© 2021 Vinny Ribas

Inventors are notorious for not wanting anyone to “mess with” their creations. They don’t want to license their invention for someone else to produce and sell because the licensee might change it. Yet, they don’t want to go through the work it takes to produce and market the invention themselves, so they leave it sitting on a shelf in their garage!

Many songwriters often have the same feelings. They only want their songs recorded their way, sung the way they picture them, and even performed like they envision them. Heaven forbid someone should want to do a rock version of their country love song! After all, the song is “their baby”.

The truth is, many entrepreneurs fall into this same category. Their business is “their baby”, and how dare anyone try to tell them how to run it! It doesn’t matter if the ship is sinking fast. The captain is determined to go down with it!

The bottom line in all of these examples is that everyone is proud of their creations, and rightfully so. It is quite an accomplishment to come up with something that no one has thought of, or to build something from nothing. However, there comes a time when the creative person needs to ask himself one important question: WHY did I create this in the first place?  It’s only when you can honestly answer this question that you can make rational, unemotional decisions regarding its treatment.

If your answer is “just for fun”, or “it was just an accident that I came across this”, then it is understandable why you would treat it protectively. However, if your answer is “to make money”, then you may want to reevaluate your position. It is time to set aside all emotion tied to the creation and start looking at it as a commodity that needs to be packaged and sold. Every product, service, artistic creation, business concept, patentable process, commercial formula, and even an already profitable business will only generate money if they are treated like a business and marketed as such.

In fact, this same business principle holds true for many people as well. Service providers, entertainers, authors, attorneys, accountants, business coaches, speakers etc. all fall into this category. Any professional who relies on his or her name recognition to be a selling point, regardless of their field, must also be developed, branded, packaged, marketed and sold just like every product you see on any store shelf!

Are you holding yourself or your business back by protectively holding on too tightly? Why not call in some experts in your field to help you bend, shape, redesign, repackage or recolor what you’ve created so that it is still original, but easily saleable. It will still be your creation, and something to be extremely proud of. The only difference is that it will be a profitable creation as well!