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Have you ever been at a presentation or workshop where the speaker has been so magnetic that you are able to retain and recite what you learned to others?
The chances are that the facilitator or speaker used stories. Story telling in building your corporate brand, your employer brand, your internal brand or your personal brand is a great way to facilitate engagement with your brand.
I am delighted that Kevin Kelly, author and speaker on the subjects of leadership and motivation will be joining me on Monday 11 February 2008 at 1pm ET/ 6pm Ireland and the UK to discuss with me the art of story telling.
Amongst other things we will be covering how to get clear about your personal story that supports you in building your personal brand and reputation so that you can attract more clients and the career opportunities you are looking for.
You can join me by registering at Biz Growth Live – it is free to attend and I will be podcasting an extract of the conversation in a few weeks time (the full recording is only available to members of our membership programme the Biz Growth Gym launching this Spring).
If you have a question about how to develop your brand story, you can leave your questions here, email me or post your questions to our Biz Growth Live question desk.
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February 8th, 2008 at 11:13 am
This may be a little off topic but I have a question on a problem I’ve been directly affected by in the last week, i.e. having established a brand that’s well known in one’s field, what can you do to protect it? My own co. name and main URL are often searched on by people looking specifically for my co. (as, having set up the co. long before the Internet, it’s actually a quite rubbish name as it doesn’t include any of the main key phrases people would use to search generally for information in the niche I cover (home exchange). But now I find my co. names and URL are targets for those registering copycat names and the sole intention seems to be to divert traffic away from my site when people search on my co. name or a variation of it. I know that part of the answer may be to register several variations on the domain name to try to safeguard such attempts but, as there are so many variations that could be used (+ all the country extensions) it would seem almost impossible/expensive to do this. What is the best way to deal with this problem?
Cheers
February 9th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
@Lois – thanks for taking the time to post your question here. I would certainly look to invest in protecting your intellectual assets and that includes your brand name and your logo, alongside the copy on your website.
I would seek out the website in the country you are based for the trademark and protection agencies – some resources are here – tey are usually very helpful and of course you could then determine if you need to get the advice of an attorney or commercial lawyer specialising in the field of trademark protection.
Some resources are here:
Canadian Patents Office – http://strategis.gc.ca/sc_mrksv/cipo/welcome/welcom-e.html
Irish Patents Office – http://www.patentsoffice.ie/en/homepage.aspx
UK Patent Office – http://www.patent.gov.uk/
UK Intellectual Property Guidance – http://www.intellectual-property.gov.uk/
US Patent and Trademark Office -http://www.uspto.gov/
In Europe you can seek to register your IP across all member states but that is expensive. Dependent on the assets of your business, you may wish to ensure protection in just your base country.
As to protecting your webdomain, then as to purchase a domain is very inexpensive I do encourage you to purchase the ones that may be the most critical for example if you are in the Uk you may want the .com and the .co.uk addresses.
I hope this is of assistance.