9 Steps to Legally Protect Your Business, Part 3

This episode wraps up our 3-part series about the 9 steps to legally protect your online business. Even if you skip the rest of the steps in this list, step number 7 is a must. Tune in for details on creating your client contracts, checking business insurance off your list, and landing that first (or next) client.

Key Takeaways

1. Always, always, always use a contract with your clients. Create a contract for each of your packages for easy onboarding.
2. Business insurance is optional but provides a lot of peace of mind and security. General liability insurance protects against physical damage, while professional liability insurance protects against intangible things like mistakes in your work that hurt your clients.
3. Step #9 is my favorite. Don't overthink it and just get started. None of this stuff matters if you never sell anything, anyway!

Resources Mentioned

• Download the 9-Step Checklist
• Grab your 1:1 coaching or service contract
• Watch the free masterclass
• Follow Amy on Instagram @artfulcontracts

Next Steps

Thank you so much for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please reach out and let me know by sending me a DM on Instagram @artfulcontracts

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• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
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Episode Transcript

Welcome to the final episode of this three-part series, all about the nine steps that you need to take to legally protect your online business when you're getting started, and maybe to go back and check these off, even if you're already in the middle of it.

Hey, I'm Amy Nesheim, licensed attorney for online business owners and founder of my own business, Artful Contracts. You're listening to Legal Made Easy, the show that makes the legal aspects of online business easy to understand and implement so you can grow your business with confidence knowing you've got it all covered. Let's dive in.

We are diving right into step number seven today. And if you missed steps one through six, we did those in the previous two episodes. So make sure you head back and tune into those to hear what those first six steps were or download the guide, the written checklist guide that we have to go along with this series so that you don't have to memorize it, you don't have to take notes. Just go to the link in the show notes or artfulcontracts.com/slash legal checklist so that you have that. You can follow along there. You don't have to write it all down or memorize it. And that brings us to today. We're gonna talk about steps number seven, eight, and nine.

Step seven to get us started is create a client contract. If you don't do any of the other nine steps, this is the one that you cannot skip. This is the most important, in my opinion. If you don't do any of the other ones, do this. Always, always, always use contracts when you're working with your clients. They are super important. And I know some people can get intimidated by contracts, they feel like they have to be super legal or they don't understand them. So this is what I say to that. Contracts are just the written understanding that you have between you and your client. It's just the rules of the relationship that you have agreed upon written down. That's it.

It gives both of you even footing. You're making sure you're literally on the same page when it comes to your relationship and the things that you promise and the things that your client promises. It's really important for managing expectations, for making sure your packages are super clear, preventing scope creep, being able to enforce payments, knowing what to do when a client goes, limiting your liability, being able to put late fees in place. Like literally, I could go on and on.

There's so many reasons that contracts are important. My favorite reason is boundaries because you can put right into your contract, I'm not doing X. I'm not answering emails on the weekend, I do not respond to emergencies, or my rush fee for emergencies is X amount, or this type of thing that clients usually expect me to do is outside of the scope of this project, and you have to pay extra for it.

Basically, you get to put your boundary, you get to decide, you know, whatever boundaries you want, you get to decide, you put them in your contract, and then your contract backs you up and it makes it really easy to just point to it and say, Oh, we agreed on, you know, this thing, this is what it says, and the client has to say, Oh yeah, it does say that. So having everything in writing just makes your life so much easier, makes your life easier, but it also makes you a lot more protected. Because contracts outline the boundaries of a relationship and the rules of a relationship, that means that the contract is different depending on the type of relationship that you have.

So each of your service packages or containers should have a separate contract template that you refer back to. So when I what I mean by that is like you can buy one service agreement template, and I have those, a  freelancer contract, or you can buy one one-on-one coaching contract, but then you customize that to fit each of your packages so that you have a different template that you store, you know, with an SOP going along with it that is attached to your six-week container, and you have a separate one that's attached to your six-month container.

Or, you know, if you're a copywriter, you have a template for your website package, and you have a separate template for your sales page package. And so this is work that pre-work that you've done before the client even comes to you, where you set up a template for that contract so you can just maybe add their name, add the details of this particular project, and hit send. And it makes it super easy and streamlined.

So the way I recommend starting with client contracts is identifying all of the service packages or coaching packages that you have and answer these questions for each of those packages. Number one, what is the main promise? Number two, how do I deliver on that promise? Number three, what do I not do to deliver on that promise, especially things that the client might expect to be included but aren't? And number four, what do I need from the client to be successful in delivering on that promise? What do I need the client to give to me so that I can succeed?

And I say to start there because it's a lot easier to basically outline your package, everything that's included, everything that's not included, and all of your boundaries before you even look at a contract template because it's easy to get caught up in all of the legal mumbo jumbo that's in there and all of the options that are in there.

Like my templates have multiple options for each thing. So, like, you know, how is your payment structured, that type of thing? And if you don't know ahead of time, you're ending up making a hundred decisions all at once. So it's better if you know what the rules are going to be, and then you look at the template and apply your rules to the template instead of looking at the template and then figuring it out all at once.

So make sure that you have a template saved in your, you know, your client relationship management software like Dubsado allows you to have multiple templates in there for different packages. Upload your customized templates into there, and then all you have to do is send them off. It makes it so easy.

If you are looking for contract templates to get you started on this, my legal protection bundle is a great place to start that has a one-on-one coaching contract, a services contract, and a consulting contract. So you have, you know, whichever one you need, as well as the website policies that I talked about in the last episode. So I will link that below in the show notes. Or you can find it at artfulcontracts.com/lpb. So that was number seven. Get your client contracts ready for your clients.

Number eight is a little bit less fun, but just as important, and that is get business liability insurance. Business insurance is not mandatory, but it's usually a good idea. There are two main types of business insurance that you've probably heard about, and those are general liability insurance and professional liability insurance. And the main difference there is that general liability insurance has to do with physical damage, and professional liability insurance has to do with more intangible damage like financial loss and mistakes that you make with your clients and issues with your work with your clients. So general liability insurance is a good idea if you meet clients in person or if you have a physical office or a storefront, or if you have expensive equipment, like if you're have a lot of equipment for recording your videos, your podcasts, whatever, and you want it to be protected from damage, then that is what general liability insurance is for. General liability insurance, not every business owner is going to, not every online business owner is going to get it. Every brick and mortar business is going to get it.

Professional liability insurance is the opposite. Not every brick and mortar store is going to need professional liability insurance, but it's a really good idea for the vast majority of online business owners, service providers, and coaches and course creators, because we are selling information. And if there is an issue with your information, that is where professional liability insurance comes in.

Now, if you have employees, which you probably don't if you're just starting out, but if you're just to put this on your radar, if you're going to have employees, you're going to have more insurance requirements, including workers' comp insurance, workers' compensation insurance. It's not optional, it's usually required by law. So, takeaway on this is talk to an insurance broker to figure out exactly what type of insurance you need for your business. But make sure that you have a conversation with them and actually explain your business model and tell them that you don't do in-person things.

And the reason for that is I've had people talk to me and say, Oh, I got this huge quote that's like $2,500 a year, but I don't think I need all of this insurance. And I look at it and it's like they're a solopreneur and there's workers' comp insurance on there. There's like flood insurance for a physical storefront that they don't have. Like they just throw in everything that they think of a traditional small business owner needing. And you don't actually need those things because you don't have a storefront, right? So I would say don't just apply online and call yourself a small business owner. Actually talk to a broker and say, here's what I actually do, here is what I don't have. I don't have a storefront, I don't have employees, that kind of thing. So that they can actually tailor what you need to what you actually do instead of just giving you, you know, everything that they think a small business owner might need.

Because our online business stuff is still new. We're not necessarily the traditional idea of what a small business owner is. So if you get a good giant quote like that, don't just give up on insurance. Actually look and see if it has more than you need and see if you can whittle it down to just the stuff that actually applies to your business. Don't just skip out on it entirely.

All right, that brings us to step number nine. This is my favorite step. Go make some money. Okay, this is a little bit of a joke. But in all seriousness, I do not want you to get hung up on the steps in this list and put off starting your business. I don't want you to get so hung up in the details of it that you don't take action and don't start your business or don't get that first client. But I do want you to be aware of what the risks are of avoiding these kinds of things.

So honestly, that's the goal of my of this podcast is to give you the information that helps you make good decisions for your business. Because the decision to ignore any of these steps, the decision to not take action on legal, all of that is a choice. So, like not taking action is still an affirmative decision.

Because here's the thing as a small business owner, as a solopreneur, as someone working for yourself and no one else, you are the legal department for your business. You're the only one who is going to figure out this stuff for yourself. No one else is going to do it for you. No one else is going to say, hey, you don't have website policies on your website. Shouldn't you have done that already? No one's going to call you out on that kind of stuff until you get to that point where, oh, you had a problem with a client and the client sues you. Or, oh, you didn't realize you had to have affiliate disclosures on your affiliate post and you get hit with a fine from the FTC. No one else is taking responsibility for these things for you. So I want to make it easy to figure out what even you're supposed to be doing, right? You're the only one who's responsible for it, but that doesn't mean you have to do it alone.

The legal stuff, being the legal department for your business, it doesn't have to be scary or overwhelming. You don't have to spend hours Googling all of it if you just know what steps to take. So that's the whole point of this series. That's the whole point of this podcast. I want to help empower you to make good decisions in your business so that you can feel confident as you move forward.

So I really hope that this series has helped you get to that point. And remember that you can download the guide for that has the written form of these nine steps so you can see them. You don't have to write them down, remember them, you don't have to go back through and listen again to make sure that you got them all. You can just go to artfulcontracts.com slash legal checklist to download the nine step checklist in written form. And if this has been helpful for you at all, I really hope that you will subscribe to the podcast. We've got more episodes coming for you. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you next time.