[00:00:02] Speaker A: Ramping up your business. The time is near. You've given it hard. Now get it in gear. It's passage to profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: I'm Richard Gerhart, founder of Gearhart Law, a full service intellectual property law firm specializing in patents, trademarks, and copyrights.
[00:00:20] Speaker C: And I'm Elizabeth Gerhardt. Not an attorney, but I do marketing for Gearhart Law, and I have my own startups and podcasts.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Are you one of the two in five Americans wanting to start your own business or already a business owner? Stay tuned. This show is about starting and growing your business. Welcome to passage to the road to entrepreneurship, where we learn why and how ordinary people just like you, started and grew their businesses. And we also talk about the intellectual property that helps protect your innovations. It's time for your new business journey. As I mentioned before, two in five.
[00:00:52] Speaker D: Americans want to start a new business. And they want to know, should I.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: Start a new business journey? One of the questions that our audience frequently asks are, what kind of marketing do I need to do for my new business?
[00:01:06] Speaker D: And so I'd like to ask our guests, maybe starting with Ernesto.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: Welcome to the show.
[00:01:12] Speaker E: Thank you.
[00:01:13] Speaker D: Tell us what you did to start.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Marketing your new business.
[00:01:17] Speaker E: I started talking about it. I started talking about what we do, started talking about how I was single.
[00:01:23] Speaker F: Minded in my focus and how I wasn't trying to be a jack of all trades, but I was trying to master one. And I made sure I told the biggest people in the first industry that we broke into that we were the most competent at what we do.
[00:01:36] Speaker D: That's great. I think starting with a small niche like that and focusing on your competence is great.
[00:01:43] Speaker G: Barbara, I have to agree with Ernesto. That's exactly how we started. But also, I think building a solid foundation when you're starting a business is very important, whether it's financial, whether it's creative, whether it's marketing, they're all a big part of growing that very big base. So when you grow, you grow strong. It's very important.
[00:02:08] Speaker D: That's great.
[00:02:09] Speaker B: Gerard, welcome back. Tell us, what did you do when you were starting your new business?
[00:02:14] Speaker H: Well, first, thanks for having me back. And I want to echo something that Barbara said, and it's about having a strong foundation. So, so important. And honestly, something I wish I knew at the beginning of the journey where you having your systems in place, having ways to capture data, having a plan for what to do with that data, super, super important. And if you have that at the beginning, you're going to save yourself a lot of time having to go back and fix.
[00:02:37] Speaker D: That's great advice. Remy.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: What did you do when you first started your business to market it?
[00:02:42] Speaker I: One of the first things that I did was I went out and I joined multiple chambers of commerce. That was the best way to meet local business owners in my area who needed help in my services. And it was just a great way of physically putting myself out there. And then after, when the pandemic hit and we all went virtual, I still had those connections that I had met in person that helped create a strong foundation for my business and set up a referral network for me and RCL media.
[00:03:12] Speaker D: That's great, Elizabeth.
[00:03:14] Speaker C: Well, I want to talk about the business we're working on now, which is remodeling our podcast studio that we used all during COVID for passage to profit so we can rent it out to other people. Really? When you have a physical location, I think that's probably the best thing to do.
[00:03:29] Speaker D: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: When we started Gearhart Law, we started.
[00:03:32] Speaker D: It out of the attic in our house. And so for me, the primary mode of getting clients was to go to networking events and meet people and create relationships. This was back in 2005, when attorney marketing on the Internet was not such a big thing. We did, though, start a website, and a lot of people at the time.
[00:03:54] Speaker B: Told me, you're never going to get.
[00:03:56] Speaker D: Legal clients from a website. Well, guess what? We got a lot of clients from our website. And it turned out to be the greatest thing.
[00:04:03] Speaker C: Almost 20 years ago, though, we were laughing about it in the car on the way here. We had to put the word patent like 25 times on the homepage in different ways.
[00:04:12] Speaker D: You either had to have a really clunky sounding website that used your keywords every other sentence, or you could write eloquently and not get any hits. So things are a lot better nowadays.
[00:04:24] Speaker G: I do have a question about the attic. Was it a pull down or a walk up?
[00:04:30] Speaker D: We had a walk up.
[00:04:32] Speaker C: Fortunately, it was a walk up with a low ceiling.
[00:04:36] Speaker B: Passage to profit is a nationally syndicated radio show appearing in 31 markets across the United States. Thank you to the P two P team, our producer, Noah Fleischman, and our program coordinators, Alicia Morrissey and Rishikep Busari. Look for our podcast tomorrow, anywhere you get your podcasts. Our podcast is ranked in the top 3% globally. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram x, and on our YouTube channel. And remember, while the information on this program is believed to be correct, never take a legal step without checking with your legal professional first Gearhart law is.
[00:05:11] Speaker D: Here for your patent, trademark and copyright needs.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: You can find
[email protected] and contact us.
[00:05:17] Speaker D: For a free consultation.
[00:05:18] Speaker B: Take care, everybody. Thanks for listening.
[00:05:20] Speaker D: And we'll be back next week.
