Autograph Volunteer Agreement Template Made Easy

Autograph volunteer agreement template

hello everyone and welcome to scorpio fair county's live webinar today on starting a business from scratch the five essential steps i'm bob hogan the webinar coordinator and a business mentor here at score fairfield county and i'm going to be your host today and our presenter is cliff aniko more on cliff in just a minute but first some brief information on score if we could move the slides clip score we have a national organization of over 11 000 volunteers and we're part of the small business administration locally here in square fairfield county we have over 130 volunteers with a wide range of industry process and subject matter expertise as you can see on the screen we offer three primary value-added services to small businesses first one we offer is one-on-one mentoring which is free and you can access that by face-to-face but in these times it's via video telephone email and you can do that by requesting a mentor on our website by hitting the request mentor link or you can use the bitly link that you see on the screen uh the second service we offer there's a wide range of educational workshops and webinars like the one today about 150 throughout the year and lastly we offer extensive resources on our website including access to our subject matter experts our next live webinar will be on tuesday july 28th at noon and the topic is the art of the lean business canvas with bill schloff presenting and you can find more specifics on our website at fairfieldcounty.score.org and when you're on our website there's also a very large number of archived websites webinars rather that may be of value to you and you can access those on demand at any time uh we have set aside time for q a today at the end of the presentation and cliff will take your questions at the end and to do that you can use the chat window at any time during the presentation and you can do that by hovering on the bottom of your screen and clicking on the chat feature and just typing your question in as we've said in the chat feature the webinar is being recorded and will be available within about the next 48 hours or so on our website fairfieldcounty.score.org now it's now my pleasure to introduce our speaker today cliff emico cliff is a nationally recognized small business legal and tax expert and is best known as the former host of money hunt on pbs where entrepreneurs defended their business plans before america's toughest panel of experts an attorney and small business consultant based in fairfield connecticut cliff has helped launch over 15 000 businesses is the author of 16 books the most recent of which is crowdfunding handbook how to raise capital for your business using equity funding portals i'll now turn it over to cliff cliff all yours hey thanks bob and uh and welcome everybody thank you for taking time out of your uh your pandemic straightened life to uh to spend an hour listening to an attorney uh babylon for an hour about how to start a business from scratch but as bob mentioned it's something i've done quite a bit of in my career um i'm very proud to say that i've helped over 15 000 people uh you know achieve their dreams of self-employment uh in the last you know 30 or so years yes there were no child labor laws back then i i was a child prodigy but uh no no i'm afraid that that is not the case um let um let's just go if you didn't believe that i was a lawyer before you will now uh we always tell you we lawyers always tell you what we're not going to do for you before we um we tell you what we're actually going to do uh the first i mean uh the thing is obviously uh while i have been doing programs for score now for for well over 30 years uh i am not myself a part of the score organization so anything that i say on this program it's entirely me but the more important one is the second one um and it's very important well i'm sure some of you have specific legal and tax questions and i will do my best to try to answer them on this program uh there are there's a very big difference between uh giving out legal information and giving out legal advice you know to say well this is what the law is generally all about that's that's what these programs are all about uh what i can't do on this program is now now joe here's what you should do and nancy here's why you should do something different that's one-on-one advice and i really don't know any of you well enough to be able to do that on a program of this nature so so if you listen if i say something that sounds like a great idea and you do it and it doesn't work and you end up you lose your business you file for bankruptcy you lose your house your spouse divorces you the kids don't want to talk to you the dog pees in your leg and you end up in a diaper box living in a diaper box under the brooklyn bridge you can't sue anybody you can't sue score or me or anybody else that's what this is all about so there are five steps to starting a small business uh you know having having done this a lot i mean uh sort of a general introduction for 25 years i taught a course at norwalk community college here in southern connecticut on starting a small business it was a five night course uh you know three hours per night um and these are the for the five basic steps that we covered in each of those five nights of the program um i'm going to be covering this in a general way from five miles up i could easily do a three hour webinar on each one of these uh steps so just so you know we're only going to be covering the basics today but i will give you some resources at the end of the program where you can you can get you know more information on each of these steps in a very cost effective way so first of all find your customers now this may sound odd uh to some of you because some of you may be saying wait a minute cliff i've taken courses on business planning the first thing is to find the idea um that you do i mean don't you have to start with the idea the concept the executive summary the answer is no the the before you even think of what your business is going to be it's a good idea to think about who your potential customers are and as weird as it sounds you you can do that without having a particular idea in mind at the end of the day every small business is a service business you are in the business of serving somebody uh you remember the old bob dylan song from the 80s you got to serve somebody right uh you got to fight you got to serve somebody and who are they think about who these people are your customers are not everyone you know every once in a while i'll meet somebody at a score thing and they'll say oh well my i serve everybody everybody can use my product or service that's not true you're going to find when you get into business that there's only a certain select group of people who will buy things and in fact there are only certain people who will buy anything from you uh go back to high school and look at your if you still have your old high school yearbook dusted off take a look at it and look at the people who signed your um who signed your uh your yearbook and the people who didn't if you look at them and if you remember who they were you'll see that the people who signed your ear but your yearbook they weren't just random this was a certain type of person that you became close to that you were friendly with you know back in the day um there are people in this world who will buy anything from you whether it's you know antiques or consulting services or legal services you know who are these people um they're generally people that you know well uh that you understand it really doesn't i mean i hate to say it really i don't really care if you like them or not i really don't uh but i find that the more the better you know your customers the better the more likely you will succeed in in a small business of your own um who are the people that you really know who are the people who are simpatico with you uh who do you get who gets you who get who do you get what kinds of people do you naturally gravitate toward you know uh you know who are the sort of people who naturally gravitate toward you you know back in high school i mean there were there are really only three kinds of high school kid i mean when you think about it i don't think this has changed in the in the many many years since i was in high school there are the jocks the geeks and the artsy types i mean those are the sort of the three high school archetypes uh which one which one were you and you know more importantly which ones were your friends because it's very interesting um you know i mean i kind of thought of myself when i was in a high school when i was sort of a geeky guy i mean i wore a pocket protector i was very into math and science and all that kind of stuff i i was a geek before it became fashionable okay let's just say at that that way but very interestingly enough when i go back and i look at my in my yearbook all of my closest friends in high school were artsy types and that is interesting because i was also into theater and drama and all that kind of stuff you know so everyone you have to think about this for some reason the artsy kids saw something in me that the geeks did not you know think about that who are the people who really next time you go to a high school reunion which of course is now going to be virtual you know with panda with the pandemic you know really ask these people you know when you think about me when you think about who cliff ennico was back then who what do you think about what was your image of me back then this will tell you wonderful information about who your natural customers uh are going to be uh because you got to be careful if you don't know your market what happens is you end up selling to stereotypes uh and that is that first of all it's a very bad thing to do anyone to anyone it's it's it's racist it's whatever sexist whatever but more importantly it's it will not you will not succeed doing that because inevitably you'll misread your clients people are more complicated than you think they are and they will surprise you so if i if if i told you okay here's a business i think that lawyers would buy this particular product okay now i'm assuming if you don't have lawyers in your family or if you're not close to many lawyers you're probably going to say well what what what what what do lawyers care about what do lawyers you know think about when they buy stuff okay if you really don't know lawyers well you'll have a tough time answering that question and i'll give you a graphic example of that in in just a minute okay um because here's the thing you have to know your customers and here's why you have to know a lot about your customers now i have to say i have a a youtube video some of you may have actually watched it uh it's sort of my classic thing i do have a youtube channel with about 40 videos on there but my flagship video is this video which is actually a score presentation uh that i did for score fairfield county about five years ago called how to sell anything to anybody uh if you go to youtube and search for cliff ennico how to sell you'll find that it's an hour of your life well spent uh but one of the things i talk about in there is that there's two reasons and really only two why anybody buys anything we've all been taught to think that it's needs and wants but that really isn't true people do not buy things they need especially and there are reasons for that which i get into on the video the two reasons though that people do buy things are fears and passions does your product or service turn people on in some way get them more excited about life if if it does then you probably have a passion cell that you can uh you should use to get them to arouse those passions um you know and get them to to buy your stuff uh the other set of of motivators is fears do you how does your product or service help people sleep better at nights and and worry less about certain things that are going on in this world um you know if you have a pro if you have a a product or service that genuinely will will help people alleviate their fears they will march to your door even in especially in bad times in times such as these uh people are cutting back on their passion purchases you know think bars think restaurants think you know luxury goods um but they but they will hit up their credit cards to buy products and services that will alleviate their fears hand sanitizers toilet paper you get the idea uh here um and this is why you need to know your customers because if you don't really know your customers as well you cannot answer those questions what are their fears what are their their passions these are very intimate questions you really can't ask this these questions about total strangers people that you don't get so going back to my lawyer example you know what do lawyers fear what do lawyers get excited about well believe it or not um you know and most of you if you don't know your lawyers you'd say oh well you know lawyers are greedy people all they care about is money you know you know what do lawyers what are lawyers fear will they probably fear you know malpractice suits and stuff like that and you'd be partially right but there was a bar association a number of years ago that actually did a survey of lawyer satisfaction each year and one of the questions they asked was you know when you think about your practice and your professional life what is your biggest worry what keeps you awake at nights and it's going to surprise you you know what do you think the answer to that question was the answer 90 of respondents all said the same thing okay and it wasn't any of the things that you would think about it wasn't fear of malpractice suit uh fear of an ethical violation not getting paid by a client okay those are all good things and they were definitely on the list but the number one thing that lawyers feared believe it or not and worried about was are you ready for it not having enough time with their families uh we lawyers work extremely long hours i'm still even with the pandemic and at my advanced age circling the drain here i am working 70 hours a week on average i you know people lawyers worry that their kids are going to grow up not knowing who daddy is they worry about not spending enough time with their spouse and not having a quality of life they worry about growing old too soon if you don't know lawyer if you if you have a lawyer in your family or you're close to a lawyer you know what i'm talking about but if you don't this would not even occur to you this is why you you know if you don't know your customers you can easily make mistakes because your customers are in a different place than you think they are when you don't know your your customers you end up selling to stereotypes and stereotypes don't buy anything okay uh only real people do you got to know what people how what really motivates people and that involves some some close paying them very close attention how do they learn about new products and services how are you going to get your message across are they readers or are they visual people lawyers or readers we do not believe anything unless it's in print that's how we are you know it don't mean nothing until you sign up on the dotted line that was a rock song from the 80s i think um lawyers are like that other people i mean if you're selling to teenagers for example don't don't give them anything to read they won't read it they'll roll it up and they'll smoke it is what they'll do they're more motivated by what's going on on their smartphones they're more uh they're more um you know visual people especially they're very motivated teenagers especially are motivated by their friends and what their friends are doing so if you have a product that's appealing or a service that's appealing to teenagers you got to get buzz going on in the local teenager communities and get buzz going on hey there's this new rock band called you know renegade lawyers are really cool by the way that is the name of an actual rock band by the way called renegade lawyers i think they're a hair band or something like you know uh like heavy metal or something like that you know are do they like flash or do they go for just the the kids sir if you don't know your customers you you may need a business partner who does if you have a product or service that appeals to a certain group of people but you don't know them all that well my advice to you is going to be get a partner in your business who really gets that that demographic that community and who will know how to market to those people so understanding your market is key and you do that before you even come up with an idea for the business um you know no i would much rather see people designing their business to the customers that they know rather than come up with a business idea build it and then go out scrambling looking for people to buy it uh the latter approach sell them if ever works okay moving on to step two so now you've you you've understand your market you've got 50 groups of people that you could potentially sell stuff to now who are your competition here who are your competitors well you're you do have competitors every once in a while i'm gonna score thing and i get somebody who tells me hey cliff uh you know this this is so unique we're so different we're so ahead of the curve we don't really have any competition and i i i have to bite my lip when people say that because you're not lying to me you're lying to yourself uh what what you're telling me is you really haven't spent enough time looking for competitors they're out there you're just not seeing them because you're not looking hard enough competitors come in four flavors uh and it's very easy to overlook them um you know and i use this chart to to sort of explain the four different groups of competitors the obvious one is is the one in the top left corner uh competitors let's look at the top the green boxes first competitors can be either direct or indirect okay a direct competitor is somebody a a competitor is defined by your market not what your product and service is you know you and i can be doing the exact same thing but if we're serving different markets and different demographics we are not competitors at all you're not going to take a single sale away from me i'm not going to take a single sale away from you what we're doing is compatible but we're not really competitors a competitor is someone who is targeting the same markets and the same people that you are are trying to target and are trying to address the same fears and passions that those people are feeling so a direct competitor is somebody who's going after the same people you're going after and they're trying to to address the same fears and passions that you are trying to address using the same or a similar product or service that's a direct competitor an indirect competitor is somebody who is trying to address the same customers uh and the same fears and passions but using a different product or service than what you are doing so here's my example uh let's say uh that you have a pizza parlor on your local concert your local commercial strip and you're doing takeout orders you're probably doing okay because most people take out pizza they don't eat on premises you're probably surviving uh during the pandemic but let's say you have a pizza parlor on your local um your local commercial strip the three pizza par other pizza parlors on that strip are your direct competitors they're targeting the same people you're trying to target the same fears and passions and pizza is the product okay that's what we mean by a direct competitor an indirect competitor would be the chinese takeout place down the street now that person doesn't have their menu doesn't look anything like yours they're not doing pizza or meatballs or spaghetti or anything like that they're doing you know egg foo young and egg rolls and all that kind of stuff i always end up getting hungry when i do this presentation for some reason i always default to food examples i guess that says a lot about who i am um but even though that person's menu doesn't look anything like yours to some extent they are a competitor of yours if i'm driving down that strip and i want to stop for a quick lunch i can either get a slice of pizza or an egg roll so to some extent they are your competitors even though uh their product is completely different than what you have so that's direct and indirect but we can't just look at direct and indirect we also have to look at at the difference between actual and potential competitors this has to do with timing an actual competitor is someone who is actually in the marketplace today so if i have a pizza parlor on my local commercial strip the three other pizza parlors that are already in business selling pizza they are my actual competitors they're in the my face today selling pizza but a potential competitor is somebody who is not in the market today but they could easily get into the marketplace and here's the key if they did get into my marketplace they would wipe me out generally when we talk about potential competitors we're talking about people who are a lot bigger than we are and who have economies of scale so big box retailers chain restaurants franchises um are potential competitors uh you know if i have a pizza parlor on blackrock turnpike in fairfield and i find out that one of you is planning to open a pizza parlor well i'm not really that worried about that you're a mom and pop like me i've been around for a while you know uh my customers i mean i might i'm gonna work hard to keep my customers with me so you know you're gonna have a tough time breaking in because there's too many pizza parlors in my in my town which by the way is true there are um you know so bring it on that's going to be my attitude but let's say that you are olive garden or sabaro or one of the uh italian themed chain restaurants okay if i hear that that a an olive garden is coming down the street with a full liquor license you know full capacity of course with the pandemic of course this is not as big as it once was but go with me on this um you know if i hear that that's going to be moving down the street i'm a lot more worried about that than i am another mom and pop competitor again potential competitors are bigger than you are so now that we've done this now let's take a look at this chart and let's go through the boxes the a direct competitor someone who's doing the exact same thing that you're doing who's in your face we call this the enemy and these are the easy people to spot whenever somebody i meet somebody at a thing and they say i have no competition what they're really telling me is i've looked in this box cliff and i don't see anybody and you may be right you may not have any enemies any direct actual competitors but that doesn't mean that you don't have other types of competitors and they probably are out there if you look hard enough an indirect competitor who was actually in your face think the pizza parlor versus the chinese takeout joint we call those substitutes you know people can choose either one or the other um a question i will often ask you if you if i'm interviewing you the first time we talk on the phone is if people could not afford your prior your product or service what other things could they buy that are more cost effective you know so so butter versus margarine um you know reading a 200 page book versus uh on how to interview for a job versus talking to somebody uh and getting one-on-one advice on how to interview for a particular job you know these are examples of substitutes um and sometimes the substitutes are more compelling than than what you're doing i mean if you're looking for a job would you rather sit down and read a 200 page book on interviewing techniques would you rather talk to somebody who has worked for that company before and who can tell you exactly what the interviewer's hot buttons are going to be you will gladly pay more money to do the latter i guarantee that now let's look at the bottom boxes a potential competitor somebody who's not in the marketplace today uh but if they ever did move into your marketplace they'd be a direct competitor they've got huge economies of scale they could sell things for a fraction of what you can afford to sell them for they will wipe you out i'm just calling them big boxes or franchises i want to get across the point here that these are bigger than people who are much bigger than you are last but not least uh though this last box the indirect competitors of the future now are we starting to get into la la land here are we getting here speculative here the answer is no uh these may be your most compelling business business competitors i actually myself shut down a business in the early aughts because i i saw what was i was who was in this box and i didn't like what i saw i didn't think that i could compete with these people the indirect competitors of the future the indirect slash potential people these are the people who are going to are going to change the world these are the people who are going to make your product or service obsolete they are the paradigm shifters so back around the year 2000 if you had a if you had a bookstore um you know a small mom-and-pop bookstore one of the biggest competitors you were facing was the internet you know the internet wiped out a lot of business is right now the biggest indirect potential competitor that most small businesses are facing is the pandemic it's kovac 19. covert 19 is going to change a lot of paradigms in the business world how many of you are thinking about going to a movie theater right now how many people are thinking about going to a mall right now how many people are thinking about going to a gym and working out with 50 other sweaty people not wearing masks you get the idea here okay sometimes your competitors are not a who they are a what and i think for a lot of businesses today a lot of businesses need to look at this particular box and ask yourself how is the pandemic and covert 19 going to change what my what my customers are looking for and can i morph into another type of business that will be that they will be more willing to buy okay you can't once you've identified your competitors you have to you have to ask yourself how am i better than them you can't just say well here i am i'm another piece of parlor you can't do that and whenever i ask this question what is your competitive advantage most people will say well i'm going to give them better service i'm going to service the hell out of my customers and they're going to all want to come to me because i'm going to give them better service i have a very very nasty message for you i have to burst your bubble here and i really i i i can't i can't provide you with with a statistical source for this i i'm only going to say that in 30 years of my life working with small businesses over 15 000 of them i have to tell you uh better service is not a competitive advantage people want better service don't get me wrong your customers want better service but they're not willing to pay for it they're not willing to pay people will not want to pay a premium for better service uh and that is just a hard and fast and difficult lesson an inconvenient and inconvenient truth that i have learned in 30 years of working with small businesses you know i i the the epitaph on many the tombstone of a small business is i really thought my customers would stay with me because i provide better service people want the better service but they also want the cheaper price how many of you here have have have uh looked at i get a catalog called the uh daedalus books this is a lovely you know catalog of some of the newer books that are coming out you know and they're wonderful and they're great but you know they they they they tend to be at offered at a premium price how many of you here have you know looked at something like this or have gone to a store uh before the pandemic of course and have looked at uh you know an article of clothing a pair of shoes or whatever and then went on amazon and bought it to get the 20 to 30 off with amazon prime okay how many of you have done this the answer is we all have done this okay uh you know better service is not the is not the answer uh you can have a better product but your competitive advantage could be something a lot simpler it can be just a more convenient location uh who you are seriously folks these three words that you are looking at right now say habla espanol put them on your business cards your stationery your website your social media let people know that you speak spanish and you speak it well you will double your business overnight i almost guarantee it um you know the hispanic community in the united states is is very underserved by a lot of a lot of service providers uh if you can speak spanish and can and can speak to these people in their own language you you will increase your business of course you have to be able to speak it and please do not try to speak your high school spanish from 30 years ago that will not fly okay you kind of have to speak conversational spanish the way the way they the way they do but if you can do that if you speak a different language or if you're a member of a particular cultural group or an ethnic group take advantage of that uh you know people feel more comfortable doing business with people who they perceive as being like them um you know so i mean for example i mean i you know i have a vowel at the end of my name uh you know my my my grandfather was italian you know he came here from italy in the early 1900s uh i will tell you though i was not raised in an italian household uh i mean many of you on this call know more about italian-american culture than i do uh but i do get a lot of clients with italian-american surnames because they look at my name and they say hey this guy's a python i feel comfortable with them take advantage of what you have last but not least don't overlook your personality i mean there's a gazillion lawyers out there you know why am i doing better than a lot of my my competitors right now i think a lot of it is just my personality the fact that i do programs like this the fact that i make people laugh i mean i actually tell clients this the one warranty i make about my legal services is i will make you laugh as part of this process i think i'm the only attorney in the united states who gives that warranty but because of that people feel more comfortable with me than a lot of other lawyers who they are afraid of judging them you know let's face it if you're going to a lawyer people do not call their lawyers when they're having a nice day you know if you're talking to a lawyer chances are your life is not going as well as it should be and you are afraid that your lawyer is judging you oh my god you did that how stupid is that how did you get the irs is going after you for that man nobody does it yeah that's not how i i approached the world i approached the world hey you got a problem great you are in the right place this is exactly what i do for a living i can definitely help you out here and you'll probably survive you'll probably survive with this so so that's the thing okay step number three uh those are the most important ones we're gonna we're gonna pick up the pace here because the last three are less important uh the first two are very important okay feeding your business what resources do you have uh to start to start the business and when most people think about this they think about money but money's not the only thing okay but let's start with money do you have enough money to get this business off the ground even in good times in pre-pandemic times i was telling people you should always have enough cash or credit on hand for six to nine months operating expenses rent payroll your fixed costs uh if you do not have enough cash on hand or enough credit lines on hand for that long a period of time you know you have to be prepared for a shutdown of at least six to nine months do i have to explain why you have to do this in the middle of a pandemic i mean the pandemic has simply proved that what i've been telling people for 30 years is right the businesses that are struggling and that are going under are businesses that operated on very very thin margins okay um you know you got to have enough cash on credit to survive a six to nine month downturn the second thing is how long is it going to take for your business to break even now there's a very technical definition of breaking even but i'm not going to go into that just think of breaking even as a point in time in which your customers are supporting the business your customers are providing you with enough revenue each month that you can pay your basic operating expenses and there's a little bit left over to live on that's what i call breaking even it's as simple as that how long is it going to take you to get there most businesses don't break even from day one you know it's going to take you probably three six nine months before you get to this point during that period of time you're going to have to pay all the operating expenses of the business out of your own resources your cash your credit cards whatever whatever resources you have do you have enough money to last that long you have to know your expenses and you have to know them cold for the first 12 months the first thing you do and your score counselor will help you do this they're very good at this this is one of the main reasons why scoring exists is to help you do a cash flow projection so you can figure out how long it's going to take you to break even and the first step is make sure you know your expenses cold how much what do you need to run this business how much what are you going to have to spend money on and how much you're going to have to spend for the first 12 months of the business you got to know that cold down to the penny once you know that then it's a lot easier to figure out how much revenue you need each month to be able to cover those expenses and that will tell you what your break-even point is going to be but money is not the only thing you need for a business do you have all the right skills i've learned over the years that every business has at least five or six essential tasks that you must do yourself these are things you cannot delegate to other people to employees to professionals whatever these are the things you got to do yourself because no one is going to do them as well as you can and these are the things that must be done perfectly or extremely well for the business to succeed can you do all of them yourself if you can't if you cannot then that's a sign that you need a partner somebody who can come in and can do the essential tasks that you cannot do yourself do you have enough time for this business this is a very personal thing how will the business change your life a successful business is a time vampire it will eat your life like nothing else um if you're the kind of a person who enjoys playing golf on saturday you let's say you have a foursome three buddies that you've been golfing with for years you've been doing this for a while do not start a retail business because traditionally saturday is the busiest day in retail you will not have time to play golf on saturday you might be able to play golf on wednesday but if your three buddies can't break break free to play golf on wednesday you're going to lose those friendships that's that's always make sure that your spouse is involved you'll see you should always have five people on your advisory board you need good advisors you need a good accountant bookkeeper to help with the financial stuff a good lawyer to help you protect you against liability a good insurance person very essential uh in helping you manage your risk a good mentor this is why score exists i have been referring clients to score for over 30 years not a single one has ever come back in all that time and said well this was a bad idea this guy was a jerk you didn't know what he was doing that has not happened in 30 years most often i get the feedback i get is this was very helpful i mean you know most of the stuff we discussed was stuff i already knew but at least i feel better now knowing that i'm doing the right thing and i'm on the right track score is a wonderful resource and you're a fool if you don't take advantage of it your spouse or significant other now i'm not saying you should go into business with your spouse that's a very personal thing i could give a whole course on just that but your spouse or significant other should at least know enough about your business so that they can help you with the personal side of it you know you are going to be a different person if you have a successful small business will your spouse be able to live with that you know with the fact that you you're you're not you're you're not as available now as you used to be because you're working 90 hours a week to make this thing a success how is that going to affect your marriage how is that going to affect your relationships you got to involve them enough so that you can help you can get advice on that and then nobody else will be able to help you with that but your spouse or significant other okay step four identifying risks and prevent protecting your business against them by far and away the the the most common question that i get whenever i'm advising a new client is hey cliff i'm starting and starting this business but you know i i i think it's really going to be a success but for god's sake i don't want to lose my house if i lose my house i'm losing my marriage you know my wife will divorce me the kids won't want to talk to me my dog will pee on my leg and i'll be living in a diaper box into the brooklyn bridge i don't want that as my future you know i don't i mean how can i protect my business from being sued okay there are there are there are several there are five basic ways in which you can keep lawsuits at a minimum and you should definitely plan for these things the first thing is you should form a corporation or llc a limited liability company if you go to my website at cliffnetco.com i actually have a downloadable seven-page document it's called demystifying the business organization where i i go into great detail about the differences between corporations and s corporations and llcs and the various legal ways that you can set up your business uh download this thing print it out that's about seven pages long uh sit down tonight and read it with a fine vsop brandy or other liquor of choice and i guarantee you will know as much as much as most lawyers and accountants know about corporations llcs and all the legal entities that are out there but with all of them what you're doing here is you're taking your personal assets off the table when you form a curse a corporation or an llc or an s corp what you are doing is you are putting a wall up between your personal assets you know the stuff that doesn't relate to your business and your business assets by putting up a corporation or llc if somebody sues you they'll still be able to get to your business assets that's why you need insurance on those things but your personal assets your house your cars your kids college tuition fund uh your personally autographed photograph of elvis presley all of that stuff is behind the wall and is protected from attack that's why you do it um you can do it yourself i know some people you know think that they can go to the secretary of state's website and do it if you figure you spend a couple of your hours of your life figuring it out you probably can figure how to set up the llc yourself at least online but that is only the first step in the process do not do this yourself if you're going to do it if you're going to form a corporation or llc hire a lawyer have your accountant do it accountless form corporations or llcs for their clients they're often cheaper than lawyers are there are services online such as legalzoom which will set up a corporation or llc for you but whatever you do don't do it yourself there are several steps involved in setting up a corporation or an llc and just registering with the secretary of state's office is just step one there are five or six other steps that must be completed before you are you have fully formed the corporation or llc and even legal zoom doesn't do them all legalzoom will do most of them they'll register with the state they'll get you your federal tax id number uh they'll give you like a basic operating agreement if you're an llc but they don't register your business for the state and local taxes that is something that a lawyer or an accountant will do for you if you don't do it if you don't do that last step you're going to start getting nasty letters from government agencies you've never even heard of and you're not going to be able to figure out which ones are real and which ones are not which ones you have to do and which ones you don't i always tell people use a lawyer or an accountant to do it yes they're a little bit more expensive than doing it on legalzoom but believe me it's money well paid you do not have the it's taken me 40 years of my life to learn how to do an llc in 15-20 minutes how long is it going to take you to set up an llc from scratch chances are it's going to be a lot more than that you know by hiring a lawyer you are managing your time okay secondly buy as much insurance as you can uh memorize even with a corporation or llc uh creditors and and plaintiffs can still get to your business assets uh you gotta have insurance on those there's two kinds of insurance you have to have uh there's commercial liability in some states it's called general liability this is slip and fall insurance if you have a storefront and somebody comes to pick up their takeout and they slip and fall and they break their ass this is the insurance that protects you against those kinds of liabilities but there's a second type of insurance you need to call errors and omissions if you're a consultant for example this is malpractice insurance if you do if you're an i.t consultant and you do work on a client's computer and you let a virus in there and they look like they get uh one of those uh one of those ransomware things and they end up losing all their assets and stuff like that their their uh their their bank accounts get cleaned out they are going to sue you uh for for letting that happen so so every small business especially consultants need what we call errors and omissions insurance eno coverage thirdly put disclaimer language in all of your contracts in legal forms things that say you're not liable for anything kind of like the disclaimer that i had at the beginning of this program now sometimes the courts enforce them sometimes they don't but if you don't have them in your contract they will not be there to protect you most of the time courts will enforce disclaimers if they're properly drafted if you don't put them in your contract though they will not be there to protect you get them in there have an attorney do that for you fourthly consider transferring assets into your spouse's name now this is a little tricky here so for example if you're setting up a consulting business and you're working out of your house you might want to put title to the house into your spouse's name a lot of people do that so that way if anybody attempted to sue you they'll see that the house is not in your name and it makes you what they call judgment proof this is tricky though and i don't always recommend that you do it you're putting a lot of stress on your marriage you know you are making a lead when you put a title to your house into your spouse's name that is a legal transfer of title you got to do exactly the same stuff as you do when you're transferring your house into a stranger's name and if you ever get divorced god forbid down the road you will not only be without a spouse you will be homeless because your spouse now owns the asset and he or she can boot you out legally don't i mean unless you are a hundred percent certain of your marriage do not do this okay uh let's say that you are not married let's say that you're single um and you know you don't have a spouse but you have a very loving mom who's willing to take title to your house and she's willing to do this okay uh be very careful make sure that when you do this she changes her will so that when she dies the house comes back to you i've seen situations where clients have transferred their houses into their parents uh names the parents die and all of a sudden now their siblings own a piece of their house because that's the way the estate laws work okay uh if you're doing if you're gonna transfer to someone other than a spouse make sure that they change their will so that if god forbid something bad happens to them they die of covet or whatever that the asset comes back to you and then last but not least the best way to protect yourself against um liability don't do business with crazy people whenever a client of mine is being sued by someone or they have a bad experience with a client or a customer almost the very first words that come out of their mouths cliff i knew it i knew it i had a bad feeling about this guy from the beginning i knew they were going to be trouble i knew they were going to be problematic um you know your gut is a lot better than you a lot smarter than you are okay if you're dealing with someone and they just come at you weird in some way trust your gut there's probably a reason why your gut feels this way you know if you really says to somebody you do not have to do take to do business with everyone who calls you you do not have to take on everybody who knocks on your door there's no law that says that you have to do that obviously there are some laws you can't discriminate you can't do stuff like that but but you but you that there's no law that says you must take every client on board that calls you if you really sense that somebody is is a whack-a-doodle do not you know uh do not you know just say no or better yet say you know what i'm too busy this is what i do i say whenever i'm dealing with somebody who's a whack-a-doodle i'm gonna i say you know what um you you this is a very interesting situation this is the kind of work i do but i'm frankly under the gun to get my next book done i'm not going to have time to even think about this for the next three or four months here's another attorney in town uh that you can call you know he does this work as well you know i'm sure you'll have a good experience with them and who am i referring you to my worst enemy this is the lawyer in town that i hate the most if i think you're a whack-a-doodle i want him to be your lawyer i want you dealing with my with mike does that sound cynical by the way uh you know have you uh seriously you know this is what this is what you do you know whenever whenever a whack-a-doodle calls you that is an opportunity to to really knock you to really give your competition a black eye take advantage of it okay last but not least step five i do see a couple of questions coming in and i will answer them um but let's talk about the final steps so i don't go over uh comply with the law and pay your taxes notice by the way this is step five we don't really worry about the legal stuff until you know who your customers are who your competitors are and that you have enough resources to get the business off the ground those are the more important things if you haven't nailed down all of that stuff you shouldn't really be thinking about should i be a corporation or an llc should i get an extra policy of eno insurance this is all the stuff that comes at the end of the process this is the things you do when you're getting started with your business and not just thinking about what the business is going to be uh this is the least important stuff that you have to do uh in any business that you start the government is your business partner here in the united states uh there are some countries i actually um i am going to be doing a uh a webinar uh next month for a cut for an entrepreneurs group that's in one of the african countries uh the sub-saharan african countries uh and you know when i when i got to this point they wanted me to talk about this stuff they said they think he's the guy my my promoter there laughed at me and said cliff you don't have to worry about that we don't have to deal with that here uh in this we don't have to deal with regulations and stuff like that all we have to do is pay the right official and we get what we need you know and you know i don't want to say any more about that but you know there are some places in the world where this is not the case but here in the united states you know the government is your business partner uh there are taxes you have to pay uh and there are regulations you have to follow first thing you have to think about do you need a license for this business uh cliff ennico's rule of thumb if you are doing something in your business that has the potential to hurt someone if it is not done well there is probably a license somewhere that you need to get if your product or service has the capacity of injuring someone if it's not done well chances are you got to get a license to do it so if you're cutting people's hair you need a license uh if you're going into if you're helping people with their investments uh you need a license if you're practicing law or accounting you need a license uh pretty obvious stuff can you or should you trademark your business name i have a whole youtube video called trademark basics cliff ennico trademark basics on youtube uh if you're interested in this not all names are trademarkable but if you're looking to build a brand uh you know either online or off if you're trying to build you know a brand around your products or services you must have a registered trademark it's that simple before you even open think about opening this business you should find out if your trademark can be registered with the patent and trademark office and do it uh you know it may cost set you back a couple of thousand dollars in legal fees it's not a cheap process but if you're if you're if you're relying on a particular name for for that product or service uh and you're looking to build a brand either nationwide or otherwise you have to make sure that no one else can conglomerate from on you and it's worthwhile spending the money to to make sure that that is that is done properly um hire a lawyer but not the kind of lawyer who just sues people uh what we call a litigator you need a lawyer who can teach you what you need to know do not take legal advice from the internet do not take legal advice from the internet most of it i will tell you i i see a lot of things on the internet that are just purely wrong uh and and many of the people who are who are giving this advice are people even some lawyers don't know what they are doing okay uh they just i mean about about a year ago they arrested some kid i can't remember where he was he was in texas or oklahoma or that part of the country this was a 12 year old kid who had a legal blog online and was giving legal advice to people 12 years old you i mean forgive me you you can't even get into law school until you're like 20 years old okay you know and they got this kid and i don't know what they did with them he didn't go to jail or anything like that but can you imagine a 12 year old kid was giving legal advice how good do you think that advice was okay uh probably pretty good who knows i mean i mean you know but but the point of the matter is you know get somebody who can teach you what you need to know be very careful what you read online there's a lot of misinformation here um you know some of the there is good stuff on on generally speaking if if you're looking at something that was actually posted by a law firm or somebody or somebody who knows what they're doing a judge or something that's probably more reliable but somebody online is just saying oh you know if you get divorced this is what happens xyz they usually don't know what they're talking about it's taking me 40 years to be able to do programs like this you know someone just who's only been this way only has tangential knowledge of it cannot do it uh last but not least you have to pay taxes sorry um it's it's the price how can i say it it's the government's way of congratulating you for a job well done you know poor people do not have tax problems homeless people do not have tax problems successful people have tax problems whenever the government you know imposes a tax on you or they raise the taxes it's their way of patting you on the head and saying congratulations you are doing great keep up the good work that is their way of of thanking you uh for your success you know thank you for your service not pay your taxes okay uh hire a good bookkeeper or account at least for the first year after the first year or so you'll usually be able to know enough that you'll be able to do your own tax returns uh and do your and do you like your sales tax filings and stuff like that but for the first year it's all going to be kind of overwhelming get a good bookkeeper or accountant to help you get a federal tax id number do not use your social security number as a business id now the irs does allow this if you are a sole proprietor it's just you you can use your social security number as a business id but it's a very bad idea because you're going to have to give that number out to lots of total strangers that you don't want knowing your social security number get a federal tax id number it takes about five minutes online and it's cheap or better yet have your accountant or lawyer do it register if you're in connecticut register with connecticut's tax authority it's called the department of revenue services the drs for income sales use connecticut unlike most states taxes services in most states you only have to pay sales tax on the sale of tangible goods that is not the case here in connecticut you also there is also a wide variety of services that are subject to sales tax as well management consulting for example is a taxable service in connecticut a lot of people don't know that uh and you'll have to sign up for taxes uh get somebody to help you here because it's very easy to guess wrong and then make sure you keep good records if you are ever audited by the irs or by the connecticut drs or your state tax authority the you your odds of of surviving the audit multiply when you have good records and then there's a last step um know yourself do you have the right stuff to succeed in a small business um this i have a youtube video on this so i'm not going to spend a lot of time on it but there are three personal qualities that all aspiring entrepreneurs must develop if they are to be successful and those qualities are cynicism looking at the world in a very realistic way not in a romantic way not being seduced by images looking at the world the way it really is uh even though that may be somewhat negative uh insecurity being fearful of things being a little bit neurotic uh paranoid people tend to make excellent not entrepreneurs because they take nothing for granted they don't get complacent they don't get too comfortable with things they're always looking for the bad stuff to happen so the bad stuff usually doesn't happen to them and last but least which is ruthlessness getting what you need no matter what obstacles cross your path no matter who or what gets in your way not a very nice word um if you want more now i know i've really raced through this um there are i have on youtube a six part course on starting and running a small business there are six videos that i have up there um if you go to youtube.com and search for cliff and echo small business you'll see all six of these are listed there uh you should watch them in order each one is about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes their programs i originally did four score um if the thought of sitting in front of your tv and listening to a six hour lecture program from an attorney is something you just can't do uh i i the program is also available on dvd uh from my website at succeedinginyourbusiness.com if you click on dvd offer uh you'll see how much it is and you'll uh you'll see the steps involved it's a dvd program you can either listen just listen to it as a cd or you can watch it as a dvd and that is all i have to say uh here are some of my best-selling books on things and this is what i look like on a very good day when i'm not doing a a webinar in my spare bedroom wearing a t-shirt and shorts this is what i look like so that's all i have to say um let's take a couple of questions bob i think we still have enough time for a few yeah that's great yeah we do have enough time for questions just a reminder if you do want to submit a question in a few minutes we have left you can type it into the chat box and uh and we'll do it uh clip the first uh question is from uh tamira and it's a question on insurance um what is the type of insurance and on a non-location nutritionist and personal trainer should have okay so you're doing work in people's homes obviously wearing a mask okay and that kind of thing um the short answer is you definitely need to carry what's called uh you know general commercial liability or general liability insurance if you slip and fall on on somebody's property um you know the homeowner will not want that to be covered by their insurance there now most homeowners have insurance that would cover you against something like that so if their dog bites you or something like that but you can't always count on the fact that their homeowner's coverage is adequate you should have commercial liability coverage of your own you should definitely have errors and omissions insurance um especially if you're doing nutritious stuff now depending on the kind of nutrition advice you're giving you may have to be a licensed dietitian so that is one thing i don't know what state you're in but you may have to look at the licensing laws to make sure that you don't have to have a dietitian's license to be able to give nutrition advice nutrition advice is one of those kind of gray areas where you know if all i'm saying is hey cliff you're too fat you need to eat more vegetables and exercise more well you don't need a license for that but if you're telling people with specific food allergies or specific conditions that they have to eat certain food that may require a dietitian's license that's something you have to look at that i know that that wasn't the answer to your question but that's the first thing you should do okay we have another question about around the year comments about transferring assets in your example um in regards to the example about transferring assets won't you have to worry about estate taxes when you transfer your house to your mom and then you inherit it in your will that's actually a very very good question um you know you're it's one of the reasons why you should not do this without consulting a good estate attorney um the transfer to your mom will usually not be a taxable event although it might be in some states i can't really say that new york has a very byzantine real estate transfer tax you may have to pay a transfer tax when you transfer to your mom or to someone other than a spouse when you transfer to a spouse there's never a transfer tax but there might be a tax uh there if you transfer to your mom uh but the answer is yes you may um you know the house would definitely be included in her taxable estate and she would be the one to incur the estate taxes so you know is the additional cost worth it the answer is you have to decide but if you have siblings you know especially you cannot assume that when she dies the house is going to come back to you that is the message it has to be a specific called a specific bequest clause in the will saying that upon my death this house located at 123 main street goes to my son cliff that language has got to be there and again i'm not recommending that you do it um you know in all cases if you're not sure that it's gonna go well do not do it at all uh there's no law that says you have to i point it out because it is an option and a lot of people do this especially uh professionals uh like to transfer their uh their their also the other thing about that is make sure that your spouse is not working with you so if you are transferring your house to your spouse and he or she is your business partner as well you own the llc together your your 50 50 whatever then the transfer will not work uh because it will it would be you know if she will be considered to be your business partner and uh you know for a transfer to work your spouse can have nothing to do with your business that's something i forgot to mention um we have maybe time for another question here um is it necessary to have an naics code if i choose an naics code would that limit me to doing business at whatever the code is or will i still be able to to do business as something else okay an increasing number of states are requiring this an naics code used to be called an sic code for your older people is a code which sort of generally identifies what type of business you are engaged in in connecticut for example if you're registering a corporation or llc you must provide an nics code as part of that the short answer is it does not limit you to doing business as just that uh generally speaking you you do this when you first register the business but they don't ask you to keep it up to date um you know so if you're doing management consulting and you decide to do a little ebay selling on the side chances are you probably will not have to provide the state with an updated nics code although if you're doing something that is outside of that naics code especially if it's radically different from the nics code you might want to talk to an attorney about creating a separate business for that thing so if you are doing a hair salon on one's on in one of your businesses and you have a an i.t consulting business on the other those are two very different kinds of business models and you should probably have those in separate companies anyway because the liability uh the risk of liability is very different in those two businesses you do not need uh general liability insurance for the i.t consulting you would need more errors in omissions insurance whereas for the hair salon you obviously would need general liability that's just a simple example for that okay is there a book or video resource you refer to for psychotherapists a psychotherapist asking for advice boy that's unique uh uh covering the information i mean there are some things that are that are out there uh my best advice for you would be to check out your trade association or your professional association your pres your professional association probably has recommended uh continuing education courses and resources that are specific to the psychotherapy profession uh that would be the first place i would go uh to look for materials like that you know i mean i write most of the books that i've written are books for that i've written for various bar associations that are primarily used by lawyers um you know i'm sure your profession has a similar resource page that's great cliff i think that's all the time we have um for questions unfortunately it's uh one o'clock and uh just a reminder to everyone uh the webinar was recorded and the materials will be available in a couple of days on our website fairfieldcounty.score.org our next live webinar is on tuesday july 28th at noon and the topic is the art of the lean canvas with bill schloff presenting again we offer free individual counseling so if you want to take advantage of that please go to our website and click request a mentor or you can use the link that we showed at the beginning of the program and on behalf of score i'd like to thank you all for attending today and special thanks to cliff femico for pres presenting so stay well everyone and have a great day