How you approach a company is very important and your attitude plays a large part in your success or failure. Below is a compilation letter I made up from excerpts from letters Inventors have shown me they sent to companies. They wanted to know what they were doing wrong because they were either getting no response back or getting told No Thank You. Is this how your letters look? If it is you need to change what you are doing now. Most companies will not want to work with the type of person that wrote this letter.
To Whom It May Concern
I have decided to give your company the privilege of being the first to carry my product. I choose your company because you have the largest market, and therefore can afford to pay me a higher royalty on the sales .I have shown this product to all of my family and friends and they said they would buy it. They said my product will destroy the others on the market and do away with all of your competition. They said your competition will be out of business within the first 6 months because everyone will be buying my product and not theirs. Once they are out of business it will make you the only game in town. Since your competition will be gone my idea will make your company millions, so I don’t see any issue with you paying an advance of $100,000 at the signing of my contract.
Attached you will find my licensing agreement and my advance contract. My divorce attorney said you should have no problem signing either of these agreements. He should have the patent search done soon. Which is really a waste of his time, since I know there is nothing else like it on the market? Today is Monday. I will be out of town Friday, so I need you to sign and get the agreements to me before then. You can FEDEX them to me.
Your company is only an hour away from my home which is great. That means I will be able to oversee the progress of my product and make sure you do it right. I will call you tomorrow at 2pm so be sure you are in your office. I hate calling and leaving messages.
Your company should be happy I found you first and was willing to submit my idea to you. It is going to make us all millions!!. Once you get this one off the ground and I see that you are treating me correctly I have several other ideas I might be willing to show you before I go to your competitors.
Thank you for your time. Genius Inventor
Now, having read this, would you as a company owner want to work with this Inventor? Do you think they would have realistic expectations? Do you think they would be worth your time over other Inventors that might approach you? If you owned a company do you feel accepting outside ideas from this type of group would be a benefit or a headache for your company?
Do you see yourself writing this type of letter to a company? If you do I can tell you it will be a hard road ahead for you. These types of attitudes only work against you and the other Inventors that follow you will pay the price for your arrogance.
No matter how you feel about your idea and how great you think it is you need to remember the company is under no obligation to look at your product. They can choose that dealing with demanding and unrealistic Inventors is not worth their time and to avoid dealing with this type of Inventor they will avoid all Inventors.
So choose your words and actions carefully when you approach a company because not only are you representing yourself, but all the other Inventors that come behind you. If you have a professional attitude and realistic expectations you help keep the door open for yourself and others.