Brand Like a Lawyer: Knowing When to SECURE Your Brand Name

Hello and welcome!

It's Tamsen Horton from PBK the gathering place for preneurs worldwide. Those of us unlocking our superpowers and living our vacationing life using Kajabi. Lives and businesses we don't need to escape from. Giving us health, wealth, and family freedom.

And this is your pbk flash briefing for Thursday, May 30, 2019.

What's the #1 action you take before building or creating on Kajabi?

For me, it always starts at the very beginning and that is with what am I going to call this product or course? What brand is it going to live under? Do I have the domain? And all of those questions share one thing in common - trademark laws.

So my answer kicked off this whole week devoted to helping you protect what you're building and creating with Kajabi - let's talk branding and trademarks and specifically S4 Branding: How to Brand Like a Lawyer. There are 4 simple parts: silence, search, secure, and share.

Today we dive into #3 SECURE.

What do I mean by SECURE?

• has to do with whether or not you need LEGAL SECURITY for your trademark
• not all brand identifiers need formal legal protection
• some marks can't even get formal legal protection.

Why does it matter?

• if you are using a brand identifier and you don't get legal protection when you needed it, then you risk either
• a very expensive legal battle to claw the name back;
• leaving the name/brand identifier behind and starting over building the recognition with another name;
• all the time, money, and effort put in directions NOT moving your business forward.

You need to know when it's time to secure the name
You need to know IF you need to secure the name.

How to pull it off?

• you have to understand the trademark process and how it works, so you know WHEN it is time to move forward with protection
• there are specific timelines that the application process follows. Right now you can get my entire S4 Branding Guide inside the PBK Visitors' Lounge just click Unlock Your Superpowers at the top of this page.

Strong names are easier to get approval for and police afterward.
Weak names are not always a no but they require more work and money.

 Spanx - the strongest because it's a name Sara Blakely made up. It's FANCIFUL and unique. Kodak is in the same category. These are my favorite names because you create the story behind the brand and they are by far the easiest to get protection for and the easiest to police once you have them.

Apple - also one of the stronger names because it is ARBITRARY; means one thing - a fruit and also means computers but the name really has nothing to do with the product or service. Different than Jaguar which is SUGGESTIVE.

Jaguar - and one of the three stronger identifiers because it means a fast cat in the wild but when used with cars it is SUGGESTIVE that the car is fast, sleek, not everyone can have a Jaguar.

Then the weak categories come into play. These are often the go-to from a marketing standpoint and can if you're not careful cause many business and legal migraines when not properly navigated because they describe what you're doing or are generic - both of which are in the best case incredibly expensive to protect and at the worst not protectable at all.

So what category is your brand identifier in?

• unique/fanciful made up
• arbitrary
• suggestive
• descriptive
• generic

That's it for today's PBK power-up. If you aren't yet a member of the PBK Visitors' Lounge click on Unlock Your Superpowers above join us the lounge dives into various aspects of being a preneur who is crazy smart and choosing to build your health, wealth, and family freedom with Kajabi.

Have a burning question for me that you'd like to ask me, just click Ask Tamsen.

Have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow with a PBK power-up!