10 Legal Things Every Entrepreneur Needs To Stay Out of Trouble!

you've got to build a wall you have to make sure your business is separate from you because if not then that's when the IRS or some plants attorney or someone else some tax collector is going to come after you and say this is your pole this is your obligation so you got to build up that wall and the best way to do that is simply create a separate legal entity this is the fighting entrepreneur the podcast dedicated to entrepreneurs looking to change the world learn how to start build and scale a business in today's highly competitive business environments here's your house this fighting entrepreneur on exceed ah what's up you crazy fighting entrepreneurs we are back with yet another podcast episode this is annexing all your hosts and I have today with me my attorney I have my lawyer in the room what's up Michael how are you not even in trouble it got a little colder in the room so there's attorneys here he's actually pretty cool so you don't have to worry he's actually awesome and I gotta say before I do your official introduction he's pulled me out of a lot of hot spots and made me some money too we've been able to go out after people that needed to be gone out after and I've been working together now for how many years five six five six years so today this is a very very important episodes a little different than the usual ones right we get the marketing stuff going because I'll tell you the biggest mistake that I see businesses new startups making is that they don't invest enough time and energy into making sure things are done right from the beginning and having a great attorney in their corner it has been one of the biggest differences I was laughing and joking with Michael earlier I said that I had a Reese I had a new business idea recently then I want to start and you know typically who we reach out to like our best friend or we reach out to like who's the first person I email this literally the first contact hey I want to talk about this idea I need to make sure that I got all the legalese set up so you've trained me to think differently and it's really been awesome and I hope that this this episode will do the same so before I even do the introduction and really tell you about just what he's done and how amazing he's been with us and with all the other clients Michael we do have a tradition here at the fighting entrepreneur I need you to raise your right hand I don't even know where this came from I just started doing it randomly one day I Michael Kerrigan I'm Michael Kerrigan do you solemnly swear do solemnly swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth tell the truth and nothing but the truth and spill all the legal secrets let's spare all the ones I can without breaking the rules yeah there you go makin the laws alright we were we were talking earlier I was I caught her how many lines can I push and I was like well he he does draw up the contracts he can't break himself so michael has been our attorney at learn and he's representing now basically any company I set up for the last five to six years we've worked together on our nonprofit matters we've just we've been around the gambit and it's been it's been absolutely amazing I do want to read you his official bio though because it's that impressive I don't want to breast met risk messing it up nationally-known lawyer and here's best part my favorite part represents and understands internet businesses and that's so key because I know the attorney I had before you could wasn't going to understand new and former prosecutors be careful he's got a little bite to him zoo over a hundred cases tried never lost a single civil trial so that's awesome to have in your corner partnered with national law firm Holland & Hart who've been amazing to us thank you and lives in Denver but advises clients all over the world especially also in the world of e-commerce that's that's like his specialty super lawyer ranked super lawyer that's awesome I didn't know about that no cave yeah no no okay well you should have a cape super lawyer every year since 2009 we won't ask what happened before 2009 but everybody XS 2000 is a sidekick since and and that's in the best lawyers in American is that a journal is that its publication yeah that's Laurie and of course he's he was introduced to me by our dear friend here at the learned nation fred lamb so you represent fred as well and then of course clickbank a company that many of us know is also a client so we are very very honored to have you here thank you so much for you know spending this time you flew all the way in to do this that means a lot of love come and learn san Onofre's be back I was here on your opening day and it's amazing to see it continue to grow and and and so for that I have to really say one of the points I want to talk about in this episode we're gonna get into by the we go the rounds he's gonna tell you the things you have to prepare for some of them are gonna hurt I'm just telling you I mean there are things you're not gonna want to do and the fact alone is I'll tell you my side of it every single one of these points I'll tell you my side of the story and did you have to do every single one of these but the biggest point I want to make if you're starting a business a lot of people they have this thing this they're starting a new company they say I'm not big enough to worry about lawyers right now look I don't you know I don't I don't need to spend money you know on all these massive hourly charges and I don't need attorneys I don't need CPAs I don't need all of these things and think what I've learned now as I've matured as an entrepreneur that's the first thing you need that's the first thing I get set up properly but you can have there's two kinds of lawyers or attorneys you can have okay and this is me personally speaking about my relationship with Michael you can have an attorney they're easy to find they're a dime a dozen okay you can have any other attorney you want or you can have an attorney who's in your corner and those are two different things so example you just heard Michael say he came here at our grand opening for the Lauren center because he actually cares we have a relationship I know if I message him late at night I want to hear back if I say urgent need to hear back then just knowing that alone is such a sigh of relief so I want everyone to know that what were we cover here right whether you whether you even reach out to Michael to work with him or wherever just make sure it's someone who invests in you at a different level not just a professional level and so that's been amazing so thank you for that you know my business is making sure your business succeeds yeah I know I just really haven't had an opportunity to say thank you for that and you know we're gonna talk some some well I don't want to say great stories but we'll tell stories of issues I've gotten myself into and Michael's pulled me out of and hopefully that will teach you to be ahead of it and not get yourself into those issues so Michael I want to jump right in you've got you prepared for us ten points that every entrepreneur new experience senior doesn't matter has to think through and has to prioritize and as we gotta go through this we'll talk about some of the horror stories and some of the good stories and all of that so if you're ready I want to dive right into round one yeah and I have to say your your what you're talking about I see over and over again that people can either pay a little bit of money to a lawyer like me early on or pay us a lot later yeah it's so true you could pay a little early and be set and sleep at night or you can pay a lot so I know I keep pushing this I'm not selling you legal services all right I'm just letting you know that there are services like financial services CPA and legal services that most entrepreneurs ignore and avoid in the beginning and that's exactly the time you should be doubling down on them so let's move into round number one we're gonna talk about the first thing that every entrepreneur has to take very seriously in concern Michael round number one legal structure of a business so many people out there I know right now how many of us internet marketers are running just we're just making money we're cashing checks they're being written to our name that's right you know and and I think people take it like yeah what's the big deal apparently it could be a very big deal it listen you've got to build a wall you have to make sure your business is separate from you because if not then that's when the IRS or some plaintiff's attorney or someone else some tax collectors gonna come after you and say this is your fault this is your obligation so you got to build up that wall and the best way to do that is simply create a separate legal entity mm-hm so what are we when we say create a legal separate entity explain that more like I see Corp a score of LLC there's so many of them out there but so okay let's let's play out a scenario so I when I first started I was getting checks from Clickbank ironically no written ionic single right and I was doing all this affiliate marketing I was doing all this marketing and I was even actually I had clients back then I was selling services for five hundred to a thousand dollars so at that point someone could come after me and they would have access to all of my personal assets right your house your car everything your savings your retirement that's why you got to set up a separate business okay so if if now let's say I've gone ahead and worked with appropriate people and set up a separate entity by the way no matter of a country are listening from every country has the ability to do this does that completely protect me personally or or it's it's it's like a very heavy protection but you know there's still some personal liability it really depends on how you treat that business so if you set up an LLC or you set up an escrow for c-corp you have to treat it like a real businesses you have and this is one things we'll be talking about in the other rounds but you have to keep your money separate and distinct separate bank accounts you have to actually go through the formalities and make sure you have all the paperwork in line and if you do then you're gonna sleep a lot better at night because god forbid something happens that business it doesn't happen to you got it all right so let's this come this question comes up to me all the time and I don't know the answer is still the most common ones you hear escort you here C Corp you here LLC is there another one but just what how do we determine which is right look like if I came to you today and said I'm starting a company because even I've worked with you and I still don't understand but I'll call you and say I'm starting this company and you'll say you should do an LLC well and I was want to ask well why is this one of us S corp and why is this one in LLC I just don't care I just you know whatever he says I do so talk me through that cuz you're listening how do they determine which is right well it really depends on what their needs are what their business what their short-term and long-term plans are LLC's are they're very common varies is set up as our s corpse those are the two most common small businesses and each have distinct tax advantages so you want to talk to your own lawyer about C corpse that's a different animal that it's got some it's some real advantages for investors if you think you're gonna do some sort of incentive plan because you're gonna have employees you want to give stock options to then you really got to be a c-corp yeah so even for example at learn here we're still an S corp but we have full plans of eventually moving to esop plans and all of these things eventually so we know we have to then we have to do a legal transition to C Corp but I also know that you can't just bounce back and forth so that's right yeah that's expensive yeah once you do it you got a so that's why we're waiting we're waiting for the right opportunity to do it there's a lot of tax implications obviously there's benefits right now for me keeping it as an S corp and then we go to C Corp there's some changes there what about a lot of people this is very common in our industry they'll partner up so just like two people partner up and let a you know you're number two as we move around number two oh we're moving around to know okay so how does that impact the legal setup is it there does it make a difference S Corp LLC C Corp if I have one partner no if you just have one partner since the two of you probably want to be an LLC or an S corp okay all right and then what about LLP well limited liability partnerships that's what my law firm is and that's really more around professionals okay so doctors and lawyers Robin so a lot of internet marketers probably wouldn't even be really crossing into that territory Ben's what you're selling okay probably not it's a very good legal answer right there that does depend you need good counsel do you recommend I can go right now I type in incorporate or whatever and there's like all these services right that's a 300 bucks well we'll get your corporation set up if I'm just starting and if I have a small business should I do it that way or should I do it with an attorney listen you get what you pay for like anything else and you've just started recent podcast on how you hate the word free and I think lawyers hate the word free is certainly setting up something online is better than nothing but if you really want something that's gonna work for your business because I can't tell you how people come by they started that way and they never change the structure as their business grew and then they had major problems very true I've been there I have been there I have done that so let's just throw this out there what draws people into these like online quick and easy it's it is the money it's like a couple hundred bucks whatever I'll do it that's easier I guess people are most people never even ask a lawyer because the automatic assumption is this gonna be insanely expensive and maybe yeah comparing it to a coupon or box it might be but roughly let's say someone very simple no partner they're starting an affiliate business they're gonna be doing you know simple marketing 10 20 grand a month and transactions and they come to an attorney what should they be mentally prepared to spend to get it done really correctly and properly rough probably three to five okay I was in three to five thousand dollars now again you're thinking that's that sounds like a lot but I can tell you right now I had done this wrong in the past and to back out of it the legal costs were ten fifteen thousand to kind of go back and figure it out right it's a lot harder to back out of it and if your business changes and evolves you've still got that business structure if even if you move into a different area got it all right brilliant all right yeah I am now ready to move on around around - let's do it all right round number two round two partners okay we have this problem in our industry okay I'm just gonna come out right and say it I'm a part of the problem well I was a part of the problem not so much now you go to an event you have dinner with someone do you have a good conversation you fall in love with the person not like romantically but it's just like hey do you know Facebook guides wow cool I build pages let's create a company together it's like really like that and I've done this so many times I can't tell you how many times I've partnered with people and done I mean I've partnered with people and done multiple seven figures and that was literally just like a dinner conversation and nothing more than that and here's the other thing all of them well one of them didn't go bitter but all of the other ones they ended not well because there's always I mean you know this it's the honeymoon period you're good for the first like that's right 30 days 60 80 90 days and then the project launches and money starts to come out and the presentment starts and one person's like why am i doing more work than this person that's right is this person not doing this and those my ideas so that's why yeah exactly if you're listening and you're thinking oh my god I think this onyx talking to me I am I mean it's I've done this gazillion times I have so many people I know that do this don't do it it just never goes well I mean the expectations knowing what you know just knowing that defining the term so partnership what's your deal how do I set it what would you advise if I came to you today let's say I come to you right now and I'm like Michael I am starting up a partnership with somebody be my lawyer what are you gonna tell me put it in writing put every detailed writing when you're getting along you know in and I think your your marriage fall in love example is apt because would people would you move in and get married if you after a few conversations no but if you're jumping in business with that person then that means you're getting all their messes pop perhaps all their debts all their baggage and when things are going well when things are going bad you need to make sure in advance what's yours what's mine how are we dividing our deal put it in writing so this is now these aren't like template of contracts really that we can go to like legals or whatever and pull out right these have to be custom written so for example I'm involved in companies where my key role for a pretty good stake in equity is advisory consulting I'm the person who brings you know the the bigger clients but I don't have a day-to-day I'm not on the org chart I don't have a day-to-day responsibilities so would that be something that I would call you and you would expressively write out that this is onyx and gauls responsibilities in this company understood this is what his equity is an exchange of now both of you sign here is that that's the sort of thing we do we sit down with the owners we talk about what's your what's the deal you want to enter into well how are you gonna resolve any disputes how you want to split profits losses let's decide it all why we get on so we decide on the divorce before we get married it's a prenup yeah it's a prenup but hey listen I got to tell you this would have sounded ridiculous to me seven eight years ago and it probably might be sounding ridiculous to you right now it sounds like music to my ears right now because I've been through this so many times now whenever I'm setting up an idea or a partnership with anyone right from day one super clear but I gotta admit Michael I need to get some of these things in writing so I've been at least vocally clear but people forget people I tell young is differently so I the litigator in me makes a lot of money when people don't get it in writing yeah fight about it later yeah that's true yeah that's true so so the fact that he's telling you to do it now he's actually taking money this pocket it's good advice what do we expect as far as prepping for this so let's take a fictitious example I'm thinking two of my students and just create random image in my mind come together they want to start a business and they talk it out they say they agree they're like okay yeah you're gonna do this you're gonna do this and this is what we own and this is what we're responsible for how does that work with an attorney do they call their attorney and brief the attorney and then the attorney drafts it like I couldn't walk my so process it's a lot goes back to round one because ideally the two of you go to a lawyer and the lawyer is gonna be the attorney for that business and talked to both owners how do you want to divide things up who's gonna be response for what who's the ownership how and critically how do you resolve disputes the two of you can't agree on something one of you wants to sell the other one doesn't how do you agree on those things put it all in the same so that can be part of the LLC agreement that can be part of the shareholder agreement for the S corp are there set of like are there because a lot of people may not actually know what questions to ask one another - like for example good lawyers okay so they're gonna say okay here are the questions you guys need to go answer these and come back to you and then I'll put them into the doc you want somebody wants leave the business does their rider first refusal yeah to match that price and I mean this doesn't have to take more than a few hours right with your agent not at all yeah it shouldn't and then but I have made so much money out people who just went to the Internet pulled something off I had a client recently he was in Canada the other guy was in Denver so he came to me absurd amount of money probably half of what the company was worth was spent on lawyers how many partnerships can you imagine wouldn't even come wouldn't even happen if they had those discussions early on because I'll end up hitting a disagreement and save themselves years of of messes I mean I can think back right now to a couple of deals so this is actually a very be but you know going back to the marriage analogy if you have a fight on the second date you'd rather do that than the second year marriage well gonna if your partner's not going to be fair with you send it up so so one of the arguments that that someone could possibly make about not wanting to invest the money in coming up with an official partnership agreement early on is oh god it'll take hours and hours of discussion and talk and my answer would be if it does then you have a problem because if you guys are having to debate that much now right better better to know that now and then to find it out when the company's worth something and right you're gonna have to fight for it so you said here that when you have everything set up in your partnership properly and it helps the taxes talk about that how does it help with the taxes because then you can agree on how you're gonna treat your income how are you gonna put put the the income that's coming in is it going to be distributed is it can be put back into the business those are sort of things that can all be worked out together and pay for themselves so there you go see that's another question so for example when a company is first starting people could say hey we own this 50/50 that's fine but you just closed a client or closed a big deal so where does that money go does it go 50/50 or does it go to the the company because you need money to grow do you take a portion of that so that's what you mean right the guy says I brought the client yeah but you sort of my idea in the two of them can't agree yeah that's never happened right yeah no I've been through it brilliant all right so if you're I have to say this I cannot push this enough this might be one of my favorite points of the ten that we're gonna go over and in that's just cuz I've been through it I've been through it myself if you are entering into a partnership you've got to you absolutely have to talk to an attorney not even for the contract as much as those questions that the attorney is gonna ask you great questions that you just never thought about that you need to address like like I joke like right now my wife and I are trying to put together our our trust in our will and everything and hope God leads to debates but those are good questions but I would have never even known if it wasn't for someone saying hey you need to answer these questions I'm like you're gonna know a lot better now yeah yeah well I mean these were all so well very well prepared so it is yeah that's awesome all right well let's move on to round number three this one again another interesting one that I bet you most internet businesses never think about intellectual property alright so round three little happy ha ha ha yeah well move do we ever get sadder again yeah yeah we do we get we get a little hardcore later again in some of some topics but hey listen you know again we joke these are sometimes tough topics but some of my favorites now and the ones I play the most and because you want to grow big you just have to do all of this intellectual property I can tell you I bet you 90% of my seven figure eight figure buddies they're entrepreneurs haven't done anything in this and I speak guilty as charged because it was only a year ago I think we're even it was you he said what you guys doing like you've got to start doing more intellectual problems my exact thing back to us what intellectual property do I have and I remember the answer we got to that was like Bam Bam Bam Bam Bam and I'm like oh my god I didn't realize that so take a client like me what kind of intellectual property do I have well it's mostly intellectual property because what you sell is your image learn nation your trademark and you sell knowledge and that's copyright and if you're not protecting those assets it's like a bank leaving the safe door open okay so if I have a course like I have a course called ironically copywriting Academy it has nothing to do with the legal word copy but cooperating Academy it is my course I developed it from scratch what do I do with it like now I'm ready to sell it when you say copyright it what am I supposed to do what are my steps so for copywriting for something you've written you have an inherent copyright in it so if someone writes a book they don't necessarily have to go register it but if they do register it with the Copyright Office then they have much greater rights and there is some fees but if someone infringes when someone steals that course you've got much bigger rights to go after them or if someone sell in that course on some other platform you can say look here's my copyright certificate take it down which by the way happens in our industry oh yeah all the time oh my god all the time can't tell you how many times I find my course is being sold on other platforms and luckily it has become a little bit easier to get them taken down but the fact that they still proliferate through them is is huge so okay so I wrote my cooperating Academy course I got it developed in order for me - so you're saying if I even just put the copyright statement there I have an inherent copyright to it but I should register it with the cooperating Department now is that something I just go online and do myself or do I have to call much should I call you for it well again hopefully you've got a business you've leveraged and you have an established relationship with an attorney who can do a bunch of these okay at once okay and therefore like all of your courses we can get them registered for a lot easier than group price okay got it and and which what is the department where people register this well it's us the u.s. trademark and patent office us in Patent Office all right awesome now let's talk about something like so that's coursework that's content but I learned we've got our platform that we've developed millions of dollars of technology with and we have all these new features coming out and there's technology there there's code is their IP there should I be getting something protected their code is usually covered by copyright okay if it's a particular design that's unique to your platform then it might be you maybe you can patent you for example is something like the like button at Facebook is that patented that would be more of a trade mark okay so the functionality behind it would conceivably be pat-pat but the like mark that thumbs up to asking me something that's part of a trade mark kind of like to learn okay got it so so if it in case we end up coding something into the platform that's truly a unique feature some AI some crazy you know thing then then there might be a patent actually there into the technology here if it's you need a unique enough application so company like Google I know they file patent right in front of their algorithms are all being patented so you brought up trademark that's interesting recently rich so rich is our CFO and rich works with Michael all the time I mean a huge stink this is like two months ago huge stink about our learn logo and he's it was get rid of the is it T and put an R now or was it the other way around because we had TM or something and he wanted to have the the are there now its ready because his now is registered and I cuz like what's the big difference the biggest difference of the world and I change them all now so we can throw a huge exercise in the company trademarks let's talk about trademarks like what's the importance of a trademark and how do we go about getting here's what I see a lot is you can get a trademark search done for pretty inexpensively I think our firm does it for less than a thousand bucks because so many people invest in a company they get this great name they love it it's catchy and they've used it for three years and then they find out there's a company in Mississippi who does something very similar who's got a got a similar name so that's why you want to find out and I remember talking you about learn when you first come up with the name what a great name look but let's make sure no one else is using it and in this space yeah and so we'll talk a little bit about the process of getting a trademark but I don't want to tell the story that how much this has helped us that the trademark of all of the legal protections from an IP perspective has helped us the most because when you have so when we have learned in our logo trademark we had a person who was trying I remember this is years ago they had created a handle learn handle on was it YouTube I can't remember it was YouTube it was a YouTube channel and they were in our space they're in the education space right because with trademarks it's also important to know it is category driven right if it's a restaurant yeah so there could be a restaurant name learn the sign in our business line we couldn't sue them but these guys were trying to do something the education market had a YouTube channel and they were starting to get active and I knew about him initially it was dead and I thought I'm not gonna spend money legally to clone after him they started getting active do you remember this I think yeah this is a few years ago and they drove a stink back they were not willing to stop until this is our trademark so if you don't hairs Michael like he's gonna come hammer done immediately it was given up so this allows us to protect there's been other times where someone wants to tarnish your name but they're using your trademark and right boom you can get it removed right away cuz they're not allowed to do it so we've used I would say of all the IP legal protection we have really doubled down on the trademark protection it's helped us a lot now the next level for learn is we're going to be trademarking some of our biggest courses some of the names behind the courses right now we wanted to focus on learn but there's names and things that we want to go and you know it's important when you're building for me as I'm trying to build something that's going to be huge and massive and really a leading company in the Entrepreneurship space I want to own I want to own certain terms that I've created recently there was I remember I messaged you about this and there was a word I'm not gonna get I'm gonna get into the specifics so don't say yeah it was a very generic word but I found out that the the company that when one buy this word was going around suing other people right and so I know that you know I messaged him said do I have to worry about this and no I don't think we really needed to but your response to me was the better way to protect yourself is to trademark your name and the way you're using it so that they can't take claim to that not that was really smart so it was really good advice how um trademarking like how expensive or what kind of budget and what time should someone so if they're just starting their company if they have no idea it's gonna even become anything let's say do you have a revenue number like at what point that this should become kind of top priority for them you know early cuz again if it starts if it starts taking off then it's too late because then you got to rebrand yourself around a different name so in some of this of course people can do themselves by just doing some basic research before they get too invested name see if there's something else out there but you really any good IP law firm our firm does it does is dozens of these every day you just do a simple trade mark searched yeah well so okay so the search you got to do right away that I agree with and and you can go to the USPTO cited it is not a very friendly website but if you devote a little time you can do your own search it's not that complicated go to Google type in trademark search and then at least if you think you're not finding anything then at least confirm it with an attorney one time it's important I met more like okay let's say we're past the search I my name doesn't have any trademark I think I'm good to go and so I start to build my business I just feel like is that something like right on month one when we don't even know it's gonna the business is gonna do anything should we start filing trademarks and spending money on that or not necessarily and okay and some of the things we're talking about the good law firm can do a whole package of these things okay so set up your business make sure it defines what your different partners are gonna do okay and then let's make sure your business name is gonna go forward okay it's gonna work all right what's an average budget someone should expect for a good trademark like a really well done protective trademark uh what a mm okay that's the very mark alone no not this the search is less than a thousand oh wow okay so I so I can go ahead and register my trademark for not much then that's that's that's not if you wanna do it yourself but you you you want to be sure you're checking all the right boxes no I want to do I want to do it with an attorney I say what's kind of the budget if I want to get a good attorney involved to go ahead and register that so so to do the search and the register earrings about twenty five hundred yeah so I will say this it's usually the last thing young entrepreneurs are thinking about but if your company is if you got that name and it's starting to do even a little bit you got to get it protected because especially nowadays with all the negative SEO people like to do your words on your terms it just helps so much because then here's what happens right if someone's attacking you negatively on a platform and they're using your trademark to do it they may not agree but the platform the company above them has to take action because they're hearing it hosting someone abusing your trademark it's pretty powerful how long does it take I know that when we did our trademark there were multiple stages we did the International and so walk me through like how long does that kind of process take if today I decide to come to you and I said I want to get they trademarked there's no one answers because it kind of depends on how unique your name is and basically what you do is you put it in your file and if someone else is gonna challenge it then it can be really attractive so let's say no one challenges it how long does this month's six months to get it now D what about owning it in other countries because I know it's this US and then there's like another roll out then you got a register um in those other countries okay and that process takes a little bit longer yeah that can take a lot more learns took how long was it a total from start to finish couple years or year and a half year and a half yeah so it's also you know do it that's we didn't do it right away so we went after the u.s. one right away and then by then we were like okay we're taking off this is it we're tripling down this is the name branding it it's gonna be everywhere all over the place and so we filed it in all the major markets that we wanted and that was pretty good it came back and hey you don't wanna do that one yourself like I didn't want to touch we found somebody in Australia that was used in your name and not using it well and oh I didn't know that yeah so we gotta shut it down I didn't even know that see that's awesome oh hey that that's pretty cool what was he was he doing with it oh he was trying to sell knowledge but it wasn't the quality that you've got so rich and I work together we took him down stop all right that's awesome I wonder if he's watching right now it's doing you know all Angry very cool intellectual property again something that most people don't talk about but at least be copywriting your material as a bare minimum you've got to do it doesn't take that much to do it and it protects you so make sure you do it alright let's move on to round number four this is interesting all right round number for investment in assets what is that it's similar to what we've already talked about cuz you got to think about particularly in the internet space what are your assets larvan is your idea your image so investing in those through IP but also what a lot of people forget is how who owns that then and so if two partners come together and they come up with this great logo this great this great image that they want to use so who owns it if they're not investing in recording that if they're not making it clear that that belong to the company as opposed to any any one of the owners laughter I mean by investing in your assets talk about that keep careful track and one of the other things that I see all the time it goes back to one of earlier points is people mixing their business and their personal assets and you got to keep track of it and keep that separate because I heck I just had a trial about a month ago where I got a multi-million dollar verdict in part because my clients partner was mixing all the businesses together Wow okay so that's really interesting I guess I never really thought about that but I think we've been pretty good about it at learn it's the learn logo and the learn trademark is not owned by onic it's owned by Ryan incorporated and that's really important because imagine if in five years I want to sell this company that's right you know which which which investors gonna want to buy it knowing that some of the assets the key assets of the company are owned by the person who they're trying to buy it out from or you and then you have to worry about transferring and all the taxes involved with that access because I have to sell it and have to write so let me walk you through that real quick cuz that that's a good example of how will you say you can either pay me a little now or you could pay me a whole lot later or you could pay the IRS so a lot later in this case so let's say somehow the way the that that learned logo or that is owned as by me and now all of a sudden it's five years down the road the company gets valued at a billion dollars because that's what's gonna happen and an investor comes and says I want to buy it they do their due diligence which they take months they look through everything they pick up every you know pillow and everything and Allison they're like hey where's the ownership document for this for this logo which of course in a billion dollar company that's the logo that's the thing that everyone's the image recognizes and all of a sudden they're like oh this is paid for by onyx and all from his own account he paid the designer back when the company was just starting the company didn't have any money so he paid out of his own account so it's technically owned by him never signed the rights over yeah I never signed the rights over and now you can't just be like I'll do it because that's probably there's a value to that that's right so if I sign it over to learn learn has to compensate me for that that's a whole nother problem but the IRS comes in and says you just made a huge income there was a it was a taxable event so god forbid that logo is worth 50 million I'm gonna pay taxes on 50 million I mean this this right all for what a couple grand and legal advice when you were first doing it and this is why I say right now I choke ingly say but very seriously say like attorney first make sure I don't have to deal with all these issues and going back to your billion dollar scenario let's say that the company has a co-owner who doesn't want who doesn't want to release the logos right yes and then you're fighting button the whole deal crazy cuz they don't maybe that I want to do the the the transaction or the cell or they want more they want that they have something to hold over your head also now that's right right so one of the things that you mentioned here like keep track of books and records records is really interesting and books also most people would never imagine so I learned this is something we're doing this year and when when rich our CFO brought it to me I was like aha i want to deal with this we're we're doing we are volunteering for a private audit of our financials that's smart and it's it's taking two of my smartest people in the company months to set up for and then they're gonna come in the auditors this is not the government this is like we're privately getting a company to come in and do it they're gonna come into this company they're gonna have a person by person by person by person interviewing people and I'm like it's gonna take up so much time but man if I have a record of that when eventually it comes time for a transaction or for a fundraiser for a bank to give us some money to grow they it shows so much you know sure maturity that that we we have all of our stuff we have all our ducks in a row and that we haven't always right recently I came up with a legal problem and I called Michael was it was a pretty serious one it was someone really messing with me in a bad way it was a contractor we had brought on went super rogue couldn't have been my by the way this was one of those situations where I couldn't have thought in my wildest dreams that this person you know we think like nah that's my buddy that person will never hurt it's usually that person by the way that comes for you and I was shocked first of all once I got over the shock of what this person was doing to me that I knew I had to act swiftly I had to act fast and I had to act with no mercy cuz it was bad call Michael first thing Michael asked me send me the contract didn't have one and I'll tell you why I don't we don't make this mistake right now we do not make this mistake anymore that was a weird situation in which I got it so close to the person and I got excited and I said all right let's get started and I don't want to wait till I'm gonna pay you now and it fell through the cracks so now rich you know our CFO like for example we won't want to we wanted to bring on a few contractors next week and it came up I said hey listen let's just get them the training started the contract before they ever make a dime they'll make their sign the contract rich said uh-uh contract first then they can get training and you can have the same one yeah I mean that's what that's amazing thing is a lot of businesses can have the same one that sets forth the terms if you have a dispute you got to come to me I don't have to go to you yeah well so to wrap up that story right talking about kind of keeping hat that's that's an asset that contract that comes in its own way and I said that protects you I didn't have one so of course I'm really embarrassed because I know I'm gonna tell Michael I'm just I'm gonna get the whole five minutes of dude seriously like why I'm like yeah I I don't have a contract I finally confessed and all he told me which which I agreed was he said this whole process could be so much easier if you did you know and probably I can get you a lot more money if you did but now it's gonna be he said she said and there's nothing officially stating that the things that this person did they were not allowed to do which common sense is they shouldn't do those things but common sense doesn't really stand in the that doesn't necessarily work in a court of law yeah the court of law there's no common sense so judge is gonna say common sense is to get a contract alright so he kicks my ass sometimes a little bit here can be honest having said that though credit to him still got me over 150 grand back which was very helpful but I lesson learned probably could have been way more if I just took what you're right we have a standard contract you drew up a standard contract for us we can just modify the the part statement of work that describe statement of work and I wouldn't even have act to actually have them haven't called him like we already had when it was just a matter of being me being lazy it's in DocuSign I have to go edit three things and send it off alright any so alright investment anything else you want to talk about books and records alright let's move on this is a really interesting one so round number five let's talk about terms and conditions do you what do you mean by this is this the stuff at the bottom of the website that's right bottomless stuff you get to put on your website that's the thing not just copy paste oh yeah oh yeah yeah I've got a story about that where people did this copy and paste somewhere else you know what half the people watching right now that's exactly what they did I brought in mine I can take a snippet of my privacy policy that you guys wrote for us and if you put it into Google they don't even change the name it says exact I have seen that I have seen that where people don't change the address they don't change the name I've seen stuff where clients come to me again later after they're in trouble and I say tell me the terms and conditions that your your customers soon jaan why does it say they have to go to Florida when you're in Washington State Oh cuz that's where we cut and paste it from man so that okay no one takes those seriously talk to us about that why is that serious cuz I don't think I take it seriously it's enforceable you know as long as you don't totally hide it it in court more courts because it's it's the rules of the road road now with commerce is people put those terms and conditions courts are enforcing them and you get a defined you can define all these important steps about what people can do what they can't do the notice they have to give you possibly limiting your damages at least saying if god forbid they want to sue you they have to come to you all you gonna define all of those things so good Terms of Use Wow so if they want to see you they have to come to you that's I mean that's a big one loans gonna save you money and it's automatically assumed that if someone continues to use your website and things that they have agreed to those terms and conditions that's the presumption okay Wow I mean I know they're important only because he made us do them but I mean a lot of people copy and paste them so is it is it can they copy and paste it and just change the things out should someone do that or really their individual like when when you did ours did you just use a template and then kind of edit things there are things you always want in there okay but again you want to you want to talk about limitation liability so that would be a good example of the sort of thing that you don't want to just cut and paste because if you have a business where you're doing five thousand dollar transactions and you cut and paste something that someone else put in and they allowed for damages of five times the purchase price because they were doing ten dollar transactions that's some sort of thing that's gonna come back and bite you that's pretty smart right there see this is why they make the big bucks they know these things okay so we got terms and conditions you talked a little bit about the kinds of things going that that go into those terms and conditions what else goes down what what else is important at the bottom of a website well privacy policy is really important right now the Federal Trade Commission is hammering this that you have to have a privacy policy and you've got to follow it because so many consumers are finding ways to complain about it and that alone is gonna be very expensive if you get investigated okay so I mean for what does I don't know what does a learn privacy policy say you probably or what are most privacy policies say that could be violated look how do you so the key thing you got to do is you got to tell people what information you're taking from them okay and what you're gonna do with it okay who you're gonna share with okay so for example we collect name email all the time so we have to explain in our privacy policy that we're collecting your name and email for the purpose of and this is how it will be used right and it could be shared if at all like in our case we don't share it with anybody so we would put that that's right share and now if we ended up sharing it with someone then then you got a violation okay now what if I what if I do share it what if I had two companies their sister companies both owned by me and they do share is that okay as long as I put it there I have to write that this information there's a shared way it depends how you put it if yet you want to put in that you can share with any related companies or affiliates okay alright so when people hear privacy policy I feel like a lot of them think right away that you cannot share because a lot of people do have multiple companies right and even in my case I have multiple companies now we don't actually cross share data ever but I could see the day when that could happen and it wouldn't be for the good of the customer to be honest but I would have I would have to call you and we'd have to change the privacy pledge right and all the data you got before that could not couldn't couldn't be shared and so my clients I want to make sure you're clear and the fact is every consumer should read them and most people don't but you so you want to make sure you're giving yourself the most opportunity in use of the information gathering because a lot of businesses that's that's the most valuable thing they have so when it comes to terms and conditions a lot of sites I sign up for I think Facebook for example people one day in the signup process you have to do the whole scroll Scroll scroll and then hit I accept which is what most people do in ours we don't have that so when you sign up for learn we don't do that we function from the assumption that it's in the bottom so read it or note like should we be is that should we were you doing that should everyone be forced to accept terms and conditions it's always better to have that but I for smaller transactions for smaller businesses it's just not practical and okay you can't expect consumers don't have to always click through okay when your your Apple your Google your Amazon you can force people to click through yeah okay it makes sense and then you also have I mean that much more liability I guess to or because you're that big a much bigger company I just want to make sure that at Lerner's we build a platform we have a quarter million users now in there and we're going for a million users over the course of the next year that right now the process goes you go to learn calm you fill in the form you hit submit next page it asks you a question we start to kind of do the onboarding remember and to me it feels like if I did shove the terms and conditions in there it would just disrupt the onboarding process by a lot but we're okay right now you don't think we need to necessarily force the terms and conditions you try to get free legal advice pretty much absolutely exactly so if nothing else you can have them click a box that they have read them okay all right so that's interesting if our tech team is watching we need to talk about that and yes I was trying to get free legal advice anytime I can all right well let's move on I want to go to round number six which is really interesting also because we blaze through this in the internet world and don't pay attention all right so round number six what are you signing with other vendors my God how many times you know I have I have an agency right now that we just started and I don't think a single one of our clients has even looked at or asked or thought about the fact that they're signing on with us and so and then at learn we hire contractors and all these people all the time and so right here you said you know what are you getting into but there's an interesting part and how do you get out right so let me give you an example yes I get this from a lot of clients where they hire a vendor who's gonna do some market research for them or some other business support and they send in a non-disclosure agreement an NDA and that's all the time that's right and that's can be really concerning because with if they're saying we're gonna share with you trade secrets of ours that you're gonna agree that what you can do with do with them or not do with them if you get in a dispute later about what exactly was their information let's say out of that relationship they get a great idea or they learn some about your company they're gonna claim that it's that was their idea so those NDA's that most people blaze through and sign they really need to be careful about the downside to them I don't do that at all I didn't take this I take the I gotta say I I do blaze through them because I don't really give them that much credibility it happens all the time if someone wants to hire me to consult them they don't want me to publish their data sure you know or talk about their data and that's kind of the same reason we had a consultant come in recently we gave him an NDA because he was gonna start seeing inside of our Facebook gods accounts and everything I don't want him to share that information but the thing is when I get those I'm like hey I won't share your information but then now I have the information it's in my head and I well I probably will in it's hard for me to not learn from and use it in my own marketing or in my own business but that's probably something wanted out the key is yeah okay so the key is then you require that it's not a confidential secret of theirs unless they label it as such when they give it to you haha okay so that simple so you're not fighting later got it and so that's often what I tell my clients okay they want you to sign an NDA because they're gonna give you confidential information fine then put the burden on them to label it this is our confidential information that you can't distribute I'm handing it over Wow okay so I got to start showing my undies I signed to you probably I really do never take them seriously but you're right I mean it could probably get it could get ugly in the future absolutely bigger and bigger deals the other thing you said here which is really interesting how do you get out of it that's interesting like you know so that's what you got to read in advance so I I have some clients right now who have signed up for some for some computer support contracts that have no termination date and they there's no no opportunity to cancel it for cause it's enormous ly expensive and the main way we found out is because they deal with a lot of health care information we figured out that there that they are not being compliant with HIPAA to protect that health information so we're using that as a reason to get out of a very bad contract that they didn't have their lawyer read before they signed smart all right no I I have to say that it's um it's very important because that it's so here's the deal when I sign a contract I'm pretty good about okay how does this end especially with a consultant because you just don't know enough in a month or two if they're gonna work and I don't I don't I can't remember the last time I signed a deal that said okay one year minimum or whatever I was BS unless there is a very easy defined way to get out of it now of course I like to send deals that way they're you know hey your your roped in for a minimum of six months or whatever but that's really interesting honhom and you know ask yourself like do you do you read your stuff like we blaze through terms and conditions and NDA's and all these things but I have been bit multiple times now and I'm still making mistakes here I am confessing it live I'm still making mistakes but I'm learning and I'm getting better so I challenge you do the same and this is why by the way I say it's great to have an attorney who's in your corner it's not just your attorney because you can actually have this kind of it I'm not getting like you know I'm not getting that grilling like from Michael but I get to learn from him so when I make mistakes it's I know that he will help me get out of it then he'll also help me hold accountable to not make that mistake again so it's really important and if you have a relationship with an attorney it's so much more efficient send it to me I look at in 10 minutes and let you know any concerns yeah absolute that I know your business yeah you know the business the other thing is sometimes we want help on something this is a bit of a it's kind of a digression but working with attorneys you know Michael's very smart but there are things we want and things we need that he doesn't know but again what's awesome is then we tell him ok can you find us you know at Holland and art there's got to be someone and by the time we get on with that particular counsel he's already briefed them they know enough I don't have to waste another hour of their time and get billed for it in getting them up to speed on my business so for us it's almost like yeah we work with Michael but then we have the assets of all of Holland & Hart at our disposal which has been awesome it's been really helpful so I have to say also cuz before and I've made this mistake and I bet many people make it is they'll go out for that solo attorney you know who's a 150 an hour 200 an hour they're sitting in a corner somewhere in a co work space or cousins Susan I actually do have a cousin who's a great attorney so I'm get shot out to you and I love him I do get some free advice remember everything he's an IP or trigger so here's some free advice from him but but yeah cuz you know cousin Susan I mean you're right they did the best thing is so when I call like my cousin for example on get if I use him as an example if I call him and ask him something about nonprofits he he says I don't know I'll find you someone but I don't know versus cousin Susan many times might just you know the problem with that is then you don't you don't have a firm at your disposal you don't have that powerhouse and I will say that makes a big difference I mean if we get into a legal issue to know that you've got a firm you got you got Michael and then you got tax lawyers and pee lawyers everything transaction lawyers yeah real estate lawyers yeah all in one house it's huge all right let's move on to my favorite topic all right round number seven or are somewhere in a co workspace or cousins Susan I actually do have a cousin who's a great attorney so I'm get out out to you and I love him I did get some free advice remember every now he's an IP or trigger so here's some free advice from him but but yeah cuz you know cousin Susan I mean you're right they did the best thing is so when I call like my cousin for example uncle if I use him as an example if I call him and ask him something about nonprofits he he says I don't know I'll find you someone but I don't know versus cousin Susan many times might just you know the problem with that is then you don't you don't have a firm at your disposal you don't have that powerhouse and I will say that makes a big difference I mean if we get into a legal issue to know that you've got a firm you got you got Michael and then you got tax lawyers and that P lawyers everything transaction lawyers yeah real estate lawyers yep only one house it's huge alright let's move on to my favorite topic all right round number seven I'm laughing because if there's one thing that keeps me up at night Michael knows this it's this and I've been in this industry long enough to have lived through cycles of watching this come and an attack and eat people literally compliance and our friends at FTC love you guys I'm so proud to say never ever had even a remotely close issue but I am also pretty paranoid about this stuff I try to be very good very clean and I think usually rich is gonna be the one in our company our CFO that manages and works with Michael on a regular basis I think the only time it's Pete calling Michael is hey is this compliant if what would happen if this it's always a compliance related issue so what do I move a compliance there's of course the ethical and moral side of what you sell don't lie don't say crap that's not true to sell a product obviously there's gonna be some person so government body that would have a problem with that but the FTC has very specific guidelines on a lot of things and in our industry the FTC is very strong I mean they are you know they're active in the internet marketing or in the business opportunity type of space and a lot of people understand it so incorrectly so people are on the extremes and I've been on one extreme people are on the extreme of either they say I'm too small I can do whatever I want I have to worry about them or oh my god oh my god the FTC is gonna come after me I don't want to do anything in this space because it's it's not you know the FTC is also very active in many spaces you know it's not just this space that doesn't mean you know all those spaces are bad I've been telling you I want to launch a business in the financial services space and I mean over there we got the CFTC active right I mean you got the SEC and so there's a government body regulating every industry best for all yeah it doesn't change the story I'll tell here is that you know I have been around this industry so long I remember this this is how seriously I take compliance and this is why I want to talk to Michael about it I think this was nine years ago so eight eight nine years ago so we had a business dude this was before we were working with Michael we were doing a lot of trial continuity a lot I mean to the tune of a million dollars a month and rebuilds and we would get someone to opt in for a free DVD or whatever and then it would turn into a continuity now here's the thing we didn't have any issues we didn't have chargeback issues we would refund people we were very good we didn't have any major issues but there are some bad players in the industry who were just doing horrific things in the CPA networks there was one company this the one that started it curse them all is they would take one they would tell you this kit that they never intended to send to you is a Google kit they used to call him get your credit card and put you into seven different merchant accounts rebilling you 29 bucks here 32 bucks here and they'd use names like local convenience store on the descriptor right and they did hundreds and hundreds of millions to the between of billions and before the FTC came out and then MasterCard and Visa got involved and they're like okay we're done with fours continuity well in that a few people I knew very well not even friends a few people in our space that hit hard not only did the FTC come knocking on their doors but the MasterCard Visa said you're done we're not gonna transact you I was rebilling by that point cuz it had kind of come down it was a rebuilding about six seven hundred thousand dollars a month that was a bulk of our business I panicked so much because I didn't understand the regulations and didn't have the right attorney didn't have Michael on to walk me through it I shut it all down smart let's just shut it down I just shut the rebilling down now people would think you freaking crazy it's a half a million dollars a month yeah I am it led me to being bankrupt led me to one point seven million dollars in bankruptcy but this is how seriously I take compliance but I just don't want to mess with these bodies and I don't want to do anything wrong the biggest mistake I made wasn't that I shut it down the biggest mistake I made as I didn't have a Michael Kerrigan to call and say what should I do because I actually probably was very compliant probably didn't need to shut it down but what is the FTC what's their deal so the Federal Trade Commission is the main federal agency that protects consumers and they spent a lot of time going after businesses that get in trouble a lot with the beef with the Better Business Bureau and they will go after those businesses and it harkens back to a lot of the stories we've been talking about they will almost always ignore a corporate formality but if the more more you've been following it's better those formalities the more you can protect your assets but a good reason for you to pass on that opportunity that you shut down is a common thing for them to do is not only seize all of your personal assets but require you to agree you'll never work in internet marketing again that's right yeah and that's your passion that's what you're good at and that's why you want to keep going so I have a I have a very dear friend who just happened to and what what really sucks about this particular story is it's not his fault it's not really his fault it was the people he was working with and yeah he's barred from the industry for quite some time turns out he didn't really care because he didn't he was out of the industry he didn't want to be in it anymore but barred from it can't work with anyone in it and actually because of can't even advise me you know sometimes I've questions he's really smart but he's okay we literally have a moment he's like I'm sorry this is as far as I can go in this conversation I can't talk to you anymore but um they're they do mean business okay so in the internet marketing space we hear all the time like what are if I come to you with something wait like we have you review our marketing material all the time by the way big piece of advice you've got if you are if you are especially if the FTC right regulated zone you've gotta get a great FTC attorney to review your marketing we've had you review our marketing for years now from our webinars to our sales letters and weep if anything we need to get you to review even more we've talked about that with our sales team and everything what are you looking for so things that aren't won't surprising over-promising the matter earnings that people are like to get giving very unusual claims and and holding that out as representative representative fake testimonials is a really big thing that it's amazing so a lot of people are out there just making up the people that simply don't exist and some people have been as blatant as putting on celebrity testimonials that simply aren't true it's amazing what people get get away with because the FTC even the federal government has limited resources I taught Tom Brady everything he knows it's right there on my webinar file Wow crap good one Joe including cheating all right okay so uh fake I mean come on you've got to know that that's wrong I hope people would know is there anything else like your those so say same things we've been talking about and I I always start with general rule would you want someone to sell your mother this product that way so offering something free that's not really free jacking up the price up sales getting people on the door with a product that isn't worth anything so for the sole purpose of getting them to do an upsell that's where usually MLM companies can into trouble right that's right yeah because their whole channel is built off of upsell upsell upsell and that's usually where they I've noticed because it's they always always have thirty thousand dollar programs and so many people are incentivized to promote that person to upgrade because there making a chunk of it and so I've always felt like that's what leads to the issue that's a big part of it because there only make that money by over-promising okay because you can promise but you can't over promise okay so let me ask you this I have we're blessed at learned to have some tremendous success with our students and I have a student who's crossed a million dollars left quite a few can I tell their story like it's there they're real people they're human beings that they're here half the time they're hanging around at the Learning Center am I allowed to at least tell their story you can tell their story if you're super clear about how unusual it is and the FTC is also gonna want you to alongside it give an example of what the usual outcome is and I know that's that's often hard with the educational products cuz there's a lot of people who sign up for it they never apply themselves and so it's it's it's difficult because you really ought to be judged by the people who really apply and use the tools you instruct so I know that in ours and this is from actually this from years ago because I had sent you a webinar and you reviewed it and and we put this now into all of our powerpoints one of the biggest advice I remember receiving from you actually was funny I remember asking you like hey I can't really afford to have every single thing because I every email every day Oliver viewed and every what you said to me you said if you write something or if you say something that makes you think you might want to call me to ask probably don't say that thing it's probably not good now save yourself the money it was actually very good advice but the other thing you had made me do so for those of you who do webinars I want to put this in for you you had said at the very beginning repped of like within the first like minute we say in this webinar you are gonna hear some stories they are the extreme examples they are people who applied they are people who worked hard they are people who got a lot of assistance now most people will watch this and they will not take action they will not do what is to be said or to be done and most people will not have the results we're here to this was the key part you said we are here to educate you we are here to provide you with the resources what you do with them at that point now is not our response but like I say that's up to them and it's up to you but we want to be very upfront that what you see here and then every time we have a testimonial or a proof shot not only is it written at the bottom that's not enough we say it again remember this is one of our best students they worked really hard they struggled for six months and then they had a big breakthrough and and what I've actually found a lot of people that hear this they'll say oh that's gonna be annoying I'm gonna lose sales we actually haven't seen a lick of an impact if anything I would say we attract better customers because we're upfront honest that's right and you're not dealing with refunds and chargebacks and everything else no no so you had told me also so you said here BBB I wanted to make a mention of that should everyone who's an entrepreneur be registered with the BBB and make take it seriously well the BBB there's different views of it a lot of people think they're like this I have a good they're really good consumer advocates or other people who feel like if you're not with the BBB it's gonna it's not going to help you when you have an inevitable dispute with the consumer so I think it is a good idea and every time I've had a Kline investigated by either a state attorney general or the FTC it always started with BBB complaints Wow really yes they're very close okay so there you go you've saw it I mean even if you're not registered with the BBB how many people listening right now even monitor their BBB they got it monitored you got to respond and it may be me every business has like how do I monitor I know that I have a team doing it so I don't know how to do it personally well if you remember then you should be getting noticed if someone's filed a complaint okay and the key thing is you really got to respond because there and I I have some clients that we had one I had one client recently who demanded a bunch of refunds and said he was an 85 year old guy but the products he was selling suggested he was adventurous young man so he was starting to go the BBB and I wrote a letter back on behalf the client I said this send me a copy your passport prove your age and then we'll talk about your refund yeah I never heard from him again yeah I have to tell a funny story here and that is the BBB was my dad's best friend growing up I have seen that man resolve some massive disputes with companies by writing a letter to the BBB I mean big things they would call they would take it very seriously growing up I would see this so I know when I started a company I hope new to keep the BBB like to watch them because people do write to them if I'm not registered with the BBB so if I know a lot of our listeners probably aren't registered there can still can someone still lodge a complaint against them sure they absolutely can so then how did they monitor so they ought to just be checking with your local BBB okay to see if there's yeah so there you go if you've been in business for some time please definitely go check out the BBB that was something I never knew you said that every single one of your major issues that the FTC got involved and it started with started with the BBB Wow okay and yeah I definitely definitely get how do you find it good so assuming it's not you for the moment how does someone find a good FTC attorney I struggled and I'm so glad that Fred introduced me to you but I didn't know where do I mean do I go to Google and just type in FTC or attorney like how do you reckon well I wouldn't find I look for someone who might I would say more beaver sand advertising advertising law okay more than because they're FTC they do all sorts of things besides what we're talking about they do antitrust work to to companies merge so they do a whole bunch of things so I'd start with the advertising law in my world they literally just hang around the internet marketing crowd I think like that's all they do but you're right they do a lot a lot more there and you know I've actually spoken to people at the FTC before and for other things and people there's nothing wrong with them it's just that you know their job in the end is to protect the consumer so if you do good by the consumer you should ideally stay out of there okay you should but I I had a Cline he did was in the lead generation space he got was subject to investigation cost him about thirty thousand dollars to produce everything to have that dialogue and they closed it he didn't do anything wrong but it wasn't expensive less it is yes absolutely now in his case also BBB generated yes that was BBB and also there was a consumer advocate who was claiming to have had have neutral interest when he didn't okay got it all right listen if all I can tell you here is definitely study this this more study this topic more I think we could end up doing an entire episode about compliance and regulation and marketing and advertising because we spent so much time on it maybe one of these days in the future when you come here ya do to train our team maybe we'll record pieces of that don't actually put it out into the podcast because it's a really important topic all right let's move on to round number eight all right insurance will make this short yeah insurance does buy it and use it yeah so every business should have some sort of insurance and it's hard for me to say exactly what because it depends on what sort of area business you're in but if you have some sort so talk to a broker and they'll talk to you about what you do how much your sales are and what what all your advertising what all you're selling I'm one climb particular who got caught up in an IP dispute was sued by someone else for for a copyright infringement and trademark infringement and luckily luckily part of the complaint talked about advertising which I was able then to use to trigger the insurance company to step in say this is an advertising injury they got hundreds of thousands of dollars of legal fees paid for by the insurance company Wow so you may not even know this but we have different kinds of insurance policies here at learned as well and one of them is in case we have a legal issue dealing with like fraud or someone like hurts us or whatever so that last Chloe theft yeah the last person that you helped me with the last person who rogue and we got a bunch money from obviously I had to pay Michael for his time was a lot of time I don't know how much time we probably we got to know each other the most was during that issue but we got that reimbursed yeah that we got a lot of that reimbursed because we had the proper protection for it in place and there's other kinds of insurances right I learned this years ago and I thought it was I was like blown away I'm like man this kind of stuff exists the key person insurance I think the command key man--he person insurance yeah so let's say look in my company there are definitely people that would be very expensive to replace god forbid something happened to them it would be big hurt to the company right away and then they're not the kind of people that I would just put a craigslist post out in replace you know it would take months of headhunting lots of interviewing HR work and you can actually get key man insurance on certain people so that if then God forbid happened to them there would be it's life insurance its life yeah so that you would have the money to then go out and replace but there's all kinds of insurances right cyber cyber and cyber is something really important for people to have employee theft I've got a client right now who had somebody steal a whole bunch of inventory yeah and luckily that employee theft Wow okay so yeah that's not if Joe picked up one of my tables here and walked out with it I don't have insurance for that no this one had lost millions yeah you could take our tables out all right awesome so again see things that a lot of entrepreneurs don't think about but now my next one this one I like around number nine good accountant talk about this because I got my own story but I want to hear yours first again this goes back to making sure your accounts are separate making sure that your expenditures are are things that you can maybe say save some business expenses and some taxes on especially with the current tax structures that the the recent tax reform there are many many things you may want to put in your business that are tax-free so have a good account to helping you find all those deductions yeah and I can say a few things they're very very important that your accountant especially so here's the deal with us with me more specifically my my taxes have gotten complicated you know they're they're not easy I've got multiple companies pretty high lines of revenue high profit so I was working with a local accountant I love him he's a dear friend to the family and but I've told him to his face to you but he cost me millions of dollars because he's a great accountant but he's amazing for doctors local store owners you know engineers people out professionals making good money and when I went to him one time I remember I'd like multiple seven figures and income reporting that year and I'm like do I I do really don't feel like cutting at 1.7 million dollar check right now to the government like that just is not registering with me and I remember I asked him I said hey I watch TV all the time when they talk about rich people don't pay taxes rich people get away with taxes I'm like what do they know that I don't know that how do waiting and he's like no no there's nothing there's nothing you could do like there's no way so I took for a few years I just accepted it up until I met my current accountant who you know my gosh I think I talked to that person just as much as I speak to you they're high on my list so he was a second person by the way that I would okay got the new company and he and I called him specifically because I said how do I incorporate and what would the tax structure look like and how would this impact some other stuff he ever since I brought him on saves me seven figures a year this is free money let me just repeat free money this is money that all I had and okay is he expensive yeah I probably cut him 40 50 grand a year you know between all the things he does and all my companies is expensive I know my dad's always like I can't believe we're paying this but then I just show me that he's like oh yeah I got it like it's all good worth every penny so I think you get a good accountant my personal experience is you get a good accountant but you have to also understand the size of your business and make sure that they're the right accountant for your type of business the person I found their next level and I'm not doing anything bad by the way it's so crazy the kinds of things that he's having me do that are not only saving me a ton of money in taxes but it's actually really helping the economy like they're really good things I'm investing there are great things that help people but I get rewarded for because the tax structure has that even when we built this Center it was right after the new tax code and I'm like this is great cuz most of these things are capital expenditure we deduct them right away but here so I thought that's awesome let's deduct everything this year I called my accountant and he said hold your horses we may not want to do it that way there might be a reason to do it a different way and I blew my mind right thinking you know two three years ahead and all of that so so what do you find about the importance of a relationship between the attorney in the accountant do you find that there's a that there's a good need for them to be talking absolutely and the other thing that's really important that the attorney in the and the accountant talk is because you when people talk to their lawyers it's privileged when they're giving legal advice so when you are and I are talking about a business deal or a threat from somebody or business deal you want to do that's all privileged with the attorney there's some privileges with accountants but it's not the same so it's really good so I'm meeting with with some other new clients they're going to talk about taxes we're meeting with the accountants or setting up the business it's important that whole meeting be done in my presence for my legal advice then the whole thing is confidential nobody gets into it ah all right make sure Michaels in every meeting I mean no one can tell about anything I ever do I like that that's that's really interesting and I will also say that ya know it's it's it's been very how many times has a good lawyer save me I mean even in my own home I was telling you the story we had this is years ago I had a local attorney I would have lost my home like meaning they were not gonna build it I would have gotten muscled out but we had someone there involved now here's a deal it cost me from start to finish to have my attorney the local attorney negotiating the house contract with me six grand probably in all the hourly fees it was about six sixty five hundred dollars now when I was writing those checks I've seen they're thinking man I don't know but I bought a very expensive house and at the end I almost lost it because I don't know the rules and they were telling me that they had the right to back out of the contract which they didn't but now I called my attorney he laughs and says give me a day and a day later I find out he calls me he says the reason they want to get out of the contract is because they're losing money on the house they over negotiated now of course knowing that they were out in a ghost year out they sorry yeah I yeah they're out negotiated so knowing me the business man in me I'm like I don't give a crap I want that house even more I want the house more as I know I got a great deal and he said oh yeah that's that's fine like I'm gonna make a phone call and this they can't get out of it this is not an option Richard had a better lawyer yeah I had an opportunity exactly and guess what I live in a beautiful home that I absolutely love and so if you think about it yeah it cost me sixty five hundred dollars but I live in the dream home and I wouldn't have I probably would have been muscled out of it so when we talk about working with great attorneys it's not just for business it's not just for I mean I I have gotten quite the habit now of almost any major event happening I like to make sure there's an attorney involved because it does always you're right pay a little now save later on later yeah exactly all right so that brings us to round ten it's like a beautiful introduction to it last round good lawyers how do we find them you know i-i've talked about it like I don't like to do anything major now anything new now without an attorney how do you talk to our listeners because a lot of them are early they're starting and they're scared of those big legal fees you know talk to them about what do you tell clients that talk to you well I think it's real important to make sure it's a good match early on and I when when new clients call me I want to understand their business and see if it is a good match see if some someone I can help because it's we're not made for everybody we are bigger law firms so we are more expensive but with that comes the competence the insure and knowing that we have specialists in all any area you might need but I think the most important thing is for people to find somebody that they're comfortable with who's responsive and will treat them with respect and be invested in their success because I think that a client client should should recognize that it's bedside manner like any any doctor you want a lawyer who wants to make sure you're succeeding and one is not always just putting up obstacles saying you can't do it my aunt's wants me this is how we're gonna do it so I I want to tell I want to say this because I don't have a lot of I know a lot of students and friends that start their search for an attorney by going to Google and it's price they use it like it's priceline.com like you know let's let's get the cheapest one that we can get let me give you a very specific example it's very recent and I I just I could even show you the text messages I sent Michael thanking him this is a week ago a week and a half ago so I reached out to Michael I said Michael I wanna I want to start a company the financial services market I don't know what do I need to do now I got a response from Michael that basically said I'm not 100 percent sure but give me a day let me find out and I think that part meant the world to me right where I was like give me a day let me find out and I know with Michael I see I've worked with him long enough this is this is that good attorney relation he's not just blowing steam up my butt I mean a day later he will follow up you followed up and said the next day no one in our firm particularly can help you with this but let me reach out to my colleagues at the CFTC who should ideally know the answer to this and I thought wow like that's you going way above and beyond by the way for a project that he doesn't even legally represent yet right that company is not a client list I mean I am but this is him just this is him in my corner helping me out with my own fuel and on a bill and and so there you go I had that on record no but I knew that I don't mean to ask I don't even have to ask because that's another place where you start to see that relationship where then people think lawyers will nickel and dime and I don't I have never felt that way with you if anything I've been wanting to do stuff and he's been like did that's stupid don't do it it would be too expensive let's do it this way it'll cost you a third how many times have we had that conversation so okay he's gonna reach out to someone at the CFTC he's gonna get back to me to help me out with something that he already knows he won't really make money from but he wants to help me out okay gets back to me and says hey I spoke to the CFTC they don't know anyone that could do this either but now I'm gonna call in a favor and ask this person to ask around and I'm at this point I'm like wow this is you know I'm getting a chance to just kind of sit back and let someone who has access to all these like if you go after a little guy or a little firm or a little person they don't have access you know they don't the ability to call ask a favor of someone at the CFTC surely not two days later or a day later I got two links from him I called one of the they're the perfect company to do what I want and they spent an hour with me on the phone for free answer all my questions that I was prepared to spend legal fees on and that was all because I sent a email to Michael I was like it was like Sunday night I was like laying in bed I wrote the email I said this what I'm looking for that's a great attorney like in that so that's like my testimonial for you really that I think forget all the forget the times you've helped me you've saved me from bad things or I've made you know $150,000 from a settlement it's that that meant the world to me because I now know like you know so so that was huge so fine you got to find someone that can do that for you on the hot on the opposite side when you first told me hey I don't know someone who can do this I reached out to one of my like college buddies who's who's like a smaller shop attorney that's calling like I'm that much so if he's listening I don't care cuz you didn't respond to me nicely he just said I don't know well there you go you know so there you go here's a lawyer I could hire for not much money right and here's an attorney who's in my corner two very different reactions one told one added another problem to my life and one solved the problem in my life so that's how you find them okay Michael so I've really sold you now and I feel like there's gonna be a lot of people that are like I want Michael as my attorney how do they find you Holland and heart just like the country Holland eighty rt.com is our firms website and it's Michael Kerrigan with a see yeah so they can see my bio and if they think it's good fit they can reach me through that yeah alright so what we're gonna do is on our show notes on ik podcast comm we're gonna put a link directly to Michael's bio but I wanna I want to do this okay let's respect and appreciate an honor Michaels time if you're looking for a tuner dollar contract Michael's not the guy Michael's not the guy that's just gonna do something to make a little money so you have to be willing to dive in deep because Michael's gonna do it right alright you're gonna spend time with him he's gonna get it done right I refer people to Michael all the time but I do filter people because I want him to have just just the way he honors my time and always gives me the best I want to give him the best I just want you to understand one thing you can't get a better than attorney you can't get someone who cares more so if you are looking for some serious work go to Michael close your eyes and go it's just it's been amazing working with you and your whole firm really and beyond that if he's not there I fit you got to get someone get someone that's a right fit and you know what you want to ask yourself this question could you see yourself sitting across of a table hanging out before this Michael and I went to lunch we talked about kids we talked about family we talked about personal things going on it was no business talk and and that felt completely natural if you can see yourself having that conversation with your attorney that's all right attorney for you that's what I would think Michael any closing words listen people like to joke about attorneys till they need one that's true and then they joke about them after they need them but I don't I used to I don't I love working with attorneys now if you do it right I mean it's it's a great relationship saves you time well it's a blast working with you and learn and because you inspire so many people with your entrepreneurial story and I'm so excited be part of your success look forward to many adventures ahead awesome well listen thank you so much for being here it's been a pleasure come on listen to this one again I'm telling you we don't we this is the stuff that really matters when starting a company now listen if you're watching this on YouTube you got to leave Michaelson Bluff go below leave a comment right now click subscribe click the bell do what you got to do make it happen if you're on iTunes come on why haven't you left me a review at why haven't you subscribed make sure you send this episode out to every entrepreneur you know who you know needs good legal protection go to ionic podcast calm for the show notes and as I always say when life pushes you stand straight smile and push it the heck back this is onyx and all I'll see you on the next episode thanks for listening to the fighting entrepreneur with your host onyx single [Music]

Channel: Anik Singal

Views: 3,937

Keywords: Lurn, Lurn Nation, Anik Singal, Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneur, Anik Podcast, Entrepreneur Podcast, How to make money online, the fighting entrepreneur itunes, the fighting entrepreneur podcast, Millionaire interviews lawyer, 10 legal things that every entrepreneur should know, Michael Carrigan, TFE, Business Podcast, Tips for startups, how to market your website, how to buy a patent, how to trademark a name and logo, how to copyright your business name, Interviewing super lawyer

Id: ceZUlKmLgPU

Length: 85min 34sec (5134 seconds)

Published: Wed May 29 2019