Intellectual property. Most people have heard this term before, but what does it really mean to you as a small business owner?  Understanding what intellectual property (IP) is and what you should do to protect yours is important to protecting your small business and maximizing its overall success.

What is intellectual property?

There are a variety of definitions for the term “intellectual property” but they all generally agree that IP is a kind of intangible property that comes from the mind.  It is a result of creativity and thought, both from an artistic standpoint and a commercial standpoint as well.  Intellectual property differs from traditional patentable activities in that it does not have a distinct shape, process, or form; because it is based primarily on a creative process it is sometimes hard to clearly define in a way that can be submitted for full legal protection.

What does this mean for you as a business owner? It means anything that qualifies as IP and is related to your small business should be something you identify, protect, and maintain just as you would other proprietary aspects of your small business.  Most small business owners don’t think much about IP issues because they don’t necessarily understand the harm that can come from someone else violating their IP rights.  For the start up company or the very small operator the risks might be rather low, but for the larger business or one with a strong online presence the risks can be elevated a great deal.

The concept of intellectual property is a relatively new one in terms of potentially being registered and given a level of legal protection.  The type of registration and enforcement procedures varies tremendously, however, depending on the region or even the country where you live.

What should you do to protect your intellectual property?

In general, there are four distinct ways to protect your intellectual property rights:

1. Register a patent
2. Register a trademark
3. Register a copyright
4. Register a trade secret

In the United States this is done through the federally run United States Patent and Trademark Office (www.uspto.gov).  If you run a small business in the United Kingdom then you will pursue these protections through the government run Intellectual Property Office (www.ipo.gov.uk).  For those living in Australia and wanting to protect their intellectual property rights, the place to go is the Australian Government department known as IP Australia (www.ipaustralia.gov.au).

Although these avenues are available for receiving registered protection, in the real world these government entities are not set up to enforce IP in the same way they are other types of patents and copyrights.  In most cases, if you believe your intellectual property has been violated or compromised in some manner then your first line of defense is to pursue a civil claim against the offending party.

To pursue a civil claim such as this, it is absolutely vital to secure the services of an attorney or solicitor with experience in this area of the law.  Why? Because quite frankly, the laws and the avenues for enforcement cover such a wide array of possibilities depending on where you live, where the offending party lives, and where the violation has occurred.

What You Must Know About Protecting Your Intellectual Property is a post from: Donna-Marie Coggins

Many small business owners are discovering the marketing and customer communication value of creating and sending newsletters. They are a wonderful tool that is effective yet affordable when it comes to promoting the success of your small business. Figuring out how to write a profitable newsletter is an important step, and one that is easier to accomplish than you might think.

The business advantages of using a newsletter:

Using a newsletter as a marketing and communication tool has many excellent advantages, including:

• Direct communication with customers and potential customers
• Opportunities to share information your customers will find of value
• Positioning of your business as the “go to” resource for your type of products and/or services

These are just a few examples; chances are you could think of a few more that are specific to your business with just a little bit of thought. But just deciding to create a newsletter is not enough; you need to put some planning and thought into making that newsletter as effective and profitable as possible.

How to make your newsletter more profitable:

One of the most common mistakes small business owners make when first creating a newsletter for their business is thinking it needs to be all about selling, selling, and more selling. While one of the goals is certainly to increase sales for your business, the best way to go about accomplishing that goal is to make the newsletter less about sales and more about creating value for your customers and potential customers.

Here are a few guidelines for how to make your newsletter more profitable:

Make it worthwhile – The content of your newsletter should be interesting enough and valuable enough to the recipients to be worth their time and attention. In each issue, then, you should include articles, information, suggestions, and tips that are focused on helping the recipients solve common problems, learn something new, and generally gain something worthwhile from taking the time to read it.

Frequency – There’s nothing that will turn off recipients faster than sending them a newsletter too frequently so plan your newsletter schedule accordingly. Whether that’s once a week, once a month or something entirely different will depend on many factors, including your readers and the aim of your newsletter.

Foster a friendly and helpful tone – Throughout your newsletter the tone should always be friendly and helpful. Put yourself in your readers’ shoes; the last thing they want to find in their email inbox is a newsletter that’s pushy in terms of sales. The goal should be for each recipient to take away something helpful or otherwise of value from each issue.

A word about database management:

A big part of sending a profitable and effective newsletter is proper database management. This means you actively manage your mailing list of recipients, giving each person an easy method of opting out of your mailings if they so choose. Keep track also of the response rates you get from the newsletter, especially from specific categories or types of customers. This will help you better manage things such as the content of your newsletter.

How To Write Newsletters For Your Business is a post from: Donna-Marie Coggins

How would you like to learn the latest techniques for marketing your business on the internet?

Or new strategies for getting the most out of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter perhaps?

Maybe you’re keen to learn how to run professional webinars and, better still, how to get people to attend your webinars.

The next World Internet Summit is being held in Melbourne, Australia from February 9th-12th. Come along and you can discover the latest techniques along with some age-old formulas and principles to help your business succeed.

Plus, it’s a great place to mingle with other like-minded people and make new friends. If you’re going along, please make sure you say hello to me.

Click here now for more details and to register.

World Internet Summit – Australia is a post from: Donna-Marie Coggins

Happy New Year and welcome to 2012!

It’s that time of year again … the time when we take stock of the year that was and set our goals and intentions for the year ahead. And quite likely, as a business owner, this is a time of year when you revise your business plan and systems and start planning projects for the next 12 months.

I’m very happy to say that last week I finished planning my projects for the year ahead. Now comes the fun part … implementing them! Planning is futile if it’s not accompanied by focused action.

One of colleagues asked me the other day how I plan my projects. So I thought, as well as sharing my technique with her, I’d share it with you too.

To start, I make myself comfortable with lots of paper and coloured pens. Some people like to use their computer, others a white-board. Everyone’s different and it’s important to do what suits your needs best. But personally, it’s paper and coloured pens that work best. With a white-board, but that comes in later.

Next, I start by listing all the projects I want to accomplish within the next year – or six months or whatever. For me, I tend to work on a yearly basis.

This also includes things such as updating existing sites, revamping existing products and so on.

Then I prioritise them – I rewrite each project in the order that I’ll be working on it. It’s extremely important not to spread yourself too thin. If you have five projects you want to complete, working on all five at once can be more challenging and distracting, often taking longer to achieve any real results.

But by working on just one project at a time you can give it 100% of your focus and then, once that’s completed, move on to project #2.

So that’s my MASTER PLAN – an overall plan that is purposely kept very simple.

The next step is to start the process again, but this time just focus on whichever project you prioritised as #1. Now it’s time to break that down into each individual task that you need to do to complete this project, again prioritised into Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, and so on.

You can also put dates alongside these projects and/or steps to help keep you on track, particularly if any of these projects have set deadlines. Sometimes you may find that giving yourself a deadline helps you stay motivated too.

By being detailed in my planning and having everything I need to do to complete a project outlined, I find it much easier to focus on what needs to be done. For example, when I start my work day tomorrow I don’t have to spend any time thinking about what I need to do … and don’t need to worry about forgetting tasks. It’s all written down for me.

I simply go to my list for Project #1 and start with the first thing on the list. When that’s done, I cross it off and move on to Step 2.

Now, remember I said earlier that it’s best to work on just one project at a time? That’s the ideal way to work, but it’s not always possible. Sometimes you may need to be working on two or more projects at once. And this can still be effective, particularly if you have a good team working with you – this team could be staff, partners or contractors.

In that case, what I find best is to divide my available time into the required number of time-slots and commit to a different project in each time-slot. For me, I work on Project 1 on Monday and Wednesday and Project 2 on Tuesday and Thursday. Friday is dedicated to marketing sites and general planning.

And although I try to not ‘work’ on the weekend, I must admit, I am often so keen to progress with whatever I’m working on that I can’t help myself.  So the weekends are spent working on whatever I happen to feel like. 

This is a quick summary of the system that works best for me. Please feel welcome to start using the same technique for your own planning and adapt it to suit what works best for you.

Planning Tips For The Year Ahead is a post from: Donna-Marie Coggins

Nearly four years ago I was introduced to the idea of ‘interviewing experts’ by the legendary Australian copywriter, Brett McFall, either as a way of creating products to sell or just to create content to add value to existing products and services.

Not only was I introduced to the idea, but I was lucky enough to be taught HOW to interview experts … from sourcing and contacting experts, what questions to ask and how to ask them, to how to record the interview and then edit it professionally and turn it into a product.

These skills and knowledge have been incredibly valuable to me – and my business – over the last four years, and I know many who have listened to some of these interviews have also found them valuable.

Andy Sacker also learnt these skills and has gone on to earn thousands of dollars from the sales of his interviews. What’s more, he’s just published his first book – How To Make Money Interviewing Experts.

This isn’t an eBook – it’s a physical, paperback book, full of step-by-step instructions on how to follow in Andy’s footsteps and interview experts for yourself.

Whether you’re looking for an extra stream of income, a way to help spread the knowledge about your chosen industry,  or a good method of providing more content for your clients (and potential clients), I encourage you to consider this media.

You can purchase a copy of Andy’s book here.

How To Make Money Interviewing Experts is a post from: Donna-Marie Coggins

Yesterday I was looking through the stats and comments from the webinars I ran earlier this year as part of the Business Breakthrough Magic series.

I have to admit, I loved running these webinars and all of the guest speakers were absolutely delightful to work with. However there were three that really stood out, receiving an overwhelming amount of ‘thank yous’ and positive feedback.

One of those was the one we did on Terrific Testimonials – How To Get Amazing Testimonials Without Losing Your Soul with Australian Copywriter, Ingrid Cliff.

Here’s a short snippet on part of that webinar:

This webinar covered all aspects of gathering testimonials, from how to ask for them, how to use them, what legal pitfalls you need to be careful of and what to do if you can’t get testimonials. If you’re a business owner, this is worth watching.

If you’d like to see the entire webinar recording, I’m making this available again for a short time. Please grab yourself a drink, get comfortable, click the link below to go to the recording … and enjoy!

Terrific Testimonials

Rules For Terrific Testimonials is a post from: Donna-Marie Coggins

Are you the type of person who often forgets people’s birthdays? Or perhaps you remember them and mean to phone or text them … but the day disappears before you have a chance to actually pick up your phone.

That may well be a thing of the past now there’s Text And Forget to help you remember.

Text And Forget is a free system whereby you can enter a number of messages and schedule for them to be sent out to your specific contacts. You can enter as many messages as you like and schedule them to be sent as a one-off message or on a regular basis – for example, every year on their birthday (or anniversary).

I know it may feel strange at first, but it will make it much easier to remember and schedule! And you can log in and edit your messages at any time.

Give it a try – you might just be hooked.

Simply Text And Forget is a post from: Donna-Marie Coggins

When you’re in business for yourself, unless you have a clear plan it can be so easy to change from one idea to the next … from one ‘shiny object’ or latest money-making-winner to the next. In doing so, you might get lucky. But more than likely, this lack of focus will hold you back and prevent you from earning the profits, recognition and reputation a more focused approach could achieve.

There will always be opportunities presented along the way. Some are good, others not so good. But either way, you’re likely to hold yourself back if you are darting all over the place in one direction, then another.

This is one reason why a business plan is so important. Depending on your business, it may not be necessary for you to have a  100 page, fully formatted professional business plan. Even just a pile of hand-written notes or a Word document on your computer may be enough.

The main thing is that you’re giving your business plenty of thought, thinking about your overall aim. What is the purpose of your business? What do you want to achieve? Where do you see your business, and yourself, in 5 years time?

All of these factors will determine how you act on a day-to-day basis.

Once you’re clear of the Big Picture of your business – and your life – it’s much easier to decide which opportunities you should take up along the way and which ones you can bypass.

Of course, due diligence is also required. But let’s say you are offered a brilliant discount on advertising at a local event. It will cost you $800, but most others are paying $5,000 for this same promotional opportunity. After ensuring that everything is above-board and it fits with your budget, your next questions should be, “Does this fit with my overall goals? Will it help me achieve my ‘Big Picture’. If the answer is ‘no’ then it’s probably not an opportunity you need to accept.

Remember also that a plan is not set in stone. Most likely, you’ll change your mind and get new ideas along the way. Or perhaps you’ll need to adjust your plan based on changing economics, technology or consumer trends. That’s okay too. But as long as you have a clear goal, you can focus your actions on doing what will bring you closer to those goals rather than distracting you and leading you in every other direction.

Think Of The Big Picture is a post from: Donna-Marie Coggins

This doesn’t seem to be a very common problem, but if it happens to you it can be very annoying!

Sometimes, when trying to upload an image to a WordPress post or page, you may get an error message that says, “Are you sure you want to do this? Please try again”.

If you click on the “Please try again” link you just get taken back to the main dashboard, but within the pop-up box where you would usually choose your image.

The most likely cause for this is an incompatible plug-in.

To find which one and correct this problem, first … did you recently upload or update a particular plug-in just before you starting seeing this error? If so, deactivate that plug-in and then try to upload an image again. If you can now upload images again, that plug-in was causing the problem.

However if you’re not sure which plug-in is at fault, deactivate all of your plug-ins. Now try to upload an image and you should find it uploads just fine.

So now go back to your plug-ins page and activate one plug-in. Try uploading an image again. Did it work?

If yes, that’s great. Now activate a second plug-in, then try uploading an image again.

Keep going through this process until all of your plug-ins that you want activated are active, except for at least one that, when activated again, will cause that image upload error. When you find that plug-in, either delete it or leave it deactivated.

You may find it helpful to have two tabs open in your web browser – one on the plug-ins page and another on a draft post/page where you can test uploading images.

I hope this fixes your images upload issue. 

Unable To Upload Image In WordPress is a post from: Donna-Marie Coggins

Have you ever thought about creating your own membership site?

Or a site where you can build a private, loyal community?

If so, then you should seriously do whatever it takes to get to the Membership Site Workshop being held in Brisbane, Australia, on May 28th-29th.

During this workshop you’ll learn how you can easily create your own membership site without breaking the bank. In fact, why stop at one? You can use the skills you learn to build multiple membership sites or even to provide membership site building as a service.

And the best part is … this workshop is free!

But registration is essential and seats are booking fast. Click the link below to book now so you don’t miss out!

Membership Site Workshop

Free Membership Site Training Workshop is a post from: Donna-Marie Coggins