satisfying career-making
and marketing products
Howell woman enjoys
satisfying career-making
and marketing products
BY LINDA DeNICOLA
Staff Writer
When Lisa Williams Ascolese was sitting in a waiting room one day, she started talking to a woman sitting nearby. The woman asked Ascolese what she did for a living. "I’m an inventor," Ascolese said, surprising herself.
"I had never said those words before. I thought of myself as an inventor, but I had never said it out loud and so decisively. You really do have to be careful what you wish for," she added, laughing, because now she is an inventor in the full sense of the word.
Ascolese, who is a resident of Howell, has invented products that have been sold on QVC and she has created a business around inventing. Her business is called Inventive Minds LLC/Inventive Kids. According to her business card, she provides product development, consultations, celebrity endorsements and teaches Inventing Concepts A-Z.
Ascolese had hoped to be able to follow a passion for inventing for a long time, ever since she was a child, but every time she tried to explore that career choice she was told it was too hard or too expensive. In fact, she became an ultrasound technician, married and had two children. When she had her second child, she became aware of the need for a breast-feeding cape that can be used by women when they are out in public and need to breast-feed. So she invented one.
That was about 14 years ago.
"I had to teach myself how to market it. I knew if it was good for me, it would be good for others. I developed a prototype and had a company in Lakewood manufacture it for me. I had quite a few made and sold them on my own," she said.
Since then other products that she has invented have been sold on QVC.
"I’ve sold everything from hair accessories to organizers. Plus, I bring other inventors’ products to QVC," she said.
Ascolese said her creativity soared when she was having children, but her inventiveness goes back to her childhood.
"I was always putting things together. I would improvise with things around my house. If something didn’t work for me, I would make it fit my needs," she said.
She said that if she stays at home she can come up with a new product every day, by the time her husband comes home from work.
"I was a very inventive kid, and I’m an inventive adult, but I didn’t know anything about inventing, so I started doing major research," Ascolese said.
She called representatives of the Oprah Winfrey show a few years ago to get the contact numbers for inventors that Winfrey had spotlighted on her television show.
"Not one of [the inventors] gave me any positive advice on how to do this. No one encouraged me. Meanwhile, I’m saying to myself that this can’t be so hard to do. I started researching and calling buyers," she explained.
The irony of the story is that when the other woman in that waiting room found out what Ascolese did, she said she was a demonstrator for other companies and demonstrated their products on QVC.
"She had an inside link to all of these different companies who could put my products on QVC, but it was my job to sell myself to these companies. I would have to go in there and convince them that they should put $50,000 into my ideas," Ascolese said.
Ascolese said she is not a natural saleswoman, but believes she was able to do it because she has a passion for what she is doing.
A company called Ontel Products was interested in one of the 10 products she submitted.
"I went back and back again until they finally fell in love with one of the products I showed them. It was the bun tie hair accessory. It was made of all kinds of fabric prints and if you had a pony tail it twisted it into a bun, and if you had short hair it made it look longer," Ascolese said.
Ascolese said the money she receives from companies such as Ontel Products is a small percentage because they are doing everything.
"But the seed money allowed me to do the stuff on my own. Now I do the inventing, locate the manufacturer and do my own marketing and market research. People think they have to have millions of dollars to invent and market something. You do need a patent attorney, but they are not necessarily prohibitively expensive," she said.
Ascolese developed her business once she realized that she knew what people need to know to get an invention from the idea stage to the market.
"I like to encourage people to do this. If they are creative and they have ideas they need to follow through," she said.
She does consultations with people who need help with one or more aspects of the process.
"Right now I am working with someone who found out about my business and called me. He has a patent, but he never knew how to market it and held it for about 10 years.
"When he called me he said, ‘I am so glad that someone passed your name along to me. Can you help me?’ I’m going to help him get his product on the market," the inventor said.
Ascolese said the process does take
time, patience and perseverance, but added that if a person has a focus and knows what it is she wants to do, she can do it.
"We always need new products so it’s an area that is so wide open. I believe that everybody that gets involved with inventing can make money, especially if their ideas are on something that people can use," she said.
Ascolese said when she is researching a product she simply talks to people she knows, including family members.
Besides helping people through the process, she teaches children how to invent, from starting with a concept to marketing the invention and all of the steps in-between.
"I travel to schools across New Jersey and teach them the skills they need to take their idea from a concept to the marketplace," Ascolese said.
She has presented her program, Inventing Concepts A-Z, at a number of schools in the area, including the Park Avenue Elementary School in Freehold Borough and the Thurgood Marshall School in Asbury Park.
"I ask the kids to invent things and at the end I choose one or two products and help them to manufacture or launch that product. I’m working with a 9-year-old girl who just sent me quite a few items, one of which is unbelievable.
"I’m waiting for her parents to meet with an attorney to get the patent. Once they do this, I will send it out to manufacturers," she said, adding, "This product is something every household can use. In fact, it encourages children to clean."
Ascolese believes that, "A lot of schools are not pulling out the creativity in children. I teach children how to use their creativity and talents. When I go in and teach them, I play charades. First I talk about inventing and tell them to listen to the new words that I present because all of those words are in the charades that we play."
She is also in the process of developing a television show based on talented children’s ideas and inventions and has been in discussion with Oprah’s producers about bringing her concept to the Oprah show.
Ascolese is also writing a book for children which will teach all of the elements needed to invent and market any product, but, she added, adults can also benefit from it.
"It will be for ages 8 to whatever," she said.
Ascolese can say quite freely now, "I am an inventor. I’ve been inventing for 15 years."