We're taking over the world....you've been warned.

My husband has invented 2 products. 
One he will be putting in front of some local home depot folks in the next week.
It is a product for contractors. Keep your fingers crossed.
We'll see if that can then get this product in all home depots and then off to Lowes.
Certainly have a ways to go yet on that one, but the response has been more than we ever could have expected. 

But today I am going to speak about Easy Restore.
We were approached a couple of weeks ago from a company in Switzerland that sells car care products throughout Europe. They offer a comprehensive range of products for your car. They tell us they have a global reputation as a supplier of top range products to leading manufacturers. It appears that way as well from all of our research.

It started with a pretty innocuous email about our product. Information was given.
They then asked if they could buy samples because if it worked as we say it does they want to be the distributor of the product in Europe. To start they are in 33 countries. That is only their companies so this could be much bigger. 

I have to tell you that by nature I am a bit suspect. I kept thinking is this real? It's that easy, just send them an email? But both Rick and myself continued with the emails.

Then last week I get a call from Switzerland from a woman named Ursula. She stated that her last correspondence with Rick via email stated to call me with a credit card to get the first shipment to them.  Ursula said they don't do credit cards but they will wire to our account the monies. Being the ever suspicious person I wasn't sure about this.

My husband thinks I'm crazy  of course but we don't know them. Sure we did our internet research but how much is real? I am giving someone in another country my account number in hopes of business? Or wiping us out of our monies? Rick thinks I'm nuts but so be it I wasn't giving anyone our account number.  Now you all stop laughing at me. Bad things could happen. You know those emails from the Prince of Nigeria who wants to give you all this money. That is where my mind goes.

I told Ursula that there is a law here in VA where I have to have some paperwork filled out at my bank before I can give her all this information. She stated that the company they work with in Massilon Ohio never said that to them. I continued to lie and told her that I understand that but each state is different and each has different laws so if she would be so kind as to give me 24 hrs I can get to the bank and get this completed. She then seemed to understand and said, "Oh I understand. No problem. Will you be calling me?"  I told her I would indeed call her.

Rick was looking at me with a very puzzled look on his face. When I hung up I said to him, "There is no way in hell I am giving out our account numbers Rick. Why not go to the bank, tell them what is going on, open an account and only have the minimum in there and let that be the place they can wire us the money. If they are not legit, there is no money of ours to steal."

Ah, now he thinks I'm brilliant. But very concerned that I could come up with a lie that quickly. Yea, it's a skill, what can I say.

I went to the bank and the manager told me that he thought this was a good idea. 
The bank manager told me I only had to open this account with $100. Perfect.
He then began to tell me horror stories of those that don't do this. He kept asking me if I believed they were legit.  How do I know? It appears that way to us. I explained all that we had done. Did he think I missed anything? Nope. So there ya go. We take our chances.

The next day I called Switzerland and spoke to Ursula. 
She was happy we could do business.
I told her we had already shipped the product and that made her happy. 
She then explained the next steps. 
Once their people get the product they will test it in their lab and workshops.
If it works to their standard and to what we say it will do they want to be the distributor for all of Europe. As I stated earlier they have 33 countries they work with. 

According to the USPS it has already landed in Switzerland which surprised us because we thought it was supposed to take 2 weeks. Now that it is there it goes through all that a package must go through internationally before it is delivered to them.
We expect to hear from them in 2 weeks. Possibly sooner depending on when they get this and their process for testing.

Our packages and instructions are in English and Spanish. 
I asked if we were to move forward would we do the translations or will they?
They will do that. Whew!
They also have a person in their Germany office who does all the MSDS sheets in all the languages they need. Whew again! 
We discussed what she called "secrecy agreements" that would need to be signed. 
I thought that was a funny word to use but English is not her first language so I am giving her the benefit of the doubt on that one. 
As she continued to discuss the type of agreement I knew what she was saying.
We discussed a lot of information should this move forward and they like it.

Then she asked me where in Virginia I lived because she was in the USA a couple of times. NYC was her first city and she also went 'on' the Chesapeake she said. 
Her favorite thing in the US by far was the O'Hare airport. It was so big like a city she said.
Listening to her speak about her impression of the US was funny. Oh my did she get animated and it made me laugh. Things we so take for granted.  But O'Hare surprised me and I asked why that was so exciting to her. She said it was fascinating that everything was in constant motion and everyone moved so quickly and never seemed to slow down and it just never stopped.  She wanted to just sit and watch "America" go by.  
She was making me chuckle.  It reminded me of a friend who came her from New Zealand was so thrilled by our giant grocery stores. All he wanted to see were more grocery stores. How that made me laugh. I never looked at them quite the same after that. We do have enormous grocery stores. 

Then we went back to talking about them getting our product.
Now my first thought was, can they steal this? Sure it has a patent here in the US of A but does that apply there? According to all the chemists we have spoken to this is not an easy thing to reverse and do. Then last Friday on Shark Tank this question was posed to the "mad skilled scientist/chemist" as he was referred, when asked this exact question and he said that this was so difficult to do he had no concerns that one could do that to his simple product.  I must admit it gave us both a certain comfort level we didn't have prior.

So with that information from the people we have spoken to as well as what we have read we are throwing caution to the wind on that topic of them stealing or copying. We only hope it doesn't bite us in the ass.  At some point you must just take the jump at an opportunity.

The monies for the shipment to them was indeed wired to our new account the very next day.  It was a good learning experience for me because I thought you just gave them a routing number and your account number. That is how dumb I am. But that is not how it works internationally. You need a lot more information and I learned a great deal from all of this.

In the mean time I hope they love the product and it becomes a big hit for them.
So this may be something, or it may be nothing. We just have to wait and see.

Then we must tackle North America.