic partners. Look to local vendors you might wanna take the next step in their businesses. Look for who's distributing similar products,try to get meetings. Try to tell them why this is something that you know will work. But most importantly, try to get that product created by some local vendor 2 to show what it actually does, cause remember, you're wanna show and don't tell.
 
Thanks so much for spending time with us the book again Never get a real job. And That's all the time that  we have for today, but you can visit us anytime on the Job Club page at ABC News.com for so much more information, and you can also always talk to me directly at facebook.com/Tory or twitter.com/Tory Johnson. Thanks so much for watching, I'll see you next time right here on Job Club.