Building Brands Podcast · Building Brands Marketing

Trademark Mistakes Businesses Make (and How to Avoid Them)

·35 min·2 clips

Tectonic Law is testing print media in San Francisco neighborhoods and got a cold contact from an A-frame in three weeks.

Hannah Stitt joins Robert Royer for the Legal Leader Series. She introduces Tectonic Law as a business and IP-focused law firm in San Francisco, and she frames the work around brands and intangible assets rather than broad legal services. That focus sets the tone. From there, she talks about keeping the niche clear, staying intentional about the fit, and making sure the firm speaks to the kind of clients it actually wants to serve. Referrals matter a lot. She says most of her clients come through referral relationships, but she also explains how she has been testing other channels so the firm is not depending on one source of business forever. Print media comes up. She describes choosing higher-income neighborhoods, spending on a year of print placements, and treating that spend as an experiment she could measure instead of a guess she had to trust blindly. The office sign gets its own attention. In her neighborhood, she worked with a designer on an A-frame that would fit the Victorian setting, carry a QR code, and speak clearly to the kind of client she wanted to attract. It produced results. She says the sign brought in a first cold contact after only a few weeks, which made the local strategy feel more concrete than theoretical. The conversation keeps circling back to fit and positioning. Royer and Stitt connect the legal side of IP and trademarks to the broader business problem of building a brand people can find and understand. She keeps it practical. Her answers stay grounded in real operator choices, including where to spend, how to speak to a neighborhood, and how to explain a niche so that the market understands why the service is worth paying for. The result is straightforward. The episode turns trademark and IP talk into a discussion about client acquisition, referral partnerships, and the long game of building a business around a narrow expertise. It never gets abstract. Anyone trying to build a service business with a sharper niche and a more intentional brand will hear useful, usable thinking throughout the conversation.

As heard by us

Brand and IP work are presented as practical business decisions, with local marketing doing as much work as the legal theory.

This episode treats brand and IP work as a business choice, not a legal abstraction. Hannah Stitt, owner and attorney at Tectonic Law, talks through an IP-focused firm that works with businesses handling brands and intangible assets, which keeps the conversation practical and…

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Why you'd press play

Follow a niche IP attorney as she maps brand visibility, referrals, and local marketing into real client growth.

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