Women and Intellectual Property Protection

This past month one recurring theme among my female clients rose above all others: Intellectual Property protection.  Each woman had confusion on who owns what in their partnerships. They seemed unable to ask for just compensation for their ideas or unique products invented. 

Let me say this very clearly:  It's yours if you invented it.  Copyrights, patents, trademarks are easily registered with the US gov't to ensure ownership and revenue rights for years to come. Tony Robbins does it, Martha Stewart does it, so why not you? 

I asked Beth Andrus, author of "The Essential Business Handbook," to weigh in on the matter.

"I work with very small businesses and many of the women I encounter are new to the business world," says Beth.  "Women are often reluctant to take legal steps to protect their intellectual property as they think it involves a long expensive process with lots of attorney fees.

"I have found that women will form partnerships quickly, without committing to paper the division of labor and IP.  Women don't want to appear distrustful as most of their partnerships are based on some type of 'best friend' emotions. Important to have someone neutral draw out the terms of the agreement for you so the emotion is kept to a minimum," suggests Beth, CEO of  www.minibizbuzz.com.

This is so true! We meet a woman with whom we have instant bonding. We talk, we plan, we dream and work our fingers off to get the 'dream' going. And then when "putting it writing" needs to be done, it's either blood on the table or dissolution of the partnerships with hurt feelings on both sides.

I advise all my clients the following: 

Protect all your material.  File with the US Gov't all your ideas, process, books, CD, DVD that you have developed.  Hold the material as an individual so you can then license it out to the company created to sell the service or item. You enjoy the protection of the US gov't on ownership and revenues.

Take a toy away from any two year old and they'll tell you firmly, 'Mine!' Let's take a page from their playbook shall we?

Morning Beauty

Los Angeles has four seasons; Hot High Winds, Hellacious Fire, Oven Heat, and Deluge Rains.

Upon waking up this morning in the middle of Deluge Rain season, I thought I would show that it looks like from our backyard at 6:30AM.

The trees are bare, the fog has rolled in and we are in day 2 of the rainy season.  Please note the the Ash tree on the right just lost its leaves in the last week and will begin sprouting new growth first of  February.  The Maple on the left lost all it's leaves right after New Year's and will begin sprouting in March.  Our seasons are short and to the point.
Unlike those beautiful landscape pictures of red, yellows and orange falls or the snow-covered car in the driveway, this is most likely the only 'winter scene' day we will have here in Los Angeles.

So I will enjoy this quiet morning with a cup of coffee and the Jake the cat on my lap. 

Clients: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is an adept description of the feelings we have towards our customers. 

Those we love (the good), those that drag their fee to pay, but pay big (the bad) and those that drive you straight into the arms of the shrink!

So what is an entrepreneur supposed to do?  Keeping a consistent revenue stream is so important to the small business and entrepreneur market segments. Let's look at ideas on how to deal.

The Bad - Large Health Care Organization

Problem: 

Client had not paid their bill in 8 months.  They did not return calls, ignored dunning notices and trashed the emails.  The bill was up to $15K! Outstanding invoices created a additional $641 in interest accrued.  Our services had saved this client 50K in operational costs.

Solution:

Did a bit of research and found out the objectives of the CFO.  What does he stand for?  What is he measured on? He had been PROMOTED because of his cost-cutting measures.

Letter:  We wrote an old-fashioned letter, sent via registered mail, to the CFO letting him know that 1) his company had saved 50K by using our services and 2) his company had accrued an extra $641.00 in interest COSTS due to ignoring the bill.

The client called the next day (after having his butt chewed out by the CFO), apologized with some excuse (ok by us) and said the bill would be paid immediately.

The check arrived the next week - All 15K of it!  AND......

We got a call to come back in and help them save once again.

What are you doing to turn your bad into good! Future blogs on the good and the ugly.

Happy!

Short and sweet and to the point -

HAPPY NEW YEAR!