People ask me all the time how I started writing for online magazines.  I’ve had articles published on Forbes, Inc., Entrepreneur, and many others over the years. We’ve actually written over 1,000 articles, and yes, that’s over 1 million words!...

You’ve been working extremely hard to license your product idea, but you’re not having any success. You’re not quite sure what you’re doing wrong. To determine if you should move on, you need feedback. Without receiving any type of feedback from a company about your...

It’s important to continue being a student and never stop learning. Here are a few books that have helped me achieve my goals. The Obstacle Is The Way-Ryan Holiday This is a wonderful book because there are obstacles we have to overcome every single day. This book...

In any business venture, there are going to be many ups and downs. How do you stay motivated? How do you stay on track? Here’s what has helped me reach my goal of licensing my product ideas. Feedback. I think it’s very important to find someone who you can bounce...

Simple: You don’t give up, and you keep submitting ideas. When I was in the toy industry, I submitted a lot of toy ideas. I got rejected by some of the biggest and best companies. Including Playskool, Mattel, Fisher-Price, Hasbro, and Walt Disney, to name a few! When...

I remember it like it was yesterday. At noon, I left for lunch. James, my office manager, stayed in the office to answer the phone. When I came back from lunch, James said, “Guess who just called!” “Who?” “Scott Swift,” he said.  “Who is Scott Swift?” I...

When I started writing articles many years ago for AllBusiness.com, I decided it would be interesting to write one about how to get on national television. I remember explaining my plan to my daughter Madeleine, who was my Managing Editor at the time. She asked,...

Do you have a new product on the market? That’s news worth celebrating! When it’s time to tell the media about your invention, I recommend starting locally. The local news stations will be interested in your story, and it’s a great opportunity to practice being on...

Last week, I told you about how my guitar pick company, Hot Picks, expanded beyond our own ideas and became Alchemy, Disney, and Taylor Swift licensees.  Would the music industry love our new direction as much as consumers did? Yes. With our new picks, we were a...

Selling guitar picks to fans of heavy metal was going well. Eventually, though, I started running out of ideas for Hot Picks. It was time to expand our audience.  Why not license a well-known brand, I thought. What did I know about brand licensing? Not much! I...