Imagineering Now Pty Ltd. – Part 2

Biz Bites: Trademark Trouble – The Financial Foreplay Case (Part 2)

Guest: Rhondalynn Korolak, Financial Advisor

Host: Anthony Perl

In this episode, you’ll learn:

The challenges of trademark infringement, as Rhondalynn Korolak shares her experience battling to protect her brand name "Financial Foreplay." Why having a plan to defend your trademark is crucial before taking legal action. The surprising fact that most trademark cases don’t go to trial. How social media fame can be a double-edged sword when it comes to brand building. The importance of mindset in financial literacy and how Rhondalynn helps clients overcome "stinking thinking" about money.

Key takeaways:

Trademark your brand, but be prepared for potential legal battles. Consider alternative dispute resolution before resorting to court. Social media following doesn’t always equate to expertise. Financial literacy is achievable, and focusing on the right mindset is key.

Stay tuned:

We’ll follow Rhondalynn’s story and keep you updated on the resolution of her case. We’ll explore the positive aspects of Rhondalynn’s work in future episodes.

TRANSCRIPT

Anthony Perl: I hope you’ve had a chance to listen to part one of this interview on BizBytes. Stay tuned now for part two. Welcome to Biz Bites brought to you by CommTogether. Helping businesses like yours build their brand through telling amazing stories to engage and grow audiences on multiple platforms. I wanted to ask you, I guess, about where this is Got to, because is there an end?

Is there a, is there a happy ending and, and, and all of this, these court cases and things have cost you an arm and a leg, no doubt. And you’ve got to fund that along the way, not to mention, can you recoup any of those costs? Where does, where does it play

Rhondalynn Korolak: out? Oh, look, it’s not over yet. We won’t know the issues, you know, the final issues that need to be sorted out until mid to late February, and I don’t even know.

We have to attend court. We have to make, um, submissions as to how my costs are going to get reimbursed, um, whether the judge might make some sort of injunction to prevent her from doing it again so that there’s immediate consequences if it does happen. By accident, regardless of whose fault it is, and also some kind of declaratory relief.

So one of the big issues that I have is when you do a Google search, there’s still a lot of stuff out there on third party sites that say financial, you know, Sugar Mama’s financial foreplayer. You know, related to her podcast and financial foreplay, and I need a piece of paper that will allow me to go over there and say, I have won this in court, and you need to take the content down immediately.

And so that’s basically some of the types of things that I’ll be seeking. But yeah, it’s by no means done and even in February, it might not be done because I don’t know if the judge decides immediately, or if they go away I mean, it took. Um, about 13 or so months for the judgment. So after the trial, it took more than a year to get the physical judgment.

So I don’t know how these things.

Anthony Perl: Yeah, the legal system, the legal system baffles me, and we could probably talk about that another time for, uh, till, uh, till the cows come home, um, it’s, I guess the, the, there are some interesting points, I think that in all of this, and one is the fact that you had the foresight in the first place to trademark, and it’s not something that that many people do, and those that do, I find it, um, fascinating.

Those that do, Rarely do monitor and follow up and I recall particularly working with an organization some years ago and I came into the organization and they were partway through the trademark process. And I personally thought the trademark was ridiculous because it was a name that was already being used, maybe not, you know, and potentially even in similar circumstances.

So, but I sort of said to them, let’s assume all of this is registered because it was nearly there. What happens if someone opens up down the road tomorrow with the same using the same thing, um, what are you going to do about it? And they said, well, not much because we haven’t got any money. And I said, okay, so, um, and I think that’s, it raises that interesting point that a lot of people and I, and I suspect, um, this is what happens in a lot of cases is they.

Whether they even attempt to register the trademark or not, they put the TM up there. I’ve seen that being done in the past where they’ve actually not even bothered to register it. They just may be in the process of doing it. And so they spent, you know, nothing on, on trying to do it and hope that that is going to, um, stop people from wanting to, to do anything.

So, so there’s that aspect. That, um, I, I think, is, I wanted to ask you about initially is, is what, is it because of your legal background that you, and because you knew you had something unique in the way that you were addressing this whole thing that made you want to trademark in the first place?

Rhondalynn Korolak: Well, look, I originally started using it in 2009.

So late 2009 is when I first published Financial Foreplay as a book. And I was using it pretty much exclusively, um, throughout that period until the date that I, um, registered it. So I didn’t have a trademark for quite a number of years. And to be fair, you know, I have never been challenged. There has never actually been a person in Australia or anywhere in the world who has ever actually challenged my exclusive right to use that as a trademark.

And so that tells you a lot about the fact that it is unique. But everybody knew that I had come up with it and most people knew that when they searched for it, that my books and speaking and you know, sometimes I would be speaking at conferences in San Jose in California for QuickBooks, and I’d had the branding up on the slides and stuff and that was going out in front of hundreds of people.

So a lot of people, thousands of people would have known that I was the creator of this brand. So at first it didn’t occur to me to trademark. But then I started realizing that, hey, this is valuable and no one else is still using it. Therefore, I’m going to trademark it. But I had no idea what it was going to involve in order to defend it.

Because I think the biggest disservice that lawyers are doing to small businesses in this country is telling people to trademark stuff, but not properly advising them ahead of time. What is the plan going to be? That you’re going to use to protect defend and enforce this trademark, because if you don’t have a plan in place, and this happens to you, do you have 200, 000 that you can just pull out of your back pocket to spend on lawyers to enforce this or not?

I mean, not everybody has to go to court. Let’s, let’s be clear. My lawyers, because I’ve, you know, consulted with various people on this, everyone has said, Okay. 76 percent of people stop at the first cease and desist letter. It usually doesn’t go beyond that. It’s rare for to get into a situation like where I was in, that it went all the way to a trial.

Probably only 1 percent of these cases actually go to trial. And I would hazard a guess. You know, in my humble opinion, no one has ever gone to trial in a trademark matter using an identical mark for the same class of goods and services. I don’t think that would have ever happened. I think most people would have been savvy enough to settle.

Some people are going to be stubborn. Some people are going to have deep pockets and maybe they think that you’re going to give up. Maybe they think that you just don’t have the stamina. To, to go the whole distance. Well, if she thought that she thought wrong, because, you know, her background, I don’t know, you know, she’s done, but she’s not a lawyer and she’s not a chartered accountant.

And so I just documented and documented and documented and I persisted. And it was expensive and it was stressful and it was hugely, you know, elongated and delayed more than it really needed to be. But it’s just about, you know, I really think that what we need to talk to people more about is helping them to put better plans in place to prevent people from doing this to them.

But also if it does happen, how do they respond to it? And how do they settle it? So that it doesn’t go to court. I mean, in my case, I don’t know whether that would have been possible. Remember, in my case, the infringement went on until April of 2022. So it started in June of 2020, and it was still going until April of 22.

22, 2. So if I hadn’t have taken it to court, I don’t think it would’ve stopped. Right. I don’t think I would’ve been able to get enough leverage to make it stop. I, I don’t know. I mean, I can’t say with any degree of certainty, but to me it was always about. I need to make it stop. I need to get the content taken down and now I’m very focused on how do I get the rest of the straggling content down.

And so, you know, I think that there’s lessons to be learned in all of this. Like valuable lessons about, you know, know your opponent. Like, first of all, do you have a plan? Second of all, is your opponent a reasonable person or they, somebody that’s got too much money and too much to lose from a social media perspective.

They don’t want to, they don’t want to lose face. It’s about ego, right? When you’re a social media influencer, everything’s about likes and comments and look at me, look at me. Those types of people don’t like to be told they don’t like to be wrong, they don’t like to, you know, they’re, you know, above us in their mind.

Right. So even it was quite funny, even in the, the whole court case, you know, her and her barrister were arguing that, you know, I don’t have any goodwill and I’m this, and I’m not, you don’t need to sp screw crap on Instagram to be good at what you do. Right. The fact that I’ve got a legal degree and an accounting degree, I’ve been doing this for 25 years.

I’ve worked with tiny companies. I’ve worked with companies in financial acumen as big as NBN. And I’ve designed programs, which I demonstrated via evidence in the courtroom for 6, 000 employees of that company. Right. I clearly have to know what I’m doing. If I can get an NPS score of nine on huge projects I’m doing for multi billion dollar companies, chances are I’m pretty good at finance, right?

But her whole argument was, because I didn’t have as many Instagram followers as her, and I didn’t have this YouTube thing, and I wasn’t dancing around in my closet putting on lipstick, And putting on clothes and prancing around that somehow that makes me, you know, having no goodwill and not good at what I do.

I wholly, I take umbrage at that. I wholly reject that as any kind of, you know, Statement that anybody can make without people laughing at it that if we’ve got to that point in the world, where the number of social media followers is any indication of how good you are at your finance job, and then help us right, like we’ve totally missed the plot.

Oh, yes, there is.

Anthony Perl: There’s so much in, in, in that. I mean, I, and I, and I think that extends beyond even, even this particular case, you know, I’m a, I’m a big believer in, in quality over, over quantity. And, um, you know, as, as a podcaster, you will have seen as well that, um, there are many. Uh, groups out there that will advertise that, Oh, I have a hundred thousand, you know, downloads of your podcast in the next little bit.

Um, I know it always fascinates me by the way they use downloads. So they’re not assuming that there’s actual people listening to the thing. This is a download. So, you know, things can be manipulated when it comes to, uh, when it comes to the, to reach and, uh, and whether that’s a reality or not. And I think.

You know, how we measure these things is important. And that gets back to one other question that I wanted to ask you is that all of this has been happening. What damage has it done to your brand and the way that you deliver it? And indeed, what have you lost? Do you think you’ve lost work because of what’s been put out there by somebody else as that tarnished your brand?

Rhondalynn Korolak: It’s hurt my brand, but in possibly ways that might not be as straightforward or as expected, right? So I think that there has been a lot that has gone on and I’ve had to defend myself out there in the media. And me defending myself out there in the media, I got actually attacked. So, because remember that I said that there were comments made that I had cyber bullied and harassed?

Some people took those comments to be correct and accurate. And they came to me on social media and called me a thief and a liar and all kinds of stuff. So I was taking a lot of hits because Perhaps people took things the wrong way. The second aspect of it is just the sheer volume of work that is required to document and prove something like this in court.

You know, we’re talking thousand pages or more of evidence being submitted and it all has to be, you know, date stamped and organised and legible and there’s all the stuff that happens behind the scenes. It took my mind and my focus Off of building my company. And that was actually the biggest loss that I suffered was me having to protect and enforce my rights took me off.

It’s sort of like the difference between working on your business and working in your business. I was working in it just trying to get all this stuff going with legal because it’s easier to defend something like this than it is to prosecute it, right? Yes. So the burden is on me to prove it. Where she just kept saying.

No, no, no, she didn’t really have to do that much. There was a lot less evidential burden really on her with respect to providing stuff. And a lot of the stuff I thought she provided really just wasn’t. To me, it didn’t seem to have a heaps of relevance to the whole thing, but you know, that’s only my personal opinion.

It’s not really anything, but I think that was the biggest cost is I took my focus off of really driving the brand and building the business because I had to, in order to just get through this thing and, um,

Anthony Perl: Yeah. Um, well, it’s, it is an incredible journey that you’ve been on and one that, um, I guess, well, it’s, it’s a bit of stay tuned.

There’s a lot of cautionary tales here for people, uh, to, to pay attention to. And I, but I think it’s also important to share with people that don’t let this go to the other extreme of stopping you from sharing content. Uh, this is. Unfortunately, there are always some bad seeds out there and people will do the wrong thing and that can happen no matter what you can’t lock yourself away in a, in a bubble.

I think the vast majority of people treat things correctly. We all learn from each other, and I think there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with being inspired by other people and, and, uh, paying tribute to those people and connecting with those people. Uh, there’s a difference between that and, and going out and just trying to make some, you know, make something your own that’s, that’s not.

Um, and, uh, I think as I said, don’t let it stop people listening in from going out there and, and educating and continuing to put content out there as you were doing. That’s the, that’s the important thing is, is whilst all this is going on, you’re continuing to put content out there and continuing to build your audience.

Rhondalynn Korolak: Yeah. I put content out there, but I guess social media isn’t my primary focus. So for some people, it might be. You know, for me, it was only a secondary focus because what I do is often quite involved. I mean, the interesting part of what I do is when I get in and work with a lot of businesses, particularly the ones that are larger, I’ve got to sign NDAs.

So I can’t necessarily spruik all over social media what I’m doing and make a big stink of it because what I’m dealing with and the type of information and disclosure that I’m privy to is private and confidential. You know, people consider. The things that they’re telling me and the plans and the goals and the strategies that they have isn’t something that is for public consumption.

So I don’t get the luxury of getting out and, you know, giving, doing a lot of videos and audio content about physically what I’m doing for some of these customers. And I guess that’s the difference. You have to decide. What’s important to you? Do you want to be out there and creating content and sort of really growing that?

Or are you really, like me, somebody who is more focused on just kind of really doing the job and doing it well to the best of your ability and just talking a little bit? Out there sort of in social media land. And once you know kind of who you are, because not all of us are extroverts, right? Once you know that, then you can kind of adjust yourself accordingly and, and please do put things out.

But just remember, just, you know, put some Google searches, you know, that’s an easy thing. You can put some, some Google, um, uh, captions and searches through your Gmail looking for people using. You know, key snippets of your content. If you’re worried about absolutely put some sentences in there, put your brand in there.

And that way, if it, if somebody is using it, at least you’re going to get a heads up that, Hey, you might have to look into this and talk to people. And hopefully I hope I sincerely hope that most of you who are going through this are going to get people on the other end who just didn’t know. They just like genuinely did not know.

And they’re more than happy to work with you to come up with a strategy of extricating themselves from your content and taking things down. You know, I’ve had people use stuff of mine, like copy and paste articles and put it on their site and not attribute. But most people, when you bring it to their attention, take it down straight away.

This is, you know, the very first time I’ve had something like this on this scale happen, and I think it is rare, but

Anthony Perl: well, look, I have, I was gonna say I’ve enjoyed the conversation. I have enjoyed the conversation. I haven’t enjoyed the story in this true sense of what’s happened. Uh, and, uh, and I’m sorry for everything that has gone on with you, but I wanted to leave on a things on a positive note.

So let’s, let’s put. All of that story behind and focus on the work that you actually do. And it’s a question that I like to ask all of my guests is tell me about the aha moment that clients have when they work with you that you wish perhaps more people would know of in advance. What is, what is it that really, once they start working with you, makes them go, I should have been doing this before.

Rhondalynn Korolak: Look, I think the biggest aha moment that any small business owner can have. Is there realization that being good with their numbers or at cash flow is actually much easier than they’d ever imagined, right? They don’t need to know how to physically calculate cash flow. They just need to know what are the key drivers in their business so that they can focus 100 percent of their time on there.

So people when they get confidence. From knowing for discovering these things for the first time, or even just putting results on the board. It’s a huge transformation for them in their business. And I think that that transformation is a mindset one, you know, we like to think of finance as being numbers, but really it all starts from inside.

If I can go into your business and help you with your cashflow. But if you’ve got, as I like to call it, stinking thinking, right, if you’ve got some things that you think about money and the way that you’ve set yourself up that do not serve you and do not help you, we need to change those things as well as put the strategies and systems in place to deal with the numbers.

Otherwise, you will sabotage yourself, you’ll shoot yourself in the foot over and over. So for me, it’s that, you know. Realization that numbers aren’t as hard as they thought, but also their mindset in the way that they think about it is far more impactful than I think most people could ever imagine. And how, you know, how do we work at putting those two things together?

You know, I love numbers. And my goal is for other people to love them too, in, in their own way, maybe not intimately, but in their own way.

Anthony Perl: Well, I absolutely love it. And I do, uh, you know, I’ve, I’ve really enjoyed talking to you. I’ve enjoyed hearing about the, uh, about the positives of what you do as well as, uh, the, As well as the way you’ve, you’ve written this, this amazing storm and, and I thank you for sharing because it’s an important one that lots of people should listen into and I’m sure they have and persevered to the end of this, uh, story to, to understand where it’s at and, uh, we’ll keep people informed.

Uh, I’m sure as, uh, as this progresses with you, I’m sure we’ll have another opportunity to, uh, to talk and hopefully talk just positively about the resolution to it all and moving, moving further afield and all the rest of it. So look, thank you again for being a great guest on the program. And, uh, we of course, we’ll include all of the information on how to get in touch with you in our show notes.

So thank you again, Rhondalynn for sharing. My pleasure. Thanks

Rhondalynn Korolak: for being a good listener,

Anthony Perl: and thank you everyone for listening in. And of course, uh, stay tuned for the next episode of Biz Bites. Biz Bites is brought to you by comm together for all your marketing needs, so you can build your brand, engage audiences on multiple platforms.

Go to commtogether.com.au follow the links to book an appointment for a free consultation.