Join me on my most recent Ask Me Anything LIVE, a conversation hosted monthly for members of my list where I answer questions at the intersection of law and business.

In this recent conversation we cover a wide variety of topics and questions, ranging from how to properly use a copyright notice (and what’s included), how a copyright registration protects you in the event of infringement of your content, the difference between a coaching and consulting agreement, how to manage scope creep for creative services, the importance of billing early and often from both a project management and client communication perspective, the cost of a data breach for an entrepreneur with a “small list”, and the importance of having legal assistance in reviewing proposed contracts before you sign them.

Join us for a wide variety of questions in today’s episode, and a bit of basic legal education.

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Biggest takeaways (or quotes) you don’t want to miss:

• What should be included in a copyright notice?
• What is the benefit of getting a copyright registration?
• How to manage scope creep in the delivery of your services.
• The cost of a data breach to small business or entrepreneur with a small list.
• What it takes to protect an online business.
• The importance of legal assistance when reviewing a proposed contract (before you sign!)

Check out these highlights:

• 9:55 Posting a copyright notice vs. obtaining a Federal Copyright registration – what’s the difference? (And what does a registration do for you?)
• 18:45 How to manage scope creep in the delivery of your services: seven tips for managing client relationships and the delivery of your services.
• 31:31 Is there a likelihood of confusion? Listen to this discussion that is relevant to choosing a phrase or name for your business or service or product – and a breakdown of the importance of Trademark registration classes.
• 49:28 Join this segment where we are talking about the role of your “Terms of Purchase” and how these protect against a variety of risks – including friendly fraud.

Links referenced in this episode: 

Article: 7 Tips For Limiting Scope Creep in the Delivery of Creative Services

Business Builder Basics bundle can be found here. (For starting / forming an LLC).

1:1 Client Services Agreement & Consulting Agreement (plus other individual templates), can be found here.

You can find my Website Protection Package for protecting an online information business here.

Get access to future Ask Me Anything LIVE sessions here.

Imperfect Show Notes

We are happy to offer these imperfect show notes to make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who prefer reading over listening. While we would love to offer more polished show notes, we are currently offering an automated transcription (which likely includes errors, but hopefully will still deliver great value), below.

GGGB Intro  00:00

Coming up today on Guts, Grit & Great Business™…

Heather Pearce Campbell  00:04

My terms and conditions document for people that are in the online space – and keep in mind this is scrolling people are not actually flipping 10 pages – but it’s 10 pages long, because there’s a lot to cover inside of an online information business. It’s going to have other information because, when somebody hits your online website, that’s like your online real estate, they’re walking into your home and getting access to information and products and you know, a whole bunch of things that you might might put on there. You have to have just some general ground rules of what the expectations are when they’re there. Right. So there’s a lot that gets covered.

GGGB Intro  00:39

The adventure of entrepreneurship and building a life and business you love, preferably at the same time is not for the faint of heart. That’s why Heather Pearce Campbell is bringing you a dose of guts, grit and great business stories that will inspire and motivate you to create what you want in your business and life. Welcome to the Guts, Grit & Great Business™ podcast where endurance is required. Now, here’s your host, The Legal Website Warrior®, Heather Pearce Campbell.

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:14

Hello and welcome. I am Heather Pearce Campbell, The Legal Website Warrior®. I am an attorney and legal coach based here in Seattle, Washington, serving entrepreneurs throughout the US and the world. Welcome to another episode of Guts, Grit & Great Business™. So today’s episode is going to be a little different. I am sharing again, my latest Ask Me Anything LIVE session. This is a recording of a monthly call that I host – it is open to members of my list. And once a month I go live and answer questions at the intersection of law and business. So stay tuned. We cover a lot of ground today. There are some great questions and I really hope that hearing the questions and listening to the responses will help you in your own business building journey. And again, if you are interested in joining me for a future Ask Me Anything LIVE session, pop over to www.legalwebsitewarrior.com/askme. And there is where, that’s a location where you can sign up and join my list and you’ll be notified of upcoming Ask Me Anything live sessions and you’ll be able to participate in the conversation yourself and ask questions that are relevant to you and your business at the intersection of business and law. So I hope to see you there. Stay tuned and we will jump in to today’s conversation.  Officially, welcome you to Ask Me Anything LIVE for November. I just got done with a big outside morning walk. I feel so good. We’re having sunshine in Seattle. And I just have to soak up every minute of that because we’ve had so much rain. Lenea’s nodding,  Lenea, are you in Seattle? No, but you can relate. All right, How can I help you guys today? Anybody have a burning question? I’m going to open up the chat as well so that we can type in the chat. Who can I help? Hands raised? Juliet and then Marcia?

Participant  03:24

Sure. I think mine is a quick one. It is on using copyright. I saw I was working with a company. They’re doing some stuff for me and at the bottom there like copyright 2021. And I asked him I said, Can you just like do that? You have to kind of go through stuff and are like, oh, yeah, that’s not a problem. You just do that. And I was like, okay, so I thought I saw the opportunity. I thought I’d jump on and ask you.

Heather Pearce Campbell  03:49

Yes, that’s a great question. So a couple things. So you’re talking about your copyright notice, and well, look at me, I’m gonna go you guys, my new website went live, I have to whisper that, but it’s gonna it’s so weird, because now when I go to hunt things down, it all looks a little different. I am going to go to my website, Juliet and grab the link to an article that actually talks specifically to this point that you’re talking about. You’re welcome. I’m just going to pop it into the chat. So it’s called Three things you can do today without a lawyer to protect your online content. And it talks about how you use the copyright notice why is this link copying? There we go. Here it is how to properly use the copyright notice and so for anybody listening to the replay, you can actually go to my site, pop over to my blog, it’s through the resources link drop down below to blog and then you’ll see one of many articles there and it’s called Three things you can do today without a lawyer to protect your online content. So, Julia couple things about a copyright notice One is not required by law to protect your content, meaning that once you’ve created something that it takes tangible form in the world, right, so copyright protects the expression of an idea, not the idea itself. Once you create it, you have copyrights to that creation. So and you’re not required, like putting a formal copyright notice on it’s not required. In my opinion, it’s highly recommended, it puts people on notice of the fact that you are the creator. And I’m still constantly amazed at how many people just do not understand that they cannot take content from other people. So it’s one of the ways that we can signal that it’s proprietary that we’ve created it, right seems like it should be obvious if it’s on our website, but it’s not always obvious to people, and they do weird things. So my recommendation is that you do get used to using a copyright notice and that you use it the right way. So the right way, is going to be you know, see in a circle. So I am not typing the circle right here, but copyright, and then the year that the work was created, right, so I’m going to put here year, the work was created, and then by your individual name, right, so this is what it should look like. Now, copyright rests with the individual unless it’s assigned or transferred, right. So you can transfer your copyright, to be held by your LLC, or your company, whatever, you know, whatever you’d like, if you if you want your company to be the exclusive owner of that intellectual property. So there are ways that you can make that assignment, you know, pretty straightforward. But do know that copyright rests with the individual directly unless it’s otherwise assigned or transferred. That said, What I often recommend when people are posting a copyright notice, I’ll show you what I do copyright to 2021. Let’s say I created something this year. And you can either put you know by or just put your name copyright 2021. By Heather Pearce Campbell, I will often include the name of my online business, the Legal website warrior so that if people wanted to go hunt me down, let’s say this content is showing up somewhere other than my website, right? Somebody may not know about my website, or about my work. And so I will often do that as a way to help somebody go search and find me and find my work. You know what, what that’s relevant to you. But if you want your company, like I said, to own intellectual property, you’d need to assign it. So that’s a quick note about copyrights. The other let’s talk about some common misconceptions. I see this happen all the time, where people have a website, and they update it every year. So we’re rounding the corner into 2022, in a couple months, and you’re gonna see a whole bunch of people jump onto their website, get rid of their old copyright notice and just put copyright 2022. Don’t do that copyright originates in the work of the year that it was created. So for example, I created my legal website, Warrior website in 2015. There’s content on my site now that originated in 2015. So my copyright notice for my website should look like this, right, followed by my name, you do not get rid, because that’s like putting a stake in the ground like, I’ve been creating this content since this time. What happens if somebody is hunting around the internet, and they see like, oh, copyright 2022, on a website, they think, Oh, this is a brand new website, somebody just got into business, or they just, you know, launched this new content or whatever. And it’s, it’s misleading. And it’s not true. And it doesn’t protect you in the way that you want it to, which is to say, This is my content. This is the year that I created it. And so you don’t want to continually update that date, and mislead, mislead people. But also, you know, have them misinterpret the fact that your content you you might have created it, you know, a handful of years ago, and it’s important that people know that. Does that make sense?

Participant  09:28

It does. So there’s not any back paperwork that you have to do or complete, like a trademark or a patent related to a copyright. A copyright is really your statement saying, This is what I created it, and using what you’ve put in the chat is just how you let people know.

Heather Pearce Campbell  09:48

So what we’re talking about here, that’s a great question. And this leads me to the next step of this kind of analysis of the copyright process. What we’ve been talking about is your copyright notice, and the fact that when you you create something you have copyrights in it. Now, when it comes to whether or not you would ever have to enforce those rights to different conversation entirely, you do have to have a federal registration in order to bring litigation and obtain generally obtain any kind of recovery for copyright infringement. And it’s just a lot harder to do without a registration. And you’re not going to have access to things like attorneys fees and court costs, which for most people makes it cost prohibitive to pursue copyright infringement if you don’t have the registration. So what that means is that within three months of creating any new content, or let’s say substantially updating your old content, and welcome to Sherry and I see Sherry on here twice, I don’t know if that’s the same Sherry different Sherry, and to Kim, good to see you guys. And Larissa, welcome to Larissa again as well. So we’re talking about copyright. Right? Julia has some great questions about copyright. Notice, I posted a link up above and I’ll repost it, because I think some people have joined late and you probably don’t see it up there. But the in regards to registrations, right, within three months of creating any new content that you want to be protected, you would need to seek registration. And that is something that you can do on your own, you pay a minimal filing fee, you submit the content, usually digitally, unless you’re like publishing an actual physical copy of a book or something, right, you’re going to submit the content and then wait, the standard period, it’s going to take a while and then they will issue you a registration for that work. And you get assigned a specific registration number, right. The the filing fees, I want to say I think they recently bumped it up, but maybe between 45 and $60 per registration. It is not cost prohibitive, you guys, and the thing about it is that perfect. Welcome, Katie. Good to see you again, as well. We will get to your question. We’re talking about copyrights right now. The thing about it, Julia is where I start is I have people sit down and look at what I call their core content. What are your systems? What are your frameworks? What are the principles that you go back to time and again, that you teach through your materials, maybe you write about maybe, you know, when you speak or do workshops, or whatever your line of work is, right? You you have a certain way that you present your information? And so looking at what is it that makes it unique? What are my core core pieces of content? And what is the best way that I express those? Is it through writing, right? Is it through articles? Is it through video tutorials? Is it through maybe content that you’ve already created, like you have a workshop recording, or you have a workbook or worksheets that you’ve created that really capture your information? Well, you might have already created the way that you best express those ideas in the marketplace. And those could be the appropriate way that you seek protection, right? Because some people, you know, you know, they might be better at expressing their framework or their ideas on paper, other people might it might be best in video format. So looking at, you know, what is the best expression of those ideas and your core pieces of content and then seeking protection around those right? Most people that I work with, create a lot of content, and they’re like, holy cow, I have to protect it all within three months of creation. No, you’re gonna but you’re gonna have some really common themes and some consistency throughout your work and what you’re doing that if you stand back and take a 20,000 foot view of your work in your business, you’ll see like, oh, yeah, these are my core pieces. These are things that I build everything else around. Go protect those.

Participant  14:04

Very helpful. Thank you. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  14:06

You’re welcome. Yeah, congrats. It’s good to be in a place in business where you have those and where you start to identify what those are right? Because it can take people a little while to create that stuff and figure out what is it that really makes them and their business and their ideas unique. So congrats. Okay, I think Marsha was next and then we have some other hands up Marilyn and Larissa and I know Katie also has a question. So Marsha, your turn.

Participant  14:31

Okay. I have been using your one on one client services agreement with a small consulting package. And now I want to expand that continue that but also add in a new service which is more individual for a little bit bigger business. So maybe up to a six figure business or something so the I have a small team. Yep. And And so I’d be giving them some kind of proposals and they would choose. And we were, you know, that’s my, that’s my whole understanding of this other than what I want to do. So I was looking at your website, and there’s a consulting agreement for corporations as clients, and I don’t know the difference if that’s what I need if I need something totally different.

Heather Pearce Campbell  15:18

So here’s a great question. Here’s the way that I think about those documents, you’ll see that there, there are some similarities in the way that they’re structured and built, right? Because generally, in my one on one, client agreements, my consulting agreement, a lot of those documents, the core of even my independent contractor agreements, the core of the legal stuff is going to be upfront, right in the body of the document, then you’re going to have an addendum that defines what is the scope of the work? How is it delivered, what is the payment, right, it’s going to have some of those additional details. The difference in in the way that I approach a consulting agreement versus like the one on one services, which is more like the coaching agreement, is that the consulting services agreement is like one step between kind of the informal approach of a coaching scenario and not that it’s totally informal, there still needs to be structure there. But it’s usually coaching is usually one on one you’re working with a single individual, like the topic could be, you know, anything under the sun, people coach on a wide variety of things. But that’s generally tailored to be a specific scenario where you are providing coaching to an individual, the consulting agreement is where you have a business or organization as the client, right, you’ve got to, and it could be a small business. So it still could work for small business. But it’s not, for example, Microsoft or Starbucks, that is going to make you sign a 30 page Master Agreement and work, right. So that consulting agreement is going to be kind of the step between those things, that allows you to bring some formality to the process to have your own standard agreement in place, but also be able to really serve businesses that you know, are small to medium sized businesses, and have the flexibility built in where you can use that document for a variety of clients and fill it out in different ways using that addendum, what are the services? What’s going to be delivered? What’s the timeline, etc.

Participant  17:24

Okay. So that yeah, that seems like that’s probably what I’m going to want for in this next group of clients, it’d be more like what they’re used to using anyway. And

Heather Pearce Campbell  17:33

totally, and plenty of my clients end up using both of them, right, they do some amount of coaching, some amount of consulting, there’s a lot of you know, parallels.

Participant  17:43

Right. Okay. And is there anything else I need to know legally about moving into this next realm of, of supporting people that I’ve not done?

Heather Pearce Campbell  17:52

And when you say in the next realm, do you mean working specifically with organizations? And yeah, with an organization business? Yeah. Can I ask you really quick about the nature of your work? 

Participant  18:03

Sure, I’m going to be helping them strategize and create action plans for setting up a mighty network. So online technical support,

Heather Pearce Campbell  18:11

got it. So you’re going to be working with them as an because what some of my clients do is they’ll work as an organization, but they’re doing for example, executive coaching, where they’re still coaching a single individual, but the organization is hiring them for that particular, right. So

Participant  18:27

it’s kind of I’m doing the same service, but for two different people. And for these people, I’ll be doing more of that rather than I’m helping the other people do it themselves.

Heather Pearce Campbell  18:36

Mm hmm. Got it. It’s more of a done for you. Yeah. Yeah. Implementation totally. So you know, the things that let’s talk actually, for a minute, this is important around scope creep. Anytime you are doing a done for you service that involves any amount of creativity, building something out, right, there’s a lot of this in the online space, you do have to be very careful about how you manage scope creep. So let me I’m just going to make sure that I grab another, another blog post for you. Give me just a second. Right here. See if this will come up. Here we go. seven tips for limiting scope creep in the delivery? I do. Thank you. Yeah, this one actually gets a lot of Google hits, I get a lot of contacts over this article. So I’m going to pop that into there. It’ll it’ll walk you through some different ways to think about how to put limiters into your contract that will help guide the relationship. So for example, I recently was working with a gal who provides a really wide variety of service for her clients, which is great because she’s talented, but problematic because she can do so much. It’s can be really hard to define what is happening and what the deliverables are and you know, when She gets into a project. It’s like, oh, yeah, I can do that. But suddenly, the scope of the project has really ballooned, and she’s not being paid for, you know, for a lot of her work. So this is where, you know, thinking about your, the scope of whatever it is that you’re creating, and really coming up with a proper definition of what the deliverables are. You want to focus a lot on that. So that because I tell people, yeah, kids like OMG Been there done that, right? Haven’t we all, especially if, you know, like I said, if you’re if your deliverable or your project involves any amount of creativity done for you type of service building or creating anything, it can get really wildly out of control. So there are some things that you can build into the contract that will help you kind of contain the relationship and contain the scope of the project, start with that article, and kind of say, you know, properly defining the deliverables is step number one getting very, very clear. And when you’re doing this, you can literally put two columns down on a sheet of paper, here’s what I am doing. Here’s what I’m specifically not doing, right, because sometimes it helps to list even in the contract. This does not include XY and Z services, this does not so. So they know if they have to bring any part of the equation forward. So for example, maybe you’re helping them build out the mighty networks, you know, account and platform for themselves, but you’re not going to be populating the content, you’re not going to be coming up with titles of the sections or, you know, right, and I’m

Participant  21:32

actually not even going to do the hands on building I’m doing, you know, so that would be in my not and then I’ll have

Heather Pearce Campbell  21:39

totally, totally so whatever falls weird, but that way, they see and they can’t come back later, like, Oh, I thought this was included. And you’re like no see over here, it’s in the NOC column like specifically not included a new, that can be very helpful to include, under the scope of the deliverables. Here’s what this includes, here’s what it specifically does not include right, utilizing time constraints, so up to x hours a week, or X hours total for the project scope, right. So you can utilize time constraints constraints, specifically outlined charges for additional work. If you require any additional work beyond what’s been agreed, here’s how I charge Here’s how. So you’re setting up proper expectations about like, not everything may be included. And if they hit that point where you’re like, No, this is not inside the scope of our project. But here’s how I could do it for you. And here’s what that would cost it, you know, it relates back to the way that you’ve successfully set yourself up in the beginning, very helpful using a project completion date outlining your menu of services. This is a little bit like what we were talking about in defining scope, here’s what’s included, there is what’s not included, right. So you can even include like, you can reference a menu of services that if you already have one of those built out that says, here’s what I do do for clients, here’s what I don’t do. And then when changes come up, let’s be clear that in most projects, changes will come up, you document those and you put a process in place beforehand. So just like so, for example, some of my early training in law was on massive Real Estate projects. You can imagine how many problems come up on a, you know, many, many, many multimillion dollar real estate construction projects. You know, at one time, there were on this one piece of litigation more than like 20 different parties involved. And so the reality is looking back, there was so much that went wrong with that process. But most construction processes and this applies to building anything, this is why I bring it up construction is a really, like, really, it’s a hot, it’s a hot mess, we’ll call it that as far as a way to get your education in law. But it was really valuable around certain things and having a way to document changes in the process or the scope of the project will be really helpful. So literally, you prepare a change order and and create an outline of like, here’s what we originally agreed to like summary, here is what the new change looks like summary right here is the projected cost party sign off or the new timeline, maybe it adjust your original timeline. So you want to see you want to state specifically how it impacts the overall timeline or any other measurables on the project. And then both people sign and that way that work does not proceed until you have new agreement in place where somebody is acknowledging yes, they respect the fact that they’re changing the process or changing the scope. They’re gonna pay you for it. Here’s the rate signatures date, right? It’s like a new little mini contract, but it literally tracks the changes to the project. So that’s another thing that I highly recommend. And then, depending on how the project is set up, build early and often don’t take on a massive project and bill at the end of it like you’re a small business too. You need to train your Clients who value your time Bill them every two weeks gives them insight into the project, you know, put really detailed components into your billing so that they respect your time and they know that you are being, you know, really careful in showing them the details that matter. So I’ll just say as an example, in over 20 years of practicing law, I’ve only ever had two clients not pay my bill in full. And these were both clients that were like in dire straits, one was in bankruptcy, another one had just lost her job. So I knew it was a bit of a risk taking them on. And it was like a couple $100 They couldn’t pay. So the thing I have done consistently is Bill early and often and provide lots of detail. I would just say to anybody across whatever area of work, you do do that. It will increase the respect your clients have for you because they see how transparent you are and they see everything that you’re doing, you know, but I know some some projects are just like, Oh, here’s the total price like it might be one lump sum, but you can still provide interval billings that show them exactly what’s happened within the last interval that will be supportive of the relationship and be supportive of them happily paying that price. So that’s another you know, of those just tips that has served me well in my career. Right. Thank you. You’re welcome. Yes. Okay, let’s take a pause and hear briefly from today’s sponsor. Today’s sponsor is Melanie Benson, the authority amplifier. Melanie is also the host of the amplify your success podcast. She can be found online at Melanie benson.com. Melanie’s superpower is helping entrepreneurs like you identify and activate their own unique positioning to become the highly paid authority that their ideal client knows likes and trust. After spending 21 years guiding talented entrepreneurs to success and 15 years in Fortune 500 companies, Melanie brings a unique integration of proven success, business acumen and soulful intuition to each client. Clients who work her amplify roadmap can see a 5x growth within the first 90 days. You can find out about the AMPLIFi roadmap and more at Melanie benson.com. She has an amazing array of free tools and additional resources that will help you in building and scaling your business quickly creating Magnetic Messaging and attracting exactly the right client. If you visit Melanie benson.com, you currently get access to 10 revenue rush strategies, where you can discover the 10 fastest ways to quickly increase cash flow and develop a more profitable business. This is a tool that has worked for almost 5000 clients already. Again, visit Melanie benson.com Okay, now let’s go I don’t know who was next Marilyn are Larissa and then Katie. And I think Sherry just put her hand up too. Hi, Larissa.

Participant  28:13

Hi,

Heather Pearce Campbell  28:14

Good to see you. There’s Marilyn. Let’s do Larissa. Yep. Cuz she came live. And then Marilyn, you’re next.

Participant  28:19

Okay, my question is about, um, about program names. And you know, and we’re talking about, you can’t, you know, you want to be careful about not using the same name that somebody else has for their program, your program or your business. But my question is, how similar can they be or not be? And how do you how do you determine that? 

Heather Pearce Campbell  28:41

Great question. And Larissa, I am still clear. So you and I were on a call a couple weeks ago for that website protection package. And to be really good. I still am getting to that language. I was out of town for a week we got in a car accident while we were on our trip, like life has been crazy, and then having to launch my new website this last week. So there’s some things that are still on the list. Just wanted to let you know. Yeah. Great question regarding naming. So you know, the general steps around how to choose and analyze a name is, you know, do some basic searches, obviously, on Google. Google, the phrase itself, as well as variations of the phrase. So let’s say the phrases four or five words long Google combinations of three words, four words, right? You want to, you’re kind of looking to like plot the map all the way around that phrase to see what else or what other versions of it are being used. And then go to the uspto.gov. Right, I’m going to put this in the chat uspto.gov You’re going to do a search on test, which is the basic trademark search, right? And you’re going to search those same phrases, the original phrase variations on that phrase and see what comes up that’s going to help you kind of figure out at least initially, what it looks like might be happening in the marketplace. It’s not perfect. Like there are some more complex searches you could do or hire an attorney to do on the uspto.gov. But that’s going to at least give you some initial insight. The question around how closely can you be to another existing program name or business name? You’re a little bit in a gray area, there’s no direct answer that I can provide, except that when it comes to potential infringement, when it comes to issuing a trademark registration, right for that phrase, or name, the question always is, is there the likelihood of confusion based on this new name, right? So is there likelihood of confusion, because understand that the trademark system is based literally around the days when like, I have this beautiful mug that I love, like, in the old days, there were literally and there probably still is, but be a stamp of, you know, the craftsmen that created this, that was a trademark. And that’s how the trademark system evolved. And so trademarks are there to identify the source of the goods, so that it eliminates consumer confusion, right? Somebody wants to know if they’re about to drink a Pepsi or a Coke, because that is very different for a lot of people, right? Somebody wants to know, if they have the original version of this particular, you know, pottery person’s mug or a knockoff. Right? So, so the trademark system is there to protect the consumer, which is why the question of is there is there a likelihood of confusion based on this new phrase or new business into the marketplace? It’s paramount, because you don’t want to cause confusion, the the whole role of the trademark office is to hopefully eliminate that confusion and regulate the marketplace, right. So what this means is that you when it comes to the trademark registration process itself, it’s why it happens in classes, right, there’s a whole list of classes that you register under, if you go through the trademark registration process. So like, class 16, is going to be books or you know, documents, anything on paper or paper products. So if you’re handing out materials, while you’re running live workshops, those are going to fall under Class 16, if you want protection of them. Now, if you’re doing podcast downloads, those are digital downloads, that’s going to be like class 41, or class nine, there’s different ways that you can register those things. Right, that all of the services classes are like class, you know, 35 through 41, that’s generally where most of my clients fall on the service side of businesses so so understand that it’s not just about whether the phrase or name exists, it’s how it’s being used, and does it exist in the same class. So I’ve given this relatively simple example before, but let’s pretend that there, you know, and we’ll just use this cheesy phrase of like live your best life, clothing company could publish that all over and have a line of clothing live your best life. And a coaching or consulting company could probably have a registration for the same phrase, two totally different classes, there is no likelihood of confusion, somebody is either purchasing clothing, or they’re purchasing, coaching or consulting over here, right? They’re not going to confuse those two things. But if you’ve got two online coaching information based businesses using the same phrase or name in the same category, you’re probably going to have a problem, right? There’s probably going to be infringement happening.

Participant  33:37

So there isn’t a very clear cut answer. And, like, I understand all the variables you just described, but like, in the end, how do I decide what to do? Because I, I did research, I’m referring specifically to name of a program I created and I did research, do a Google search beforehand, just to make sure it didn’t already exist when I found variations or like things that had some words that were similar and and not exactly the same. So I thought it was fine. But how you know, like, but either way, we’re totally…

Heather Pearce Campbell  34:10

You consult with an attorney. Okay. You actually have some you have somebody who lives in the legal world look at that issue for you. If you’re if you’re feeling conflicted. Yeah. Okay. Yep. Good question. All right. Let’s go to let’s see, where did she go? Did we lose? No, Maryland, Maryland. Are you there? And then Jerry, nothing so far this time, I think.

Participant  34:34

So I’m curious about the summit speaker and giveaway contributor agreements. Do you have such a thing?

Heather Pearce Campbell  34:40

Yes, I know. So, Marilyn, I don’t know if you missed the part. Life has been a little crazy. I had some things come up. We You’re welcome. Larissa went on a little late fall vacation for five days. Five days after you and I last connected but we were rear ended in a rental car. like a bad collision while we were on that trip and so that threw a whole bunch of wonkiness in unnecessary things into my schedule. Right.

Participant  35:10

I’ve had that happen. And it took me a year. So

Heather Pearce Campbell  35:13

yeah, it was awful. It was really, really scary, totaled his car. Ours was drivable, but obviously not what we wanted on a little family vacation. We were at a full stop on a two lane highway, and he came slamming into the back of us. So it was really scary, but everybody was fine. kiddos were fine. But it meant like a whole bunch of extra time for submitting all the claims to various insurance companies credit like all the things it’s it’s throwing a big wrench in my schedule this past week. Yes, thank you, Kim. We were very grateful as well. We were quite shaken up. As you can imagine anybody who goes through something like that, especially with two small children in the back, like the next morning waking up, I totally felt like I had PTSD. But Marilyn, and then my physical. Yeah. And then my, my website, launch week was last week. And so I literally was spending like every day behind the scenes making sure like 80 pages of a very, very complex website all went live. It’s been huge. So literally, today is the first day that I’m like taking a big breath and catching up on some things. You are on my list. I know that your timeline is very short. I’m going to do my best to get back to you and try to make sure

Participant  36:27

my timeline works with whatever is best for you. Lex Of course, I’m interested. But listen, your health comes first. Never mind.

Heather Pearce Campbell  36:35

Yes. Well, I so appreciate that. It’s like, so it’s just been such a wild year where I’m like, okay, you know, things are finally gonna come. Anyways, they will I think we’re at that point. But yeah, it was Carol. Thank you. I know, Carol, you went through a car accident. Right. And that was very terrible thing. Oh, it’s awful. But it’s so interesting. Because like, even standing I think back to the conversation with the guy at the desk was like, Do you want the additional coverage? And I was like, No, we’re very safe drivers, right? It’s like the whole lesson of like, what I teach people in business, you can be a very safe driver. And we don’t get to control what other people do around us. Right. The whole point I know. So stressful. And you know, we’re reminded of those lessons in so many ways. But Malin, you’re on my list, I will reach out as soon as I can. I’m so good. I’m so happy to see you here again today. Take care. Yes. Thank you. All right, Sherry. And then Katie, and welcome to Juliet, I see that we still have a couple of extra people that joined glad to still see Linda here and Kim, and welcome to Carol, one of my favorite people in the whole world. Hi, Sherry. Hi,

Participant  37:45

how are you?

Heather Pearce Campbell  37:46

I’m good. How are you? Thanks.

Participant  37:48

Um, I just, I am setting up a website. And I done some research on it. But I came across one lawyers, video. And there’s a whole lot of things that you need to for policies and stuff. I just want to know what I actually need to put on my website.

Heather Pearce Campbell  38:12

Totally a great question. So Sherry, tell me what you do. What’s your work about? What’s your website going to be about?

Participant  38:19

To do affiliate marketing and low content publishing?

Heather Pearce Campbell  38:23

Okay, low content publishing. Tell me what that is.

Participant  38:28

Um, books on Amazon are selling planners and journals?

Heather Pearce Campbell  38:33

No. Got it. Okay, that so those are set up through the affiliate relationships?

Participant  38:39

No, the affiliate is it’s just like a community that I’m in. Okay. And I sell other people’s products with the affiliate affiliate about that. So they can be affiliates of mine, once I get okay.

Heather Pearce Campbell  38:55

That’s what I wondered whether you had your own affiliate program. Okay, got it. So your website itself is going to have some affiliate links out to other people’s programs and offerings, is that right? But also hosts some of your own content. Okay, and I assume you’re gonna have like, you know, a lead magnet, opt in form newsletter, signup, something like that, where you’re, you’re building a database, you’re creating a list. Yeah. Do you already have a list? I do. Do what’s the size?

Participant  39:29

600. Okay.

Heather Pearce Campbell  39:32

So yeah, so the based on what I’m hearing so, there’s there’s three functions that you really have to protect when you are doing online business. One is publishing information, right? So if you’re selling or not even selling, if you’re publishing information, sharing articles, blogs, newsletters, you know, especially if you’re setting yourself up to be an expert like on a particular, you know, subject area or particular kind of content or something, right, there’s a lot of people that end up creating quite a bit of content through their website based around a certain area of expertise. So that’s function number one publishing information. And the reason we have to protect that one is because we can all know in our various, right, we’re all kind of islands, we have our various areas of expertise, we know a lot about, excuse my wild hair, we can know how we intend for people to use our information. But ultimately, we don’t get to control how they do use it. And so people can do the wrong thing with it, they can misunderstand it take the wrong step, rely on it in a certain way that we didn’t intend, right. So that’s why that is function number one that has to be protected with our website terms and conditions, appropriate disclaimers, it should have limitations of liability in there that say, you know, to the extent that we can, we’re going to limit our liability, because we’re not making any guarantees regarding the following, right, there’s a whole bunch of legalese that goes into creating appropriate terms, my terms and conditions document for people that are in the online space. And keep in mind, this is scrolling, people are not actually flipping 10 pages, but it’s 10 pages long, because there’s a lot to cover inside of an online information business. It’s gonna have other information, because you’re when somebody hits your online website, that’s like your online real estate, they’re walking into your home and getting access to information and products and you know, a whole bunch of things that you might might put on there, you have to have just some general ground rules of what the expectations are when they’re there, right. So there’s a lot that gets covered. For purposes of time, I’ll go through the other two as well. But the second function of an online business is collecting data, collecting information, building a database, right, communicating with our clients, with our lists, etc. So in the process of collecting data, there are various not only local rules and regulations that we have to follow, but international privacy regulations, etc, that apply to businesses that are online. And if you if people from the EU, right that your European Union can opt in, get access to the information that you provide, you have to have a GDPR compliant privacy policy and even outside of the GDPR privacy policy is still required by law. It is the document that fulfills your obligation as a small business owner in the online space, to let people know what data you’re collecting, how you use it, why you’re collecting it, how you keep it safe, how they can opt out all of the things, it’s very client facing website visitor facing, because it has to do with their data. So a website privacy policy, again, is a fairly comprehensive document when it’s done. Well, the problem with most like of the free generator sites that I see out there is one, they’re not tailored to any specific kind of business. And so they’re missing provisions all over the place that actually applied to online information based businesses. And some of them can do more harm than good, depending on what they say. So a privacy policy, again, is going to cover the specifics of what data you’re collecting, how you keep it safe, who you share that information with the number one privacy mistake that small businesses make, how many of you have ever opted in through an opt in form that says, We will never share your information, your information is 100% safe with us, right? These kinds of ridiculous claims, you have shared that information, like probably five ways before it hits your inbox, right to even set up an online business. You’re sharing it with your CRM, maybe with the opt in company, the opt in forms, if you have a WordPress site, and anything that gets downloaded into the back end of your site, like there’s various ways that this information gets exposed and gets shared with all of these other online, third party businesses that help us run our business, right? So people make really simple mistakes that have a very, very high cost all the time. So for example, sharing your you know, quote, unquote, smile. I say that because a lot of people would think like, oh, well, you know, I only have 500 people or I only have 600 people on my list. The reality is, if anything happens to that list where that data gets exposed or breached, the cost of repairing that is about $200 per client record, which means that a small list of five or 600 people is going to be 1000 $100,000 or more expense, from a legal perspective to repair. In the United States. We have noticed provisions where if there’s been a data breach of any kind where somebody’s personal information has been exposed, you have noticed requirements that vary state by state, all 50 states are different You have to send out notices in very specific ways within certain timeframes. And then include specific information for the recipient. That is not something that people can navigate on their own. And if you don’t comply with that there are some heavy penalties, federal penalties that can come down for data breaches that go on attended and are not responded to in the right way. So it’s it’s like, the reality is, most people when they are setting up an online business, they have no idea about any of this, right? Yeah. Katie’s like, yikes, right, they have no idea about any of this, they just think, Oh, I’m setting up a website, I’m going to start doing this little thing from home and blah, blah, blah. And there’s a lot that we do have to understand about doing business the right way online and being responsible in our business. So and it’s not like, you don’t have to get a law degree, I’m not trying to scare anybody, like, oh, my gosh, I could never do this. No, but you do have to have what I call the golden nuggets. So you know how to issue spot and you know what you have to take care of ahead of time, so that you can just handle it. Just like you have to put, you know, accounting help or bookkeeping help in place at some point. And you have to figure out financial strategies and information technology, and all of these things that relate to your business. Legal is one more piece of that. And privacy is one area that you just don’t want to mess around in. And so a privacy policy, you know, protects that data collection function in your online business. And let’s be clear that even if you don’t have a webform, because I’ve had people come and be like, Well, I just have a landing page. And you know, and I don’t even have Google Analytics turned on. And I’m like, okay, but the landing page, like, what’s the function? You’re sharing information? They’re like, yes, you’re collecting information, maybe through a webform, or you’re selling a product or somebody, you know, paying you money for something, yes. Like, you’ve just done all the functions of a website in a single page, that is a website is just a single page website. So there are all these ways that people tend to minimize like, well, I’m only doing this in the online space. The reality is, a landing page is a website, it’s a single page website, you’re sharing information, you’re collecting information, and you might be selling something through that page as well. And selling information or selling services is the third function that we protect. And the reason we protect that is a couple things. One, there’s liability, you’re usually selling information that you’ve created advice, programs, services, something, people can rely on that, you know, if they if they make mistakes, or they take a wrong action in reliance on that information. There’s the same kind of liability that exists except it’s slightly greater, because they’ve now paid you for a service or for that information. And then there’s also the exposure of your intellectual property, right? So you have you want language in place that says, here’s what you can do with this information. Here’s what you can’t do, right? Like, you can’t turn around and commercialize it, you can’t, you know, use it in your own business to make a bunch of money, right? There’s a lot that people don’t realize happens when they go to, you know, turn on an online sales funnel. And they think, oh, somebody is purchasing this from me. So they respect me, they’re gonna, you know, take care of it not harm my business. It’s absolutely not true. And it’s why when things go wrong, it’s usually because a former client consumed your information really liked it turned around and duplicated it inside their own business.

Participant  48:26

I have a license for that. That goes out with every product I sell.

Heather Pearce Campbell  48:31

Okay, boy, yeah, great. So the license terms you’re talking about license provision is one of the the many things that are covered in terms of purchase that should have also refund policies, like I said, limitations of liability, key disclaimers, depending on what’s being sold, like I work with a lot of people in the online space who are doing group consulting group coaching group products or services, you’re going to need other language that allow you to control and and, you know, have the ability to remove people from that forum or from that online group, because there can be liability that gets created within a group in a unique way that doesn’t exist in one on one services. And so, you know, it’s going to include a data scraping provision, a media release a whole bunch of additional language that allow you to appropriately run group services and group programs, and be able to maintain control over that group. So again, it’s a very detailed built out document that allows your business lots of room to grow, but also covers the necessities like refund policies, which also by the way, protects your merchant account, right. If somebody ever does a chargeback request, the first thing, the merchant account or credit card company says is okay, where’s the terms? Where did they agree to whatever it is that they just purchased? Right? And so if you don’t have those people can quickly quickly have their merchant accounts penalized because there’s a high rate of what’s called friendly fraud in the online space where People buy something they knowingly consume it. And they just decide because they know it’s available to them to do a chargeback, which kicks off a process that cannot be stopped. You can’t a client cannot undo the chargeback process has to go all the way through the system. And then the credit card company or the merchant account decides Did you deliver the thing. And in a lot of cases, if your ducks are not all in a row, they just give the money back and you’ve already delivered the thing. Now you’re out of pocket the money that you know, you earned you have to pay it back, it’s, it’s really problematic. So protecting that merchant account is significant because you have too many chargebacks that you can’t defend. And they increase the rate of your of what it costs you to have that merchant account or they just close it down. So that’s a quick overview of the three core documents, terms, terms and conditions, privacy policy terms of purchase, which are specific to what you sell. And then for some people, if you’re b2b, and you’re talking about sales, or income or earnings, you need an earnings and income disclaimer. And you guys, just so you know, and we can pop back on a little bit later, I have to pick up kiddos at noon for lunchtime. So I’m going to go for probably about seven more minutes. And so we’ll try to get to Katie’s question. And then if anybody else has additional questions, you can either email me or pop them in the chat and I can respond via email.

Participant  51:21

Ask one more thing, I’m in Canada. Should I be doing this to a Canadian lawyer?

Heather Pearce Campbell  51:27

You can you certainly can. I work with a lot of Canadian clients, they the general consensus for most people that find me is they’ve had a really hard time connecting with a lawyer who understands their business model and can get them in a price effective, like cost effective way the documentation they need for their online business. I’m happy to provide referrals, I also have what’s called the website protection package, Sherry, and I’ve got a set that is tailored to Canadian clients. So if you want more information on that, you’re welcome to email me, I’ll just pop my email here into the chat. So that’s an option as well, obviously, I don’t practice law in Canada, but I work with a lot of Canadian based clients who are interested in have to know and understand US law because 50 to 80% of their databases based here, this is the bulk of where they actually make their money. So they have to understand us marketing laws, they have to understand these online provisions just like anybody else in the world, but particularly based on those who have heavy us audiences. Yeah, you’re welcome. Great to connect with you, Katie, to see your hand up, how can I help you.

Participant  52:35

Um, so I’ll try to make this quick and concise. So I, I have a program that I have developed for leadership development, and I have a prospect who might be interested in me coming in and delivering that at their company. And I want to make sure that I protect, like the actual content, so I get to keep using it. They can’t just record rinse repeat. Right and use it there. Yeah. Just wanting to see like, are there things I need to be looking for in their contract? My contract?

Heather Pearce Campbell  53:07

salutely? Have they presented you with a master services agreement?

Participant  53:12

Not yet. We’re still in? We’re still in the talk. So I want to get ahead of it.

Heather Pearce Campbell  53:15

Totally. What what size? Is it a large company? What size of business is

Participant  53:19

it? Um, it’s a company that has probably about like, 400 people. But they’re, it’s a, it’s a startup tech company. So they’re growing, okay, they don’t have anything like this. So it’s likely that they might try to like, take my cohort program. And like, really,

Heather Pearce Campbell  53:33

I will just say, from my experience, a lot of companies do that. So what you’re going to want to look for specifically is if they, first of all, if they proposed or send you a contract, I mean, my advice to anybody in that scenario is reach out and get some legal assistance reviewing it, right, it would be an investment on your on your part, but it also is going to be very educational, it’s going to serve you very well in any future contracting scenarios. So you’re going to want to look specifically at the intellectual property provision, what they’re proposing they can do with your intellectual property and, quote, unquote, who owns it, right? A lot of those companies are going to try to grab it up, they’re gonna say anything you deliver to us is work made for hire, we own it, we can utilize it as we wish. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, right. I, I’ve worked with so many consultants and coaches that have gotten into Microsoft, Starbucks, et cetera. And they get thrown these 30 Page master services agreements that say, we own everything, and it’s like no luck, if you’re going to do business with them. Here’s what the contract needs to say. Whether or not you can get the contract to say what it needs to say largely depends on the strength of the relationship you have with whoever your contact is at the company. I’ve seen some I’ve seen some times these, you know, quote, unquote, in house legal departments respond really irresponsibly. And I’ve seen them you know, under the pressure of somebody who actually wants the engagement to go through, be able to flex and work with somebody. So, you know, again, it relies On the strength of that relationship, if they’re proposing any kind of agreement, I’d have it reviewed, but you want to pay particular attention to the intellectual property clause and make sure that section really gets carefully reviewed, understand there can be provisions outside of that, that impact the provision. So it’s not just a singular clause, you have to interpret the contract as a whole. But um, yeah, you want to look for any work for hire stuff, and any, you know, claims over ownership that the company is trying to make.

Participant  55:28

Okay? Are there are there ways that I could like actually license my my content totally,

Heather Pearce Campbell  55:35

totally, I work with people all the time, who licensed their content to larger organizations. So you’d put a licensing agreement in place, I could help you with that. I also, if you’re looking for a kind of a standard consulting services agreement to put in place with a company that size small to mid sized company, on my template site, and I’ll pop the link and really quick before, before we wrap up, I’ve got a standard consulting services agreement that would probably serve you pretty well in that scenario. It will allow you to define the scope of the service of the deliverables, etc. You can find it on this page along with all of my other individual templates.

Participant  56:15

Thank you.

Heather Pearce Campbell  56:15

Yeah, you’re welcome. So just scroll down. It’s gonna be the second row and it’s just called consulting agreement for corporations as clients.

Participant  56:24

Okay,

Heather Pearce Campbell  56:25

great questions. You guys. We’ve covered a lot today. Okay, you’ve got one minute, two minutes. What’s your question?

Participant  56:31

I dropped it in the chat too. Oh,

Heather Pearce Campbell  56:32

here we go.

Participant  56:34

Um, best and low cost way to form an LLC. I’m currently solo, and I’m wanting to roll over. So then it’s like, do I backdate? My

Heather Pearce Campbell  56:44

when I say looking to roll over? Or are you just talking about convert what you’re doing now into an LLC?

Participant  56:50

converting my sole proprietorship company into an LLC. Yeah. So I have that protection of an LLC. But then I also want to like, do I plan for growth as I’m filing those papers? Because like, right now, I’m only offering a specific set of services. Yeah, but like a year or two down the road, I might add services.

Heather Pearce Campbell  57:12

Oh, totally. It’s such a good question.

Participant  57:14

What services now? Or do I just like?

Heather Pearce Campbell  57:17

Great question, we’re lending. Where are you based,

Participant  57:21

I’m in Utah,

Heather Pearce Campbell  57:22

you’re in Utah. Okay, a couple things you can do. One, you can go to that same link the individual template site, I have an LLC formation guide, that’s going to walk you through the process that is standard for most states. Obviously, I’m not licensed in Utah. The other thing I’m going to recommend for you is the bundle if you go to and let me just grab it, I’m just gonna pop my resources link in here, because I’ve got all my templates in bundles. But for your scenario, I have a bundle that’s called the Business Builder basics, it’s going to help you with that initial LLC setup, as well as that business planning. So it’s a very comprehensive bundle, designed specifically for people in the coaching consulting space, that is going to really be tremendous value for that business planning stage. So that you know, here’s where I am on the map. And then here’s what comes next. There’s a guide in there. That’s called the Business Builder acceleration guide. And I just updated it all I’ll need to pop into my, my teachable account, which is where I host all this content to make sure the latest version is there. If it’s not, I’ll just drop it in. But because I literally just updated it a couple weeks ago. It will it’s a 10 page check checklist style template that will save so much heartache and hunting around on the internet and trying to search for next steps because it’s just like a step by step like here’s how you plan to build your business from a legal perspective. So that’s a really, really valuable resource in that bundle. Awesome. Okay. So good to see everybody. Carol, lovely to see you. I’ve got to go you guys because I got to run out the door and pick up kiddos. I hope this was helpful. If you have any additional questions, Kim, you’re so welcome. So good to see you. If you have any additional questions, feel free to just pop me an email right how their legal website warrior calm. I’m going to pop it in there. I am playing a little bit of catch up this week, but I will try very hard to get back to you in a timely manner. Okay, Big hugs, everybody. Have a great week. We’ll talk to you soon.

59:20

Bye bye. All righty.

Heather Pearce Campbell  59:23

Well, that is it for today’s episode. Again, you can see that we cover a lot of ground in these Ask Me Anything LIVE sessions. And so if you are an online information entrepreneur, and expert, consultant, coach, online educator, Speaker author, somebody who is building a similar personal brand, come join us join me for the monthly asked me anything live again. You can find that at Legal website warrior.com forward slash ask me. If you sign up and remain on my list you’ll be notified about these monthly sessions. We’d love to have you participate in the conversation. And again, thank you for joining us today. We hope to see you again next week. Take care.

GGGB Outro  1:00:13

Thank you for joining us today on the Guts, Grit & Great Business™ podcast. We hoped that we’ve added a little fuel to your tank, some coffee to your cup and pep in your step to keep you moving forward in your own great adventures. For key takeaways links to any resources mentioned in today’s show and more see the show notes which can be found at www.legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and if you enjoyed today’s conversation, please give us some stars and a review on Apple podcast, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast so others will find us to keep up the great work you’re doing in the world and we’ll see you next week.