FEATURE
Spreading the net...
Finding new ways and new people to expand your business
By Richard Pink, Managing Director, Pink Key Licensing Ltd
With Spring Fair and Ambiente imminent at the time of writing we reach the same issue we reach every year – not only finding new and innovative ways to develop the licenses we have, but equally finding new people to take on the licenses. I joked a couple years ago that you find a number of types of people at trade fairs:
1. People who understand licensing 2. People who have heard of licensing but don’t get it 3. People who want to kill anyone involved in licensing 4. People who think you are a publican of some sort!
Each year there seems to be a small conversion from the people that currently don’t do licensing to actually becoming ‘licensees’. Sometimes they have dabbled with a smaller brand; sometimes they have gone ‘full Disney.’ Even a modicum of success will ensure that in the next two to three years they will be descended on by every licensor or agent walking the floor of the NEC to repeat what they just did with ‘their’ license. Inevitably, this means that one of the licenses they take on may not work quite as well as expected and there will be a tipping point that sees them either put it down to experience or walk away muttering about the whole industry. So, the question becomes how do we encourage more people who are not currently involved in licensing to become more engaged?
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