If One Sparring session saved Jette 20.000 DKK, how much can you save in one hour?
Sparring sessions are an excellent way to kickstart your business’s copy defense and protect it from copycats.
And in this blog post, I am going to give you a real-life example of how sparring sessions can help you achieve your business goals – but also save you time, money, and tons of headaches.
This is the story of Jette, an online entrepreneur who saved 20.000 DKK in one hour by being smart and proactive. 🧡
Meet Jette!
→ She is self-employed.
→ She is a digital entrepreneur in her company relationme.dk, and is a Web Marketing Manager.
→ She helps large and small customers sell effectively through their homepage, without tech panic.
Jette is a creative and popular service provider
And one of the things that makes her so is that she developed an SEO teaching model that her customers LOVE!
It’s no surprise, because Jette has built something great: She specializes in Google search optimization, and most importantly, she understands that learning about SEO, like learning about patents and trademarks, can be daunting.
Jette’s model makes it manageable for those of us who are no-word magicians or webmaster heroes (yet!).
And this means a lot to Jette – understandably so. And it means a lot to her business, too!
But there’s one big problem…
Her competitors love her model too. #bummer #fugde #umpf
→ Of course, Jette does not want her competition to steal her creative work, which she based on her skills and experience to attract customers and make the money she deserves.
→ Jette decided to do something about it.
Depending on what you exactly want protection for (and where). It is “only” a name or a name and a logo; the cost of a trademark registration can efficiently run up to about 10.000 DKK.
And that does not include the fees for advisors and the work to be done; if an application is rejected or challenged by a competitor, it is not inexpensive.
So, before Jette sent an application to protect her SEO model, she did something pretty clever:
Jette booked ONE sparring session
– One single sparring session to be precise
Jette wanted to find out what to expect and what her chances were of successfully trademarking her SEO model.
And although I would have loved to tell Jette that her trademark protection would be registered in a heartbeat…
Sparring sessions should remove doubt, so I told her: “No”
Her model did not have a chance to be trademarked.
→ Not because the model was not worth it, but because trademarks were not the right tool to use for Jette to achieve what she needed.
I was thrilled 😁🙌 to add that Jette had just saved herself about 20,000 DKK, a lot of paperwork, and a huge disappointment.
Telling Jette no was thus only a tiny part of the sparring session. I explained why ideas, concepts, and business models can not be protected with trademarks or patents. That they are best kept secret. And I understand that that’s impossible when it’s a model you teach to your customers.
However, for most of the sparring session, we discussed how Jette could achieve her goal of hindering copycats from stealing her knowledge and problem-solving SEO model.
Fun fact – we did indeed discuss how trademarks can be very useful for protecting product and business names, but then they must meet the requirements for trademarks. But changing the product name after so many years did not make sense.
But maybe Jette will consider some solutions for her future product in her product pipeline…?!
My warmest recommendation to you, Gyde; I’ve become SO much wiser!
“Thank you so much, Gyde – your session has saved me a lot of money and misjudgments in relation to my business.
And thank you for your honest and simple way of explaining the different concepts to me.
And let’s not forget your engaged interest in my business. Just: Thank you.”
Jette did not leave the sparring session demotivated
Why?
Because, as she puts it herself, “It was the model I wanted to trademark, but Gyde gave me a much better idea.”
We spent 10 minutes discussing the negatives. The remaining 50 minutes were devoted to exploring what Jette could do to secure her business, product, and assets, starting with her SEO model.
We brainstormed and ping-ponged most of the sparring session on opportunities!
And by doing so, we were able to find options for Jette that could be useful immediately, and some would require additional work. We found some “free” solutions.
It was great to see how determined Jette was to start her preventive work right away, without adding to the bill or stress.
A few hours of work and she went from zero protection to a 90% stronger copy defense than she (or most online entrepreneurs) could have imagined.
And that’s why Jette is smiling after a sparring session that started with a “No”
The overall conclusion and solution were in line with what Jette needed: Safeguarding her products and assets in other ways than Jette had initially thought – but not less valuable.
More highlights from jette’s experience after one sparring session:
“Can you trademark your SEO model? – I asked Gyde. The answer was: NO
The answer was, of course, based on a longer explanation. The investment in an hour’s sparring session was a great choice for me and my business.
Before our conversation, Gyde asked me a number of questions that could quickly track down what I wanted to understand, what was appropriate to dive into, and, most importantly, figure out which opportunities I could make the most of in my business.
Gyde was immediately on my wavelength and resonated with my challenge. And in addition to new useful knowledge, Gyde provided a lot of ideas on how
I could solve my product branding and trademarking. It was clear that Gyde had done research on me before the meeting.”
Book a sparring session – just like jette
If one sparring session saved Jette 20.000DK plus a lot of headaches and work in an hour – WHAT CAN ONE SPARRING SESSION SAVE YOU?
Find out now – book your 1:1 with Gyde right here! The booking process takes just a tiny moment longer than a split second, and you can choose between 30 or 60 minutes – or a bundle of 5 or 10 sessions to get a bundle discount.
Let’s address the issue quickly and efficiently- and get you ready to confront the copycat with an action plan so that you can be confident in your next steps.
