Episode 006: Q&A 3

Episode Transcript

Braden: (00:01)
Hello and welcome to today's episode of the unfuck your biz podcast. My name is Brayden and I am your host. I am super excited to have you here. This should be another relatively short episode, probably be a little bit longer than our other. Um, I'm going to call them the even days, even they episodes. So, uh, every even numbered podcasts, two 46, you get the picture. I am doing shorter episodes where I answer questions that are provided to me by the Facebook group. So if you want it to join the Facebook group, it is Brayden's besties, B, R, a, D, E N is how you spell my name. So Brayden's best is on Facebook. You can join and once you join us you will get a prompt to get into the group that tells you to share with me what a one legal or tax question you have and your businesses.

Braden: (00:52)
And then I take those questions and discuss them here on the podcast. So the question I'll be discussing today from the Facebook group is, and this is the quote, I am in the process of opening a marketing agency and need the four one one on all things legal that are required. So pretty broad statement there. Um, but we're going to get started. So I thought this, this question would be a really good opportunity for me to walk you all through the system that I use that's called, I call it the seven layers of legal protection for your business. So there's obviously a litany of things that you need to do. I could make this, I mean really this question kind of leads into my entire like 12 week course that I have. We're not going to go that in depth. We're going to kind of look at the ways that you can legally protect yourself.

Braden: (01:47)
So there are seven layers and they are insurance contracts, business entities, taxes, intellectual property, common sense. And then I kind of cheat and say other, so if we dive in here, the first layer is insurance. So you need it. I need it. We all need insurance. I am not an insurance agent, I'm not an insurance expert. So I will not be giving you guys detailed information on insurance on this podcast, but I can't tell you that an insurance policy is one of the most cost effective ways to protect yourself. So for more information on this specific topic, I'm going to have an episode coming out in a few weeks where I interview my friend Trevor who is an insurance agent, um, that helps creatives with or with their insurance policies. So that's the first layer of protection and I'm going to have some more content coming on that topic for you.

Braden: (02:45)
The second layer is contracts. So you need to have a good contract. I essentially say that insurance and contracts are the two non-negotiables for everyone. You have to have this shit in order before you start taking clients. So if you are, don't already have a great contract for your business. I do offer those on my website. I have [email protected] you can go and grab them. But also if you already have a contract, you don't necessarily need to get a new one. If you think that it covers you, I do have a freebie called the DIY contract audit that will walk you through making sure that you have all of the essential bits and pieces and your contracts. So you can also grab that on the website. We do discuss contracts in the Facebook group fairly regularly. So join and ask us questions and we can chat about contracts.

Braden: (03:35)
So insurance contracts, those are the first two things. The third layer of protection is having a formal business entity other than a sole proprietorship. So for more information on this topic, if you're wondering when is the opportune time for you to form an LLC, go back and listen to episode two. I believe it was. I talked specifically about that question. So you can listen there for more information. The fourth layer is taxes or rather paying your taxes. So this one's kind of kind of a weird one that I am more or less shoehorned in, but you get yourself into legal trouble if you don't pay your taxes. So therefore one layer of protection for your business is making sure that you have your tax things in check. So having a separate bank account and implementing a bookkeeping system, all that sort of stuff. If you want a little more information on bank accounts, you can listen to episode four.

Braden: (04:35)
I also have another free download called the be your own tax pro download, which walks you through the steps to get your own taxes. You guys will notice, I have freebies for a lot of stuff. I don't expect you to go download all of them, but most of you can self assess which areas within these seven layers you might need more help on and then go get some more information on those specific topics. The fifth layer of protection is intellectual property, so protecting your brand. This is copyrights, patents and trademarks. I'll explain the difference to you right now. Kind of broad overview. If you don't already know, patents protect inventions. So if you are going to invent a new product, let's say most of the stuff you see in infomercials, those are all technically inventions and those you patent. So that's kind of a whole different ball game.

Braden: (05:26)
There are attorneys that specialize in patent law. You actually have to take an additional bar exam to practice patent law. That bar exam requires that you have a bachelor's degree in a hard science like biology, chemistry, you get the picture. So that's a very specialized area. One that I don't handle. I don't have any plans to discuss the patent law on the podcast. I might in the distant future if it's something that you all might be interested in, let me know. But the other two areas of IP are very important for small businesses, especially creatives. Copyrights protect works of authorship, I believe is the phrase that they use. But thank writing. So any sort of written content, whether it be blogs, books, but also music, you cannot copyright systems or ideas. So if you, for example, this um, framework that we're working through right now at the seven layers of protection, I could not copyright the idea that there are seven layers of protection or copyright.

Braden: (06:28)
My system, I would copyright the freebie that I have for you. So if you go to the show notes, you can download this document. I'm right there on the show notes page. I could actually file a copyright with the U S PTO that will protect anyone from reproducing this written work of mine. And that's how a copyright works. And I see a lot of people get confused with that because the want to copyright the process they have in their course or whatever, you can't do that. You pro, you would copyright all of the materials that you've created. The other area is trademark. It's the one people are most familiar with and trademarks protect your brand identifier. So names, logos, uh, even like jingles, if they are recognized well enough to bring up a brand and your mind and intellectual property is not my core area of expertise. These middle three contracts, business entities and taxes are really all within my wheelhouse wheelhouse.

Braden: (07:29)
So those are the ones I'll be talking about most on the podcast I'm bringing in guests to talk about the other topics. So you will likely be hearing from my good friend Kelly in the future. She is an absolute wisdom when it comes to trademarks and copyrights. So I'll likely have her on to tackle some of the questions from the Facebook group and also just to give us more of a primer on how to get started protecting your brand. So those are the first five layers. Number six is um, this is kind of a funny one. I say don't be an asshole is one way to protect your business. So really common sense. You know, if you're not a Dick, people are going to be less likely to want to Sue you. So this is where I always recommend if you're having a client issue and your few main from an email they sent you don't hit respond right away.

Braden: (08:19)
Take a deep breath, go for a walk, talk to your friend, maybe type an email and give yourself a set amount of time that you're going to sit on it before you hit the send button. Whether it be 24 hours, four hours, you get the pictures. So that's an important layer as well. And then number seven is the catchall. So these are the bonus layers. For example, when you form a business entity, the LLC itself is going to protect you, but there's a lot of other things you need to do as well, like meeting minutes, having an operating agreement, separating your bank account, all of these topics. And then obviously just general compliance with state, federal and local laws are going to protect you as well. So anything that doesn't fit into our first six buckets, really our first five, if we are not counting the common sense asshole topic, it would fall into seven.

Braden: (09:11)
So I thought it'd be a really good opportunity to go over this, um, freebie, this framework on the podcast because most of the topics we'll be talking about on the unfuck, your best podcast will fall into one of these categories. Also at this point, um, probably more information than you might need because no one would notice this but me. But if you ever are digging into all of my documents or you're looking at the show notes, you'll notice that I have five different colors that I use and they're color coded by topics. So I use like the light blue color for other legal topics. I use the grays and the black for money management and taxes and the a six or seven layers of legal protection. Kind of give the rubric for those as well. So that's kind of fun if you're into organization like I am.

Braden: (10:02)
So that's all I have for this short episode. Again, our question was, I'm in the process of opening a marketing agency. What's the four Oh one one on all things legal that are required? We just did a broad overview. If you would like to see the seven layers of legal protection, go to the show notes, add, unpack your biz.com forward slash episode forward slash zero zero six so that's how you get to it directly. You can also just go to unfuck, your biz.com it's a super stripped down streamlined website, so it will be easy for you to navigate your way to the episode. You can listen to it back there, download the freebie for this episode and check out all of the other freebies that I have for you. So as always, don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already, I would love for you to leave a review. If you feel so inclined and shoot me a DM, let me know if you have anything you'd love to hear on the podcast or any feedback. I would be more than pleased to chat with you and send some voice memos on IGMs. Thanks again for tuning in and I will be back with you next episode.