It’s January, the traditional time to take stock. It’s also the perfect time to look critically at your business, identify its most valuable assets, and ensure that you have robust strategies in place to maximise those assets.
Think about what distinguishes you from your competitors. Why would someone covet your business?
A key factor that is hugely attractive is the goodwill and reputation in your business that you have worked so hard to create and foster. So, how do you protect that goodwill and reputation, and leverage it to your advantage?
Goodwill in a business can be symbolised by its brands, or trade marks. The goodwill of your trade marks represents their recognition with consumers, and the extra earning power that recognition generates. Consumers want to buy goods and services from you because they identify with your trade marks, and with what they stand for.
A significant proportion of the value of your business lies, therefore, in its intangible assets in the form of Intellectual Property. These assets often include rights created by your innovation (and protectable by patents, designs and copyright), but always include trade marks - the names or labels that your customers crave. Desirable trade marks with associated goodwill provide their owners with entry to markets, freedom of operation, and reliable revenue, and substantially increase the value of the business with which they are synonymous.
Put simply, if managed properly, your trade marks can make you money.
Focussing on protecting and enforcing your trade marks will give you a competitive edge. Thus, identify the brands that you own or use, recognising that they are not just words, but logos or slogans or labels, and implement an Intellectual Property strategy that includes building your trade mark portfolio, and clearly distinguishing your business from those of your competitors.
- Ensure that, at the very least, your existing brands are adequately protected where you manufacture or sell;
- Identify market opportunities for new brands;
- Adopt trade marks that encourage consumers to choose your goods or services over all the other available options;
- Commit to searching new trade marks to prevent you from infringing third party rights;
- Register new marks;
- Employ watching services to identify infringements early;
- Enforce your rights to protect your product revenues and market position;
- Ensure that all important patented products are branded as a way of extending your monopoly beyond the life of the patent;
- Seek to generate additional revenue through commercialisation and exploitation of your trade marks, including by licensing, franchising or assignment.
You are serious about your business. Take your brands seriously too. If you nurture a brand wisely then your business will reap the benefit and that brand will contribute significantly to its value.
Start by talking to Jacqueline McKay of Murgitroyd, who can help you develop an effective brand strategy for your business.
Visit our site www.murgitroyd.com or call 0141 307 8400
This article appeared in The Herald on the 21st January 2019
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