Legal Considerations for Small Businesses with Braden Drake

NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors. SPEAKERS Braden Drake, Erin Ollila Erin Ollila 00:04 Hey friends, welcome to the Talk Copy to Me podcast. Here we empower small business owners to step into the spotlight with their marketing and messaging. I’m your host, Erin Ollila. Let’s get started and talk coffee. Hello friends today i have Braden Drake on the podcast with me. And you may know him as a licensed attorney and tax professional. But what you might not know about him is that he’s actually done for Yes, you’ve heard that correct. 1234 Iron Man’s, and he’s a CrossFit regular, I’m pretty impressed by this funny enough story is when Brandon and I were talking on Instagram about like scheduling this and how I really wanted to have him on the show, each time that I talked to him, he was at the gym. And each time that he was at the gym, I was on my couch, Braden Drake 01:00 really I just want to get I want to get like somewhat competitive with CrossFit. And so I’m just trying to get stronger for that. But when I say somewhat competitive, it’s like advancing, I want to advance on the open, which is like to get to the second round, which would be like top 10% of you know, the hundreds of 1000s of people who do this very, very recreationally, which is still like leagues away from you know, what pros are doing? Erin Ollila 01:24 Well, I think that’s very impressive. I will keep my fingers crossed as possible for you to actually get there. Yeah, so I am in your profit RX program, which if you don’t know about that, it’s really kind of helping business owners get set up financially, legally, and really just get their systems in place for running a business well, but what I have really enjoyed watching in your business over the past six months to a year is some of the changes that have been going on. I’d love to know more about the new programs, the new offerings, and what’s kind of been happening to take you from Braden to now, how do I say not your average law? Not tell me so I don’t mess this up? Braden Drake 02:10 Yeah, well, I’m still trying to figure it out myself. So we launched a law firm, the full name of the not your average law firm. But we also just say like, not average law, for sure. It’s just kind of taking my name out of the branding a little bit more, really to place like more trust amongst our team, and all of that as we scale and grow the business because I personally can only do so much Erin Ollila 02:33 everyone pay very close attention. Because next week, Brandon is doing a webinar on the most common legal and tax mistakes that people make at each stage of their business, you should definitely sign up for that I will put the links in the show notes and the podcast description. But tell me about the new program is it replacing profit RX? Where did the idea for the change come from? Braden Drake 02:58 Yeah, so it’s actually a new old programs. So I’m kind of going back to what I used to do, really. So I used to teach as my signature program is called unfuck. Your bid is a step by step framework to get your legal and tax shut legit. It was a $10,000 like group coaching course experience that we took folks through. And then I decided to pivot and try to run it as a membership for two years, which has been highly successful in some respects, but not as successful in some other respects. Happy to talk about that if you want. But we’re going back to running it as a course, primarily because we found we get much higher completion rates and a cohort course based model. So people just aren’t going through the content at the rate that we want them through in the membership. So like revenue wise, it’s been fine. It’s just we want to give people better results. So we’re going back to the course and then profit RX is actually going to become our alumni membership for continued support after the group program is over. It’s funny Erin Ollila 03:56 that you mentioned that because I can use myself as a perfect example to what you just said, you know, I signed up for it. I was excited to get started. I did not prioritize my time to work through it, how would be most beneficial to me, which is how you’ve set it up. Right. So I am going at a snail’s pace. And I’m probably one of those examples of the completion not happening because I’m I’m not working through the cohort, right? Braden Drake 04:21 Yeah, so it’s kind of this catch 22 of like when you run when you do live launches and cohort based things. The positive side is that everyone works at the same pace through the program at the same time. And we see much better engagement and higher completion rates. The downside to that is well, people may not be able to join when they feel like they immediately need the program. So we shifted to a membership so that people could join whenever they really needed to. But then it’s like, well, people are joining in and aren’t really going through the content. So you know, there’s pluses and minuses to both options, which is why I think it’s always fascinating to talk about business models because ultimately like the right kind of system is going to be different for every business. See, Erin Ollila 05:00 and as you know, part of really just figuring out how this all works, whether it’s a membership or cohort or a course is trial and error, right? So it’s like you’re testing this as you’re learning, and you’re just kind of making the best decisions as you can. Yeah, I’ve Braden Drake 05:13 like now tested both options. So I’m hoping I’m hoping this will be the done the end of the testing. Erin Ollila 05:19 Well, I can say, as a student who’s worked through your programs, that one thing I was really impressed with with was how the information was presented, you know, I think, for me, not for you. I think tax and legal stuff is complicated and overwhelming. And it holds me back from making decisions and doing things. So what I liked, not only was the structure, but was also that like, what the information I was receiving was actionable. So it’s like, I could watch this small thing and absorb it. And if there were steps I needed to take, I would take them, or I could just move on to whatever that next lesson is. But I would say if you guys are on the fence, and you really want to get better tax and financial and legal systems set up in your business, you’re gonna want to pay attention to Brandon’s launch, because I, as someone who’s worked through it, I can confirm that the quality is great. And it’s very helpful. Braden Drake 06:12 Yeah, come join us and get this Aaron, as you know, we have, we now have Connie in the program, our student success coordinator, who is amazing, she helped all of our students. We have Bree, who’s our bookkeeping, a tax preparer, and I am interviewing attorneys to come in as well. So we’re continuing to expand the team, which means that our students get more and more support because, you know, I hire these folks to do one on one work in the law firm. But then I also force all of them to do weekly office hours for our students as well. So you can basically have a tax preparer a bookkeeper and an attorney, like on demand to answer your questions, in addition to going through all of our course content, which is pretty next level, yeah, it’s gonna be like, which is Erin Ollila 06:53 unheard of elsewhere. And you know, especially when you are doing this as the DIY approach, because as an aside, everyone you can hire Brandon’s company lead, you know, your, your new legal company to do those things. If you don’t want to do this yourself, you do not have to, you know, be a DI wire. But if you are, it’s like you said, you’re getting the information that they can consume on their own, and then they have the perfect people to ask the questions. Braden Drake 07:19 Yeah, we actually, and I encourage, I encourage pretty much everyone to go through the program, even if your business is pretty big, and you can afford not to meaning you don’t have a problem, just like paying us five grand to do it all for you. Because you learn so much, which is so important as you are the CEO of your business. But what I like to say is through every step in the program, we have I started to call it the easy button. Meaning if you get to like the LLC formation piece, and you’re like, Okay, I learned what I need to learn, but I don’t actually want to do this, well, you can hire us like just for that piece then, which is nice. So then you can DIY 75% hire us for 25 or like do the exact inverse if that’s your jam. Erin Ollila 07:56 I love that because that’s specifically why I sign up for things is like it’s a great for me, my perspective is is great to hire people to do things to take them off my plate. But if I don’t understand what I’m hiring out, which was why I signed up for your program like there. Nobody has taught me like I’m a creative my MFA is in creative writing. Not one person talks to me about bookkeeping in my life, I’m coming to the world of online businesses, small business ownership of being the person who likes to write words and avoids numbers. And I didn’t want to be that person any longer. So while it is great to have people do the work for you, I’m on Team breathe. And when it comes to like putting in the effort to understand what these people are doing when you hire them, Braden Drake 08:40 exactly, how are you going to know that they’re doing their job if you don’t know what their job entails? Right, Erin Ollila 08:44 right. Or how do you know you’re going to be following the rules on things like when you don’t even know what those rules are? Yeah, and which is why it’s important to like, go to the source or go go to the right places to find your information. Because I can’t tell you how often online I see people giving information like sharing information that is absolutely Braden Drake 09:03 wrong. Well, you know, a lot of non experts like to give blanket black and white answers because their accountant told them three years ago that they needed to do something which means they think that everyone needs to do that thing. When half the times they were given the wrong information for themselves anyway, so why they think that even if it was right would apply to everyone does it we could get into the stuff I see on Facebook groups. Don’t even get me started because sometimes I just have to roll my eyes and scroll by because I do not have the time patience or energy to get into one more argument with someone who’s been like okay, well who are you though? And I like what do you want me to send you my CV or Erin Ollila 09:38 just do it just send the CV before you even have like, be like here, click on this PDF and then let’s talk. One one episode that you had done recently that I really liked was I don’t remember if you did the episode on this or it was just on social media, but you were talking about like why would you go to your accountant for legal advice, like it makes absolutely zero sense. And I think that’s why business foundation gins are such a solid thing people can learn because accountants are wonderful and they know things like tax laws, but it’s not Braden Drake 10:09 necessarily necessarily right. I’d say accountants know accounting. What a lot of us don’t think about is that yeah, taxes are actually elitist. What I always tried to explain to people, taxes are a legal thing. Tax laws are written into law, therefore it technically is an area of the law. Yeah, some tax professional, some tax professionals don’t actually know tax law, right. Erin Ollila 10:30 Well, yeah. No, I’m glad you said that. Because like, that is a big difference. Right? Which is just like in the example of like bookkeepers aren’t not accountants, like, we’ll have to know who we’re working with, what their skills are and what they actually have, as knowledge and experience when we’re hiring. I Braden Drake 10:44 know there’s gonna be some talk professional listening to this, and they’re probably going to be pissed off. But what I should say is there are definitely accountants that know tax law better than attorneys who don’t know anything about taxes, right, you covered your bases there, right, covered my bases, but the one that ran I specifically went on was, folks are saying, oh, because I talk a lot about worker misclassification. So folks, hiring people as independent contractors, when they legally must be employees, because some states have really strict laws around this. And then they will say, Well, my accountant told me to send them a 1099. So it must be fine. And it’s like, no, it’s not fine, because you pay them as a contractor. Now, you do have to send them a 1099. But that doesn’t mean that they technically legally can be a contractor. And then I hear about tax professionals actually giving advice on this when they don’t know anything about employment law, right. Yeah. Because just because you’re being odd, you’re being audited by the state Edd, the Employment Development Board for unpaid taxes, but that’s actually like an employment kind of legal issue that you’re dealing with. Erin Ollila 11:45 We talked about before we started this episode, like how long is an average episode, I think like we could have, like at this point, like a three to four hour conversation. But this is bringing it back to the idea of why those bend business foundations are so important, right? Things like employee classification, like that’s becoming confusing in the country, because of the state law changes. You know, I live in Massachusetts that has an ABC law, which I don’t even know enough about that to talk about it, but is changing in one state, which changes it in another state, which changes how people understand the information that is shared. So employee classification is huge. The taxes and 1099 is is huge. I can’t tell you as someone who has done freelance work for big brands and tiny businesses, how misunderstood? That is, and that changes per state to you know, like, I know, in Massachusetts, one thing is, like double 1099 is tend to be a problem because payment processors in the state of Massachusetts like Stripe send out 10 It was a 1099 case. Am I right? Or Braden Drake 12:52 Yeah, well, that’s actually everywhere across the country. So this is why but the Erin Ollila 12:56 amount changes though, because what is it isn’t over $20,000 For most places, the new Braden Drake 13:01 10 99k law, the 1099 in EC, your 1099 neck was the same, but that’s actually like an IRS issue. But yeah, generally Yeah, the the double 10 and the nines is is an issue everywhere. Because if you pay someone via credit or debit card, you don’t need a 1099 then because the payment processor will do it. And then people do it anyway, because they don’t know any better. Erin Ollila 13:21 And then the person who gets the 1099 myself this has happened had gets a letter from the IRS and they’re like, wait, what’s happening? Like, can you please explain this to me? And I’m like, well, thank you for making me want to, like, have a panic attack right now to try to solve this. Yeah, it’s, there’s a lot, right. So if you’re not working with someone who can help you with this, and if you’re not working with the right person, it’s gonna it’s gonna be a very complicated moment in your business. I’m sure some of these things that we just kind of brought up quickly will be in that legal and tax mistakes webinar that you’re doing next week. Braden Drake 13:55 Yeah, and I used to it’s funny as we’re talking about this, I used to not want to scare people scare. What because Because also it’s like an ethical question, right? Like you don’t want to frighten people into wanting to buy your thing, right? Yeah, unnecessarily scare people. But then I’ve come to the realization that’s like, Well, no, the shits like kind of scary and it’s better to kind of impress on people the seriousness of it, so they take it seriously, then me not do it because I don’t want to like do an overblown sales pitch, but then they actually do get their businesses like really fucked up 123 years down the road. I’ve kind of done people a disservice if I haven’t scare them into action. Well, Erin Ollila 14:35 we can say at least for this one particular conversation that like if you’re worried about ethics, you do you and I will scare them and sell them for you. Because, you know, I will be honest, I do tend to come to most things with like an anxiety, right? Like, I want to make sure I’m doing things correctly. I don’t want there to be problems and that you know that anxiety in itself is not necessarily a great thing. But but the reason why I mentioned that though, is I think anyone who listens to the show knows that I’m very easygoing. I tend to look at things with nuance, like when people ask me marketing questions, I’m always like, it depends. But when it comes to things like tax law, or like other type of legal things, like contracts we’re going to talk about today is not It depends. It’s there is a law and you have to frickin follow it. So why are we all kind of just like guessing our way through this and keeping our fingers crossed? And hoping for the best? Like, no, don’t do that. Like, that’s not a good idea. Yeah, so basically, I will just, I’ll be the scary one. In this episode, like good cop, bad cop, you present the information. And I will just keep like talking really loud with exclamation points, letting people know that they have to know these things. One thing I really wanted to talk to you about today, which is we’ll move into scare Topic number one is website, legal stuff. as a, as a website copywriter, I cannot tell you how many people I speak to whether they’re clients leads, friends, who have no clue that there are actual legal requirements for having a website. Would you like to you want to jump in there? Or do you want me to kind of ask you some questions about what those requirements actually are. Braden Drake 16:14 So I tell people, the very basics of what you need to do, which is have a privacy policy and web Terms of Service, most likely, pretty much GDPR is really strict. If people aren’t familiar, that’s like the European Union laws when it comes to data collection. California has a similar law on the books. And then more generally, we have laws across the US which are a little less strict. But just to make it really, really simple. Whenever you are collecting information, you have to have a privacy policy on your website that states how you’re using that information. What a lot of people kind of think is they’re like, Well, I just have like a plain website, there’s nothing on there. Well, as you know, Aaron, good marketing, you should have an email list. So at a minimum, you’re collecting their email. But even if you’re not doing that, you’re almost certainly collecting cookies, right? We don’t think about that. But that is information. If you have your website, pixeled for Facebook ads, that’s collecting information. So all these things need to be addressed in a privacy policy. Luckily, for us, private policies are super boring, they’re very generic. It’s not something that you never need to highly customize. So you just like get a an OK template and slap it on your website. And you’ll probably be okay. Erin Ollila 17:28 And speaking of templates, one that is more than okay, is what you can find in Brandon’s contract club. I love the I love the contract club, because I like that one. It’s low cost, right? There’s a big difference of price that sometimes that I have seen when it comes to contracts, and I understand it is very important to invest in them. But I think if you are just getting your website up and you want to be compliant, but you don’t necessarily have the funds to hire a lawyer to create something individual for you. Go go to a place like the contract club where you can get the information that you need, at a very reasonable price. Braden Drake 18:08 And $30 to be Yeah, Erin Ollila 18:10 I was gonna say I’m like, I don’t know if we should mention numbers in case you ever, like increase your price, which you know, and it would still be so worth it. Braden Drake 18:17 Yeah, no plans anytime soon. But what I’ve kind of really dug my feet in the sand that there’s I don’t know, finding the right expression for what I’m trying to say it doesn’t matter if people know what I’m talking about putting my stake in the ground. That’s what I was going to try to say, putting my second around that there are three essential things every business needs to do, even if you’re like brand new and have no clients. And those things are have insurance, probably and I can’t really help you with that you need to get them an insurance agent have contracts. So web terms, privacy policies, client contracts, and then you need to have some basic form of bookkeeping, for tax purposes, right? It’s like how can we most successfully help people with these absolute essentials? Well, you get your insurance agent by the contract Club, which is $30. And then we have a mini bookkeeping course called the bookkeeping blueprint for $30. So and then I have my book, which is also $30. My signature program is kind of like the next step yet on that but Erin Ollila 19:10 and you are relaunching your book. I don’t know when the timeline is for that. But I know that you just kind of like reworked everything with a book. So now’s a great time for people to go and buy it. Because you just you know, you modernized it, which is the wrong word here too. Braden Drake 19:25 Yeah, we updated the book, we actually use my book as the textbook, we will be using it as the textbook and the program. So if you join the program, we’ll send you a copy of the book. But if you don’t end up joining my program, the book is actually it’s like our perfect down sell because it’s like the DIA, it’s the DIY unfuck your best framework and then you join the program to get all of the support that we offer. So but either way, it walks you through the whole full six part framework. Erin Ollila 19:51 Okay, so rewind slightly, we’re talking about websites. We’re talking about what they need, taking the basic step to have something there is going to give you about protection, then they’re not taking any steps at all. Braden Drake 20:02 Your privacy policy is just website data collection. So then we have web terms. And the best way I can explain web terms is when you use a website that you actually interact with. So let’s use Facebook as an example. When you go on Facebook, like the website is the service. Does that make sense? So then it’s your, you’re gonna sign web terms that agree to the Terms of Service, like how you’re gonna use the platform, you’re not going to post hate speech, you’re not going to impersonate people like all that kind of stuff. So that’s all web terms are for. But then we have program terms, or essentially, like when you ever use sign a one on one client, you have them sign a contract. Well, if someone can buy something directly from like a checkout button on your website, then you want to have either terms for that physical good you’re selling or terms for the online program you’re selling. And the only difference is is that’s going to be hyperlinked in your website somewhere so that they can read it and check that little box. And we would call those either program terms if it’s an online program like mine, or you could call it a client service agreement. If you’re not sending it out through a CRM, or you know, like product terms of service, if you’re selling goods. Erin Ollila 21:09 Let me ask you a question. I’ve seen this before. But again, we talked about the idea of like, we don’t want to just take blanket advice from the random strangers on the internet. I’ve seen before that people’s terms in their footer have contained the language that you would likely find and one of the the option three that you said, which would be like the program terms or the client service agreement, they’ve kind of incorporated that language in their website terms. Is that legal? Or is that not a good approach? Braden Drake 21:39 Yeah, that’s fine. It’s just gets really clunky if you sell multiple things, right. So if you sell like we have the client, we already mentioned, we have a contract club, the bookkeeping blueprint. And then we have unfuck, your biz, those are three different programs. So ideally, I’m going to have three different contracts, and each of those checkout pages will link you to the appropriate contract for that specific thing. Erin Ollila 22:00 So if you have a very, very simple business, where you’re really kind of maybe doing one service, or like one option to like, do a strategy call, let’s say from your site, and they, you know, purchase a template with the language they could build it in. But the smarter option is to really kind of separate them. So it’s clear for the customer. Braden Drake 22:19 And I think it’s I actually think it’s simpler that way, too. Like it sounds like more work, you’re gonna have multiple documents, but like contract club, the contract is as simple as like you agree to pay us $30, we agreed to give you access to the spank a contract templates, which includes these things. And then for the bookkeeping blueprint, we just duplicate that. And now you agree to pay us $30 For the bookkeeping blueprint, and we give you these things, pretty much the whole rest of the contract is the exact same copy paste, Erin Ollila 22:44 what’s simple and easy for you, as the business owner is likely going to be simple and easy. When it comes to client experience as well. There will Braden Drake 22:51 be I mean, Aaron, it’s kind of like it would kind of be like trying to write one sales page for all of your offers do. You could do it, do it like, Oh, this is the general transformation we provide you like you’d have to generalize everything. This is a general transformation. And then you’re trying to have all these little sub parts of your sales page where you’re addressing the different offers, but like the buttons to them, like is that a thing you could do? Yes, it’s the smartest thing for you to do probably not Erin Ollila 23:16 100% not the smartest one, especially when it comes to sales page specifics. But if we’re going to kind of use the same example and talk about services pages, it can work, right. But what, what the only way it works is if all of those individual services then have a secondary services page that explains the individual ones. So if we’re looking now at the way that you just kind of describe the different terms, why that’s like doing double work, when it comes to terms having one long terms that talks about a lot of things yet, when you present them with the bookkeeping program that you have, they need to now now get that information again, because it’s individual to that it’s clunky, it’s extra, it’s unnecessary. Because the Braden Drake 24:01 other thing is, is in a comp, like the way I draft contracts is I want everything I want the contract to say, Aaron, you agree to pay rate and X amount of dollars. It’s very specifically like it’s this amount of dollars, right? So it’s like, if you send someone a custom quote for a one on one service, some people actually put this in their contracts, which drives me bananas. So they have like the ala carte pricing list. And it’s like you agree to these general prices? It’s like no, ma’am. I want to know that I purchased like options, a C and G and the total price and the contract is $2,350. Like the contract needs to be specific. And when you’re trying to have web terms for like all your programs in one thing, then when someone checks the terms, it’s like they’re not technically checking how much they owe you because you’ve generalized the documents so much. Erin Ollila 24:47 Okay, I like this. I like the clarity that you’ve kind of described. So let me ask a question, which I think is going to be exactly how you just described it, but I want to make sure I’m understanding again, using a tool like Thrive cart for example. You know how there’s like the check box Access. It’s like I agree to the terms. Yeah. When you’re sending them, if you’re sending them by the link and not having the terms specifically on the page, when you’re sending them back to your website to those terms, what they’re buying in that case is actually the terms for that individual offer. Braden Drake 25:17 Yeah. So for that, like I use Thrive cart as well. I’m kind of new to thrive cart. But all I do is each one of my terms is a Google Doc, and I have them all saved in a Google Drive folder. So on that thrive cart page, it links to the specific Google Doc for the contract for that specific thing that they’re buying. Erin Ollila 25:34 Yeah, I like it. All right. Well, everyone. Bretton just made this so much easier for us. So hopefully, hopefully, they’re Braden Drake 25:40 not more confused now. Erin Ollila 25:41 All right, what else? Can I scare these people on websites? We need those done? Oh, I have one more website. Scary Thing. Now, again, this is not from my understanding. This is not a requirement for most websites. But for some websites, it is extremely important to have a disclaimer on your site. Can you talk maybe about like the types of industries that would need one and and why? Braden Drake 26:04 Yeah, so our like all our law firm has a disclaimer, right? Just letting you know that nothing on the website is legal advice. And it doesn’t establish an attorney client relationship. It’s all that kind of stuff. It’s really just most disclaimers come down to notice it’s notifying someone who’s reading it, what they need to know which is going to be important in your industry. So I also like I also have worked with a lot of life coaches, who also have therapy practices. So for them, there’s a lot of disclaimers that like this is not therapy, right? This is not like psychiatry, it’s not psychology, it’s not one on one services, this is life coaching, this is different. So which is kind of hard to talk about because it is like so case by case specific but Erin Ollila 26:46 but from what I’ve seen, at least for some of my clients, some of the industries, like you said, coaching is a big industry that I see this often, as well as fitness industries, because of like FTC regulations and stuff like that, about the claims that they’re allowed to make about the types of transformation that they can give clients. You’re right, not every industry needs that. But I would say if you fall in one of those legal financial fitness coaching, it’s something you at least want to consider having on your site. Braden Drake 27:14 Because oftentimes, like for these kinds of legal issues, it comes down to it comes down to someone wrote a blog on my website, and then they sued me for giving them bad advice, the kind of it would kind of hinge on whether that person should or reasonably should, like reasonably think that a my advice is like custom to them, and they should take it in. And my immediate counter argument would be like, well, it’s a blog post its general you need to go hire someone, but then all the disclaimers we have or you know, like extra protection, to help notify people that they shouldn’t rely on us. A lot of it is just you know, like, people are dummies to begin with. So it’s you we have to do everything that we can to, you know, make them less of dummies, which is hard to do. Erin Ollila 27:54 There’s the audiogram right, there are people are dummies, and we need to try to make them not dummies. Yeah, Braden Drake 28:00 I think my I think my book coach said it. Well, the so as we were working on the book edits, in one part I just wrote, like, we need to protect your ip ip means intellectual property. Right? And her comment was, you might want to spell this out. Like I think everyone probably knows why IP is but people disappoint me every day. Erin Ollila 28:18 Yeah. I love that. People disappoint me as well. Yeah. And that goes with copy in general, like, you know, we always talk about not being jargony. And making sure you’re using terms that people your audience understands when it comes to writing your own copy. So I think it translates all over your business. Like, I really wish people would stop trying to be so clever, because the clearer you can be, the better it is for you and your potential clients. Yeah, I Braden Drake 28:44 had one of the best takeaways I have from law school, which this is very surprising to people. But one thing law school really helped me with was writing more clearly and actually using fewer big words. And what he likes to say is, right, and especially when you’re writing legal arguments, but in general, right, in such a way that it’s so clear that by the time that person gets done reading, they kind of think that what they were reading about was their idea to begin with all along. Erin Ollila 29:16 Yeah. No, I like that. And in a sense, you know, like, in order for them to do that, like you have to present them the information in a way that they understand. Right. So it’s like, it’s the mastery of clarity. Exactly. All right. So before we go, we’ve talked about websites. I’ve scared them about that. But let me scare everyone about contracts. So we talked about contracts so far from the lens of like, the contract that you’re making with a client, let’s say what other types of business of contracts Do you think that businesses should have? Now I know this is definitely it depends like you know, for example, I have a podcast guest contract and if you don’t have a podcast friends, do not go out and get yourself a podcast guest contract. You don’t need it right. But are there any other types of contracts that people should really kind of keep in mind when they’re running a business. Braden Drake 30:03 Sure, well, if they do need a podcast guest contract, contract club. Yeah. How do you want them there? I mean, if you have, so we have an affiliate contract, if you work with affiliates, JV partner contract, contractor agreements are huge. So, you know, keeping in mind, we are not guaranteeing that the person you’re hiring legally can be a contractor. But regardless, you need to have them sign a contract or agreement and maybe send them a 1099. We also do release agreements, cancellation agreements, postponement agreements, I work with a lot of wedding professionals. So when you’re working on things that have a very specific deadline, like a wedding day, and you need to postpone it, and we want to get that in writing, you know, all these kind of like major business decisions, agreements need to be in a written agreement, which we call a contract. Erin Ollila 30:48 Yeah, like that. And that’s why it’s so important, I think, to know your business like, which isn’t something we’ve really talked about so well. But it’s like, if you don’t know what your practices are, and your processes are, you’re not going to be able to create a contract that is as healthy I don’t know if that’s a great word for you for a contract. But like, as quality as it can be, because you’re ambiguous with your own business. So the more clarity that you have about what it is you are offering, whether it’s a product or service, the more clear your contract with your client or customer can actually be or contract exactly whatever, whatever type of contract you have. Braden Drake 31:27 Yeah, I always find it’s interesting when people are hesitant to send the contract because they’re like, oh, I don’t want to have to make this person sign a contract. My responses was like, man, if I’m hiring you and paying you good money to provide a service for me, and you don’t send me a contract, I that’s a red flag, and I’m questioning your professionalism. And now I’m wondering, if this person is not sending a contract, I don’t really know if they are competent. As a business owner, I know what they’re doing. And if I don’t know what they’re doing and their business, I can’t guarantee that they know what they’re doing and their own niche area of expertise. Erin Ollila 31:59 I don’t see why they wouldn’t want to right like it’s promising your client, you’re going to do what you’re doing. But it’s also the level of protection for your own business by being professional and having one Braden Drake 32:10 you never know like I we so we did we offer tax return services now as well on our law firm. And we had one client this year after I sent her the contract. She didn’t want to sign it. She’s like, I’ve never had a tax preparer send me a contract before. And I was like, Okay, well, you just might not be a good fit to work with us. Because, like, we don’t do handshake agreements, when we ask people for $1,000 for anything. Yeah, no. Erin Ollila 32:32 And I mean, think about it this way. If you hired like a home improvement contractor to do like a massive renovation, wouldn’t you want those details to be written down on paper. So like, we have to also look at contracts as a business owner, regardless of our level of comfort, as we would as a consumer, like what would make us feel comfortable as a consumer, and you want to make sure you’re providing that to your own clients and your customers. And like you said, while Braden Drake 32:56 it was like wild to me, I’m like, so what do you want? You just want me to send you the invoice and then not contractually agree to provide you any services? Like, Erin Ollila 33:03 it kind of seems silly to go to someone who is an attorney and and not want to sign their contracts? Like I mean, common sense friends, like that doesn’t quite make too much sense. Alright, so one more quick question before we kind of close down shop today. So we don’t overwhelm anyone is subcontracts. I wasn’t thinking about that when I was thinking about, like the types of things that we could talk about. My question is when someone is completing a subcontract, let’s use me, for example, I send them to clients, what I’m asking them to do is to approve the drafts that I’m sending them before we move to like another level of revisions. And in that case, like I’m sending them something where they’re signing to say like, Yes, this is approved, we can move on. So when people are doing sub contracts and their business do they have to have like legal language on what they would use in a subcontract or like an addendum obviously, would probably need some legal language, or is it something that they can write up and just have the other person acknowledge? Braden Drake 33:59 That’s funny, subcontract is actually a new a new term for me. So that’s not something that you know, I’m Erin Ollila 34:03 thinking, I’m thinking that’s like a dubsado term. It’s kind of just like, what what’s like what’s thrown on to like the project that would need like a signature or an approval for Braden Drake 34:13 that? I mean, for that kind of thing. You just I usually just like an initial an initial is fine. But in most circumstances, I think people are just getting like email confirmation. Yeah. Which technically is like a valid binding contract. If you just say, Hey, can you can you give me an affirmative approval of this in response by email before we continue on to the next step? That’s fine. Now the other industries like you brought up construction earlier we do. Their system they use it’s called a master service agreement is the main contract and they do statements of work for each scope of the project. And that’s much more clearly delineated. I find that kind of system was like way overkill for most of the clients I work with. Erin Ollila 34:51 Cool. All right. So friends, everything you’ve heard us say today, if you are not thinking to yourself like well, I am super expert in tech. slaw, you need to kind of look into what Braden has to offer you, right? Whether you are on the level where you’re 100% DIY, and you are just going to read his book and kind of like walk through it on your own, or you are 100% Higher out and you just want his team to do it for you, or you’re right smack dab in the middle, and you’re going to join his cohort that he has coming up, I would look into it because I don’t want anyone to leave this episode and hear everything that we said and just kind of walk around with like a cloud hanging over their head thinking like, Am I doing this? Right? Because I think everything that you have for them, it can answer that question like they can check themselves if they go through your program, your book, hire you guys to do it to make sure that the things that are legally required of their business are actually getting done. Braden Drake 35:48 Yes. Yeah, we got we got we got it all for you at this point. Worked with like hundreds of students. So yeah, no excuses. Very, yeah, very little, very little is new for me, let’s just put it that way. Like we we’ve got most of the answers that you’re going to need those various programs. Erin Ollila 36:04 All right, based on our conversation, and this is probably easier, because I just kind of like yelled at people to do this. But based on our conversation, if you had a teeny tiny homework assignment on anything we’ve talked about, give listeners what would it be? Braden Drake 36:17 Yeah, go get your privacy policy. Erin Ollila 36:19 That’s a good one. Yeah. Cool. All right. Done. $30 contract club, get that privacy policy if you don’t have one. If you could meet anyone, business pleasure type of person, actual person dead or alive? Who would it be? And why? Braden Drake 36:33 Yeah, that is a tough one. Because I used to say JK Rowling, but that has changed in recent years. If you know, you know, Erin Ollila 36:41 yeah. And if you don’t know you should know. Yeah. So I’d Braden Drake 36:45 have to go Oh, no, that’s the other thing I don’t feel like there’s anyone I would be like really starstruck by because it just like mostly I don’t really care. But let’s go you know what, let’s go and I’m only like two degrees separation away from this person. So I think this is like legit plausible, I’m gonna say Trixie Mattel the drag queen, because I love her and I watch all over YouTube videos, and fun tie in my it’s not really another business have another website drag tax.com Taxes are dry or hire us to help. It’s like a business I fully set up for drag queens but I work with several people who are close friends with Trixie and it’s been confirmed to me that she’s at least seen some of my YouTube videos so Erin Ollila 37:24 so we need to just make this happen. All right, anyone who’s listening if you are not Trixie, you need to figure out a way to kind of make this connection happen because you know, this is the probably closest you know, degree of separation that we’ve had so far and people’s answers. And I would love to be that person that kind of like brought you together. That’s fun right Braden Drake 37:42 and when I went and stayed at the Trixie motel for my photoshoot and Trixie his partner, like actually works full time at the hotel so I got to like hang out with him but Erin Ollila 37:50 super super close you’re like You’re like like centimeter away Braden Drake 37:54 super cool. So she probably knows me as like that weird tax guy. But I’m gonna be at drag con next week as well like marketing that business I’m gonna meet lots of if any one listening is a fan of drag race. Already have several of them are my clients, but I’m gonna meet way more people and hand out lots of business cards. So very, Erin Ollila 38:09 oh my gosh, I love this next week is a busy week for you. You got the webinar to like kind of kick off your lodge and you’re going to be dragged on? Braden Drake 38:16 Yeah, the drag drag con will be like three days before the webinar. So I’ll tell everyone how it goes. Erin Ollila 38:21 Alright, everyone, I will put all of the ways that you can get in touch with Braden learn more about his multiple businesses and the ways that you can either hire his team or use his products and programs that he’s created in order to help yourself through working through your business foundations. Right and it was super fun to talk to you today. Thank you so much for all of your time. I really appreciate it. Braden Drake 38:44 You got it. Thanks for having me. Erin Ollila 38:49 Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Talk Copy to Me. If you enjoyed spending your time with me today. I would be so honored if you could subscribe to the show and leave a review. Want to continue the conversation. Head on over to Instagram and follow me at Erin Ollila. Until next time friends Note: Show notes may contain affiliate links to products, offers, and services that I whole-heartedly recommend. Contracts and privacy policies and terms of use—oh my! There are so many legal considerations for small businesses to consider—and do correctly, I might add—that it’s tough to know what you need and when. Take your website for example. Do you know that legally, you are required to have a privacy policy on your website. For real, friends. If you’re not sure if your website has one, go check right now because it’s mandatory, and not something you can skip. And if you don’t have one, scroll down to the resource section because I have an incredible resource to share with you! On this episode of the Talk Copy to Me podcast, I called in Braden Drake, founder of Not Your Average Law Firm, attorney, and tax professional, to give us the low down on all the legal considerations small businesses need to think about as they create their companies and grow their businesses. We’re talking about all the scary legal implications that most people tend to stick their head in the ground to avoid learning about…but we’re forcing you to get smart and run a strategic business. Here are the legal requirements for small businesses that Braden and Erin discussed * Changes in Braden’s company: why and how they’ve happened * Why it’s important to make sure you’re getting your information from the right people when it comes to the law and tax regulations * Employee miscalculation and what it may mean for your business * Are scare tactics important when it comes to talking about legal requirements * One policy that is legally required to have on your website, and the other legal website considerations * The three essential things everyone needs to do when they start a business * Whether program, product, services or course terms can be built into a website terms policy * One of the key takeaways Braden learned in law school (that’s actually related to writing) * The different contracts you need in your business Other podcast episodes and resources mentioned in this episodes: Alright, we talked about quite a few of Braden’s products and offers in this episode, so here’s a collection of links that will take you to his site to learn more. First, if you’re listening to this episode close to the time that it goes live (May 9, 2023), you’ll want to sign up for Braden’s webinar. Link coming soon! Besides that, I highly recommend you check these out: * ProfitRX VIP * Contract Club * Legally Launched * Bookkeeping Blueprint * Tax Toolbox  Quotes about small business legal requirements from Braden and Erin * “I’m coming to the world of online businesses/small business ownership as being the person who likes to write words and avoids numbers. And I didn’t want to be that person any longer. So while it is great to have people do the work for you, [it’s important to know how to do it yourself, too].” – Erin Ollila * “Tax laws are written into law, therefore it technically is an area of the law.” – Braden Drake * “I used to not want to scare people scare…Like you don’t want to frighten people into wanting to buy your thing…But then I’ve come to the realization that well, no, this shit’s kind of scary, and it’s better to kind of impress on people the seriousness of it, so they take it seriously, then me not do it…I’ve kind of done people a disservice if I haven’t scare them into action.” – Braden Drake * “Whenever you are collecting information, you have to have a privacy policy on your website that states how you’re using that information. What a lot of people think is they’re like, “Well, I just have like a plain website. There’s nothing on there,”…you’re almost certainly collecting cookies, right? We don’t think about that, but that is information.” – Braden Drake * “People are dummies to begin with. So we have to do everything that we can to, you know, make them less of dummies—which is hard to do.” – Braden Drake * “I really wish people would stop trying to be so clever, because the clearer you can be, the better it is for you and your potential clients.” – Erin Ollila Go get that privacy policy! Seriously folks, the Contract Club, priced at only $30, is jam packed with legal goodies. And yes, the website privacy policy is one of those many contracts available if you join. It won’t take you long at all to make a copy of the policy template and update the sections that need to be personalized to include your business information. I know I’m going hard with the gushing about Contact Club, and that’s because I use it myself. I’ve spent quite a bit of money on contract templates in the past Braden is a California licensed attorney and tax professional. His tagline is your gay best friend here to help you get your legal and tax shit legit. Braden works primarily with service-based, creative small business owners through his signature program Unf*ck Your Biz. When not speaking on his podcast or to his students, you can likely find Braden running someplace in San Diego training for a marathon, cooking with his Le Creuset collection, or watching Netflix with his husband and three small dogs. Learn more about Braden and company on the Not Your Average Law Firm’s website. Then, connect with Braden on Instagram. Not sure what to buy first? Oh, just check out all of his $30 things. Stay in touch with Erin Ollila, SEO website copywriter: * Learn more about Erin’s VIP Day options if you’d like to learn more about how you can hire her to help you with your marketing * Reach out her on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or on LinkedIn to talk more    Here’s the transcript for episode 072 about the legal considerations for small businesses with guest expert Braden Drake NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors. SPEAKERS Braden Drake, Erin Ollila Erin Ollila 00:04 Hey friends, welcome to the Talk Copy to Me podcast. Here we empower small business owners to step into the spotlight with their marketing and messaging. I’m your host, Erin Ollila. Let’s get started and talk coffee. Hello friends today i have Braden Drake on the podcast with me. And you may know him as a licensed attorney and tax professional. But what you might not know about him is that he’s actually done for Yes, you’ve heard that correct. 1234 Iron Man’s, and he’s a CrossFit regular, I’m pretty impressed by this funny enough story is when Brandon and I were talking on Instagram about like scheduling this and how I really wanted to have him on the show, each time that I talked to him, he was at the gym. And each time that he was at the gym, I was on my couch, Braden Drake 01:00 really I just want to get I want to get like somewhat competitive with CrossFit. And so I’m just trying to get stronger for that. But when I say somewhat competitive, it’s like advancing, I want to advance on the open, which is like to get to the second round, which would be like top 10% of you know, the hundreds of 1000s of people who do this very, very recreationally, which is still like leagues away from you know, what pros are doing? Erin Ollila 01:24 Well, I think that’s very impressive. I will keep my fingers crossed as possible for you to actually get there. Yeah, so I am in your profit RX program, which if you don’t know about that, it’s really kind of helping business owners get set up financially, legally, and really just get their systems in place for running a business well, but what I have really enjoyed watching in your business over the past six months to a year is some of the changes that have been going on. I’d love to know more about the new programs, the new offerings, and what’s kind of been happening to take you from Braden to now, how do I say not your average law? Not tell me so I don’t mess this up? Braden Drake 02:10 Yeah, well, I’m still trying to figure it out myself. So we launched a law firm, the full name of the not your average law firm. But we also just say like, not average law, for sure. It’s just kind of taking my name out of the branding a little bit more, really to place like more trust amongst our team, and all of that as we scale and grow the business because I personally can only do so much Erin Ollila 02:33 everyone pay very close attention. Because next week, Brandon is doing a webinar on the most common legal and tax mistakes that people make at each stage of their business, you should definitely sign up for that I will put the links in the show notes and the podcast description. But tell me about the new program is it replacing profit RX? Where did the idea for the change come from? Braden Drake 02:58 Yeah, so it’s actually a new old programs. So I’m kind of going back to what I used to do, really. So I used to teach as my signature program is called unfuck. Your bid is a step by step framework to get your legal and tax shut legit. It was a $10,000 like group coaching course experience that we took folks through. And then I decided to pivot and try to run it as a membership for two years, which has been highly successful in some respects, but not as successful in some other respects. Happy to talk about that if you want. But we’re going back to running it as a course, primarily because we found we get much higher completion rates and a cohort course based model. So people just aren’t going through the content at the rate that we want them through in the membership. So like revenue wise, it’s been fine. It’s just we want to give people better results. So we’re going back to the course and then profit RX is actually going to become our alumni membership for continued support after the group program is over. It’s funny Erin Ollila 03:56 that you mentioned that because I can use myself as a perfect example to what you just said, you know, I signed up for it. I was excited to get started. I did not prioritize my time to work through it, how would be most beneficial to me, which is how you’ve set it up. Right. So I am going at a snail’s pace. And I’m probably one of those examples of the completion not happening because I’m I’m not working through the cohort, right? Braden Drake 04:21 Yeah, so it’s kind of this catch 22 of like when you run when you do live launches and cohort based things. The positive side is that everyone works at the same pace through the program at the same time. And we see much better engagement and higher completion rates. The downside to that is well, people may not be able to join when they feel like they immediately need the program. So we shifted to a membership so that people could join whenever they really needed to. But then it’s like, well, people are joining in and aren’t really going through the content. So you know, there’s pluses and minuses to both options, which is why I think it’s always fascinating to talk about business models because ultimately like the right kind of system is going to be different for every business. See, Erin Ollila 05:00 and as you know, part of really just figuring out how this all works, whether it’s a membership or cohort or a course is trial and error, right? So it’s like you’re testing this as you’re learning, and you’re just kind of making the best decisions as you can. Yeah, I’ve Braden Drake 05:13 like now tested both options. So I’m hoping I’m hoping this will be the done the end of the testing. Erin Ollila 05:19 Well, I can say, as a student who’s worked through your programs, that one thing I was really impressed with with was how the information was presented, you know, I think, for me, not for you. I think tax and legal stuff is complicated and overwhelming. And it holds me back from making decisions and doing things. So what I liked, not only was the structure, but was also that like, what the information I was receiving was actionable. So it’s like, I could watch this small thing and absorb it. And if there were steps I needed to take, I would take them, or I could just move on to whatever that next lesson is. But I would say if you guys are on the fence, and you really want to get better tax and financial and legal systems set up in your business, you’re gonna want to pay attention to Brandon’s launch, because I, as someone who’s worked through it, I can confirm that the quality is great. And it’s very helpful. Braden Drake 06:12 Yeah, come join us and get this Aaron, as you know, we have, we now have Connie in the program, our student success coordinator, who is amazing, she helped all of our students. We have Bree, who’s our bookkeeping, a tax preparer, and I am interviewing attorneys to come in as well. So we’re continuing to expand the team, which means that our students get more and more support because, you know, I hire these folks to do one on one work in the law firm. But then I also force all of them to do weekly office hours for our students as well. So you can basically have a tax preparer a bookkeeper and an attorney, like on demand to answer your questions, in addition to going through all of our course content, which is pretty next level, yeah, it’s gonna be like, which is Erin Ollila 06:53 unheard of elsewhere. And you know, especially when you are doing this as the DIY approach, because as an aside, everyone you can hire Brandon’s company lead, you know, your, your new legal company to do those things. If you don’t want to do this yourself, you do not have to, you know, be a DI wire. But if you are, it’s like you said, you’re getting the information that they can consume on their own, and then they have the perfect people to ask the questions. Braden Drake 07:19 Yeah, we actually, and I encourage, I encourage pretty much everyone to go through the program, even if your business is pretty big, and you can afford not to meaning you don’t have a problem, just like paying us five grand to do it all for you. Because you learn so much, which is so important as you are the CEO of your business. But what I like to say is through every step in the program, we have I started to call it the easy button. Meaning if you get to like the LLC formation piece, and you’re like, Okay, I learned what I need to learn, but I don’t actually want to do this, well, you can hire us like just for that piece then, which is nice. So then you can DIY 75% hire us for 25 or like do the exact inverse if that’s your jam. Erin Ollila 07:56 I love that because that’s specifically why I sign up for things is like it’s a great for me, my perspective is is great to hire people to do things to take them off my plate. But if I don’t understand what I’m hiring out, which was why I signed up for your program like there. Nobody has taught me like I’m a creative my MFA is in creative writing. Not one person talks to me about bookkeeping in my life, I’m coming to the world of online businesses, small business ownership of being the person who likes to write words and avoids numbers. And I didn’t want to be that person any longer. So while it is great to have people do the work for you, I’m on Team breathe. And when it comes to like putting in the effort to understand what these people are doing when you hire them, Braden Drake 08:40 exactly, how are you going to know that they’re doing their job if you don’t know what their job entails? Right, Erin Ollila 08:44 right. Or how do you know you’re going to be following the rules on things like when you don’t even know what those rules are? Yeah, and which is why it’s important to like, go to the source or go go to the right places to find your information. Because I can’t tell you how often online I see people giving information like sharing information that is absolutely Braden Drake 09:03 wrong. Well, you know, a lot of non experts like to give blanket black and white answers because their accountant told them three years ago that they needed to do something which means they think that everyone needs to do that thing. When half the times they were given the wrong information for themselves anyway, so why they think that even if it was right would apply to everyone does it we could get into the stuff I see on Facebook groups. Don’t even get me started because sometimes I just have to roll my eyes and scroll by because I do not have the time patience or energy to get into one more argument with someone who’s been like okay, well who are you though? And I like what do you want me to send you my CV or Erin Ollila 09:38 just do it just send the CV before you even have like, be like here, click on this PDF and then let’s talk. One one episode that you had done recently that I really liked was I don’t remember if you did the episode on this or it was just on social media, but you were talking about like why would you go to your accountant for legal advice, like it makes absolutely zero sense. And I think that’s why business foundation gins are such a solid thing people can learn because accountants are wonderful and they know things like tax laws, but it’s not Braden Drake 10:09 necessarily necessarily right. I’d say accountants know accounting. What a lot of us don’t think about is that yeah, taxes are actually elitist. What I always tried to explain to people, taxes are a legal thing. Tax laws are written into law, therefore it technically is an area of the law. Yeah, some tax professional, some tax professionals don’t actually know tax law, right. Erin Ollila 10:30 Well, yeah. No, I’m glad you said that. Because like, that is a big difference. Right? Which is just like in the example of like bookkeepers aren’t not accountants, like, we’ll have to know who we’re working with, what their skills are and what they actually have, as knowledge and experience when we’re hiring. I Braden Drake 10:44 know there’s gonna be some talk professional listening to this, and they’re probably going to be pissed off. But what I should say is there are definitely accountants that know tax law better than attorneys who don’t know anything about taxes, right, you covered your bases there, right, covered my bases, but the one that ran I specifically went on was, folks are saying, oh, because I talk a lot about worker misclassification. So folks, hiring people as independent contractors, when they legally must be employees, because some states have really strict laws around this. And then they will say, Well, my accountant told me to send them a 1099. So it must be fine. And it’s like, no, it’s not fine, because you pay them as a contractor. Now, you do have to send them a 1099. But that doesn’t mean that they technically legally can be a contractor. And then I hear about tax professionals actually giving advice on this when they don’t know anything about employment law, right. Yeah. Because just because you’re being odd, you’re being audited by the state Edd, the Employment Development Board for unpaid taxes, but that’s actually like an employment kind of legal issue that you’re dealing with. Erin Ollila 11:45 We talked about before we started this episode, like how long is an average episode, I think like we could have, like at this point, like a three to four hour conversation. But this is bringing it back to the idea of why those bend business foundations are so important, right? Things like employee classification, like that’s becoming confusing in the country, because of the state law changes. You know, I live in Massachusetts that has an ABC law, which I don’t even know enough about that to talk about it, but is changing in one state, which changes it in another state, which changes how people understand the information that is shared. So employee classification is huge. The taxes and 1099 is is huge. I can’t tell you as someone who has done freelance work for big brands and tiny businesses, how misunderstood? That is, and that changes per state to you know, like, I know, in Massachusetts, one thing is, like double 1099 is tend to be a problem because payment processors in the state of Massachusetts like Stripe send out 10 It was a 1099 case. Am I right? Or Braden Drake 12:52 Yeah, well, that’s actually everywhere across the country. So this is why but the Erin Ollila 12:56 amount changes though, because what is it isn’t over $20,000 For most places, the new Braden Drake 13:01 10 99k law, the 1099 in EC, your 1099 neck was the same, but that’s actually like an IRS issue. But yeah, generally Yeah, the the double 10 and the nines is is an issue everywhere. Because if you pay someone via credit or debit card, you don’t need a 1099 then because the payment processor will do it. And then people do it anyway, because they don’t know any better. Erin Ollila 13:21 And then the person who gets the 1099 myself this has happened had gets a letter from the IRS and they’re like, wait, what’s happening? Like, can you please explain this to me? And I’m like, well, thank you for making me want to, like, have a panic attack right now to try to solve this. Yeah, it’s, there’s a lot, right. So if you’re not working with someone who can help you with this, and if you’re not working with the right person, it’s gonna it’s gonna be a very complicated moment in your business. I’m sure some of these things that we just kind of brought up quickly will be in that legal and tax mistakes webinar that you’re doing next week. Braden Drake 13:55 Yeah, and I used to it’s funny as we’re talking about this, I used to not want to scare people scare. What because Because also it’s like an ethical question, right? Like you don’t want to frighten people into wanting to buy your thing, right? Yeah, unnecessarily scare people. But then I’ve come to the realization that’s like, Well, no, the shits like kind of scary and it’s better to kind of impress on people the seriousness of it, so they take it seriously, then me not do it because I don’t want to like do an overblown sales pitch, but then they actually do get their businesses like really fucked up 123 years down the road. I’ve kind of done people a disservice if I haven’t scare them into action. Well, Erin Ollila 14:35 we can say at least for this one particular conversation that like if you’re worried about ethics, you do you and I will scare them and sell them for you. Because, you know, I will be honest, I do tend to come to most things with like an anxiety, right? Like, I want to make sure I’m doing things correctly. I don’t want there to be problems and that you know that anxiety in itself is not necessarily a great thing. But but the reason why I mentioned that though, is I think anyone who listens to the show knows that I’m very easygoing. I tend to look at things with nuance, like when people ask me marketing questions, I’m always like, it depends. But when it comes to things like tax law, or like other type of legal things, like contracts we’re going to talk about today is not It depends. It’s there is a law and you have to frickin follow it. So why are we all kind of just like guessing our way through this and keeping our fingers crossed? And hoping for the best? Like, no, don’t do that. Like, that’s not a good idea. Yeah, so basically, I will just, I’ll be the scary one. In this episode, like good cop, bad cop, you present the information. And I will just keep like talking really loud with exclamation points, letting people know that they have to know these things. One thing I really wanted to talk to you about today, which is we’ll move into scare Topic number one is website, legal stuff. as a, as a website copywriter, I cannot tell you how many people I speak to whether they’re clients leads, friends, who have no clue that there are actual legal requirements for having a website. Would you like to you want to jump in there? Or do you want me to kind of ask you some questions about what those requirements actually are. Braden Drake 16:14 So I tell people, the very basics of what you need to do, which is have a privacy policy and web Terms of Service, most likely, pretty much GDPR is really strict. If people aren’t familiar, that’s like the European Union laws when it comes to data collection. California has a similar law on the books. And then more generally, we have laws across the US which are a little less strict. But just to make it really, really simple. Whenever you are collecting information, you have to have a privacy policy on your website that states how you’re using that information. What a lot of people kind of think is they’re like, Well, I just have like a plain website, there’s nothing on there. Well, as you know, Aaron, good marketing, you should have an email list. So at a minimum, you’re collecting their email. But even if you’re not doing that, you’re almost certainly collecting cookies, right? We don’t think about that. But that is information. If you have your website, pixeled for Facebook ads, that’s collecting information. So all these things need to be addressed in a privacy policy. Luckily, for us, private policies are super boring, they’re very generic. It’s not something that you never need to highly customize. So you just like get a an OK template and slap it on your website. And you’ll probably be okay. Erin Ollila 17:28 And speaking of templates, one that is more than okay, is what you can find in Brandon’s contract club. I love the I love the contract club, because I like that one. It’s low cost, right? There’s a big difference of price that sometimes that I have seen when it comes to contracts, and I understand it is very important to invest in them. But I think if you are just getting your website up and you want to be compliant, but you don’t necessarily have the funds to hire a lawyer to create something individual for you. Go go to a place like the contract club where you can get the information that you need, at a very reasonable price. Braden Drake 18:08 And $30 to be Yeah, Erin Ollila 18:10 I was gonna say I’m like, I don’t know if we should mention numbers in case you ever, like increase your price, which you know, and it would still be so worth it. Braden Drake 18:17 Yeah, no plans anytime soon. But what I’ve kind of really dug my feet in the sand that there’s I don’t know, finding the right expression for what I’m trying to say it doesn’t matter if people know what I’m talking about putting my stake in the ground. That’s what I was going to try to say, putting my second around that there are three essential things every business needs to do, even if you’re like brand new and have no clients. And those things are have insurance, probably and I can’t really help you with that you need to get them an insurance agent have contracts. So web terms, privacy policies, client contracts, and then you need to have some basic form of bookkeeping, for tax purposes, right? It’s like how can we most successfully help people with these absolute essentials? Well, you get your insurance agent by the contract Club, which is $30. And then we have a mini bookkeeping course called the bookkeeping blueprint for $30. So and then I have my book, which is also $30. My signature program is kind of like the next step yet on that but Erin Ollila 19:10 and you are relaunching your book. I don’t know when the timeline is for that. But I know that you just kind of like reworked everything with a book. So now’s a great time for people to go and buy it. Because you just you know, you modernized it, which is the wrong word here too. Braden Drake 19:25 Yeah, we updated the book, we actually use my book as the textbook, we will be using it as the textbook and the program. So if you join the program, we’ll send you a copy of the book. But if you don’t end up joining my program, the book is actually it’s like our perfect down sell because it’s like the DIA, it’s the DIY unfuck your best framework and then you join the program to get all of the support that we offer. So but either way, it walks you through the whole full six part framework. Erin Ollila 19:51 Okay, so rewind slightly, we’re talking about websites. We’re talking about what they need, taking the basic step to have something there is going to give you about protection, then they’re not taking any steps at all. Braden Drake 20:02 Your privacy policy is just website data collection. So then we have web terms. And the best way I can explain web terms is when you use a website that you actually interact with. So let’s use Facebook as an example. When you go on Facebook, like the website is the service. Does that make sense? So then it’s your, you’re gonna sign web terms that agree to the Terms of Service, like how you’re gonna use the platform, you’re not going to post hate speech, you’re not going to impersonate people like all that kind of stuff. So that’s all web terms are for. But then we have program terms, or essentially, like when you ever use sign a one on one client, you have them sign a contract. Well, if someone can buy something directly from like a checkout button on your website, then you want to have either terms for that physical good you’re selling or terms for the online program you’re selling. And the only difference is is that’s going to be hyperlinked in your website somewhere so that they can read it and check that little box. And we would call those either program terms if it’s an online program like mine, or you could call it a client service agreement. If you’re not sending it out through a CRM, or you know, like product terms of service, if you’re selling goods. Erin Ollila 21:09 Let me ask you a question. I’ve seen this before. But again, we talked about the idea of like, we don’t want to just take blanket advice from the random strangers on the internet. I’ve seen before that people’s terms in their footer have contained the language that you would likely find and one of the the option three that you said, which would be like the program terms or the client service agreement, they’ve kind of incorporated that language in their website terms. Is that legal? Or is that not a good approach? Braden Drake 21:39 Yeah, that’s fine. It’s just gets really clunky if you sell multiple things, right. So if you sell like we have the client, we already mentioned, we have a contract club, the bookkeeping blueprint. And then we have unfuck, your biz, those are three different programs. So ideally, I’m going to have three different contracts, and each of those checkout pages will link you to the appropriate contract for that specific thing. Erin Ollila 22:00 So if you have a very, very simple business, where you’re really kind of maybe doing one service, or like one option to like, do a strategy call, let’s say from your site, and they, you know, purchase a template with the language they could build it in. But the smarter option is to really kind of separate them. So it’s clear for the customer. Braden Drake 22:19 And I think it’s I actually think it’s simpler that way, too. Like it sounds like more work, you’re gonna have multiple documents, but like contract club, the contract is as simple as like you agree to pay us $30, we agreed to give you access to the spank a contract templates, which includes these things. And then for the bookkeeping blueprint, we just duplicate that. And now you agree to pay us $30 For the bookkeeping blueprint, and we give you these things, pretty much the whole rest of the contract is the exact same copy paste, Erin Ollila 22:44 what’s simple and easy for you, as the business owner is likely going to be simple and easy. When it comes to client experience as well. There will Braden Drake 22:51 be I mean, Aaron, it’s kind of like it would kind of be like trying to write one sales page for all of your offers do. You could do it, do it like, Oh, this is the general transformation we provide you like you’d have to generalize everything. This is a general transformation. And then you’re trying to have all these little sub parts of your sales page where you’re addressing the different offers, but like the buttons to them, like is that a thing you could do? Yes, it’s the smartest thing for you to do probably not Erin Ollila 23:16 100% not the smartest one, especially when it comes to sales page specifics. But if we’re going to kind of use the same example and talk about services pages, it can work, right. But what, what the only way it works is if all of those individual services then have a secondary services page that explains the individual ones. So if we’re looking now at the way that you just kind of describe the different terms, why that’s like doing double work, when it comes to terms having one long terms that talks about a lot of things yet, when you present them with the bookkeeping program that you have, they need to now now get that information again, because it’s individual to that it’s clunky, it’s extra, it’s unnecessary. Because the Braden Drake 24:01 other thing is, is in a comp, like the way I draft contracts is I want everything I want the contract to say, Aaron, you agree to pay rate and X amount of dollars. It’s very specifically like it’s this amount of dollars, right? So it’s like, if you send someone a custom quote for a one on one service, some people actually put this in their contracts, which drives me bananas. So they have like the ala carte pricing list. And it’s like you agree to these general prices? It’s like no, ma’am. I want to know that I purchased like options, a C and G and the total price and the contract is $2,350. Like the contract needs to be specific. And when you’re trying to have web terms for like all your programs in one thing, then when someone checks the terms, it’s like they’re not technically checking how much they owe you because you’ve generalized the documents so much. Erin Ollila 24:47 Okay, I like this. I like the clarity that you’ve kind of described. So let me ask a question, which I think is going to be exactly how you just described it, but I want to make sure I’m understanding again, using a tool like Thrive cart for example. You know how there’s like the check box Access. It’s like I agree to the terms. Yeah. When you’re sending them, if you’re sending them by the link and not having the terms specifically on the page, when you’re sending them back to your website to those terms, what they’re buying in that case is actually the terms for that individual offer. Braden Drake 25:17 Yeah. So for that, like I use Thrive cart as well. I’m kind of new to thrive cart. But all I do is each one of my terms is a Google Doc, and I have them all saved in a Google Drive folder. So on that thrive cart page, it links to the specific Google Doc for the contract for that specific thing that they’re buying. Erin Ollila 25:34 Yeah, I like it. All right. Well, everyone. Bretton just made this so much easier for us. So hopefully, hopefully, they’re Braden Drake 25:40 not more confused now. Erin Ollila 25:41 All right, what else? Can I scare these people on websites? We need those done? Oh, I have one more website. Scary Thing. Now, again, this is not from my understanding. This is not a requirement for most websites. But for some websites, it is extremely important to have a disclaimer on your site. Can you talk maybe about like the types of industries that would need one and and why? Braden Drake 26:04 Yeah, so our like all our law firm has a disclaimer, right? Just letting you know that nothing on the website is legal advice. And it doesn’t establish an attorney client relationship. It’s all that kind of stuff. It’s really just most disclaimers come down to notice it’s notifying someone who’s reading it, what they need to know which is going to be important in your industry. So I also like I also have worked with a lot of life coaches, who also have therapy practices. So for them, there’s a lot of disclaimers that like this is not therapy, right? This is not like psychiatry, it’s not psychology, it’s not one on one services, this is life coaching, this is different. So which is kind of hard to talk about because it is like so case by case specific but Erin Ollila 26:46 but from what I’ve seen, at least for some of my clients, some of the industries, like you said, coaching is a big industry that I see this often, as well as fitness industries, because of like FTC regulations and stuff like that, about the claims that they’re allowed to make about the types of transformation that they can give clients. You’re right, not every industry needs that. But I would say if you fall in one of those legal financial fitness coaching, it’s something you at least want to consider having on your site. Braden Drake 27:14 Because oftentimes, like for these kinds of legal issues, it comes down to it comes down to someone wrote a blog on my website, and then they sued me for giving them bad advice, the kind of it would kind of hinge on whether that person should or reasonably should, like reasonably think that a my advice is like custom to them, and they should take it in. And my immediate counter argument would be like, well, it’s a blog post its general you need to go hire someone, but then all the disclaimers we have or you know, like extra protection, to help notify people that they shouldn’t rely on us. A lot of it is just you know, like, people are dummies to begin with. So it’s you we have to do everything that we can to, you know, make them less of dummies, which is hard to do. Erin Ollila 27:54 There’s the audiogram right, there are people are dummies, and we need to try to make them not dummies. Yeah, Braden Drake 28:00 I think my I think my book coach said it. Well, the so as we were working on the book edits, in one part I just wrote, like, we need to protect your ip ip means intellectual property. Right? And her comment was, you might want to spell this out. Like I think everyone probably knows why IP is but people disappoint me every day. Erin Ollila 28:18 Yeah. I love that. People disappoint me as well. Yeah. And that goes with copy in general, like, you know, we always talk about not being jargony. And making sure you’re using terms that people your audience understands when it comes to writing your own copy. So I think it translates all over your business. Like, I really wish people would stop trying to be so clever, because the clearer you can be, the better it is for you and your potential clients. Yeah, I Braden Drake 28:44 had one of the best takeaways I have from law school, which this is very surprising to people. But one thing law school really helped me with was writing more clearly and actually using fewer big words. And what he likes to say is, right, and especially when you’re writing legal arguments, but in general, right, in such a way that it’s so clear that by the time that person gets done reading, they kind of think that what they were reading about was their idea to begin with all along. Erin Ollila 29:16 Yeah. No, I like that. And in a sense, you know, like, in order for them to do that, like you have to present them the information in a way that they understand. Right. So it’s like, it’s the mastery of clarity. Exactly. All right. So before we go, we’ve talked about websites. I’ve scared them about that. But let me scare everyone about contracts. So we talked about contracts so far from the lens of like, the contract that you’re making with a client, let’s say what other types of business of contracts Do you think that businesses should have? Now I know this is definitely it depends like you know, for example, I have a podcast guest contract and if you don’t have a podcast friends, do not go out and get yourself a podcast guest contract. You don’t need it right. But are there any other types of contracts that people should really kind of keep in mind when they’re running a business. Braden Drake 30:03 Sure, well, if they do need a podcast guest contract, contract club. Yeah. How do you want them there? I mean, if you have, so we have an affiliate contract, if you work with affiliates, JV partner contract, contractor agreements are huge. So, you know, keeping in mind, we are not guaranteeing that the person you’re hiring legally can be a contractor. But regardless, you need to have them sign a contract or agreement and maybe send them a 1099. We also do release agreements, cancellation agreements, postponement agreements, I work with a lot of wedding professionals. So when you’re working on things that have a very specific deadline, like a wedding day, and you need to postpone it, and we want to get that in writing, you know, all these kind of like major business decisions, agreements need to be in a written agreement, which we call a contract. Erin Ollila 30:48 Yeah, like that. And that’s why it’s so important, I think, to know your business like, which isn’t something we’ve really talked about so well. But it’s like, if you don’t know what your practices are, and your processes are, you’re not going to be able to create a contract that is as healthy I don’t know if that’s a great word for you for a contract. But like, as quality as it can be, because you’re ambiguous with your own business. So the more clarity that you have about what it is you are offering, whether it’s a product or service, the more clear your contract with your client or customer can actually be or contract exactly whatever, whatever type of contract you have. Braden Drake 31:27 Yeah, I always find it’s interesting when people are hesitant to send the contract because they’re like, oh, I don’t want to have to make this person sign a contract. My responses was like, man, if I’m hiring you and paying you good money to provide a service for me, and you don’t send me a contract, I that’s a red flag, and I’m questioning your professionalism. And now I’m wondering, if this person is not sending a contract, I don’t really know if they are competent. As a business owner, I know what they’re doing. And if I don’t know what they’re doing and their business, I can’t guarantee that they know what they’re doing and their own niche area of expertise. Erin Ollila 31:59 I don’t see why they wouldn’t want to right like it’s promising your client, you’re going to do what you’re doing. But it’s also the level of protection for your own business by being professional and having one Braden Drake 32:10 you never know like I we so we did we offer tax return services now as well on our law firm. And we had one client this year after I sent her the contract. She didn’t want to sign it. She’s like, I’ve never had a tax preparer send me a contract before. And I was like, Okay, well, you just might not be a good fit to work with us. Because, like, we don’t do handshake agreements, when we ask people for $1,000 for anything. Yeah, no. Erin Ollila 32:32 And I mean, think about it this way. If you hired like a home improvement contractor to do like a massive renovation, wouldn’t you want those details to be written down on paper. So like, we have to also look at contracts as a business owner, regardless of our level of comfort, as we would as a consumer, like what would make us feel comfortable as a consumer, and you want to make sure you’re providing that to your own clients and your customers. And like you said, while Braden Drake 32:56 it was like wild to me, I’m like, so what do you want? You just want me to send you the invoice and then not contractually agree to provide you any services? Like, Erin Ollila 33:03 it kind of seems silly to go to someone who is an attorney and and not want to sign their contracts? Like I mean, common sense friends, like that doesn’t quite make too much sense. Alright, so one more quick question before we kind of close down shop today. So we don’t overwhelm anyone is subcontracts. I wasn’t thinking about that when I was thinking about, like the types of things that we could talk about. My question is when someone is completing a subcontract, let’s use me, for example, I send them to clients, what I’m asking them to do is to approve the drafts that I’m sending them before we move to like another level of revisions. And in that case, like I’m sending them something where they’re signing to say like, Yes, this is approved, we can move on. So when people are doing sub contracts and their business do they have to have like legal language on what they would use in a subcontract or like an addendum obviously, would probably need some legal language, or is it something that they can write up and just have the other person acknowledge? Braden Drake 33:59 That’s funny, subcontract is actually a new a new term for me. So that’s not something that you know, I’m Erin Ollila 34:03 thinking, I’m thinking that’s like a dubsado term. It’s kind of just like, what what’s like what’s thrown on to like the project that would need like a signature or an approval for Braden Drake 34:13 that? I mean, for that kind of thing. You just I usually just like an initial an initial is fine. But in most circumstances, I think people are just getting like email confirmation. Yeah. Which technically is like a valid binding contract. If you just say, Hey, can you can you give me an affirmative approval of this in response by email before we continue on to the next step? That’s fine. Now the other industries like you brought up construction earlier we do. Their system they use it’s called a master service agreement is the main contract and they do statements of work for each scope of the project. And that’s much more clearly delineated. I find that kind of system was like way overkill for most of the clients I work with. Erin Ollila 34:51 Cool. All right. So friends, everything you’ve heard us say today, if you are not thinking to yourself like well, I am super expert in tech. slaw, you need to kind of look into what Braden has to offer you, right? Whether you are on the level where you’re 100% DIY, and you are just going to read his book and kind of like walk through it on your own, or you are 100% Higher out and you just want his team to do it for you, or you’re right smack dab in the middle, and you’re going to join his cohort that he has coming up, I would look into it because I don’t want anyone to leave this episode and hear everything that we said and just kind of walk around with like a cloud hanging over their head thinking like, Am I doing this? Right? Because I think everything that you have for them, it can answer that question like they can check themselves if they go through your program, your book, hire you guys to do it to make sure that the things that are legally required of their business are actually getting done. Braden Drake 35:48 Yes. Yeah, we got we got we got it all for you at this point. Worked with like hundreds of students. So yeah, no excuses. Very, yeah, very little, very little is new for me, let’s just put it that way. Like we we’ve got most of the answers that you’re going to need those various programs. Erin Ollila 36:04 All right, based on our conversation, and this is probably easier, because I just kind of like yelled at people to do this. But based on our conversation, if you had a teeny tiny homework assignment on anything we’ve talked about, give listeners what would it be? Braden Drake 36:17 Yeah, go get your privacy policy. Erin Ollila 36:19 That’s a good one. Yeah. Cool. All right. Done. $30 contract club, get that privacy policy if you don’t have one. If you could meet anyone, business pleasure type of person, actual person dead or alive? Who would it be? And why? Braden Drake 36:33 Yeah, that is a tough one. Because I used to say JK Rowling, but that has changed in recent years. If you know, you know, Erin Ollila 36:41 yeah. And if you don’t know you should know. Yeah. So I’d Braden Drake 36:45 have to go Oh, no, that’s the other thing I don’t feel like there’s anyone I would be like really starstruck by because it just like mostly I don’t really care. But let’s go you know what, let’s go and I’m only like two degrees separation away from this person. So I think this is like legit plausible, I’m gonna say Trixie Mattel the drag queen, because I love her and I watch all over YouTube videos, and fun tie in my it’s not really another business have another website drag tax.com Taxes are dry or hire us to help. It’s like a business I fully set up for drag queens but I work with several people who are close friends with Trixie and it’s been confirmed to me that she’s at least seen some of my YouTube videos so Erin Ollila 37:24 so we need to just make this happen. All right, anyone who’s listening if you are not Trixie, you need to figure out a way to kind of make this connection happen because you know, this is the probably closest you know, degree of separation that we’ve had so far and people’s answers. And I would love to be that person that kind of like brought you together. That’s fun right Braden Drake 37:42 and when I went and stayed at the Trixie motel for my photoshoot and Trixie his partner, like actually works full time at the hotel so I got to like hang out with him but Erin Ollila 37:50 super super close you’re like You’re like like centimeter away Braden Drake 37:54 super cool. So she probably knows me as like that weird tax guy. But I’m gonna be at drag con next week as well like marketing that business I’m gonna meet lots of if any one listening is a fan of drag race. Already have several of them are my clients, but I’m gonna meet way more people and hand out lots of business cards. So very, Erin Ollila 38:09 oh my gosh, I love this next week is a busy week for you. You got the webinar to like kind of kick off your lodge and you’re going to be dragged on? Braden Drake 38:16 Yeah, the drag drag con will be like three days before the webinar. So I’ll tell everyone how it goes. Erin Ollila 38:21 Alright, everyone, I will put all of the ways that you can get in touch with Braden learn more about his multiple businesses and the ways that you can either hire his team or use his products and programs that he’s created in order to help yourself through working through your business foundations. Right and it was super fun to talk to you today. Thank you so much for all of your time. I really appreciate it. Braden Drake 38:44 You got it. Thanks for having me. Erin Ollila 38:49 Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Talk Copy to Me. If you enjoyed spending your time with me today. I would be so honored if you could subscribe to the show and leave a review. Want to continue the conversation. Head on over to Instagram and follow me at Erin Ollila. Until next time friends