Five ways can help us to build a protected small business. Thus, in this Expert Insight Interview, Scott Reib discusses five tips on how to shatterproof your small business. Scott Reis is a founder of REIBLAW, a law firm, and Next Level Legal Coaching, coaching and consultancy practice.
The interview discusses:
- Establishing a corporation or LLC
- Having the team of advisors
- Establishing written contracts
- Being careful with intellectual property
Corporation or LLC
Many people run their businesses as sole proprietorships because it is low priced, and it requires less legal work. However, a sole proprietorship does not separate a person from a business entity, leaving the person exposed to lose everything if things go wrong. So, registering your business as a corporation or LLC helps you to separate and secure your assets. It also increases your chances of success to 60 percent because all that formality makes your brain to take the business more seriously.
The Advisory Team
For all the business activities to go smoothly, you need to establish a team of advisors. Firstly, you need a CPA to take care of your books, taxes, payrolls, etc. Then, the key is to create relationships with your banker, insurance broker, and business lawyer. The banker will be there to help you quickly with all your banking needs. Insurance broker needs to understand your risks and to be able to help you to cover those risks the best. Your business lawyer can give you any legal information in real-time over the call or text message, which can be helpful when trying to close a deal, for example. Lastly, hiring a business coach is a faster way to grow your business because the coach will be able to look at things objectively and give you the best direction and advice.
Written Contracts
Handshake business deals still exist, and people usually do them when they do business with friends or family. However, having a written contract is beneficial for two reasons. Firstly, entrepreneurs are not familiar with legal things, so they easily overlook little but overriding things that can cost them the ownership of the product. And second, the lawyers can make contracts to be very simple, direct, and short. Two pages are enough for a well-written business contract to prevent headaches later if any concerns arise.
The Intellectual Property
Regarding intellectual property, it is necessary to protect yours and not to use someone else’s. The main mistake people make is that they build a business for years and then try to trademark it, but then they find out that someone already has the trademark. So, before starting a business, go to the trademark office, do the research, register if available, and then build a business. And finally, when you use internet content such as pictures for your company, make sure that you are using the content that is royalty-free, or respect the copyright by paying for picture. You can learn more about trademark registration here
Our Host
John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.
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