More on why it's good to share your IP

The previous article suggested why it can be a good idea to share your IP with clients. Having a reputation for being smarter, faster and better than your rivals can make your phones ring even when markets are quiet. Following some suggestions, I thought I should follow up with a recent example and use it as a case study of how relatively easy it can be and the rewards it can bring to your business.

The little blue book.

I spent just over three years helping to get Cockram Construction established in Queensland. During that time it grew from one (me) to some 30 construction staff and $100million of work.  There were lots of contributing factors and having access to good people and leveraging an excellent reputation elsewhere were certainly instrumental. 

What was also instrumental was targeting a niche and positioning the business as the ‘go to’ people in the space. One illustration of how that was done was what I came to call ‘the little blue book.’

Cockram had some considerable expertise interstate and internationally in the delivery of physical containment laboratories (PC Labs). These are essentially positive or negative pressure sealed labs, used for research (typically) into micro-organisms which can do us a lot of harm. They are very expensive; full of complex services and if they don’t seal or otherwise fail certification, they are useless for their purpose. So having a builder who knows what they’re doing is essential.

Cockram, like many businesses, didn’t spend a lot of time sharing its IP widely. Finding out more about PC Labs wasn’t easy, until I came across a Powerpoint presentation which had been prepared by one of Cockram’s experts for a client briefing.  The beauty of the Powerpoint was that it was very visual and it had pretty much everything there, but expressed in layman terms. Clients could understand it and appreciate that the presenter knew their stuff.

To me, the presentation had all the makings of a showcase publication, designed to share these smarts with a much wider audience. It really wasn’t too difficult to take this presentation and its images and convert it into a small publication – the intellectual content was largely already there. It needed some expansion and editing but observing the KISS principle meant not letting a simple idea turn into an epic.

The ‘Brief guide to PC Labs’ went through a lot of internal review and met with predictable resistance: chief amongst which was a perceived risk that by publishing the insights, Cockram could be giving away its intelligence. But if a company is prepared to share its ideas and insights via Powerpoint presentations, what was the difference between putting it in print? At least, that’s how I argued it… and got away with it.

The first edition was published in 2011 in a small pocketbook format. Hard copies were distributed to likely clients of PC Labs nationwide. Electronic copies were likewise distributed. Feedback was instant, with a number of Cockram’s research clients commending the little blue book. It also made Cockram the ‘expert’ in the eyes of the public sector, who in Queensland knew little of the firm. But next, Cockram were being invited to give presentations to all personnel who may be involved in these types of projects. A group known as TEFMA (Tertiary Education Facilities Managers Association) wanted to circulate a PDF copy to all their members throughout Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific – and their members are the exactly the types of organisations that need to build PC Labs. Copies of the first edition ran out due to demand (how many of you can say that about your standard corporate brochures?) so a second edition was released in 2012.

More than these direct responses, it helped cement Cockram’s reputation for excellence in the field of complex, services-rich construction projects such as PC labs or advanced imaging facilities and hospitals. In Queensland, it catapulted the company’s reputation for specific skills within a clearly defined market in a way that no amount of ‘traditional’ or organic business development strategy could.

There’s just something about releasing a book, however small, that says volumes about your authority and confidence in your subject matter. Releasing the same content in electronic format only just wouldn’t have had the same effect.  This little blue book wasn’t instrumental in helping Cockram grow from a standing start to a $100m per annum business in three years during a downtown, but it certainly helped when it came to the company’s reputation and awareness of its specialist construction abilities.

And so far, not one competitor that I know of has tried to copy the idea.

(You can download a PDF copy of it if you’re interested by clicking this link.)