Lessons I Learnt From a $475 Million Licensing Legend
Sohail Khan | January 28th, 2010 | Blogroll, Joint Venture Training, Newsletter, Newsletter, The Thirty Day Challenge, Thirty Day IM ChallengeI recently returned from a Marketers Cruise where I met 400 of the top marketers in the world, some of who have become good friends for life. The organiser of the cruise is a well known ‘Internet Marketing Guru’ who I had the pleasure of spending time with. This guy is well on track to doing 8 figures this year (hopes he takes on board some of my suggestions) and some of his colleagues are doing 7 figures online.
Now compare this with someone who I had the pleasure of meeting at his $25 Million waterfront mansion in Jupiter, Florida while I was in the US. That person’s name is John Osher – Licensing Legend and creator of the ‘Spin Pop’ and ‘Spin Brush’ which he licensed and sold to Proctor and Gamble for $475 Million!
So how did I meet this guy?
I was spending time with a fellow JV Broker in Tampa and we decided to take a trip to Miami to see my friend Marc Goldman, unfortunately Marc and his wife were out of the country for the holdays so on our way back from Miami my friend mentioned that I should meet a guy called John Osher in Jupiter.
Apparently, my friend invited John to speak at his school many years ago after reading an article about him in Inc magazine and he graciously accepted the invitation. Now this was many years ago and I was pleasantly surprised when my friend called John and he remembered. So John asked what we were upto and as we were so close to his home he invited us to meet him.
So we pulled up to this private country club estate and the security guard opened these enormous gates as we drove up to the never-ending driveway. Having arrived at a truly magnificent mansion overlooking the waterfront we walked up to the front door and rang the bell.
Now for most of you who know my story of making millions just using joint ventures and then losing millions and eventually working my way back from one 7 figure licensing jv deal can guess that I was very excited to be meeting someone who did a 9 figure licensing deal!
John invited us into his beautiful home and to his private office (which looked like a command centre at NASA), the first question John asked was, ‘So what deal do you have for me to look at’… If only I did have a deal ready to show but after having a great conversation and picking his brains I promised John that If I came across the ‘BIG’ one again I would reserve it just for him!
So how did he do it?
I want to first make clear that John’s story is FAR from the typical entrepreneur’s experience. But it’s relevant nonetheless because many of the skills he used to bring his product to market, despite having sophisticated design teams, established contacts, and sufficient funds, are the same ones you must master.
John knew the potential market for such a product was enormous – every sex, race, religion, creed brushed their teeth, right? But because the retail price of electric toothbrushes between seventy and eighty dollars, the product simply wasn’t affordable.
But John had the technology to create a new electric toothbrush – he would apply the same technique utilized by the inexpensive toy candy twirler to a toothbrush.
It’s a good thing he didn’t give up. John has enjoyed the type of lucrative success most people can’t even comprehend. And most of it is due to his persistence in demonstrating that the Spin Brush was a desirable product.
John performed market tests in Meyers stores in Michigan and Ohio – the Spin Brush sold about seven per day. The leading electrical toothbrush at the time sold two a week, he also ran tests with consumers directly. The brush received the highest customer satisfaction and support, ever. It was this specific type of evidence that eventually led John to sign with Proctor and Gamble.
Below are some lessons learned from John Osher:
Notes:
- Must set price right
- Spent 6 years after undergrad as a carpenter. He said he learned a lot about how things work.
- Invented the Baby Gym and eventually sold it to Gerber and became VP of Nothing
- Left Gerber to start a toy company.
- At one point he got stuck with too much inventory and investors wanted out. He went through hell and ended up getting a divorce. After 6 months of being on his knees, things turned around. The company wasn’t a huge success, but he wouldn’t say it was a failure either.
- With most of his companies, he had critical times that required hard decisions.
- Created interactive candy.
- Eventually sold the toy company to Hasbro and became VP of Nothing.
- Left Hasbro and retired for a year.
- Got together and formed a joint venture with a bunch of inventor friends and thought up things that people use every day. They came up with a list of 100 things.
- As an entrepreneur, you have to keep things simple. What is your breakeven? How much do you have to sell to make a 15% profit? ALL entrepreneurs should know the basic financials inside out.
- He has several more ideas in the pot and a few consumer products coming out soon (disposable electric razor?)
The good news is, now there is a quicker and easier way to learn how to put together and profit from Joint Ventures through The JV University’s 12 week hands-on certified JV consultant’s training program where me, Willie Crawford, David Preston and Gina Gaudio-Graves hold your hand and even let you work on LIVE projects while you are being trained.
For more information on our 12 week certified hands-on program (hurry, next class starts Feb 17th) please click the link below:
http://www.jointventureconsultingcertification.com
To Your Abundant Joint Venture Success!
Sohail Khan (the “7 Figure JV Expert”)
President & Co-Founder, The JV University
For a free audio on the ‘Power Of Joint Ventures’ or to get your free ‘7 Figure JV Consulting’ report visit http://www.thejvuniversity.co.uk
Discussion
February 19th, 2010 at 4:35 am
Absolutely Sohail-keep an eye on the fundamentals at all times, like market research & is this ‘thing’ (product/project/service, etc.) going to make money?!
Thanks for the post.
Best wishes,
Vinden
Vinden´s last blog ..Top Internet Marketers’ Cruise January 2010
February 24th, 2010 at 5:17 am
Thanks! Good article!
March 5th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
Good to see that you met the best marketers in the world and it’s amazing to see that still today, they’re on road of having eight figures and seven figures deals, this definitely says something about their work ethic and their ways. That’s the reason they’re on the top at the moment but the other story of John was truly inspiring. This guy is an example to every person who has earned lots of money, to not to relax. He has continued his struggle and even today he’s thinking to make lives better of everyone by producing quality products at a reasonable price and earn profit from it.
Life is an ongoing struggle and one should keep striving for more improvements.
April 13th, 2010 at 3:50 am
Very informative article. I really liked the John’s dedication to practice his knack for inventions. It was wonderful to read his success story because it shows how to follow a strategic path to become successful. John has truly displayed his genius to the world with so much creativity and simplicity.
April 28th, 2010 at 4:58 pm
So interesting that I came upon this post today. I was walking my local mall today and while walking noticed that there were stores selling just about everything you could imagine. It made me think to start a list of the top things that people bought every day and then look for ways I might improve or add to them. My thought was to get in the way of money that was already flowing and siphon it in my direction by picking products that were common and bought often. Nice to know that I think like a multi-millionaire! Now, it’s time to transmute those thoughts into money
by taking appropriate actions.
Thanks for posting.
Lee Ann
Lee Ann Price´s last blog ..Day 2 of the lame name challenge
May 19th, 2010 at 6:40 am
John’s is a really great story. Nice to know that people realise the market for inexpensive versions of products that already exist is massive.
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May 8th, 2012 at 12:37 am
Oh but don’t we all learn a lot from the experts? It’s great that they are willing to share the knowledge and now you share it here as well. This is one interesting success story, too. May it help other succeed as well.
May 11th, 2012 at 3:41 am
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May 11th, 2012 at 5:19 am
This only proves that while there is a certain formula that works for many entrepreneur, one can design another one that he or she can utilize if it is what works, however unique it may be. But then again, John is gifted in skills that proved to be useful to him which, sadly, not everybody possesses.
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