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HOW TO GET TOP DOLLAR FOR YOUR COMPANY IN FIVE YEARS

Sometimes, I know when clients have been reading this newsletter.  Sometimes, I’m blown away to see something I wrote about years ago drive a client’s strategy. I just took a call from a client who told me they were getting ready to sell their company, and could we see about resurrecting some old trademark registrations they had earlier decided to let drop to save the renewal cost.  YOU see, they knew that a fatter portfolio of intellectual property would strengthen their case for a high valuation of their company beyond annual profits and hard assets.  Here’s  [...]

THE ROYALTY DREAM

(How to License Your Inventions) Reality Check: The Bubble I’ve Busted a Thousand Times The classic newbie inventor has a good idea, falls in love with it, and wants to sell it to a big company.  That NEVER happens, almost.  Here’s what I counsel clients a dozen times a year: your odds of success increase vastly the farther along you are with your invention, your patent, your product, and your profits.  I’ll probably expand this to a full newsletter article, but for now, here is the hierarchy that determines how likely it is you can sell your rights (or  [...]

LEAVING LAS VEGAS

The future of the SHOT Show I’m not going.  I just decided.  For the first time in more than 20 years, I’ll miss a SHOT Show. I’m skipping because of the mask mandate, pure and simple.  As you have read in prior months, I was an optimist that our firearms industry culture is on the free-thinking side and not too trusting of governments, especially those dominated by politicians who want to take our guns.  NASGW proved me right, and I trumpeted it in this space. But last week beginning Thursday (less than 2 weeks before SHOT), there was a weird shift.  The  [...]

THE SWEET SPOT FOR SUCCESS IN OUR INDUSTRY?

Selling Pistols like Soda Pop – Andy Warhol-style? It’s rare to find something on the Internet that gives you a new perspective on one of the most important aspects of your own life. We usually are seeing things that either enrage us, or reinforce what we already believe. Thankfully, I got permission from the author of this Substack publication to share it with you in its entirety, (along with my commentary). Open Source Defense bills themselves as “100% gun rights, 0% culture war. Making people proud to be associated with gun rights, with friendly,  [...]

SHOT SHOW, UNMASKED

Why Mandates Don’t Matter, and Why You Definitely Should Attend This newsletter about mask mandates at the SHOT Show was all written, and then something changed.  The firearms industry just had a trade show under a mask mandate, and guess what?  Nobody wore a mask. Not a mask in sight at NASGW. Greater Columbus Convention Center, October 28, 2021 In that picture are at least 24 faces, all unmasked. Never mind that the venue required masks for all, and signs reminded attendees of the requirement.  It warms my heart to be part of an industry dominated by  [...]

SHOT? MASK? OR BOTH? NEITHER?

Industry Mask-Preference Survey Link Inside Warning:  I occasionally get complaints from readers when I get into politics and industry gossip, and stray from valuable legal information.  I’m straying this month, so stop reading here if you’re looking for information to help you make better legal choices in your business.  See y’all next month... So, everyone’s asking me about the SHOT Show.  But I do talk to dozens or hundreds of clients, and I’ve been polling informally and confidentially about COVID and trade show cancellations since the beginning.   [...]