#155 What It REALLY Means To Have Your Legals Sorted
If you’ve been around here for a while, you’ll have heard me talk a lot about how crucial it is to have your legals property sorted. But what actually are they, and how do you set them up?
Today, I’m taking you back to the foundations and explaining the core trio of legal documents you need to have in place. While every business should have them, these documents differ from business to business, and should be tailored accordingly.
In this episode, I’ll explain the three crucial documents you should have and what they’re used for:
1. Client service agreement
2. Website Ts & Cs
3. Privacy policy
Having these documents tailored to your specific business and how you operate is a must if you want to ensure that it’s protected. Understanding how to use your legals is key in preventing your business from being damaged should an unexpected dispute arise.
I talk about the importance of knowing your legal obligations in relation to your employees or contractors, and why you should absolutely avoid using templates to set up your legals.
Knowing the purpose and implications of each of your legal documents will empower you to navigate your client relationships with confidence, and give you the peace of mind you need to focus on what you do best.
If you haven’t got your tailored legal documents in place for your business, I encourage you to reach out to a legal professional you trust to get you started. Alternatively, come join me over on Instagram where you can ask me any questions you have about getting your legals sorted!
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Tracey: [00:00:00] Let's talk legals. I talk so much on this podcast about the power of your legals, about your legal documents, having tailored legal documents, getting your legals sorted. Let's take a step back though and dive in and I'm going to explain to you, first of all, what are legals for your business? So let's start there.
Welcome to today's episode of the Rise Up in Business podcast. I'm going to dive in and answer a question today that I do get asked from time to time from business owners who aren't all that familiar with this concept of legals and legal documents for their business. So what are legals? It depends on the type of business that you have as to what [00:01:00] legal documents you'll need.
So when I say legals, I mean your legal documents, but what are they? If you're a service based business, there's three documents that are the core trio of documents for you. And they are firstly, the agreement that you enter into with your clients. So your client service agreement, your design agreement, your business T's and C's.
It doesn't matter what you call it, but they are the terms and conditions set out in the document that you engage on your clients with. So the documents you issue when someone wants to engage you to do what it is that you do. So your client service agreement. The second, if you have a website, which is just about every business owner these days, if you have a website, then the second core document for you are your website terms and conditions. They are very different, completely different to the client service terms and conditions or [00:02:00] your client service agreement that we just talked about. So your website terms and conditions. And then there's a third, which applies to almost everyone, which is a privacy policy.
Now just on that, if you are familiar with the privacy legislation in this country, you're probably not, but some people are, you'll know that there are exemptions for small businesses who earn less than 3 million in gross turnover. But, as I've said so many times to clients, the exemptions are under review, and the recommendation is that the exemptions for small business be removed.
So, it's only a matter of time before all businesses need to have a privacy policy in place. And let's call it, in this day and age, privacy is becoming more and more important. The way I discuss that with my clients is, why wouldn't you want a privacy policy right now, straight out of the gate, before you actually get legislated to have to have one to build trust and confidence in your audience, in your ideal clients? [00:03:00] Not a single person has ever said to me, I don't want one. Everybody wants to grab it with both hands and run and get it up so that people know that they're serious business owners and they can be trusted.
So they're your three core business documents for service based business owners. You start there, your client engagement letter or your client service agreement, your website T's and C's and your privacy policy. Now what goes into those documents is very different business to business. It depends what you do and how you issue your client service agreement to your clients is different again, business to business, and there's all sorts of rules around it. And I dive into that with my clients and I take the time to get to know them and their business and what they want to achieve with their new documents and how they operate and what their processes and systems are to see whether first of all, we can streamline and improve it.
So we make it better, but also we make sure that we're legally compliant and protected every single time. So having your [00:04:00] sorted means knowing what documents you need, getting the right ones that are tailored for your business. And to be very clear, tailored for your business does not mean buying a template.
I'm very vocal about my view of legal templates. I don't think templates have a place within the legal documents. Templates for spreadsheets, for your cashflow analysis, or your checklist in Asana, or whatever you use for your workflow, fine. Templates absolutely have their place.
Templates for your legal documents, however. No, it's a hell no from me. As far as I'm concerned, DIY is for Bunnings, not for your legals. And you don't want to be bootstrapping this stuff because it's too important. So when you have worked out what you need for your business, how you want to engage your clients, for example, are you issuing proposals or scope of works?
Are you having conversations and then going to edit a schedule to your agreement? How do you want to do it? Do you want them to sign it or not sign it? Both is possible, provided you get [00:05:00] the process right. But having your legals in order means making sure that you've got your processes and systems set up to support the documents you've got so that nothing falls through the cracks.
That's where the peace of mind comes in. So getting them sorted means having all of this sorted. Not just having a document that you can shoot out that you don't know what it does. It's not branded. It doesn't look like you. It doesn't feel like you. It doesn't sound like you. That's a waste of your time and money.
Having your legal sorted means knowing the right ones, having them tailored, branded. Your tone of voice, you feel really good. You know how to use them. You know what they're for and you have absolute confidence every time you on board a new client. That's what it means. So we start there. Now from there, we need to consider what else you do in your business.
Do you have offers on your website that people can buy or sign up to or freebie downloads that they can access? That then [00:06:00] informs what it is we need to include in your website terms and conditions. Do you have a mastermind? Do you have high ticket retreats or any retreats? Do you have subscriptions or memberships?
All of those things have an impact on the legal documents that you need because all of those offerings will mean that your legal documents need to be nuanced and edited and tailored to suit your offerings in your business. How do people sign up? Is it through the website? Is it application only? Is it a discovery call to make sure they're the right fit for the group and then you send an agreement? Or do you want to send them personalized links on the website to sign up? Or do you have a membership that you invite everybody to join the more, the better? Then you need to have the right purchase terms and conditions, which I call click wrap terms and conditions for those offerings.
And those terms need to be weaved through your website terms and your click wrap [00:07:00] terms need to be in the right place at the right time to make sure you're complying with the consumer law obligations, to make sure people are ticking things at the right time. Now, I'm not saying any of this to sound overwhelming or confusing.
All I'm trying to do is demonstrate for you that every business is different. There's no cookie cutter approach that's going to support you and work for your business. The legal documents you need depend on your offerings and how you like to do business. It depends on how you like to onboard and offboard clients and how you like to deliver your services or your products online.
And all of those things need to be taken into account and drafted in to your tailored legal documents to set you up for success with your clients. So you're meeting your legal obligations under the consumer law. So you're managing client expectations so that everything is provided at the right time.
So you're completely protected. So you've got peace of mind. And so you can continue on this [00:08:00] business journey, which is oh, so exciting with absolute confidence that you've got everything in place legally. Everything's doing what it needs to, and you're setting yourself up for long term success with clients.
Cause at the end of the day, you want to be paid for what it is that you're offering and delivering. And you do that by having your legals sorted.
Once we've got clarity around. Your service offerings, your online offerings, your containers, your website T's and C's, once we've got clarity on all of those things, and we've got those in place, they're what I call the foundational legal documents. Every small business needs those, unless you don't have a website, of course.
But let's just say you do, like most of the clients that come my way. Once you've got that core trio of documents in place, we then look beyond that to see what else is happening in your business. to see what other legals you need to get them sorted. So what that means is the first place we usually look is your team, employees and [00:09:00] contractors.
Do you have employment agreements in place? Contractor agreements in place? Are you white labeling with somebody? Is there a contractor agreement in place with them? Are your contractor and employment agreements tailored to suit that team member and what it is that they're doing?
Have you got clarity around the legal requirements for both of those to make sure you're using the right agreement for the right team member? That's a podcast episode for another time. You can go onto the website and have a look at the difference between employees and contractors. Be my guest. Previous podcast episodes on that as well, but it's really vital that you get that right, first of all, and then you get the legals in place.
What about shareholders? What about partners? Are you in partnership with somebody? Are you a shareholder in a company? What is the deal? What's happening? And is it adequately reflected in the right documents? Because these documents, if done well, will protect everybody involved for the longterm. And there's always an exit strategy.
There always has to be an [00:10:00] exit strategy, whether you're talking about clients, members, partners, employees. Be crystal clear on what the exit strategy is and make sure it's set out for everybody to see because that will save you so much time, energy and money later if things go wrong or if things don't pan out the way that you'd hoped.
All of these conversations are conversations around getting your legals sorted. So just to recap, it starts with first and foremost, what does your business do and what legal documents do you need in place? For most of my clients who are coaches, creatives and consultants, we start with the client service agreement, the website terms and conditions and the privacy policy, and we build from there.
We make sure that we've covered everything that's offered on the website. We've covered all the different ways that the services are provided to clients. And then we have a conversation around team members and contractors. If you've got future visions and that you want to bring on silent partners, or you want to offer some of your [00:11:00] employees potentially shareholding in the company, all those conversations are conversations that we have at the appropriate time to make sure we have the proper legal documents in place for that too.
So once you've got your legals sorted, you then have that confidence and peace of mind that I talk about so often on here. And what you don't have is that sinking stomach feeling when you're sitting there at night time and you're thinking, Oh, I don't know if I've got this right or if I did that or not or what happens.
We do away with all of that. And the way we do away with all of that is by having your legals sorted. You've heard me say it here so many times in business, prevention is better than cure. And there is no substitute for preparation. Trust me, when I say you do not want to take shortcuts on this stuff, it is not worth it. It will cost you more in the long run
when it comes to what can go wrong in business, honestly, there is nothing I haven't seen from the first 12 plus years of my career, which I spent in litigation and dispute resolution. So all of that time I was [00:12:00] acting for business owners in dispute, suing, being sued, something's gone wrong, trying to iron out the issues and going into battle in court for these business owners.
The sad reality is most of what I saw back then could have been avoided if the business owners had have had documents in place, or if they had've known what it is that they needed to know. We've all heard the saying, you don't know what you don't know. My mission on this podcast is to share with you what you need to know and to make it easy for you to action it, to get in place what you need in place, so you don't end up like one of the clients that I acted for earlier in my career. I hope you have found this episode of value. I love receiving your feedback. So thank you so much to every single one of you that reaches out to me to ask me questions or just say thank you, or give me feedback on the podcasts.
This podcast is one of the favourite things that I do in my business, and I love delivering this for you. Every single week. If you don't follow me on Instagram yet, please jump over and follow me. [00:13:00] My handle is at TM solicitor. I'm very active there, committed to sharing as much information as I possibly can to educate and empower you as business owners.
As always, thank you so much for listening. I'll catch you next week.
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