Lew Hodgett wrote:

You have a right to be proud of your accomplishments, but that doesn't
include the right to have a chip on your shoulder.

There is a great deal of annoyance, but it's not a "chip" on my
shoulder. I confess, your efforts to find fault with everything
"engineering" and defend/promote everything "business" has become just
a bit exasperating. Perhaps I can explain in my reply here.

These people who you are trying to find to help you don't know you
from a hole in the wall.

Everybody in business needs to to check out clients/customers or even
suppliers at some time or another. It only takes a few minutes to do
an Internet search to find out almost anything about a company. For
example, a search on the brand "TS-Aligner" yields some 500+
references. This is perhaps the best way to get info on the cheap. If
the deal is substantial enough, one could cough up $80 to get financial
data from a D&B report. The report on my company would tell them that
I'm not a huge outfit but I have successfully completed some rather
sizeable financial responsibilities and that I always pay my bills on
time.

They want to minimize their risk. You can't blame them.

So, instead of doing a quick web search or running a D&B report, they
ask the client to do the work, and then they ask the client for money.
And, when the projected sales don't materialize, I'm sure they say
"Well, it was your Marketing Plan. We were only implementing your
ideas." Hmmmm......I guess it's a way to get money from people without
ever doing anything for it. That's just about minimizes the risk to
zero.

I think their share of the blame is pretty heavy in this situation but
I'd have to assign some to any bone-headed idiot who falls for such a
scam.

Time for a little salesmanship.

Yes, they need to convince me that my money is well spent on their
services. I'm the customer, they are supposedly trying to sell me
their services. If they decide that they don't want me as a client,
then they can very politely tell me so and I will be happy to go find
someone else.

Document your history, then ask for some help by asking a questions
such as, "This is where I've been, where do WE go from here?", "How do
we get to the next level?"

They can find out as much as they like without my lifting a finger.
I'm not asking them to buy anything from me. I don't need to convince
them of anything. If I'm looking for a partnership, and they are
looking to assume some of the risk, then I'll use the word "WE".
Otherwise, I expect them to act like a company trying to sell me a
service. "WE" doesn't apply to anyone trying to minimize their risk to
zero.

You would be surprised at some of the loony birds who have this latest
and greatest gadget that just needs a little marketing help to make a
million dollars.

Most of them don't have enough sense to come in out of the rain.

Ever wonder why there are so many late night TV commercials offering
to help "inventors"?

I would not be surprised at all. You forget, I've been doing this for
quite some time. Over the years I've had many people approach me
looking for some manufacturing capability for their ideas. I'm willing
to make their widgets for a price, but many want me to make them and
develop the market and sell them and then pay back a royalty. In other
words, the risk is all mine. Fortunately, I'm not in that business and
it saves me from most of these people you refer to.

So, in case you missed it I'll summarize. I'm annoyed because you
claim to be very business savy, complain about the lack of business
acumen among Engineers, and yet this extremely basic and elementry
business topic seems to elude you. In fact, you defend and would
probably fall prey to these parasites. Have you checked your shoulders
for chips lately?

Ed Bennett

http://www.ts-aligner.com