Trademarks, Trust & Scaling Smart: What Every Business Owner Needs to Know

Jennie Wright [00:00:02]:
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the acquire podcast, where we talk about marketing and list building lead generation strategy scaling and today, especially cease and desist. If I just gave you a chill up your spine, if you ever saw an email in your inbox that says you’re hereby ordered to cease and desist, then today’s guest is going to help explain how not to make that happen. And you darn well should listen because you can get yourself into some, some sticky situations without even knowing before, you know, it like it can happen. And so really excited because we get to have somebody who I’ve been friends with now for a while and I’ve gotten to work with in the past. Joey Vitale is an award winning trademark attorney, internationally renowned speaker. He’s also an author. I helped, launch his coauthored book a couple of years ago, which was super fun.

Jennie Wright [00:00:56]:
And he’s the founder of Indie Law, which is a top rated trademark law firm, and it helps thousands of businesses and business owners protect their brands. And Joey’s been featured on major stages, podcasts, and the best selling book that I mentioned a little while ago, legally legit. It’s the step by step guide to protecting your business and owning your brand. And then the other book I mentioned, which is called Tiger Tactics. All of those are available. Go check those out. But Joey, I’m so glad you’re here.

Joey Vitale [00:01:21]:
Jenny, thank you so much for having me. It’s always a pleasure to chat with you.

Jennie Wright [00:01:26]:
Yeah. And we’re gonna have a good time. This is this is the scary topic, but actually, I find it fascinating. And so you’re dealing with people who are either coming to you trying to prevent an issue or coming and saying something bad happened. So what tell me about trademarking. Tell me about what the biggest mistakes that people make when it comes to lead gen, when it comes to their businesses, when it comes to protecting their brand, because this is all about protecting your brand.

Joey Vitale [00:01:52]:
Absolutely. Jenny, let me take a step back here and and give you the the gist of why I’m talking about trademarks. Because when when I decided to start my law firm, at the time I had really pivoted away from doing law that wasn’t a great fit for me. I was doing personal injury. A lot of courtroom work. If you know me, you you know that I’m like a peacemaker at heart. I’m not the the bulldog that you necessarily want in a courtroom. And so I I shifted to working with business owners.

Joey Vitale [00:02:28]:
Absolutely love working with entrepreneurs. But during my first year I didn’t really know what their biggest focuses were. So I knew the legal side of if they asked me for LLCs contracts, trademarks, I knew what to give them. But because I was brand new to business myself, I didn’t know what they needed. And so Okay. And when I first launched my law firm, it was almost like an everything but the kitchen sink type of law firm for business owners. We had a very extensive list of services on our website, And it didn’t take long for me to take everything off the website except for trademarks. Because out of all the things that we were offering, including very custom high end contract review work, the thing that we were most getting urgent emails and phone calls at night about was people getting a cease and desist letter saying that they had to rebrand the name of their business or their podcast or their coaching program when they didn’t even realize that that was an issue.

Joey Vitale [00:03:39]:
Yep. And so my my team and I decided, you know what? We’re gonna put all that other legal stuff on the back burner. We’re gonna focus just on trademarks because whether business owners know it or not, that is the biggest legal risk that they’re likely to face.

Jennie Wright [00:03:58]:
I can only imagine. I I only know one person personally that has received a cease and desist, and they absolutely deserve to get it, but they didn’t know they deserve to get it. They had no idea. They didn’t know what they were doing. And, I have actually had. Say, well, not, I don’t want to use the word threatened, but I’ve definitely use those words as a, if you don’t, I will, when somebody says you should. Yeah. Cause somebody stole my work.

Jennie Wright [00:04:25]:
Probably about seven years ago, they tried to, yeah, they tried to steal my IP and it was definitely my IP and they were like taking it word for word. So not a cool thing at all. Let like now we know sort of why you niched in, which makes sense. So your firm folk like focuses completely on this space and when we’re looking at businesses online, obviously also brick and mortar. But when we’re talking about online businesses, we kind of just sort of start them a little bit. Shambley, like we just sort of kind of start them and, you know, put our shingle out onto the web and, and start building out courses and whatnot. And how are we supposed to know how to protect ourselves? Where can we find the best information? What does that first step look like?

Joey Vitale [00:05:15]:
Well, we don’t know what we don’t know. Yeah. And it’s weird because the easier it gets to create a business online Yeah. The more we lose sight of the things that we really should be doing if we wanna set this up correctly and avoid legal issues in the future. So most business owners, I think, know what it’s like to buy a domain name. Right? And it’s pretty easy. It’s, like, instantaneous once you see that it’s available. And if the domain that you want is not available, you can usually just, like, add an s at the end or a creative spelling, and you just move forward.

Joey Vitale [00:05:57]:
Or you get a .net versus the.com. And as business owners, we’re so used to what I call domain name thinking. The same thing applies for social media handles. We wouldn’t grab what we want, but we might just tweak it and move forward. And no one’s telling us that there’s a problem with that. Even forming an LLC, which you guys should all do to get to protect your personal assets, it’s very similar to domain names where you just make sure it’s available, pay for it, and you get it. Yeah. But what no one is talking about is if you just do that stuff without thinking more broadly about things, you might be infringing on someone’s trademark.

Joey Vitale [00:06:42]:
And until you’ve secured a trademark yourself, you might accidentally being be stepping on the toes of another business.

Jennie Wright [00:06:51]:
Crapes. Okay. So I’m established. A lot of people listening to this podcast are established, been in business for a really long time. It’s a little too late to go back to the beginning and make sure that we’re protected right from the word go. What do we do now?

Joey Vitale [00:07:08]:
Well, before I get into the next steps, I wanna just set some context here so we understand what’s happening. So and I wanna use, like, a big business example. So no matter what coaching niche you’re in or if you happen to be in another industry and you’re listening to this, it still makes sense. I think everybody still knows about that Blue Apron brand, that, like, meal kit service. It used to be the number one food subscription service in the country. And now like HelloFresh and others are taking over. But Blue Apron used to be

Jennie Wright [00:07:44]:
it. Okay.

Joey Vitale [00:07:45]:
And it owned the federal trademark for Blue Apron. Another company applied for Green Apron. And you might think totally different color.

Jennie Wright [00:07:59]:
Mhmm.

Joey Vitale [00:08:00]:
They should be fine, and they were also in the food space. It got denied.

Jennie Wright [00:08:05]:
Okay.

Joey Vitale [00:08:05]:
And the trademark office’s reasoning was, yes, blue and green are obviously different colors, different words. But if you put yourselves in the loyal in the shoes of a loyal Blue Apron customer, and you get an ad for something called Green Apron, you might reasonably think that that’s like their all veggies box or they’re doing type of environmental promo. And so the question isn’t can we tell these two things apart? It’s could there be a common source? And so the trademark office denied it. And what I love about this example is the company that failed to trademark Green Apron was Starbucks. What? Yeah. So it makes sense. Right? Because they’ve got the popular Green Aprons.

Jennie Wright [00:08:55]:
Oh my gosh. Seriously?

Joey Vitale [00:08:58]:
Yeah.

Jennie Wright [00:08:59]:
Okay. I didn’t you know, I didn’t even know this story, but that just gave me chills. Like, that’s nuts.

Joey Vitale [00:09:04]:
Most people have never heard about that story and this and this is what’s so fun about trademarks is we can go down a rabbit hole of fun stories but I also don’t want that to slow down the momentum and action of business owners and get insurance secured. But I love that example because it gets business owners to think, oh, shoot. I’ve never searched like that broadly before Mhmm. And what could potentially cause confusion in the marketplace. And so just because you’ve got a domain name, just because you’ve got maybe an LLC, all of those are great things. But until you filed for a federal trademark, You, again, might be stepping on the toes of another brand accidentally, or another company might be coming in from behind you that technically got started after you, but then they file for a trademark and they get it, and now you’re on shaky ground.

Jennie Wright [00:10:02]:
Yikes. Okay. Yeah. That’s wow. Could you imagine what the world would be like if they did get Green Apron? What the difference it would have been in the brand and the feel for that? Like it would have been different. Like, they wouldn’t have had Starbucks. Right? It would have been Green Apron.

Joey Vitale [00:10:17]:
Well, so they and this is another good point, is that most brands, especially big brands, have more than one trademark that they should be securing in their brand. And so when Starbucks was applying for Green Apron, it’s not like they were saying we want our company to be Green Apron. They were saying, okay. The company is still Starbucks, but we and I don’t know what they were doing. But they might have been thinking, you know what? Let’s create, like, a slogan around Green Apron or, like, a Green Apron membership or something. So people see it. It’s some initiative that Starbucks is doing that when people hear it, they think of the Green Apron that’s connected to them. And Blue Apron or Green Apron but Starbucks might have been able to make a successful argument of, hey.

Joey Vitale [00:11:05]:
We have built this reputation around our green aprons, and there’s a even though they’re both in the food space, there’s a big difference between a brick and mortar business that sells coffee and a meal kit online only service.

Jennie Wright [00:11:20]:
Yeah. I would think those would be too far enough apart.

Joey Vitale [00:11:22]:
A lot of this is gray, but it just goes towards when when our firm is doing a comprehensive trademark search, we are looking very widely at, okay, what could those green apron in these situations be like, and how can we have a plan to respond to it if it comes up?

Jennie Wright [00:11:40]:
Crazy. Wow. So if we’re established and we have our LLC, but we may not have trademarked, how do we, like, what do we do? How do we protect ourselves? And what if we talk to somebody like you and you’re like, it’s too close to something else? Do we have to redo everything and, like, we have to change our name in our business? Like, what

Joey Vitale [00:12:03]:
Really good questions. So it depends on what trademark attorneys you talk to sometimes. Like, I really try and put myself in the shoes of a business owner

Jennie Wright [00:12:16]:
Yeah.

Joey Vitale [00:12:16]:
First and an attorney second. And so sometimes we’ll run searches and say, you know what? We think that there is maybe not a red flag but like an orange flag of a risk here.

Jennie Wright [00:12:28]:
Sure.

Joey Vitale [00:12:30]:
We would still move forward with it if it was our business despite the risks of it maybe being denied. And also even if your trademark doesn’t get accepted, doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re being forced to change it.

Jennie Wright [00:12:46]:
Mhmm.

Joey Vitale [00:12:47]:
Like receiving a refusal from the trademark office is very different than receiving a cease and desist letter letter from another company. And so, there are sometimes where we’re like oh my gosh this is very much an issue and if this company ever was to send you a cease and desist letter like, they would be very much within their rights to go after you. But there are a lot of situations where we say even if the trademark office does reject your application, we think that what you’re doing is so different. There may be a smaller business and don’t have the rights to monitor stuff very closely. And so we think the chances of them sending you a cease and desist is very minimal. So it’s not they necessarily need to to rebrand, But what I would tell a business owner that’s that’s more established is let’s continue to at least take some some next steps here and think about it. Because usually what we do is if if for some reason we see think that there’s gonna be an issue with getting your business name trademarked Mhmm. We’ll ask more questions around, okay, do we want to incorporate, like, a slogan into the business name so that as a whole, it’s more unique than what else we’re seeing? Or, you know, at the end of the day, is it the name of the business itself that really has the most trademark brand recognition power? Or is there a flagship course or a podcast that’s really what your audience knows you by? And let’s prioritize that first.

Jennie Wright [00:14:30]:
Oh, okay. I have so many questions. This will be my own personal podcast episode today. I love this stuff. So you know that I love focusing on list building lead gen and launches. Those are my main areas of expertise. We’ve worked together in the past. It’s what I love to do.

Jennie Wright [00:14:46]:
And when I look at when I look at creating an online summit or a book launch or anything like that, we’re looking at creating a name for it. We’re looking at all the different permutations of, how we can market it and so on and so forth. Right? And I think that a lot of people have an idea for a summit or something along those lines or even an in person conference, and this just came up where they give, like, they grab a name that seems really, really familiar to me. And I go and look and I’m like, you guys know that insert big name here has been using that as their online conference name or their in person conference name. You can’t use that. But what would you suggest to people? You said a little bit before, not everybody’s going to notice these things. They may not come after you, but maybe they’re going to come after you later, maybe not. But in order to protect yourself, how much distance do you need from IS more of a creative brand name? Let’s talk like Amy Porterfield as an example.

Jennie Wright [00:15:49]:
You know, she’s got a podcast. She’s got courses. Those names are really well known. How different do you have to be? Does it is it like, oh, I’m just gonna change a character or I’m just gonna add a word? Is that enough? Or is that just, like, skimming the line?

Joey Vitale [00:16:04]:
No. That’s not enough. And I will say too that until you get your trademarks registered, you can’t really sleep easy at night knowing that you’re not gonna get hit with something because there’s so many summits out there, even ones that you might not be aware of, even ones that might get launched after you launch yours. So and even if I was really confident that there were no other marks out there that were registered in your space, I still would say we we can’t really lock in you being risk free here until we get the registration in place. And so one thing that I’m glad you brought up because I wanted to hit on this topic.

Jennie Wright [00:16:51]:
Yeah.

Joey Vitale [00:16:53]:
There are two ways of applying for a trademark in The United States. One, the normal way, is called an in use trademark application or a 1a trademark application. This is the normal one where you you provide evidence in your application saying we’ve been using this for two, three, ten years. Here’s evidence of it. Now please accept the application.

Jennie Wright [00:17:16]:
Mhmm.

Joey Vitale [00:17:17]:
There’s another version called an intent to use or a one b application. And we work with a lot of coaches, thought leaders, people with, you know, book launches, all that stuff where we help them file their trademark for what they want to use under a 1b basis. And then the trademark office will initially say yes or say no to it. And if they say yes, then you start using it and you send evidence of of using it. And so ideally when we can, we we want to work with business owners with that 1b path of saying, hey, before you get too committed to it, let’s do it this way. Yeah. By the way, now that you know this, this can be a really cool thing that you can do, if you are I’m sure that Jenny’s gonna like this idea. But if you’re like Jenny and you wanna learn what the biggest, you know, what the bigger course creators out there are doing, you can search through the database of trademarks and see what intend to use filings to get a sense of what their up and coming names of things might be.

Jennie Wright [00:18:34]:
Oh, that is cool. Yeah. I love stuff like that.

Joey Vitale [00:18:37]:
Even like Marvel files and a lot of intend to use trademark applications. So it’s pretty cool to to look for those and see, okay, what might be coming on the horizon?

Jennie Wright [00:18:47]:
Oh my gosh. Yeah. I’ve I’ve seen I’ve seen people break like a news story saying that, you know, because they checked that and they’re like, oh, this is up and coming. This is they’ve they’ve trademarked this name. Nothing’s been talked about, but you know, new thing, you know, coming down the pike or something. I thought that’s so cool. Oh my gosh. Okay.

Joey Vitale [00:19:04]:
The other before we move on because I really wanna underscore this too, Jenny. Like, I’ve I know we’ve done one book launch together. You know this world so much better than I do, but I know it well enough to know that there are so many moving parts.

Jennie Wright [00:19:19]:
Yes.

Joey Vitale [00:19:21]:
And one thing that you all should know about Jenny is she is amazing at staying organized with all this stuff. And if something changes, like knowing how to pivot quickly and be flexible, like, it seems like there’s always something that’s not going to plan where you’re having to shift.

Jennie Wright [00:19:37]:
Yeah. There is.

Joey Vitale [00:19:38]:
And it’s almost like you’re you’re driving down the highway and you’re constantly getting like a flat tire and having to put a spare on while you keep driving.

Jennie Wright [00:19:49]:
I’ve never thought of it that way. I always thought of it as like you’re driving down the highway and somebody tries to grab the wheel. It does that to you. Cause it’s always, it’s always something that comes in for me. I mean, I guess it would be like a flat tire or a roadblock or yeah. Anything that just kind of decides that you’ve got to change route. Yeah. In the moment.

Joey Vitale [00:20:10]:
The reason why I say this is because when you run into a trademark issue or you hit with a cease is this letter, and they’re told you can’t use the name of this anymore.

Jennie Wright [00:20:21]:
Mhmm.

Joey Vitale [00:20:23]:
It’s like all four tires go flat at once. Yikes. And it takes momentum out of all of the other steps that you’re doing.

Jennie Wright [00:20:31]:
Mhmm.

Joey Vitale [00:20:31]:
Because if you can’t use the name anymore, then you can’t market the thing. And so until you come up with a new name, everything else is on hold. And that’s why this is such a big, not just legal risk, but big risk in general that we really wanna mitigate.

Jennie Wright [00:20:48]:
I have this like feeling in the pit of my stomach now, because I want to go and check everything. And I want, I just want, I just want your team to be like, okay, Jenny, you’re in the clear for everything now. I’m not, I’m in Canada. It’s a little, you know, it’s not it’s not I don’t have to I don’t know. Do I have to trademark in The States? Probably.

Joey Vitale [00:21:08]:
Great question, Jenny. What’s crazy about trademarks is, again, it’s more about protecting consumers necessarily than just the business owner. So it’s less about where the business owner is based and more about where your audience is based. Really?

Jennie Wright [00:21:22]:
Yeah. Okay. Well, my most of my audience is in The States.

Joey Vitale [00:21:26]:
There you go.

Jennie Wright [00:21:28]:
That’s fascinating. Okay. Very, very cool. What shouldn’t we trademark? What should we avoid to trademark? What would be just like superfluous to trademark?

Joey Vitale [00:21:40]:
Great questions. So I will say half a million trademark applications get filed every year. Over half of them get denied. So the trademark office does a pretty good job of denying your trademark if it’s you used a good word superfluous, but, like, they will catch ones that aren’t really trademarks. And and that’s the main thing that you want to avoid is trying to trademark things that are not trademarks.

Jennie Wright [00:22:05]:
Mhmm.

Joey Vitale [00:22:06]:
And so, for example, you can trademark the the title of a framework. Mhmm. You can’t trademark the framework itself.

Jennie Wright [00:22:23]:
Okay.

Joey Vitale [00:22:25]:
You can you cannot trademark the title of a book, but you can trademark something that is not just the title of a book. So, we work with a lot of brands where, ultimately, they wanna protect their book title, and so we help them, also have, you know, a flagship workshop with that title, or that becomes a slogan of their business, or that’s also the title of their podcast. And so you can beef up what it is that you’re wanting to use so it’s more than just Mhmm. The book title. And I’m trying to think of some of the things that people think that they can trademark but but shouldn’t. Another big one is, you don’t trademark content. So, like, your your course, your website, copy all that stuff. You can copyright.

Joey Vitale [00:23:28]:
And my firm does not not do copyright anymore. You can and probably should copyright things that if someone’s copied, there would be, like, a real measurable not just Yeah. Additional cost, but, like, financial cost to the business.

Jennie Wright [00:23:49]:
Yeah. Yeah. And what six or seven years ago when that person stole my summit IP, like they stole my method and like the exact, everything they, they were trying to do it exact and then pass it off as their own, which I thought was hilarious. Yeah. It was more it wasn’t obviously, it wasn’t, trademark or copyright because it’s you know, all of my method was more brutal time that was, but they stopped.

Joey Vitale [00:24:20]:
They stopped.

Jennie Wright [00:24:20]:
But

Joey Vitale [00:24:22]:
But another another point, and you brought this up too, like you can’t you can’t trademark something that someone else has, which we’ve talked about. But you also can’t trademark something that is super generic. So,

Jennie Wright [00:24:39]:
I know an example like that.

Joey Vitale [00:24:40]:
Another fun I’ll give you a couple examples, but one that I just love sharing is LeBron James tried to trademark Taco Tuesday.

Jennie Wright [00:24:50]:
He just didn’t know.

Joey Vitale [00:24:51]:
It got denied, and the trademark office was like, no one company can own or person can own trademark Tuesday because no one hears it and thinks of one brand in particular. And what’s interesting, at least in theory, is that LeBron James’ attorney got interviewed and said, hey. This is a win for us. We did not think that we would get the trademark, but now we have evidence so that no one else can try and trademark Taco Tuesday and take away LeBron’s ability to use that phrase. And I was like, okay. That’s kinda smart.

Jennie Wright [00:25:24]:
That is smart. That is smart.

Joey Vitale [00:25:26]:
On a related note, you don’t you can’t you can’t really trademark words and phrases that are very commonly used. Mhmm. And even if you could, your enforcement rights are very weak. This is something that you all really need to listen up close, turn the volume up on this part because I am seeing so many business owners through no fault of your own gravitate toward the same type of language in, like, elevate and next level and other types of phrasings that are so commonly used that number one, someone else has probably already trademarked it. But even if you own the trademark, the fact that so many other peoples are using it is diluting your own, enforcement rights.

Jennie Wright [00:26:17]:
Okay. How is AI playing into that? Because AI is popping out those words en masse when you’re doing anything with like, is AI making it more challenging because we’re seeing so much more of that language being used?

Joey Vitale [00:26:34]:
Potentially. I do think that, and I’m a huge fan of AI. I don’t know like, it’s one thing to use that stuff just in your copy. Mhmm. Have it be the name of your summit or business or

Jennie Wright [00:26:48]:
Well, that’s my concern because a lot of my clients will be like, oh, I wanna call my summit the ABC one two three summit. Where’d you get that from? Oh, I asked chat g p t.

Joey Vitale [00:26:58]:
Yeah. I I do think that there is a time and a place for and beyond even AI, I think that the the reason why AI is giving you that is because that’s like good marketing

Jennie Wright [00:27:08]:
Mhmm.

Joey Vitale [00:27:09]:
Lingo. Right? And I I do think that there is a time and a place to name things in your business stuff so that when a cold lead sees it, they’re attracted to what you’re doing.

Jennie Wright [00:27:20]:
Sure.

Joey Vitale [00:27:21]:
I see the benefit there, but we work with one of the best naming agencies in the country. And so whenever we have clients that are running into naming issues, like, we are trademark experts but not naming experts. Mhmm. And so we leave that to another business to handle. And, they are very good at coming up with names that are more suggestive, and I’ll explain what I mean there. But also create, like, a visual language around the brand. So

Jennie Wright [00:27:57]:
Okay.

Joey Vitale [00:27:58]:
For example, the agency itself is called Eat My Words.

Jennie Wright [00:28:04]:
Oh, great name.

Joey Vitale [00:28:05]:
And everything from their, like, client gifts to their website content to how they’ve named their service offerings all have that, like, food related motif.

Jennie Wright [00:28:18]:
Okay.

Joey Vitale [00:28:18]:
And this is outside the coaching space, but, she one of my favorite examples of hers is she was helping this, like, ice cream company that wanted to rebrand and take over more of, like, the young teen

Jennie Wright [00:28:34]:
Mhmm. Space.

Joey Vitale [00:28:36]:
And so, they decided to rename to SpoonMe. And then all of their ice cream flavors were like just a little like cutesy and kind of like PG 13.

Jennie Wright [00:28:50]:
Yep.

Joey Vitale [00:28:51]:
And so I’m I shared those examples because I’m not seeing a ton of us in the like thought leadership coaching world do this. But I think those that are willing to make that jump into I’m gonna come up with a a really unique world of names.

Jennie Wright [00:29:13]:
Yeah.

Joey Vitale [00:29:13]:
So anytime people see something in that language, they’ll assume that it’s me, but it also gives my brand of a place to play. Mhmm. So, not the best example of this, but we like to walk our talk here. And indie law, is not changing its name anytime soon, but we’ve recently identified a ton of like, nautical themes that we can do around, everything from, like, the impact that we wanna make with these, like, ripple awards that we do to, like various like having a lifeboat and like all this other stuff of like protecting brands.

Jennie Wright [00:30:00]:
Mhmm.

Joey Vitale [00:30:00]:
And so ideally, we’re gonna lean more into that type of messaging moving forward. So that when a business owner sees a law firm talking about something that’s kind of a nautical pun, they’ll assume that it’s indie law.

Jennie Wright [00:30:16]:
Okay. I like that because then it associates the name more. And and I like that because it makes you sand stand out, be more unique.

Joey Vitale [00:30:24]:
It really does. And that’s I mean, the the to the, to the credit of this naming agency, their whole thing is you need to come up with a name that is, like, memorable and sticky. Mhmm. And the downside of those, like, marketing AI names is they might be, like, cute and maybe even clever in describing what it is that you do. But because they’re so commonly used, they’re not sticky.

Jennie Wright [00:30:56]:
I get it. Oh, Joe, you’ve given us a lot to think about me to think about. I’m sure people are listening going, oh my. Okay. So reevaluating names, looking at potential changes that need to be made, what to do to protect yourself. And I know that one of the things that you are offering everybody who’s listening, is your keep your business protected with a contract super bundle. I love that. And we’re gonna put that in our show notes.

Jennie Wright [00:31:25]:
And so you can go and grab that. That is a must have contract template for online coaches, course, creators and experts. It’s got a really high value. It’s like worth $3. Yeah. That’s incredible.

Joey Vitale [00:31:37]:
When we decided to no longer be a law firm that did everything else

Jennie Wright [00:31:41]:
Mhmm.

Joey Vitale [00:31:41]:
We just said, you know what? Let’s combine all of our, like, most popular contracts that we’re doing for people and just get it away for free.

Jennie Wright [00:31:49]:
I love that. Thank you. And then only for the listeners of Acquire. Nah. I’m saying not only, but very, very personal to this podcast. Joey, you also talked about giving people a free trademark consult. And if you drop the name Jenny Wright or acquire podcast, they’re gonna give you a really nice discount on having that conversation for a flat fee trademark trademark package. And I think that is so generous.

Jennie Wright [00:32:14]:
So thank you for doing that.

Joey Vitale [00:32:16]:
Absolutely. Yeah. No no matter what whether you decide to move forward with us or not, we are continuing to just get rave reviews from people that reach out, offer this free call, have this free call with us, and and we’ll help you clarify next steps in which of your trademarks we would recommend that you call LegalDibZone first.

Jennie Wright [00:32:36]:
Absolutely. And I think that’s super important. I think everybody should be looking and having that call just to protect yourselves going forward. If you are launching a course or you already have a course and it’s not trademarked, or even if you have a podcast, taking a look at the name and your business and everything and making sure that everything’s buttoned up. So you don’t get that cease and desist letter. I would hate for people to get that. I’m sure it scares the crap out of people. You were actually just before we wrap up, I want you to tell us about this email that you sent that just went bananas for your business, that you talked with me a little bit offline.

Jennie Wright [00:33:09]:
Tell me a little bit more about the email, a little bit more about the the reaction to it just before we wrap up.

Joey Vitale [00:33:14]:
Yeah. I was hesitant to do this for so long because I I knew that it would turn off some people. But when we first got started, one of the things that that really helped us help more people was we had a a few clients that had really big horror stories of receiving a cease and desist letter. And other people just felt like that would never happen to them.

Jennie Wright [00:33:39]:
Mhmm.

Joey Vitale [00:33:40]:
But or when we shared their story, we were like, oh my gosh. Thank you so much. Now that I know this is a thing, I know to avoid it. And so just to to make that potential risk, more something that you can hold space for, like, I really wanna avoid that happening to me. We added an email to our workflows with the subject line of you are hereby ordered to cease to desist.

Jennie Wright [00:34:11]:
Okay. What was the reaction to that?

Joey Vitale [00:34:13]:
We’ve we had a couple unsubscribers from it, but the overwhelmingly, we’ve had people, provide us really positive feedback of, like, oh my gosh. Like, that scared me in a good way

Jennie Wright [00:34:24]:
Mhmm.

Joey Vitale [00:34:25]:
And, like, made me realize that I need to prioritize this. Because as a business owner, you’ve got so many choices to make a never ending laundry list of to do’s, and stuff like legal can very easily get stuck in that someday maybe category.

Jennie Wright [00:34:40]:
Of course.

Joey Vitale [00:34:41]:
And this this was a really helpful thing, I think, to get people to say, you know what? No. This is going to be a, something that I’m going to scratch off the list today.

Jennie Wright [00:34:50]:
Absolutely. It’s a good motivator. And if I saw that email in my inbox or my spam, I’m opening it immediately. Right. So great marketing tactic. I give you kudos on the marketing side. Great on the informational side to motivate people to do the right thing and get themselves protected all around. Joey think it’s a really great way of getting people’s, thoughts and feelings around what they should be doing to protect their businesses and their brands going forward.

Jennie Wright [00:35:16]:
I really appreciate you being on the Acquire podcast. This was an incredible conversation. I really am glad that we had this. I think it’s gonna be an eye opener for a lot of people.

Joey Vitale [00:35:27]:
Oh, well, thanks, Jenny. And if you guys listening to this podcast, do me and Jenny a big favor and leave her a positive review.

Jennie Wright [00:35:36]:
Thank you. I love I always ask for them, but I it’s great when a guest asks for them for me too. So go listen to Joey, and leave a podcast review for the Acquire podcast. Let me know what you think. And as we’re wrapping up, make sure that you are hitting subscribe wherever you’re listening to the podcast. There are so many good guests coming. Joey is just one of an elite group that I’m so excited and privileged to have on this podcast to share great details and information. So make sure you don’t miss another episode.

Jennie Wright [00:36:04]:
Anyways, thank you so much for listening and we’ll talk to y’all soon. Take care.