What is your IP and how do you protect it?

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Monday, October 17th 2011, 7:13AM

There is a widening gap between the professional advisers who have a system for acquiring new business and serving existing clients on the one hand, and salespeople going from one sale to the next on the other. Often the hallmark of those professional advisers is a way of doing business which can be unique to them - and because they may have emerged over a number of years, perhaps originating at a time in the past, they are usually not noticed as the great asset in the business that they should be.

A way of obtaining clients, which works systematically, is a goldmine. Yet often people think something else is their property. The biggest mistake is thinking that IP means something published - like a book. It may be intellectual, it may be property, but books in a market this small are seldom worth anything.

On the other hand, I've been involved with a group of advisers who found that their product comparison materials were really worth something when someone else decided that they might like to copy them.

Remember - the business of a financial services adviser is mainly helping people make decisions about which financial products to buy and then providing service to support and review those choices on a regular basis. What helps your clients do those things, that you developed, and that is also unique to you, is most likely to be your intellectual property. It may be in reports, information, sales tools, presentations, scripts, advertisements, websites, and other tools. Look them over.

To protect it you must be able to define it. You must be able to identify when you first created it. Good evidence of your development of intellectual property - rather than just something which is generally known or used in the sector - is shown by a history of development, such as different versions gradually enhanced and improved over time. Clearly signalling to others that you consider the material to be subject to copyright is not just a good defensive strategy, it is helpful: letting people know how to stay out of trouble with you is also a courtesy. It is also one which could be practiced more often by the cheerfully creative Kiwi adviser sector.

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