Marketing

When was the last time you asked a customer/client for a referral? So many times I hear that as a business owner it is uncomfortable asking for a referral. Yet last week I listened to three rookie insurance/financial advisors talk about how they began their businesses and what were the important keys that have made them successful. Asking for a referral was right up on top. Your current customers can be your best influences on prospective clients. So what can you do to break through the “discomfort” of asking for the name of someone they know that could use your product or service?

If you had to guess, what percentage of people are visually oriented: that is, they need to see something before buying it – you know they need to drive a car, feel the material of a suit/dress or preview a house before purchasing it? More then 95% of people are visual consumers. So how do you a service provider create this opportunity?

Why not start with a testimonial from a client who has had a very positive experience working with you? How many times have you heard, “I don’t know how to thank you”? That is the perfect time to ask them to put their gratitude in writing. Testimonials can become part of your powerful arsenal for opening the door to new prospects. Something magical happens when you read those testimonials, a special relationship develops with that customer opening the door to relaxing the “discomfort” of taking the next step and asking for referrals.

Testimonials should be used in all of your promotional materials, they can be developed into case studies that you can verbally convey when someone asks, “how do you do that?”. Testimonials are one of the most effective and powerful strategies, they create an air of credibility for your business and gives you confidence when approaching new prospects.

The Challenge: Review your marketing strategy and begin asking for testimonials! Let us know if you have any concerns.

Customers make the heart of your business beat with their desire to choose products, services and experiences that meet their needs, fit their values, engage their emotions and respond to their desires. Your role is to transform prospects into customers and customers into fiercely loyal advocates. As your own marketer you have to be heard over the marketing noise that is everywhere, (TV, newspapers, on every street corner, now even at the movies). You then have to overcome the skepticism of the more sophisticated consumer.

Many of you have taken one of our “Personal Branding” workshops to learn more about standing out, creating interest so that people take action. It is important to understand that all of this starts with what you say about who you are, what you do, but most importantly what is the outcome you deliver that satisfies someone’s desire to buy.

I would like to suggest you start by asking yourself some questions that can flush out the things you need to know about your customer, and what your customer needs to know about you. If you have targeted a market, what is their challenge, issue or problem. The better prepared you are to answer that question the better prepared you will be to know what your customer needs to know about you.

What is the value of your product or service in terms of saving customers time and effort? Does what you offer add value by offering an enhancement – beauty, status, advancement or guarantees? Can you demonstrate that your product or service is not a cost but an investment? How about your competition, why do people buy from you rather than your competition? What makes you different? What do your customers tell each other about your product or service?

Amazon.com and eBay have capitalized on this by giving buyers a chance to comment and/or review what they purchased and in the case of eBay how well the seller fulfilled what he sold. You need to be able to tell the stories and quote the testimonials of happy customers so others can see how you are different.

Few products or services are unique, you make them unique by looking at your strengths to create your competitive edge. What strengths do you have that you can effectively capitalize on? When you have answers to the questions that apply to you, you must be able to deliver that information verbally and in all your written and hand out materials. Remember people want to know “what’s in it for them.” So what is the outcome and value you deliver; this is not the how, but the what, that will keep them coming back over and over again.

The Challenge: Review your marketing materials with these questions in mind.

By Debra C. Scheufler, Esq.

One of the most important and emotional decisions that entrepreneurs and fledgling businesses face is choosing a new business name. A name will identify the business for its life, so it should be something that the owners are satisfied with. It should also help to create the image and the mission statement that the company wants to project, and it should be easy for the public to remember. Think of names of popular, successful companies: Coca-Cola, Vogue, Micro-Soft, and Caterpillar. Say any one of these names and a particular image comes to mind. This phenomenon is known as “secondary meaning.”

Successful companies focus on “personal branding,” a marketing exercise which narrows the definition of the products or services offered by a business so that the public has something with which to identify. A personal brand should be directly reflected in a company’s name. As well, the intangible asset known as “goodwill” attaches to a business name. Goodwill is the value that a company builds based upon its reputation and longevity within its target market community. These attributes, secondary meaning, personal branding and goodwill apply to all businesses from the local sole proprietor to international conglomerates, and they can be the focus of litigation when a name is infringed upon regardless of the size of the company.

One of the first steps that many new companies or individuals take is to file a Fictitious Business Name Statement with the county in which they intend to do business. Others choose a corporate or Limited Liability Company (“LLC”) name which is registered with the chosen domicile state, and other states in which the company wishes to qualify to do business. Some companies register their names as state or federal trademarks, for the sale of products, or trade names, for the sale of services (we typically use the term “trademark” generically when speaking of trademarks or trade names). And one of the first steps many companies take is to register a domain name.

The first concept one must grasp in dealing with business names is that of common law trademark rights. The common law doctrine says that the first party to use a name in commerce has the exclusive right to use that name, whether it has been registered anywhere. Any subsequent or “junior” user of that name or a name that is so similar that it would or does confuse the public is infringing on the senior user’s rights. The senior user may take legal action to prevent the junior user from using the infringing name.

The second thing to keep in mind is the reason that registration is required for business names. When a lawsuit is filed, the filing party or “plaintiff” is required to personally serve the defendant. This means that the legal papers must be handed to an individual person. Registering a fictitious business name (FBN) or a corporate or LLC identity provides a paper trail to the appropriate individual the event a business is sued. These registration systems, excluding actual trademark/trade name registration are not concerned with infringement or first use rights, only with providing the public a paper trail for the purpose of service of process.

Some start up companies and sole proprietors file FBN statements with the county in which they intend to do business thinking that this will provide them with the protection they need for their newly chosen business name. An FBN filing only provides that no other business in that county has filed an FBN statement using that exact name. Keeping in mind common law trademark protection, think of the possible problems that may arise if a registrant relies on the fact that no other business in the applicable county is using the exact registered name. A senior user may have a corporate or LLC identity using the unwary FBN registrant’s very name or even one that is confusingly similar. If this senior user discovers the infringement a year after the junior has been using the name and forces the junior to cease and desist marketing under its trade name, the junior can suffer extensive financial loss from marketing dollars and building up goodwill. It must choose a new name and start the identity process all over again.

The same problem arises when a company files articles of incorporation or articles of organization with a particular state and begins marketing under the corporate or LLC name. Some states will register most names if there is no other business using the exact desired name. But in states such as California, there is no crosschecking between corporate and LLC registrations, so a corporation and an LLC in states like California may have the same name! How can this be possible, you may ask. Remember the state is primarily concerned with providing a trail to the entity’s agent for service of process, and since a corporation or LLC is required to identify itself as such, meaning identifying words such as Inc., Incorporated, Corporation, or LLC must accompany the name as it is used in commerce, the interest of the public is served. In other words, if two companies exist in California, one registered as ACME Corporation and one registered as ACME, LLC, a potential plaintiff would only need to check LLCs if it was suing ACME, LLC. So, there may be LLCs and/or FBNs that have senior rights to a name that a new corporation files and the company would have no way of knowing about it if it merely relied upon the registering body (state, county, etc.). Other states such as Illinois do cross check between corporations and LLCs, but there may still be common law senior users that can pose a risk.

Many new companies register a domain name as a first step. Here again, registering bodies will register a domain name as long as there is no other registered name that is exactly the same as the desired domain name. This includes the suffixes, .com, .net, .org, etc. So a business may register XYZ.com and there may be a pre-existing website: www.XYZ.net. Not only would XYZ.com be infringing on XYZ.net, but potential customers would surely be confused and in some instances be led to the wrong website, causing one or both companies to lose revenue.

Even when registering a trademark with a state or the United States Patent and Trademark Office (” USPTO”), there are risks of senior users. Although registration provides a “rebuttable presumption” of first use in commerce, a company may get through the long process of registering a federal trademark and still be challenged by a senior user who is able to rebut the presumption by proving actual first use.

Federal registration is a long process which begins with filing an application, submitting a fee and waiting while the USPTO searches for potentially conflicting names. This search is not comprehensive and only includes registered names and applicants that are also in the process of being approved for registration but it does include confusingly similar names. Once the name is approved for registration it is published in the USPTO Gazette. Senior users have thirty days during which to challenge registration. The entire registration process can take a year or longer.

State registration is a shorter process, typically less costly but protection is less certain because some states, California or instance will register a name as long as there is not another user of the exact desired name. So confusingly similar names may be registered in the same state.

How then, does one navigate through all of the laws pertaining to trademarks and tradenames, deal with the registering bodies and choose a protectable name and then go about protecting it? The first step is to obtain a comprehensive name search for same and similar names presently being used in commerce. Your attorney can provide this type of search. Once you are satisfied that a desired name is safe to use in commerce, Articles of Incorporation, Articles of Organization or an FBN statement can be filed. The filing of course depends on which entity is the best choice for the particular business operation.

If a website will be used, it is best to reserve the domain names with .com, .net, and .org so that no other junior registrant can capitalize on your goodwill.

Next, discuss using the name in commerce with your business attorney to insure common law rights to the name or mark. Your attorney can also assist you in making the decision to register your name as a state or federal trademark.

The process of choosing a new business name is relatively simple but too often minimized by companies and their attorneys. A name identifies a company and great value attaches through marketing and creating a reputation in the marketplace to that name and identity. Laws applicable to business names are designed to provide a way for the public to accomplish effective service of process, and to protect businesses from others who may try to capitalize on painstakingly created identity and goodwill. A comprehensive search and proper registration will ensure that a new business name will add to the success and profits of the company for as long as that company exists.

Debra C. Scheufler is a business and corporate attorney practicing in San Diego, California. Ms. Scheufler has been serving business and estate planning clients in San Diego since 1996. She has assisted in forming hundreds of companies in that period of time, and has litigated trade name infringement and unfair business practices violations. Additionally, she has negotiated and overseen both domestically and internationally and she is regularly published on subjects related to business formation and operations. Her website is www.scheuflerlaw.com.

The Challenge: Spend some time this month reviewing your plans with an eye to areas that need some outside support.

As a growing business owner are you getting caught in the hyper competitive market environment? When you work alone it is often difficult to fulfill all the roles you have to play. So how do you stay competitive? I often harp on the importance of staying focused to the high priority, high payoff areas of the business, but when you are doing it all, everything seems “high priority”. But being in business means staying connected to the people who do business with you as well as the people who refer business to you.

There are three areas that can help you stay connected. To stand out in your market there needs to be a level of interaction that you consistently put forth; developing a personal brand answers to this idea of connecting. Your customers want to know who you are; remember the more they know about you, the more they can feel a sense of trust. One of my clients sends out her marketing material with a cartoon like theme of the “royal family” and fun pictures of her staff and her daughter. When people stop by her shop, it reflects the message she wants to get out, we are a fun place, and fun people to do business with, come and see! Your materials, behavior and connection with your audience help build your brand. Connect by being “real” to them reveal the person they want to know.

Another area for connecting is in your networking. I am not talking about going into a group and handing out business cards. I am referring here to meeting regularly with advocates who refer business to you. It requires “reaching them with information that matters to them” and having some real interest in developing the relationship. Ask them about themselves so that you can better support them with articles, events that may be of interest or people they need to meet. One of my clients who markets merchant services wanted some information for a prospective client to solidify the relationship. I was able to connect him with someone who works in that segment of the business. His prospect is now his client, because he was willing to take the time to research it and I got to go out to lunch.

Connecting with your customers requires some new approaches. Your web site will not create any significant prospect attraction for the person who has never met you, says Robert Krumroy, in his book, Brilliant Strategies and Fatal Blunders. His prediction that personal contact with customers will be solely through the interactive Internet and only businesses that adopt Internet technology as part of their marketing strategies will be able to survive in the coming years. Using e-mail as a means to keep connected will keep you ahead of the competition, and help you build on going relationships with customers. The information you send out becomes information they can pass along to others, you stay connected and so do they.

Challenge: Check yourself. How have you stayed connected lately? How have you promoted your personal brand, showed interest in your advocates or sent your clients and customers something that kept you in front of them? If something has worked for you, let us know, we’d like to print your story.

According to Alan Kay from Disney’s R&D Department: “When you … offer unique value your competition cannot, then you … make headway by giving your ideas away.”

You can expand your visibility by disseminating information as one of your prime marketing tactics. Don’t make the same mistakes most small business people do, and think that the knowledge and experience you have is widely known, on the contrary, you are the owner of a capital asset that others do not possess and have no easy way of possessing it.

There are many avenues available to you to present what you know. Trade association journals and newsletters are always looking for articles. What organizations are you associated with? Approach them with a suggested topic.

On staying current with your clients, you need to create information tools such as newsletters or e-mail newsletters that will give you consistent visibility. Clients start to see you as a valuable resource.

Seminars, workshops and talks to groups and organizations put you out ahead of the competition. Your exposure to your market place helps you to build credibility.

When you make your information available to your market place, you position yourself as an expert. Experts produce and sell information. This lets clients sample your information and expands your market to people who can’t hire you. Products can be given away or can bring you significant incremental revenue.

The market place of today wants concise information, whether you record it or put it in print, it will create a definite advantage over your competition. Where do you want to be in the market place? You must put yourself there. The next time a client asks you a question, make note of it – others want that answer too.