Trademarking Strategies For Life And Business Coaches

I recently shared a stage with Lisa Sasevich, who is one of the most well-known trainers in the field of helping life coaches and business coaches build their products, build their systems, build their businesses, and we had a really great time talking to her and discussing strategies. 

Trademarking is one of those strategies to make sure that you as a coach have a successful business because here's the thing: People, your potential clients, don't pay you for your wisdom. 

The knowledge that you're going to share with them is all around us. You can probably find something very similar in books, in free YouTube videos, free webinars, all of that knowledge is out there, so why would they buy from you?

The reason they buy from you is they believe that you can take them from point A to point B, from where they are to where they want to be. They're buying certainty. 

They're not buying knowledge. That certainty comes from them seeing that you've got a system and a step-by-step way of taking them from where they are to where they want to be. 

Guess what? You only have a system if that system has a name. It ain't got a name unless that name is unique to you and properly protected. 

That's where it comes to trademarking because as a coach, you have to be able to tell your crowd, your potential audience, that there's something different about you, there's something unique about you, that you're not a me-too business, that you're not a me-better business, that you're a me-only business, that you're the only shining star out there that can help them.

Here are a couple of strategies that you can use trademarks as a very inexpensive and super-efficient way of creating that sense of uniqueness among your audience. Here are a couple of things that you want to trademark. 

Trademark Your Brand Name

First of all, you want to trademark the name of your system, okay? Whether or not it's just a regular name or an abbreviation, which is very popular today. You know, you have a five-step or seven-step system, and each step has a name. 

You abbreviate it into a word that makes some sense, that makes it easy for people to remember, that's one of the things that coaches usually trademark. A lot of coaching services use memorable acronyms to stand out. Without a trademark, this trick isn’t quite as powerful.

Trademark Coaching Courses and Programs

Another thing to trademark is the names of your courses or the names of your programs. If it's the same thing as a system, then it will be covered by the same trademark, but if you got a whole system and then under that system, you've got multiple courses or multiple programs, that's another thing for you to consider trademarking. 

Another thing to trademark is taglines. If your taglines make it easy for people to find you, remember you, or if they compel your audience to buy from you, if it builds that confidence, if it makes them feel like you know how to take them from point A to point B, you've got a really great tagline, that's another thing to trademark.

Trademarking a Visual Graphic For Your Brand

Finally, you may also consider trademarking a visual representation of your system of whatever it is you're teaching. Here's what I mean by visual representation. A trademark will not protect the substance of what you're teaching. 

It won't protect the essence of what makes you a great coach. But if you figure out a way to represent your system graphically, whether it's a triangle or a square or a quadrant or a circle with something that shows again, that you've got a system, that may be trademarkable. 

Trademarking a graphic can also give you a logo that can be used to more easily identify your services and grow your personal brand in the process.

Business Coaching Trademark Example

I'm going to give you an example. Robert Kiyosaki is most famous for his cash flow quadrant. He knew that he couldn't protect the idea that there are different types of income, that there's employment income, income as a self-employed, there's income as a business and there's income as an investment, right? He knew that he couldn't trademark that. He knew that he couldn't copyright that or patent that. 

There was no way to protect the essence, so what he did is he created a cash flow quadrant that has these letters there, E-S-B-I. He trademarked that because that's really what identifies the thought. That's what identifies the program. That's what identifies the system. That's what identifies his ability to do something for you under that brand.

When he was able to get a trademark on the cash flow quadrant, guess what happened indirectly? He owns the idea that there are four different types of income. Something that he can't own directly, he now owns indirectly. That's what other business coaches like you can also do with your own system. 

So if you've got a system, for example, and it has five different courses in it and one course flows from the other, you may consider putting those five courses in some sort of shape and create a flow around them so that it explains to potential customers that again, you've got a system. 

Maybe you want to protect that graphical view of representing your five courses. Your trademark won’t give you ownership of the individual components of the graphic or the ideas they represent. Robert Kiyosaki does not own the letters E, S, B, and I. But he does have a trademark over their usage with regards to his cash flow quadrant system.

Why Trademarks Are Important for Business and Life Coaches

This video is not designed to provide you with a ready strategy. I don't know your business well enough, but it should give you enough food for thought to decide for yourself what it is that you want to protect and how it is that you want to distinguish yourself from everyone else who teaches the same thing. 

There are a lot of life coaches out there. There are a lot of business coaches out there. There are a lot of successful coaches. There are a lot of money coaches. Essentially, the teaching is the same. Yeah, of course, there are some differences here and there, but you will only be successful, you will only be able to build a legacy around what you're doing if your system's got a brand, and that's what trademarks are for. So if you’re a business or life coach, remember that establishing a brand is crucial, and trademarks can help you grow your brand.

I know you're doing something great for your audience. I know you want your audience to be bigger, and I know you want to build something around what you're doing. Be legendary. It's worth it. Protect your brand.