Small Business Trademarks: Who Needs 'Em?

Anyone that's started a small business or is in the throes of starting a small business knows how overwhelming it can be just to get to opening day. You've got licenses & permits to think about, what sort of business entity structure is right, where the money is going to come from, and on and on. Phew! While it can almost be too overwhelming, your entrepreneurial drive and your passion for your business will get you through it.

Now when it comes to your business name, we can all agree that that's an important, if not the most important feature of your business. Your small business name is the face, if you will, of your products and/or services. It's how your customers will come to know you, how they'll get back to you and how they'll refer you to new customers.

Let's say you found the perfect name for your small business. What a lot of folks do at this point is usually a misstep – filing for a business entity under it, printing business cards, launching a web site, etc. There really is no point in investing in a business name until you know that the name is legally available.

If you had to change the business name AFTER you've done those things, you're losing on precious resources, such as time, money & effort.

So your first step after you've decided on your small business name is to research it to ensure that no one else had the same bright idea before you did. There's some preliminary research you should do; check this article for further details. Once it clears the preliminary stage, look into getting a comprehensive trademark search.

Now let's say your small business name has cleared the comprehensive search stage (yay!). Does your small business name need a trademark? Now being in the trademark business, you'd think our position would be why yes of course! However, filing for a trademark is not necessarily going to be the right fit for your business or plans. You'll have to decide that.

As long as no one has prior trademark or common-law rights to the name, you can operate with your common-law rights – thousands upon thousands of small businesses do this very thing.

One point to keep in mind is the importance of your name to your business identity. Let's look at some examples to illustrate further when a trademark is appropriate:

You're designing a clothing line and your logo/name combination is an integral part of your advertising campaign as well as appearing on all the tags and labels on the garments – your brand identity is important to your business so seriously consider filing for a Federal trademark.

You're opening a local tax preparation company and want to use a name that's somewhat generic, such as Tax Solutions -- since your use is local, a Federal trademark would not apply but a State trademark would. Also the name is pretty generic so trying to obtain exclusive rights to the name may not be possible.

Read more about the advantages to having a Federal trademark here.

Even if you decide that a trademark isn't for you, don't forget you still need a comprehensive search on the name.

Money Money Money

That's the stuff that seems to vanish into thin air when starting a business. From talking to thousands of small business owners over the years, that's the one thing that's in short supply. Every time you turn around, somebody wants money for something.

A little tip – when hiring a company for certain services, ask if they offer payment plans. Any service company that caters to the small business owner should understand the financial burden starting a business entails & well, it never hurts to ask. TradeMark Express started a payment plan option years ago and while it requires a bit more effort in the bookkeeping department, the benefit it provides to our clients is more than worth it.

Business loans are a viable option for many folks and, like anything I talk about here, research this process fully before you embroil yourself into something like this.

To get started, I suggest contacting the Small Business Administration (SBA). Entrepreneur also offers a great site dedicated to money & finance.

Research, research, research – this cannot be stressed enough. Read as much as you can about the process. Here are some book titles that are relevant:

* How to Get a Small Business Loan: A Banker Shows You Exactly What to Do to Get a Loan (Small Business Series, No 1) by Bryan E. Milling
* The SBA Loan Book: Get A Small Business Loan--even With Poor Credit, Weak Collateral, And No Experience by Charles H. Green
* Secrets Lenders Never Told You: Get Your Business Loan Approved by Patricia H. Wesson

There are plenty of free informational resources out there:

• Get Yourself Started with Small Business Loans by Tim Kelly
• Small Business Lenders by Matt Bacak
• Small Business Loans for Small Business Owners by David Gass
• Small Business Loan Basics by Joseph Kenny

TradeMark Express Blog Schedule

A VIS (Very Important Step) for your New Business

Starting a Business:
Researching Your Industry

Using this post as inspiration, I want to dig a bit deeper into the concept of researching your intended industry.

Brad Sugars' article How to Research Your Market is a must read. Brad lists a number of ideas, including contacting business groups and universities.

One of the ideas I touched upon yesterday was researching your competition. But how does one even go about doing this? And how do you keep it all organized in such a way that you can actually analyze your results? I'm a big fan of tables – I use them constantly for TradeMark Express, be it for client bids or summarizing the week. They're easy to create, manage & alter.

I've created a template that can be viewed & printed here. I filled in the first table with TradeMark Express' information so you can get an idea of how to use this table. Here's a blank form. If you'd like me to send you this table via email, please contact me at Shannon at tmexpress dot com.

Find the holder of a domain address
Free digital library of Internet sites
Using the Web to Research Your Market – PowerHomeBiz

research your industry * research your market * research * competition * market research * industry research