What do you do when you work like mad to establish your business only to have it knocked off by the retailer down the street? What do you do when the new guy in town models his sales floor after yours, duplicates your newsletters and your promotion? And what happens when that copy cat retailer offers the same classes, at the same time, on the same day – for less? That’s the question we were presented with recently by a frustrated reader. What was she to do?
Actually, this is a question we’ve heard a lot over the years as less than scrupulous, less talented people decide the easiest way to get into business is to steal ideas from someone else. There is a huge difference in being inspired by someone else’s creative ideas, and actually claiming them as your own. And we know it’s a dilemma creative industry designers and vendors dance with each day. It hit us this year when we discovered another speaker had been lifting seminar copy directly from our website, and passing it off as her own. And it worked because that speaker was getting bookings using our original, copy written and trademarked materials. We traced this behavior all the way back to 2000 when we found one of our articles published under her name. We have absolutely no idea how much this hurt our business, but we know that it has. And you’d better believe we took serious legal action.
Actually, this is a question we’ve heard a lot over the years as less than scrupulous, less talented people decide the easiest way to get into business is to steal ideas from someone else. There is a huge difference in being inspired by someone else’s creative ideas, and actually claiming them as your own. And we know it’s a dilemma creative industry designers and vendors dance with each day. It hit us this year when we discovered another speaker had been lifting seminar copy directly from our website, and passing it off as her own. And it worked because that speaker was getting bookings using our original, copy written and trademarked materials. We traced this behavior all the way back to 2000 when we found one of our articles published under her name. We have absolutely no idea how much this hurt our business, but we know that it has. And you’d better believe we took serious legal action.
A retailer dealing with a copy cat has a tougher road.
Never publicly call attention to a competitor, but make sure that you know what they are up to. Be aggressive in your research: shop their stores, read their ads, websites and blogs. Get an e-mail address that’s not connected to your business and sign-up for every free thing they offer. This is just good business. If you rely on customer word-of-mouth to fill you in, it’s too late. When it comes to competition you absolutely cannot put your head in the sand and hope for the best; retailers with longevity know all about their competition. That being said, don’t let the competition consume you. When a competitor is trying hard to impact your business, and steal your market share, it’s easy and dangerous to let them dominate your thinking.
So, what do you when the competition is breathing down your neck? Drop us an e-mail and we’ll send you eight ideas to help you take the creative high road when dealing with copy cat competition.
In the meantime, protect what belongs to you! When that other speaker stole our stuff we were glad that we had taken the time to protect our intellectual property. You should, too. When something is really important you need to apply for a federal trademark. The letter R within a circle – ® – signifies a trademark that has been registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. This symbol may not be used before an actual federal trademark has been granted, but until this happens, you can claim your right to your work with a Trademark (TM) or Servicemark (SM) symbol. You can learn more about trademarks, servicemarks and copyrights at the United States Patent and Trademark Office website: http://www.uspto.gov/
Take an extra step. Add the following to the end of each your original works (project sheets, articles, pages on your website, blog postings, brag sheets, bag stuffers, etc.):
Never publicly call attention to a competitor, but make sure that you know what they are up to. Be aggressive in your research: shop their stores, read their ads, websites and blogs. Get an e-mail address that’s not connected to your business and sign-up for every free thing they offer. This is just good business. If you rely on customer word-of-mouth to fill you in, it’s too late. When it comes to competition you absolutely cannot put your head in the sand and hope for the best; retailers with longevity know all about their competition. That being said, don’t let the competition consume you. When a competitor is trying hard to impact your business, and steal your market share, it’s easy and dangerous to let them dominate your thinking.
So, what do you when the competition is breathing down your neck? Drop us an e-mail and we’ll send you eight ideas to help you take the creative high road when dealing with copy cat competition.
In the meantime, protect what belongs to you! When that other speaker stole our stuff we were glad that we had taken the time to protect our intellectual property. You should, too. When something is really important you need to apply for a federal trademark. The letter R within a circle – ® – signifies a trademark that has been registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. This symbol may not be used before an actual federal trademark has been granted, but until this happens, you can claim your right to your work with a Trademark (TM) or Servicemark (SM) symbol. You can learn more about trademarks, servicemarks and copyrights at the United States Patent and Trademark Office website: http://www.uspto.gov/
Take an extra step. Add the following to the end of each your original works (project sheets, articles, pages on your website, blog postings, brag sheets, bag stuffers, etc.):
Copyright . Dates . Author/Owner . ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Copyright . May 15, 2007 . KIZER & BENDER . ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
