Tips and Tricks for Successfully Inventing and Licensing Products with Lisa Lloyd, the President and CEO of Lloyd Marketing Group

Lisa Lloyd is the President and CEO of Lloyd Marketing Group. Her success began with her idea for a barrette while working for the CBS affiliate in Tucson, AZ. A short 13 months later, she had patented, manufactured, sold to stores, and ultimately licensed the patent to Scünci for 20 years of regular income. The product is now sold in stores around the world and has generated over $20M globally! 

Since then, Lisa has licensed 6 more products to major distributors including Goody, Scünci, and Helen of Troy. In 2007, she in-licensed a patent from an inventor and took on the challenge to further develop, patent, manufacture, and launch a new line of plush products called TC Pets, for which she has won numerous awards—and was even featured on the ABC reality show Shark Tank, where she won the coveted investment of “Shark” Daymond John, the CEO of FUBU. 

Lisa has spent nearly two decades as a speaker and trainer on innovation, licensing, and business tactics. She has been a featured lecturer at universities like the University of Arizona Eller School of Business and Entrepreneurship, ASU College of Engineering, and the Arizona Intellectual Property Association's continuing education program for patent and trademark attorneys. She has also won numerous awards for various pitch competitions, including Rice University’s “Rice Alliance Business Plan Competition” and “Pitch it to the Pros” with Discovery Channel’s Billy Mays.

Innovators come up with great ideas for products that are meant to meet a certain need for people. If the idea is commercially viable, you stand a good chance of finding investors and manufacturing the product. But, you may also find it ideal to license your product to another company and earn a regular income from product sales made by that company.

However, not every idea can be licensed. This could happen if the problem you’re hoping to solve with your product just isn’t big enough to warrant the purchase. It could also be because the idea is poorly defined and doesn’t solve people's pain points—and, if this is the case, your idea may not be commercially viable considering all the costs associated with production. 

Lisa Lloyd, the President and CEO of Lloyd Marketing Group, is Rich Goldstein's guest in this episode of the Innovations and Breakthroughs Podcast, where she shares her tips and tricks for successfully inventing and licensing products. She also talks about her experience pitching at ABC's Shark Tank, the importance of having an invention support community, and why some products don't get licensing offers.