From Passion to Profit: Heart Centered Strategies for FitPros

018 Seven Fundamental Legal Protections for Fitness Professionals with Suzanne Dibble

• Nichola Page / Suzanne Dibble • Season 1 • Episode 18

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In this episode of "From Passion to Profit," host Nichola Page dives into the crucial topic of legal support for small business owners. Joining her is the esteemed legal expert, Suzanne Dibble, who shares insights and practical advice based on her 25 years of experience in the field.

Key Takeaways:

The Importance of Legal Protection

  • Suzanne emphasises the critical role legal protections play in safeguarding small businesses.
  • Real-life examples highlight the potential risks businesses face without proper legal foundations.

Membership Benefits:

  • Suzanne introduces a membership program designed to provide legal support tailored to small business needs.
  • The value goes beyond content, offering direct access to Suzanne's expertise.

Testimonials and Success Stories:

  •  Numerous testimonials and videos showcase the positive impact of the legal support offered.
  • Success stories highlight how the membership has helped businesses overcome challenges.

Roadmap for Business Protection:

  •  Suzanne discusses a proactive roadmap within the membership, guiding businesses on essential legal steps.
  • Encourages members to be proactive rather than reactive in legal matters.

Special Offer:

  •    A limited-time offer is presented to listeners, providing a 50% discount on membership fees.
  • The offer includes complimentary access to a template library, further enhancing the value for members.

Case Study: Cooling Off Period

  • Suzanne shares a case study illustrating the repercussions of overlooking legal details, such as cooling-off periods.
  • Emphasizes the potential financial and business-threatening consequences of legal oversights.

Passionate Advocacy:

  •  Suzanne expresses her passion for helping small businesses and preventing them from facing worst-case scenarios.
  • Stresses the desire to make legal support accessible to all business owners, regardless of their size.

Disclaimer:
The information provided in this episode is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice. Listeners are encouraged to seek professional legal counsel for their specific situations.

Suzanne Dibble Resource Links:
Website: https://suzannedibble.com/
Social Media: https://suzannedibble.com/where/social-media/ 

Resource Links:


Nichola Page:

So first of all, let me kind of introduce you to Suzanne Dibble. So we've got Suzanne is a very special guest. And I'm really honoured that you've agreed to give it up, give up your time to come here today. So I appreciate you extremely busy. But Suzanne is a multi award winning business lawyer who founded an award winning course. And a membership site is called the small business legal academy, the team more about that later as well. But it's so great to help 10s of 1000s of small businesses to protect themselves legally, put contracts and other legal protections in place easily and affordably. As as we all know, legal fees can be huge. Suzanne is also also the author of best selling book GDPR for dummies. And you've probably got quite a lot of questions around GDPR as well, I would imagine. And Suzanne was also Richard Branson's lawyer, nonetheless, and he in fact nominated her for a solicitor of the Year award. So the reason why I asked Suzanne to come in and join us is because navigating your way through the legality of running a small business can be overwhelming, and confusing at best. But today, Suzanne has kindly given up her time to share with us the seven fundamental legal protections for health and fitness professionals. Welcome, Suzanne, thank you for giving up your time. Should we just kind of dive straight into what those seven fundamentals are?

Suzanne Dibble:

Let's do it. Thank you for the kind welcome. Thank you for having me. And it's great to meet you all. So from my experience of having worked with 10s of 1000s of small business owners over the past 13 years, when I left big law to fulfil my passion of helping your very small business owners really the solopreneurs even the hobby businesses, then because I feel very strongly that businesses should not be priced out of league quality, legal support. And I taught him enough of making hedge fund managers even more money. So I set up my own practice 13 years ago, and exclusively focused on helping very, very small business owners. And over that time, it has become readily apparent that there are really seven fundamental legal protections that you need to have in place. And this is really the case for any small business really, regardless of sector. That can really cause you an awful lot of problems if you don't have the vital protections in place. And so I'm going to walk you through what they are. Now this does say completely professionals in the first three years of growth. But to be honest, I mean, I sometimes do a similar webinar. And it'll say the first three years of growth, and I have people who've been trading for 15 years, but really haven't given any thought to the legals before that. And they might not have had what they perceive to be a legal issue. But I guarantee you that they have had, they've just not classified it as a legal issue. So if you've got a late payer or someone requesting a refund, and you've given a refund, when you didn't legally need to, or you know, you've had a stroppy customer on the phone, because you weren't entirely clear about what you're going to provide to them, etc. That is very much a legal issue. If somebody's copied your social media posts, and you know, you're upset about that, that is very much a legal issue, you know, etc. So I think very often people only think of legal issues as if you're actually going to court. That's absolutely not the case. And it's really think of any stresses that you have in your business. Other than sales, I'd say, you know, not making sales is a bit of a stress, and there's nothing that can help you with there, I'm afraid. But otherwise, other than that, typically everything comes down to is a legal issue. And if you'd put things in place to stop it happening, that stress wouldn't have happened. So if you do take anything away from this session, I would say, you know, yes, it is always a bit of time and effort to invest in putting things like legal protections in place. And yes, it's not always top of the priority list, because it's not urgent, and I'm a small business owner, and I fully recognise all of the hats that we have to wear. But believe me this, if you leave early, if you leave this kind of stuff until it's urgent, often it's too late. And the reason that I'm passionate about what I do is because I've had so many small business owners phoned me up over the years, when it is urgent and therefore too late. And I've said to them, where's the contract? Or where's the assignment? Or where's X, and they haven't got it, and there's therefore nothing they can do. And it's very frustrating for me, because if they'd have just had a little bit of knowledge and access to the right template that has been drafted by a professional lawyer, and not some of these, frankly, quite dodgy template sites, because there's no regulation around selling templates on the internet. So do exercise caution on that, but it just had maybe a one page letter, in some instances, they were to sell for myself, you know, 10,000 pounds and a whole load of stress that went with it. So my mission is very much to educate small business owners and empower them to be proactive about putting legal protection in place, because it's gonna make your life so much easier. And so yeah, so you might be sort of 15 years in and you've never looked at legals before. But all I can say is, the sooner the better, even if you're not yet started perfect, there is no better time to think about putting your foundations in place to grow your business on a really solid foundation. And then when you're starting out, so firstly, congratulations on being here. And you know, it is one step further than most small business owners take. In the they try to avoid the whole issue of legal protection, because it's just this huge, complex, scary, big thing that they'd rather avoid. So congratulations on being here, it's going to really help your business. I'm not going to go over any more about myself because Nicola kindly introduced me. My background is I've worked in mergers and acquisitions at the world's largest law firm. So I'm quite unique as a lawyer in that I've had really like the top level experience at one end of the scale. But yeah, I've worked with so many small business owners, I am a small business owner, myself, I really understand the realities of being a small business owner, and always, as part of my membership, give guidance, that is risk based guidance, whereas a lot of bigger firms, they will give one size fits all guidance, they don't understand the pressure on small business owners time and resources, etc. And I am quite unique in being able to say, look, here's what the law says. But actually, the real risk to you is x, and you might choose to take that risk. So I think that's really important to consider when looking for a lawyer that you can trust. They've had brilliant experience, but they've also got experience down to the grassroots of really running a small business and understanding what we do. Okay, so this is the the kind of overview if you like, if the kinds of things that you need to be considering. And I've done it in kind of a, you know, you're starting up on the left, and you may be exiting your business on the right, and sort of in the order that I would approach them. If you've got nothing in place at the moment, then I would absolutely start by looking at your client contracts. Because what you do is quite risky. Okay, and I'm sure you've all got disclaimers, probably borrowed from people on the internet. And that's no offence to you here. It's just the reality of running a small business. But you really do need to check that those disclaimers are going to stand up to scrutiny. In terms of the legal position on that, and if you tried to exclude all liability totally, that will be void, and you will have uncapped liability, what you have to say is that you have to carve out and exclude any limitation on liability for death or personal injury due to your negligence. And if you don't have that wording in their in your client contract or in your disclaimers, if we ever went to court, the court would say this is too wide, it's void, and you would have no limit on your liability whatsoever. So you have to have your client contract and your disclaimers, drafted very carefully. And I would suggest that if you have cobbled one together yourself or maybe borrowed them from places on the internet, and you put that to the top of your list of things to sort out and make sure that it is professionally drafted, obviously, alongside that you've got insurance. And that's great. And I hope you do all have insurance. And certainly those of you that are you know dealing with people one to one and on physical premises, then you would obviously need to be getting your public liability insurance in place. professional indemnity as well, I would suggest, certainly for those of you that might be doing online courses and programmes and things like that. And in general other you know, if you've got maybe your own premises or maybe your use, I don't know a studio in your garden or something like that, then obviously, the physical premises needs to be insured tape. But the point is insurance only goes so far. And insurance has a lot of exclusions. Insurance still means you're going to court it just gives you the backdrop or the backstop rather, that hopefully the insurer is going to pick up the fee for it. But ultimately, it still would potentially involve you going to court whereas if you've got the right protections in your client contract, you can stop that at first base. Okay, now obviously alongside that in terms of limiting your liability, I mean, I'm sure you all do this because this is second nature in your in your business. But making sure that you've got the right disclaimers in terms of you know, you must let us know if you've got a medical condition and you know, you must use the you know the fitness equipment in a certain way etc. But this needs to be documented. to somewhere so that if it ever came to it, you can show that any injury isn't caused by your negligence. Because if you didn't advise the client of those things, then arguably, it is your negligence that has caused that. So you need to have all that really well documented, and ideally in your client contract is the best place for that as well. As you know, it depends how clients are signing up with you, if they're signing up online, what you would typically do on your order form is you'd have a link to your terms of business and a tick box.

Unknown:

beyond which they couldn't proceed unless they've actually ticked that box. And but the disclaimer is so important, I think that I would have that as a standalone couple of sentences, at the point where somebody is placing the order to make it abundantly clear that you know, these are the requirements for going ahead with your fitness classes, or course or programme or whatever it is, that is both now client contracts, as well as that they do a lot of other things like make sure you get paid. So there's that if there's ever an issue with payment, maybe if you've got a membership or something like that, it's really clear about what's going and when they can terminate and when they can't, and things like that. And if you've got maybe people coming in to see you one to one, but people are buying a pack of pack of classes, and spelling all of that out in your contract is going to make it a lot easier for you to pursue payment. If for some reason you have someone that stops their membership halfway through if you've got a minimum term, for example. Or maybe you're doing a fitness programme that's online, and you've got instalments for that, the clearer that you can be in your contract about payment terms, the much, much easier it's going to be for you to actually pursue that payment, and things like force majeure as well. You know, if if you haven't got an expressed term in your contract to say that, if there were circumstances outside of your control, then you're effectively excused from performing the contract. If you don't have that clause there, then arguably that would be a bully would be a breach of contract, and your client could potentially sue you. Now, chances are, they wouldn't. But it's an easy thing to get right to make sure that that risk doesn't even exist. So for example, if you had, I don't know, say you had a bride that had come to you to get fit for her wedding day, and you've sold her a pack of 1010, one on one training sessions or something like that, and your studio flooded three weeks before the wedding. Now, if you didn't have a force majeure clause in there, for example, that would be a breach of contract in that, I don't know, maybe you have a specialist equipment or something like that, that couldn't easily be, you couldn't just hire a church hall or a hire another premises or something like that. And then, you know, that bride might get quite sloppy and might very well say, Well, you know, this is a breach of contract, you've ruined my big wedding day, etc. Now, that's unlikely, but it is possible. And the point is that it's very easy to prevent an actor to come up with a myriad of scenarios, we don't ever know what's going to happen. And we don't know how litigious people are, most people are reasonable, but you do get some people that, you know, just, you know, you know what those people are like, and it's just not worth taking the risk. So a properly drafted client contract can save any of that doubt or risk. So that's number one thing to put on your list. Can

Nichola Page:

I ask a question on that, please? Yes. And so. So I have come across small business owners who might put their terms and conditions up on their website. And then they might sign someone up in person. And you say, oh, everything, the terms and conditions are on the website, take a look at those. When you sign up, you're agreeing to those, I'm assuming that would not stand up, would it audit? Well, it's it's

Unknown:

evidence really, because you're absolutely right, what you're alluding to is the fact that your terms of business need to be incorporated into the contract is not sufficient to just say have a footer on the bottom of your website and not direct the clients attention to those terms. Now, the best thing, obviously, is either to get a hard signature on the terms or a tickbox if people are ordering online. But if you you know if it came to it, if you had evidence and you kept a little note to say on such a day at such a time I directed the person but to be honest, it'd be easier just to have printed out copies of your of your terms and get if the clients there in person, you know, getting signed them, but you just need to think about when the contract is actually formed because if they've paid you before that point, then the contract is likely to have been formed at the point that they paid you in which case the contract is made without the terms having been incorporated. So ideally, you know, they need to have been directed to those terms before any payment is actually made in order for them to apply.

Nichola Page:

Yeah, okay, so we just want a tick box or an actual signature, just to be safe.

Unknown:

Yeah, and before payment is made before paying, okay? Yeah, yeah, that's okay. So the next thing to think about which is particularly important for what you do is GDPR compliance, because I'm guessing in the majority of cases, you're going to be processing health data, which is, as you may know, a special category of data, and it has extra special protection. And so that's one side of GDPR. And then I know that generally people are confused about what email marketing they can do. So I'm going to talk about the two aspects of that. But in terms of processing health data, then there is a general rule that you cannot process special category data unless your processing falls within an exemption. And for what you do, really, the only exemption you're going to fall into is explicit consent. So at the point where your client is signing up, what you would need to have is a statement of explicit consent to processing special category data and there is a form of words that that needs to take. And you would get the clients consent at that point when they are signing up. And you obviously also need to give them your privacy notice at the point where they're giving you their personal data, which is you know, their name, their email address, etc, all of the usual things that they would complete when they are signing up for your services. And so that's a good thing, explicit consent for special category data, you also need to think about security. And for special category data, there is a higher level of security needed, then, you know, if you've just had a name and email address, you still obviously need to you need to secure the data proportionate to the risks. But if it's a particularly with health data, because it is special category data, and you need to secure it more, so if you have hardcopy files a filing cabinet, make sure it's kept locked at all times. If you're using the cloud, to store or maybe some of these software platforms, and there's a lot around the fitness industry now where, you know, clients create accounts on those software platforms, you really need to look into how good they are at GDPR. And a lot of them are based in the states which brings added complexities. But those if you are using one of those kinds of soft software platforms where your clients are signing up, then they are your data processes, you're the data controller, because it's your clients whose names and email addresses etc. And health data you're processing. And the software platforms are data processes. So really, what you need to do is look at what they're saying about their compliance with GDPR. And their security. Because if there is a breach at the data process around, you're still liable as a data controller. Okay, and if the if the ICO which is the you know, the regulator in the UK came and investigated, because with data breaches, there is notification requirements. And I would never suggest that you don't notify because that can get you in an awful lot more trouble. And there's rules as to timings and who you notify, etc. But even suffer a data breach that involves any sensitive data. So special category data, like health data, it would require a notification to the Information Commissioner's Office, they would then investigate. And if you said oh, well, it was it was the data processor where there was the breach, if you can show that you've done your research, and you'll do due diligence and that they've got a page saying, you know, we're fully compliant with GDPR, we've got you know, the best security practices, blah, blah, blah, the ICAO is going to go a lot easier on you than if you hadn't done anything, because what they're concerned about is securing that flow of data, you can't just sort of wash your hands of GDPR, when you send that data to somebody else. And that's the same even if you've not got one of these software platforms, but maybe you use Dropbox or something like that for your you know, client files, etc. Or you've got a client CRM, anything like that. That's a data processor, and you need to do that research and keep it on file. And also, you need to have a data processing agreement in place for the big ones, they're likely to have a data processing addendum that covers the things that the GDPR says that we are legally required to do. So so that's the other thing is make sure there is a data processing Addendum and just again, take a note of that in case there is ever an issue. So that's kind of the security side and the getting the explicit consent side for the health data. On the email marketing side. If you have somebody as a client, you can email them about, you can promote your stuff to your clients and past clients. Now that's what's known as the soft opt in, okay, and this is actually a different legislation to the GDPR. There's something called the premise See in Electronic Communications Regulations, which deals with email marketing. And what that says is that you can't send unsolicited email marketing to individuals without their prior consent, unless certain conditions apply. And that's what's known as the soft opt in. And the conditions are, that you're emailing them about services that are similar to what the bore, so you couldn't just suddenly start selling them double glazing or something like that, if previously, they bought fitness services from you. And secondly, that you give them the right to opt out at the point that they're giving you their data, and that you give them the right to opt out on each subsequent communication. Okay, so that's what the law says. I mean, to be honest, if you, there's not a vast data protection, police force, that's going to go around checking that you're doing this perfectly, the way that you're going to come to the attention of the regulator is if somebody opts out, and you don't do anything about it, really. So if people opt out, make sure you've got a robust system in place, that means that you don't keep emailing them, because that's when people get annoyed. And depending on the person, you know, they might very well report you. And then that will trigger a whole investigation into your GDPR practices, which we don't want. So the general principle, if you've got a customer, you can promote to them or a past customer, then you can promote to them. If you've got, well, that's probably not relevant here. Yeah, so you're gonna be dealing with individuals rather than any corporate entities. So the general rule is, you've got to collect their data another way you can email people to say, Do you want to go on my marketing list, because that is in itself, email marketing, to do that, you'd have to get their data through maybe an opt in on your website, maybe you've got a freebie on your website or something like that. Or you can do poster marketing. So poster marketing is that falls outside of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations. And you could do that under GDPR, you just need to be careful about emails, automated calls, tax, that kind of thing, the kind of things you'd think of as spam. And so that's really what I mean, obviously, it's a huge area, I've written a 450 page book on it. And I've got loads of other areas to cover. So that's kind of the, you know, overview of the the sort of main two areas that I'd say that you. Okay,

Nichola Page:

two questions, if you will. So, Kevin has asked, How long do you need to retain the data for? So when clients once clients signed up, how long do you keep it for?

Unknown:

Yeah, so you should have a retention policy. And the ICAO actually does have a good website with lots of great guidance notes for small business owners, and it might even suggest a retention policy. And if nothing else, I have a retention policy template in my legal academy, I'm going to be telling you at the end, how you can get access to that if you want it plus every GDPR document that you're gonna need, and including, obviously, privacy policy, Cookie policy, data processing agreement, etc. But ultimately, if your insurance, your insurance might say you need to keep it, in case there is and I probably would keep it for if there's going to be a legal claim, it's going to be six years after the, you know, the the cause of the event. So I would generally keep it for at least six years in case there is a legal issue. Yeah, thank you, and your insurance will likely specify the same. Wonderful. Um, so moving on. Yeah, I'm not sure this is exactly in the right order of how this sort of business cycle would be, but I think it is it most people do actually start thinking about how am I going to market my business pretty early on. And most people, most small business owners will be thinking about social media, and producing content that attracts people to them. So the next thing that I would put on your list is, you know, content protection. Now copyright is the the intellectual form of intellectual property that we're dealing with here. And the good news is that if you create an original work, then you own the copyright automatically, there's no need for registration. If, however, you hire somebody, to create something for you, whether that be your business logo, or some designs for your website, or a copywriter to write some text for your website, or social media manager, that's right in your social media post, if they're not an employee, but an independent contractor, then the position is that the independent contractor owns the IP in that creation. Even if you paid them a lot of money. There needs to be an express written assignment of that copyright so that you own it. And that's particularly important for things like your logo, because if you want to trademark it in due course, you won't be able to do so if you don't actually own the IP in it. So it's really important that if you are hiring anybody to help you with marketing effectively, and then you a have a contract with them, and I would very much suggest that that's on your terms rather than theirs. And yes, I've got templates for all of that in my legal academy and And one of the key terms in there is an assignment because you can sort of have an assignment after they've done it. But the point is, you've got no leverage then. And I've had members that have realised this too late. And there was one lady who'd had loads of videos, produced, spent about 5000 pounds on some videos for a course that she was doing. And then realised that she didn't own the IP, which which is the case and unless there is a legal assignment otherwise. And so she had to go to the videographer and say, Can you assign the IP to me, they said, No, and she had to negotiate it, and she paid another 5000 pounds, and to have the IP assigned. So that was a very expensive mistake for her. So really important to to remember that and deal with that when you're taking on that contract, because obviously, they're in a, you know, sort of, they're tendering for your business, they're wanting the work, you need to have that conversation about ownership of intellectual property, at that point in time, and get them to agree that you can own the IP and have the right wording in there. The only exception to that is photographers who are absent and I've not known one photographer that will assign the IP in their photographs. So if you haven't a shoot done, you know, then they won't, they will only licence you to use their photos. But make sure that you really understand the scope of that licence and have it detailed as to what you can do with it. Because again, I've heard of scenarios where, you know, people have wanted to go back and get T shirts printed and thinks that things like that. And that photography is like, no, the licence was only for your website, I'm going to I'm going to charge you X 1000 pounds more to do X, Y and Zed with it. So really important to have the parameters of that licence, clarified upfront. Or the other other thing, just quickly to touch on is if people are stealing your content, you're gonna go, I know a lot of fitness professionals go through a lot of time and effort to do amazing social media. Very, very frustrating when you see one of your competitors has literally taken the same post and posted it on social media, most small business owners reaction to that is, ah, this is going to cost me a fortune to go to a lawyer and get a cease and desist letter, I really don't know what to do. It can be quite easy when you know how. And in my membership, we have a course on copyright and content protection. I've got all the cease and desist letters that you need. And once you know what you did, you're doing, it's actually very easy and effective to shut people down. But that is and you can set up ways of alerting you to whether people have actually infringed your content or not. Because often it's just you know, business friends will say, Oh, have you seen so and so's website there seems to be copying, you know exactly what you've written. But you can actually set things up to to give you an alert if your content is getting copied. Okay, moving on to premises. Now, I don't know how many of you obviously have your own premises or whether you're hiring premises, you might do everything online. But if you have a physical premises, then obviously there is a lot to think about in that regard insurance, obviously being key there as well. But you're likely unless it is on your own premises, you're likely entering into some kind of lease with the owner of the property. And I would say always get that checked out. Because, you know, I've had a number of horror stories where people have been tied in for much longer than they thought they would, or you know, the covenant to repair at the end of the lease, they've just been really extorted for the amount of money that the landlord is required to repair but sort of restore the premises to how it was before etc. So I really would get a property lawyer to cast their eye over it. And I don't actually do that type of law. But I could make an introduction, if you needed that, that help on things, obviously, health and safety, and particularly with what you know what you're doing. Again, I mean, there are specialists that can come in and do an audit and check what you might be missing out on, I'd say you're probably all quite switched on to that those of you that have got physical premises, but you know, safety notices around around place and on the equipment, making sure the equipment is well maintained, making sure that the studio is well ventilated, you know, the the usual book? Yeah, absolutely. I think the thing to know is to document all of that, so that if there ever was an inspection, you would be able to very easily show that you've thought of all of those key points, and were passed with flying colours. If you're hiring third party venues, do check with them about insurance, because often your insurance will say something like we're not liable where a third party could have the benefit of insurance. So I would always check with them what their insurance says, you know, their public liability insurance say say someone you know trips over some wires or things like that. It might not even be your equipment, you know, who whose insurance actually covers that and to make sure that the place that the venue that you're hiring has an ad He quit level of insurance. So I think that's, that's a conversation to have as well, if you are hiring a venue, okay, and so trademark and brand protection now, you know, as you're growing your business, you're getting a reputation in the marketplace. And the last thing that you would want to happen is another fitness professional to come along, use the same or similar name. And suddenly there is confusion in the marketplace, not least because that can a divert sales away from you. When someone goes, Oh, Alex's. Yeah, Alex is just the best Personal Trainer ever, or whatever the name of the business is. And a competitor pops up with the same name, and people do a Google search and find that competitive trainer and this diversion of profits. But possibly more concerning is that if that competitor that's causing the confusion isn't as good as you, it's gonna have a really adverse effect on your reputation, because people do talk. And the last thing you want is confusion over who's who and who's not providing, you know, the level of service that you would. And so there'll probably be come a point in your business where you think is it worth me trademarking my business name or logo, if the logo is an integral part of your brand, you might have a programme, you know, you might have a flagship programme, that you don't want any other competitors professional to use, the name of it might be worth trademarking, that you might have a podcast that you want to trademark, the name of, you might have a book etc. So whatever is a name or a mark, that is really key to you, and you would be, it would be very detrimental to you, if somebody else came along and use the same or similar name doing the same or similar thing, then it's always worth thinking about trademarking. And I would say the sooner the better. Because the problem is, is that if someone comes along and secures that name before you, then a, you're not going to be able to trademark itself. But be, you're likely to have to do a rebrand because they've now got the monopoly on using that name. And they can send you a cease and desist letter. And you would have to rebrand, which, you know, depending on what that involves, could be a huge undertaking. And plus, you'd lose all the goodwill that you've built up up to that point. So if you haven't yet thought about trademarking, I'd encourage you to do so if you just trademark in in the UK, you can do it yourself, I've got a course on it, many hundreds of my members have done that course and successfully registered their trademark, the fee to the government is two, normally 200 pounds in one class, and then 50 pounds for each additional class that you're registering, it's important to get the classes, right, my course covers all of that. It's also important to do the searches, right, because you don't want to pay for the trademark only for it to be opposed by somebody that has the same or similar name, and your application is rejected and you lose your money. So it's important to do it right. Of course, you can go to a trademark attorney to do it for you as well, that's going to cost you at least 2000 pounds to do that. For the trademark attorneys fees. Also, if you are even thinking about expanding internationally, the sooner that you can do global searches, the better, you might think that you're gonna go to the US or Australia or wherever. Because unfortunately, you know, if you build up a great name in the UK, and then think, oh, I want to expand to the US by that point, somebody in the US might have that same name. And you're either going to have to have two separate brands, two separate names, one in the States and one in the UK, or you have to rebrand the UK to have a single global brand. So the sooner you can do trademark searches, the better. And and I would do them in the jurisdictions that you think is ever possible for you to expand into. Okay. All right. So finally, while nearly Finally, on my circle, there is contractors and employees. Now, you know, unless you have grown your business significantly, then I imagine that you're going to be working with contractors more than employees. And certainly in the first three years of growth, maybe you might have a combination, maybe you've got one employee and then you've got a few contractors, the first thing to say is it's really important to make sure that you're structuring that relationship in the right way. Because the law and the taxman will look behind what you have labelled that relationship. And if actually, your contractor turns out to be an employee, then a new employee, you contractor who is actually employee can sue you for a whole myriad of employment rights, and be the tax man can find and make you pay back data tax for all of the employment taxes that you should have been paying. So really, it is all about control and mutuality of obligation. So if you've got a a freelance instructor, who is, you know, doing regularly, sort of, you know, five classes a week for you to get paid an hourly rate, there is an expectation that they're going to do that you're providing them with your equipment, etc. That's looking to me like an employee relationship rather than a contract one. Now there is a quiz online, you can go to HMRC status indicator tool. If you go Google that It will come up. So HMRC status indicator tool, and it asks you a series of questions. And at the end of it, it will say either this person is a contractor, or this person is an employee, or you're in the middle, we can't tell. And you also need to think about that for people like your social media, people that you might hire virtual assistants, even cleaners, you know, if you've got your own physical premises, people often say to me, oh, but you know, my cleaner works for three people doesn't matter, she could have three part time jobs, you know, the number of people that you work for is not definitive in that at all. Again, in my membership, I've got a course on working with contractors, employees, that covers all of that. And indeed, in my template library, I've got all of the documents that you know, templates that you would need for both contractors, employees, because that is the second point, once you've decided what they truly are, you need to have the right document with them. If they're an employee, then it's a legal obligation to issue them with a statement of terms, which is really effectively the employment contract. And by no later than the day that they start working for you. With a contractor, there's no legal obligation to issue a contract, but you'd be really stupid not to have one. Because if you don't, you know, there's a number of important protections in there that you wouldn't have, for example, if the Freelancer messes up in some way, you know, maybe one of your clients suffers an injury because of their negligence. And what Your contract should say with them is if they mess up, then it's their liability. Ultimately, in reality, what would happen is, is the Freelancers insurance that would pay out, and that's what you want, if there was ever an issue. And, and that's another point is to if you are using finance instructors, you know, make sure that they have got appropriate insurance in place to and check to what level. The other thing is that you know, there is no implied duty of confidentiality in the same way that there is with employees. So contractors are quite at liberty to take your confidential information going and work with another competitor, poach your clients, etc. And they're well within their rights to do so. So that's the kind of protections that you would have in your agreement with your Freelancer plus a number of other things like protection of IP, making you payment terms, things like that. So really key document to have. And if you haven't got one, then I would definitely put that on the the urgent list. And then in the middle of that overview, we've got the correct legal structure. Now, if you're trading as a sole trader, all of this is even more important, because you've got personal liability, if things go wrong, if you're trading through a limited company, then you've got the benefit of limited liability nature of the company in the if there is a big liability in your business, then it stays in the company unless you've given personal guarantees, or there's an element of wrongful trading, but generally, worst case scenario, which is still not pleasant, but it's better than losing your car and your house and all the rest of it, you would wind up your limited company. And, you know, start again, really, which you can't do, you can start another company, etc. And the liability would stay in that company. So I actually had an issue that nearly put me out of business in my first year or so of my legal consultancy, in that I had worked, I was working for one client that pretty much exclusively and I'd been working them for them for three months, had an invoice them totally my fault, because I was just bidding hadn't invoice them, there's about 5000 pounds outstanding. And they went but they went into administration effectively. Now, because I hadn't structured that contract in the right way. And not with for lack of knowledge, but because I didn't think they'd ever not pay me. And I had no legal recourse against that company that had gone into administration, the guy started up another company, literally within months doing exactly the same thing with a very similar name. And you know, that's quite okay. But I had no legal recourse to get my 5000 pounds back. So anyway, that's the worst case scenario, we would not want to have to wind up our limited company. But that is, obviously that's what that guy did, because he had to there was just too much liability. And I don't know the ins and outs of it. But that was his solution. Otherwise, he would have probably personally had to have declared bankruptcy. So it's worth reviewing, I say review it on a sort of six month basis, whether you are I would say actually to be honest with the risk of what you do. I would be trading through a limited liability company. And you might think, oh, it's really costly. And it's really, you know, there's a lot of administrative requirements, not not so much. I mean, you have to find your accounts. You can can even do that yourself. They're very abbreviated accounts. And you have to find a confirmation statement once a year which is effectively just saying that nothing has changed in the shareholding etc, which is super easy to do. Yeah, if you hire an accountant to help you, then you know, it might cost you a bit more. But I personally feel that the benefit of that limited liability protection is worth it. And also, if you're making more than 30,000 pounds profit a year, then it is still more tax advantageous to trade through a limited company, even though the government persist in eroding the tax benefits of paying yourself dividends? I would, I would certainly have a consideration of that and speak to your accountant or tax advisor to see does it make sense, if you move from being a sole trader to a limited company, then you have to consider the legal the formalities of transferring all of the assets from you, as an individual over to the corporate entity, you'd have to innovate client contracts, and innovate supplier agreements, transfer trademarks, transfer, copyright, etc. So I think about GDPR, and Privacy Notices being in the wrong name. So it's quite an exercise do it which so which is why I always say to people, you know, look, unless there's a really good reason for you not to be in limited company, this, the sooner you can do it, the better. And certainly, if you're at the point where you're taking on contractors and employees, you know, and getting trademarks and things like that, and entered into premises, all of these things are adding risk into your business. And I think unless you've got a very, very simple business, maybe where you're not seeing people in, in person, but even then, with what you do, I think it's quite risky. Even with the best drafted disclaimers, there's always that element of risk. And I personally would be trading through a limited company. And I've got a question, Suzanne,

Nichola Page:

if you're around contractors, so Nikki's saying that her contractors, so she has a studio, physical premises, different freelance instructors, but she's saying they don't want to be employed, they prefer to be self employed, what should you do? Well, I mean, if

Unknown:

you have a robust agreement that puts the risk onto the contractor, then you might be able to live with that, there's still probably going to be some, well, it's how strong is the piece of paper. So in my templates, for example, we have a couple of clauses that are always in there with our contractors that say that if HMRC come along and decide that they are actually an employee, the contractor will indemnify you for any liability that you should suffer. But that's only a piece of paper. So are they actually going to have the money to reimburse you are they actually going to do it, you're gonna have to take them to court to enforce it, etc, you know, you've got to think about those kinds of things. And also, you can have a clause in your contract that says that, it's a really weird way of doing it, but it's what we do. If they were to claim any kind of employment rights, then the contractor would again, indemnify you against that. So it's really saying, you know, you agree not to try and enforce any employment rights does. So contractually, that's kind of covered off and you're putting the risk as much as you can, on paper, onto your contractor. But ultimately, you know, if there's, if there would still be penalties for you, if the taxman came along, it's whether that indemnity would, you know, be enforceable? And actually, you'd get the contracts to pay out and reimburse you for what you've lost the taxman etc.

Nichola Page:

Yeah, I mean, that because that, that point there in itself, I can almost hear people listening to this who are in the industry thinking, Ah, can't employ them all. It's so common in our industry to have freelance instructors, that they just don't have service. I mean,

Unknown:

it might be, but they're not employees. And, you know, the more that they can use their own equipment and things like that, the more that they can be in charge of their own diaries, and every week say, oh, I can do you know, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and that changes. And it's more than that, saying, Here's what I can do for you rather than this, that expectation that they will definitely be doing, you know, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday or whatever, the more that you can structure it like that, then the less risk there is.

Nichola Page:

Yeah, it's one of those things. We don't like what we're hearing, but get it. That's the law. That's why you're here. I have one more question. It comes back to what we were talking about before. So this is going back to data protection. One of the members of the group have said that she has a studio, so she has somebody helping her who is contacting new people coming in. So they will have access to things like their park use. So they'll see their health data, and how do you cover that? If somebody else, not just you has access to confidential information, and who is seeing it? So she has somebody who's doing some work for her. She's got a She's an assistant that we don't have business. Okay.

Unknown:

So if that person has been employed, then that's absolutely fine because it's, you know, they're part of the organisation. But if as I said earlier, if it's an independent contractor, then they would be a data processor if they are able to act access that data? And, you know, I suppose? Is it just, it's just lying around? Is it? Or is it in a filing cabinet? Or I don't know? Um,

Nichola Page:

no, in that, in that instance, I know this business, it's gonna be it's gonna be online.

Unknown:

Okay, yeah. So access to something like that, then they, the contractor would be a data processor, you need to have a data processing agreement in place. And that's, that's a good point, actually, just to I was talking about earlier in terms of the platforms. But the same applies if you are hiring freelance fitness professionals to do classes for you, etc, if they're accessing that personal data, which presumably they will be to see who's at the class and check that they paid and that they're supposed to be there, etc, and any health issues, and then they are your data processor. Again, there would need to be a data processing agreement in place. Okay, there, you're going to have to put your own in place, because they're not a big company that's going to have a data processor, you wouldn't need to and again, that's in my GDPR module of my template library of people. So it's

Nichola Page:

sure you just need to have whatever this agreement, is that all any freelancers employee, whoever is doing any form of work for you? Do they just need to sign that?

Unknown:

Not employees? No, because it's covered as part of the organisation, but anyone who's not an employee, then yes, if they're accessing personal data of clients, then they would need to have that data processing agreement in place. Yeah, great. Thank you. Okay, no worries. So let's just very quickly, a quick flash of your top legal risks, I would say, um, so I'd say in your first year, your risks are more about not getting paid IP infringement where you're potentially infringing somebody else's IP. Because what a lot of fitness professionals and all small business owners don't do is you get a great name, and you start using it, and you haven't done a trademark search to see if somebody else has already trademarked that name. So you know, I've had clients where they've done big events, and they've chosen a name for that event. They're 24 hours out from that event, and they get a cease and desist letter saying, we've got the registered trademark for this name, you need to rebrand everything. And that's caused them an absolute nightmare. So always before you choose a name for anything, always do trademark searches, Google searches, domain name searches, companies, house searches, etc, just to get to do some research as to whether there is somebody who is already using that name. Also think about, you know, if you want to trademark your name at some point, then is it capable of being trademarked? If it's not distinctive enough, if it's too descriptive, it's not going to be trade markable. And I'll say I've got a trademark course in my membership that takes you through all of those types of considerations, and content being stolen, you know, when you're starting up. And I think that's always a risk and giving refunds when you don't need to. So that is another point, actually, that I didn't touch on earlier, which is if you're selling to consumers at a distance, so I online, on the phone, over the email, etc. And then you have to give them their 14 day cooling off period. And if you don't specify that in your terms, then they actually have 12 months in which to cancel even if you provided all of the services. So someone could have signed up to a programme with you over six months. And you get to the end of the six months, and there's they're sort of a savvy person that doesn't maybe share the same moral principles as we do, they could then cancel the contract at that point, and legally be quite entitled to a full refund, if you haven't actually put those terms in there. So you have to be clear on the 14 day cooling off period. But then after that, you don't have to give any refunds. You don't have to move things around to accommodate your clients. If you're there ready and willing to perform the contract, then you know that that's all good. So that's another area to look into is really sort of consumer rights and a cooling off period. And again, that's in all my templates, all the right wording and if you're doing digital products as well, you need to be really clear that people lose the right to cancel and because otherwise people could just come by on your digital products, download them and then ask for a refund and you know, there's nothing you can do about that. So very important to get that right then year two, and the kind of issue obviously your risk is increasing. And the kind of risks are you know, Freelancer issues maybe you've not got the right contracts in place and they're stealing your clients etc. And maybe you've not secured your trademark and someone else pops in and gets it before you and you've got to rebrand and not actually owning your IP and like innocence movies I don't know if you know that case, but the the dude logo with the Halo, they made the a huge error of not getting the logo assigned over from their designer and that ended in a tweet it 10 year court battle that went to the European, the highest of the European courts and must have cost them millions in legal fees. So making sure that like I said earlier, you've got those right assignments in place so that you own your IP. And defamation, you know, not knowing how to control people bad mouthing you on the internet can lead to serious brand damage. Now, I obviously I have trainings on that in my membership, we have cease and desist letters. But people do use that as a, particularly if they're not happy with an element of your service, and they want a refund, and you say no, you know, a lot of people do say, Oh, well, I'm going to make my experience known on social media. And then small business owners will then be very concerned about that. And we'll say, oh, yeah, okay, we'll we'll do your x for you. So really important to understand your rights there and to know how to shut any kinds of defamation down before it starts taking off. And then year three, again, the risk is growing. And you're, you know, you've probably got a growing an email list, you've got more personal data, you've got more clients, you know, more like maybe you've got employees or freelancers that are maybe leaving files on trains, or goodness knows what data breaches are becoming more of a risk. And that's I say, really, yeah, it would be awful to suffer a data breach because then you into your notification to the ICO and an investigation, etc. And being sued. And the longer you're trading, the more clients you have that risk goes up. And certainly if you're selling online things, and you maybe start selling into the States or the Canada, then much more litigious countries, and just the volume of people that you're serving, there's more risk of things going wrong, more risk of claims being brought, maybe you're starting to get bigger supplier contracts, you know, you might have a you know, you might get your own gym, and you've got various different suppliers bringing things then you've got enter into a supplier contract, say, I was great, great case in the in the 1980s. But photocopiers, where they basically the photocopier companies made people sign up to contracts with minimum order requirements. And this actually went to the Office of Fair Trading, because basically, they worked out that people had paid about four or five times more on the basis of these minimum order requirements than it would have been to have bought the whole copier outright. But because people weren't really, you know, familiar with that kind of tie in at that point, that the salespeople got away with it, and they made an awful lot of money. So really understanding issues around supplier relationships gets to be key tribunals. Yeah, you know, if you're taking on employees, you've always got that risk, that this could be a Tribunal claim as well. Now, obviously, all of this is not going to happen. But as your business grows, the risks increase. And the more that you will be grateful for the fact that you've got your ducks in a row, you've got your legal protections in place, and that you've built your business on solid foundations. If I had to point you to key legal documents, I'd say it's these client contracts, the number one key document in your business. And don't be tempted to cobble it together yourself borrowing certain chunks from here and there on the internet, it's not going to serve you. Plus it's copyright infringement of the lawyer that actually wrote those terms that are on the internet, and could get you sued. And IP assignments we've already talked about from your designers always make sure you've got those that IP assignment in place so that you actually own the IP that you think you do freelance and employment contracts, your privacy, notice and cookie policy and having access to all of the cease and desist letters that you need. So that if someone infringes your copyright or trademark or they're defaming you, etc, then you can go to it and know exactly what to do and have that document there. So they're the key documents that I would say and also, if you have got premises, obviously the lease, I can't help you with that, though, that would need to go to a property professional. So that is the overview. And I'm afraid to say that contract disputes, disgruntled customers, problem employees and other legal and business hassles are inevitable, for actually sorry, this is from from a different group of coaches, consultants, fit that any small business owner really. And certainly I include fitness professionals in that, who haven't put the right protections in place. So the sooner that you can take steps and obviously, we're not expecting that you do all of this overnight, it is not an overnight thing. But the more steps that you take to protect yourself, the lower your risk, and we don't have crystal balls. And I wish we did to be honest, because I might be able to market myself and tell you how much money I've saved all my members over the years. But we don't have that. But what we do have is a survey of small business owners and they found that 55% of micro businesses suffered a significant legal problem in any one year, and that the average cost of that legal problem is nearly 7000 pounds. Now maybe I mean, I said I suffered a legal problem. I didn't get paid my 5000 pounds in year one and that nearly put me out of business. And you might not even And think of things that, you know, it might be that a supplier hadn't we had a lady on my membership call the other day, she'd hired somebody to create a website for her, they'd fallen out, and the website owner won't give her the logins. Okay. And this is a 10,000 pound 10,000 pounds that she's paid. So she's already paid to the supplier, and the supplier is holding her to ransom. And she came on to the membership call. And she said, No, I'm just going to have to write it off. And I was like, No, absolutely not, here's what we're going to do, we're going to do this, we're going to do this, and we're going to do this, of course, you're not just going to write off your 10,000 pounds, you know. So the, the point is that legal issues do happen, and you never know when they're going to happen. And I say often, it's too late. So that my overriding message to you as it is to every small business owner, is to be proactive, is to not sort of put off legal protection till the next month or the next year or the next one ever, because you never know when you're going to need that. That letter, that assignment, that client contract term to point to etc. And it just it makes for just running your business runs so much more smoothly and easily when you've got all of these things in place. So that's the end of my presentation. And I hope that that's been very useful for you.

Nichola Page:

I think we've got a few people that are like, Oh, I'm a little bit scared now about what I haven't got into play. So I think the key thing like to reiterate what you've said, number one, this session was about raising your awareness. So yes, there are some scary facts in there. But now you know, what you need to know. Then it's a case of putting in place it bit by bit, obviously, the quicker you can do it, the better. So I appreciate this. You know, someone in the group has said, I'm scared, I think Nikki's now, Nikki has said in the chat here, I better join your membership. I'm vulnerable, and also a bit frightened now.

Unknown:

Yeah, I mean, I've never been a scare monger. You know, when GDPR was coming into force, a lot of lawyers were like, if you're not 100%, GDPR compliant, you're gonna get fined 20 million euros, which, of course is the maximum fine, under GDPR. I was like, Look, there's no chance of that happening. You know, you're never gonna get fined anything like that amount. You know, even if you're really dodgy spammers, you're probably gonna get 150,000 pound fine. But what I will say is, you know, there's, there's very simple steps that you can take to eliminate any risk. And I don't know about you, but I don't even like wasting 1000 pounds on my business, let alone 150,000 pounds. Yeah. So it's not something that where people need to think, and people literally at GDPR time are coming into my group and saying, I'm gonna have to close down my business, because I can't afford to be 100% compliant. It's not like that at all. But what I know is where the risk points are, and the simple steps that you can take to significantly reduce that risk of, you know, business problems, you know, causing you real, real headaches and issues. So don't be frightened. If that's Nikki's word, don't be frightened, but you know, they use it as a good kick up the bottom, if you haven't thought of legal protection before, because like I said, you just you never know when something's going to happen, and the more knowledge that you have, and I'm not trying to encourage you all to become lawyers, because the law is vast and complex, and I still learn things, every legal surgery that we did with my members, I'm still learning something new. And I've been doing this for 25 years, because it's huge, it's massive. But what we really encourage small business owners to do is to have that core knowledge to identify that there is a potential issue, to then have the resources to go to. And obviously we make that available through all my templates, we've got trainings that are fully searchable by keyword, and then access to me to ask individual questions of in sort of zoom legal surgeries like this, and just makes it so much easier. And you don't need to be frightened, I think you just need to be proactive.

Nichola Page:

So what I think we just need to know about the membership.

Unknown:

I'll just share my screen again, as I said, it's really we boil it down. And and this is from many, many years of working with small business owners. So the best way that we can help you in a really affordable way, because we know obviously that's a huge part of it. Because if it's too expensive, people just don't won't do anything. So the first thing I can say is knowledge is having that sort of core level of knowledge so that you know that there's an issue and you will take steps to do something about it. So we've got hundreds of video trainings, plus 10, in depth courses on key areas of legal protection. That's all fully searchable. So you know, if you get to the point where you think, oh, I want to take on a freelancer, you go on to that course you learn the basics, and then you've got access to all the relevant documents as well. Same for trademarking same for GDPR. We've got mini courses on all of the topics that I've covered today. And then the second thing resources so I've built up a template library of over 130 documents that are absolutely relevant to the majority of small businesses now also in there is fitness professional terms of business, you'll be pleased to know. And associated checklist to make sure that you're doing things properly. Because you know what you don't if you need a document urgently, you don't want to be doing it panic Google search and, you know, go, most people will be searching, free, free fitness professional terms of business. Really, that's very risky. I mean, it's up to you whether you do that or not. But it's very risky. Because like I say, there's no regulation at all. And any lawyer worth their soul is going to charge something, you know, we try to keep our membership fee as affordable as possible. But I'm not getting my templates away for free, because, you know, I've been doing this for 25 years, and it cost me a lot of money to get to where I am, et cetera. So, you know, you find free templates on the internet, I want to exercise a lot of caution with that. But what you need really is, you know, when you need that cease and desist letter, you want it to be there, when you need that IP assignment, when you've realised that you didn't get your logo assigned, it's there, etc. But then I think the icing on the cake. And we've only just added this in in the last couple of years, if I really wanted to make myself available. And I was getting lots of requests for consultancy because people had individual circumstances that they wanted to ask me about, whether that be in relation to the templates, or whether it be in relation to things that have just come out of the blue, and they don't quite know how to deal with it. And I thought, how can I do this in an affordable way, because even if I'm quoting, as affordably as I can, for my consultancy is still out of the range of a lot of people. So for example, to draft terms of business, my fees would be 2000 pounds, which is very reasonable compared to what I'd be charging if I was in the big law firm I used to be in, but it's still out of reach for a lot of small business owners. And if you've got more documents to put in place, that cost is going to quickly stack up. So we do that through zoom surgeries. And people pre submit questions, and you're guaranteed to get your individual questions answered. It's not just legal, I guide very much on the approach and how to manage it's a lot it's quite relationship based how best to manage things for the for the least stress and the best results. And what our members find is that it's that is probably the best learning experience, because it's much better to learn from the mistakes of other people than from your own mistakes. So hearing like real life issues, and then me sort of translate the law that applies and then apply it in the context of that real life business situation is invaluable. That's not the kind of thing you can search for on the internet. Yeah. So that's why our members love us. And if you do want to go and look at the sales page that we have for you, there's tonnes of testimonials on there, because we do offer, in my view, the best legal support for small business owners in the UK, or indeed the world. And I wouldn't go that far. To be this way people joined. We've got tonnes of testimonial, I just want to share, oh, we've got brilliant videos as well, please do watch the videos, I love that that our members have, like, you know, done videos or Playmobil figures to illustrate how much they love the membership. It's what's the what the investment is probably what you're thinking, there's a tonne of value in there. I'm not gonna go through all of this, but this is what's included. And this is what we evaluate. My point is, this is not a sort of content type membership, where you're just getting more content, you're getting access to me and my 25 years of experience, you know, that's the value, but because of the way we price it, you might think that that it's similar to sort of content based membership, which is not at all. So it's hugely valuable. And what price on stress, stress related health issues wasted time, diversion of time from growing the business. Right. So here it is, we've got an author, because I've been asked to come and do this special webinar for you. We're giving you a 50% off price, sale for 48 Hands 50 a month, and you can get access to all of that, which I hope you'll all agree is phenomenal, just incredible value. Yeah. Also, normally, the template library is actually separate to the membership and we sell that at 697 pounds plus fat. But what we're going to do again for this special promotion is not only will it be 50% of the membership, but we will also give you a licence to use the templates for free which is a huge because if you calculate this out 4850 times 12 You know for you is membership that is less than what we normally charge for the template library. Now I've got the wrong discount code there. My apologies. So I think your your discount code is np 50. Okay, so if you were going to share in the chat if Jennifer hasn't already which Nikki saying take my money. I know what you see. I'm really passionate about helping like You said earlier, you I want to help people like the hobby businesses, you know, and I don't want to price it at a point where anybody can say that's too expensive, because everybody needs this support. And we've managed to make it work so that we can offer this individual level of service at such a low price.

Nichola Page:

And so that 48 pounds 50. But any of you listening to this, if you're like, even quibbling about it, my gosh, that is huge, huge value just for that peace of peace of mind. So your mental, if you don't jump all over that,

Unknown:

read the link that I sent, if you want to maybe I think we've got that in an email that we sent to you. That's the link there for anybody that wants to grab it now on the call. But it is, I say price to it, it doesn't in any way, reflect value, the value is is huge. And even if you were to use this membership, once or twice in a year, you would get enormous value. But obviously, most of our members use it a lot more than that they listen in, they're educating themselves. They're not just coming when they've got an issue. You know, there, we have a sort of a roadmap which which in the same way that I've sort of described the timeline of what legal protections I would put in place in your business, we have a roadmap that directs people to have you put your client contracts in place, okay, well, you need to go and get the template and go and watch this mini course and do that, you know, have you looked at your IP protection, etc. So we're very much encouraging members to not just come to us when they've got an issue, but directing them as to how to be proactive and put the things in place that, you know, they need to do to ensure that their business survives, because ultimately, that is, you know, the worst case scenario. And that something comes along and puts you out of business, I had a member who she was to deal with the cooling off period, actually. So she put on a big event didn't have the right wording in her terms of business. And somebody was smart, who is at the event, and she had problems because it was just after COVID. So I think there are a lot of problems with the venue and things like that. And it wasn't a cheap event. But somebody who was clearly legally savvy, realised that she hadn't put in her terms of business for that event, the bit about the cooling off period, he told everybody else and everybody asked for a refund on the basis that because she hadn't put the cooling period in cooling off period in that period extended it to 12 months. And she had to declare herself bankrupt. And I think she was trading through a limited company. So she put that company into administration. And but that was, you know, such an awfully stressful time for her because she just hadn't thought it was an issue hadn't put that word in. So, so yes, so that is my, my preach. And I am eventually evangelical about this, because I do see those worst case scenarios happen. And it's my wish that no small business owner should have to go through that.

Nichola Page:

Yeah, amazing. Well, that you've covered a lot there. So again, I really appreciate you giving up your your time to go through that with us. And for your list. If there was bits that you've missed, and you didn't catch it. Obviously, this has been recorded, so you can watch it back. But I'm definitely going to be in that legal academy because it makes absolute sense. Why wouldn't you to go in there just for that, that peace of mind. So thank you, Susanna, really, really appreciate your time. I know we've gone massively over as well. So sorry, I

Unknown:

do get excited, Jennifer always teased. I can see Jennifer's I know Jennifer because we're sharing the link, Jennifer always teased me and said that I'm going to buy Gordon, that's my husband, a shepherd's crook. Because I'm so I get so excited and passionate about it that I tend to do tend to go on so my apologies if I've kept you slightly longer than you wanted to. Appreciate

Nichola Page:

it. Thank you. I mean, thank you on behalf of everybody, appreciate your time. And hopefully we will, there'll be more of us coming in joining in your academy so

Unknown:

love to see you all and thank you again for the opportunity to share my message

Nichola Page:

and I really love it I love the passion is it's kind of a bit of a breath a breath of fresh air actually to meet a lawyer that isn't stuffy hope you don't mind me saying that. That's normal guy, you can just have a conversation so yeah, really, really appreciate that. I have one more request from everybody watching and listening to this. As you know I launch my podcast Are you and if you don't know I did. I launched my podcast a podcast came out on Sunday. If you haven't had a chance please do me a favour go over and have a little listen download share it leave me a review. I would be hugely grateful another episode is about to come out. Well, it's should have been released now in fact, so episode number four comes out. Please let me know if there's any topics that you want me to bring to the table going forward. The podcast is about to help you very much like we do in here is about bringing People in to give you all the support that you need as you try and grow your your small business but that's it that's everything from us thank you again Suzanne thanks everybody for being here live thanks for watching in the Facebook group we are done thanks everybody