Protecting my business model?

[SerpentHearted]

thread reminds me of when i used to go on musician forums and once a month some kid would come on and post "i want to put my song on myspace but how do i stop other people from stealing it, rerecording it and saying that they wrote it", like their song is the next ****ing stairway to heaven or something.

most people who get into PT (or music, or pretty much most things) are going to have their own ideas about how they want to do things. Unless some guy is already mega successful, I can't see anyone looking at him and going "I'm going to steal all his ideas and copy everything he's doing". More to the point, from my experiences talking to trainers on this forum and other places on the net and IRL the really successful people seem to be VERY happy to offer advice to help out the new guys anyway.

[NorthTexasBB]

Kind of generalized like how you referred to police officers????????


The business model you describe is dandy and all. But it leads to one thing. You're a workout partner for hire. Lots of people know a lot about fitness and exercise. Lots of people are willing to be workout partners. Some are both. And even more are willing to charge $$$ for it. Thats PT's. No more, no less. I personally don't see much value in a PT after about the 6th lesson. After that, if a client comes back, it's to have a workout partner that they can pay.

Although I sort of agree I would still pay top dollar to hang out at joe defrancos gym every weekend to gain information from him. I would also argue that some PT are extremely knowledgeable when it comes to nutrition and getting ready for contests or events such as Alan Aragon who I would want to see me through till the day of my event.

PT's are no more different then S&C coaches, the only fundamental difference is group setting since both can be highly educated and both can produce quality programs.

[Nuttynutskin]

Are you stupid? If McDonlds started selling Baconators, Burger King wouldnt be pissed? Burger King didnt invent the concept of the burger but they did make it unique.

Lol it's not illegal for businesses to compete with eachother as long as they aren't completely copying something. Today I got a Big Carl after I worked out today from Carl's Jr. And guess what? It's a KNOCK OFF OF A BIG MAC FROM MCDONALD'S.



Is McDonald's happy that they have some competition? Probably not. Do they have grounds to sue Carl's Jr? Absolutely not. If you're this possesive of your groundbreaking information I suggest you look into a different field than becoming a pt because you will not succeed thinking the way you are.

[Nuttynutskin]

Man, you really are a neanderthal. Yes Thor, if McDonald's sells a product with the TRADEMARKED NAME owned by Burger King, then BK will have reason to file a law suit, which is exactly what my argument was (regarding actual, documented copyright infringement of a patent, copyright or trademark). McDonalds selling a bacon hamburger on the other hand, for instance simply renaming it a Bacon McBurger, would be sufficient to avoid that. And that's precisely what nearly every fast-food joint has done. You are trying to tell me that Burger King is the only restaurant to offer a bacon hamburger? A restaurant cannot own a common idea like putting bacon on a hamburger. The "Baconator" name can be trademarked. The idea of bacon on a hamburger cannot. The fact that you think otherwise shows how little you know about, well, anything.

Ooops... Beat me to it.

[KyleAaron]

thread reminds me of when i used to go on musician forums and once a month some kid would come on and post "i want to put my song on myspace but how do i stop other people from stealing it, rerecording it and saying that they wrote it", like their song is the next ****ing stairway to heaven or something.

Good comparison, bit of a burn for the lad, really. But he needs it.

[WoofieNugget]

It makes perfect sense. I'm not trying to protect common info, I'm trying to protect whats unique which is no longer present in the packet.

I'd really love to hear what you consider unique. Although I guess I'd have to pay for this magical packet you speak of.

[equestrian]

Okay, let me try this.

OP - a lot of folks in this thread are basically telling you the same thing. Yet, no one is in violation of copyright.

You cannot copyright, trademark, or patent an idea - it must be more specific than that. The same goes for a color - I cannot trademark the color blue for example. I can trademark my logo and the colors used in my logo but only as it applies to my logo. You cannot protect a business model - it is too generalized.

NBC succeeded in trademarking their distinctive chime sound for their logo that you sometimes hear on TV. But when Harley Davidson tried to do the same thing for the "sound" of their engines, they failed.

The recipe for Coca-Cola is patented and a heavily guarded secret. Pepsi is a similar product but with a different ingredient list. If Coca-Cola had been able to patent their IDEA , Pepsi, RC, or any other competitor with dark colored soda water would have been in violation of the patent.

When I was in high school, I worked part time for a doughnut shop. Everyone called the owner "Mac" (he was Vietnamese and his real name was difficult to pronounce). He opened his shop and called it Mac Doughnuts.

Unfortunately, it was right next door to McDonalds. They promptly sued for trademark violation. The courts decided that if the shop owner changed the name to Mac's Rancho Doughnuts, he'd be okay.

So sometimes things do fall too close to the patent or copyright and you'll hear about legal spats on the news but many times these cases are difficult to prove.

I just want to make sure you, OP, have a decent grasp of what you can protect under intellectual property laws and what you can't. And as I said before, what the law says is one thing, actually doing it is entirely another.

[seabass08]

A bit off topic but would you prefer PT's to be called personal fitness coaches then? A lot of professional sports people have personal trainers but according to your logic they don't need them because everything they need to know should be covered by the 6th lesson, and then the program can forever stay the same without any modification???
Depending on your goals, you may only need 4-5 sessions and then can go off and do your own thing, but clearly not everyone in this world is like you.

Not at all. My dream would be that the 95% of douche bag PT's out there get rooted out of the business, and leave it to the other 5% of great ones, probably you being one of that 5%. I'm really just suprised more of you guys don't call out those posers that are making a mockery of the PT profession. Commercial gym management is also at fault in large part for tolerating those posers also.

[MVP]

If anything in life can be done, then it's illegal these days.

[seabass08]

Although I sort of agree I would still pay top dollar to hang out at joe defrancos gym every weekend to gain information from him. I would also argue that some PT are extremely knowledgeable when it comes to nutrition and getting ready for contests or events such as Alan Aragon who I would want to see me through till the day of my event.

PT's are no more different then S&C coaches, the only fundamental difference is group setting since both can be highly educated and both can produce quality programs.

Yep, you're right. I'm just hoping somehow the industry will run off the 95% of PT's who are 20-somethings that are full of sh**, wearing overly tight t-shirts and making a joke of the gym, and leave it to the others like you mentioned. I train myself at a commercial gym, just because who wants to spend their off time back at the office??? But I find myself more and more going back to the school gym because I get so annoyed by the moron PT's in every gym I go to. Oh, I try to ignore it. But when you are in between sets of squats, and sipping water, and a PT just starts unloading your weight so he can use the bar on the safety rails to let a person do angled pushups at a rate of 10 per minute, and the proceed to explain the exercises WRONGLY, it becomes hard to see why more people don't call those guys out.

[LiftHeavy85]

Yep, you're right. I'm just hoping somehow the industry will run off the 95% of PT's who are 20-somethings that are full of sh**, wearing overly tight t-shirts and making a joke of the gym, and leave it to the others like you mentioned. I train myself at a commercial gym, just because who wants to spend their off time back at the office??? But I find myself more and more going back to the school gym because I get so annoyed by the moron PT's in every gym I go to. Oh, I try to ignore it. But when you are in between sets of squats, and sipping water, and a PT just starts unloading your weight so he can use the bar on the safety rails to let a person do angled pushups at a rate of 10 per minute, and the proceed to explain the exercises WRONGLY, it becomes hard to see why more people don't call those guys out.

I agree, The amount of trainers/coachs that are knowledgeable and good are extremely rare in this day and age and their client list shows that. I think 5% is probably a little high for the quality of trainers that are in this business.

[joelash302]

Apologies for jumping into a PT thread, but I think it's interesting to note for this discussion that there is a guy doing exactly what you are talking about and posts on these boards. Check out Mixel's "The Blueprint" threads. For some very odd reason, you cannot find a single word about the program itself except how incredible it is and how willing Mixel is to try to answer your questions without divulging a hair of information unless you pay for it (it's only $35 so it isn't like he's trying to break your wallet on his plan). As an FYI, I have not done this program and would not be able to tell you it's efficacy.

If you want to be super successful on a unique p/t plan, you'll have to train a lot of people for free and get some strong endorsements, then figure out a way to get them to keep silent about the strategy, make it complicated enough to make it extremely difficult (read - not worth it) to replicate, or be an expert that people don't question and are willing to pay regardless of how available their knowledge is (Ripptoe, etc.).

Consumer perspective .

[tovlakas]

Apologies for jumping into a PT thread, but I think it's interesting to note for this discussion that there is a guy doing exactly what you are talking about and posts on these boards. Check out Mixel's "The Blueprint" threads. For some very odd reason, you cannot find a single word about the program itself except how incredible it is and how willing Mixel is to try to answer your questions without divulging a hair of information unless you pay for it (it's only $35 so it isn't like he's trying to break your wallet on his plan). As an FYI, I have not done this program and would not be able to tell you it's efficacy.

If you want to be super successful on a unique p/t plan, you'll have to train a lot of people for free and get some strong endorsements, then figure out a way to get them to keep silent about the strategy, make it complicated enough to make it extremely difficult (read - not worth it) to replicate, or be an expert that people don't question and are willing to pay regardless of how available their knowledge is (Ripptoe, etc.).

Consumer perspective .

No offense, but a consumer's perspective on how to succeed on the business side of personal training (or any business, for that matter) is about as useful as a chocolate teapot. As expected, your advice is way off. There is no need to "figure out a way to keep them silent about the strategy" that is, once again, fear-based business. This is a service-based industry, NOT a product-based industry. Protecting your business ideas is much more pointless in a service-based industry because it's not the plan that is worth anything, it's the implementation, and as has been said 100000000 times now, you can't copyright, trademark or patent such a vague concept as implementation of your business ideas.

[md3sign]

Someone give the troll(s) a baconator.

Whether your idea is unique is irrelevant. No one cares. Here's all that matters:

1) You're not going to trademark or copyright your material because it's either not unique enough and/or going to cost too much.

2) Even if you did trademark or copyright it, there's not much you could do if a bunch of people decided to use it, even if they altered it. See: pirated music, movies, games, just about anything that's legitimately copywritten. Are you trying to tell me you've never downloaded a movie or burned a CD? Yea, you should be sued.

All this "intellectual property" talk is just dumb. Want your ideas protected? Keep them to yourself. And find something better to do with your time, like build your business.

[seabass08]

No offense, but a consumer's perspective on how to succeed on the business side of personal training (or any business, for that matter) is about as useful as a chocolate teapot. As expected, your advice is way off. There is no need to "figure out a way to keep them silent about the strategy" that is, once again, fear-based business. This is a service-based industry, NOT a product-based industry. Protecting your business ideas is much more pointless in a service-based industry because it's not the plan that is worth anything, it's the implementation, and as has been said 100000000 times now, you can't copyright, trademark or patent such a vague concept as implementation of your business ideas.

?????????????

So, it would be useless to consider the point of view..........of your customers.......regarding your business model.

I think a lot of business experts would disagree.