There are so many people starting side hustles or who’ve been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug and started their own business. Dr. Whitney talks with Lauren Boyd, owner of her firm Guide My Business, about the first steps to take to protect your business when it comes to copyrights, trademarks, LLCs, business bank accounts, and more.
Key takeaways:
Whitney: What made you excited to start your business and passionate to help business owners to protect their organizations?
Lauren: I always knew that I wanted to own my own business, but had no idea what I wanted to do with it. I didn’t always want to do law, but when I was in business school, we did some mock legal council and it clicked. I went to law school, practiced corporate law, and felt all the pressure that comes with it. But shortly after, I knew I wanted to start my own law firm. But that’s really helped me resonate with all my clients, because I was in their same shoes when I was starting from scratch. And I really wanted to show them the mindset shift that protecting yourself legally doesn’t have to be scary.
Whitney: Why do people need to figure out the legal side of protecting their business sooner rather than later on their entrepreneurial journey?
Lauren: First thing, you want to make sure that you own your brand. It doesn’t take much to get traction or go viral and all of a sudden you have a growing, captive audience. You don’t want to end up where all the time and money that you’re putting in towards building brand recognition is wasted because you end up having to switch because of trademark infringement. When you have a registered trademark for your business name, it goes on the national registry and gives you exclusivity under that name, in that industry, to sell those goods and services. You own all the intellectual property. So be proactive when you’re starting your business to make the investment to protect yourself long-term.
Whitney: Walk us through what work business owners can do versus having an attorney do it for them and how much it costs.
Lauren: If you’re hiring it out, you should put aside about $2000, which I know is a lot, but it’s industry standard. It’s about a year of work. We start with a comprehensive trademark search that covers all the things in your industry that gives us the best strategy to come out with an approved registered trademark. You can absolutely do it yourself, but once you put that approval in, it’s taking about 6 months to hear any word. With us, we’ll give you our preliminary results in a couple weeks that will let you know if you need to change things before submitting your application. Whether you start with us or research first and then need support, that’s totally up to you.
Whitney: What actually needs to be trademarked in a business? The name, logo, programs or courses?
Lauren: Start with your main brand element first. That’s not actually your logo unless you’re like a Nike. Most importantly are names of businesses or slogans and then your signature course. If it’s your main money maker, you need to protect that.
Whitney: For example, we have copyrighted our business name, Modern Mommy Doc, our signature course, Conflicted to Centered, and our app Modern Mommy Club. So as we’re doing new partnerships, we can use that as value that we bring. If they want to use that as well within the partnership, it’s going to cost them.
Lauren: I love that you’ve taken those steps, because it’s a mindset shift about your business. There’s a stat that business owners who trademark their business within the first 3 years make 5x as much revenue than business owners that don’t. That’s absolutely partially mindset and then the fact that they own and can monetize that asset! It’s really easy to treat our business like a lemonade stand. It’s just something on the side that we don’t need to take seriously. But things are completely different when we decide to invest and take things seriously. We show up differently.
The next step I recommend is creating an LLC. It’s SO easy and cheap and you can do it all on your own. Google your state and corporation commission or secretary of state’s office and see what comes up. This protects all of your personal assets from getting convoluted with your business assets. Then you can get a free EIN (your businesses Tax ID number) from IRS.gov during business hours. These basic steps set you up so when you’re ready to scale, you’re ready to go.
Whitney: Do you have to have a business bank account to be legit? Or can you have your personal and business accounts mixed?
Lauren: Think about when you’re cashing checks made out to your business. You need a business account to cash them. Or when you’re charging your customers, they want to see your business name instead of your own name. Again, it’s that mindset that you’re treating it seriously. And it makes your bookkeeping and taxes MUCH simpler when everything is separate.
Whitney: Let’s talk about copyrighting things. That feels a little more nebulous because less of a registering thing.
Lauren: You can still register a copyright, but that’s often for a book or intellectual property that you’re monetizing. The cool thing about a copyright is that as soon as you create a body of work, you are automatically the copyright owner. It’s a natural right that comes from being a creator. So the instagram post and graphic that you created this morning, that’s yours. The picture you took, that’s yours. So if someone took that and is using it, you have the right to protect yourself. And you should.
The tricky part is when you have employees or independent contractors that create things for you. You need to make sure that your contract with them states that anything they create is your intellectual property.
Whitney: Absolutely. We’ve paid lawyers to make sure those types of things are included because I want to know that when I’m working with someone, whether they’re a contractor for me or I’m working in collaboration with a company, that we’re all clear on who owns what and how we can all use them.
Lauren: A lot of times people get uncomfortable with contracts and legal language and most often you won’t have to come back to those contracts. But it’s for the one contractor who didn’t send you the work you paid for or the one time you didn’t get paid. Those exceptions are when you’ll be glad you’re backed by the legal power of your contract. And, unfortunately, my job wouldn’t exist if everyone got along and did what they were supposed to do within their business.
Whitney: This is basically what Modern Mommy Doc is all about–protecting your worth! Creating those boundaries, stating them clearly, and having a consequence for when those boundaries are crossed. And in this case we’re talking about doing it with the help of someone who should know what those boundaries and consequences should be in the first place and how to word it.
Lauren: It’s all about the boundaries that let you produce the best work for your client that you feel good about.
Whitney: What about when you have a trademark or copyright, does it have to be displayed in order for it to be legit?
Lauren: Your content is your content. But if you forget to add circle C symbol (©), that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It’s just putting people on notice to tell them that you are protecting it. But it’s better to have it there so people can clearly see it. If you’ve got a registered trademark, use it!
Whitney: Where can people find you to learn more about working with you?
Lauren: They can find me and all the links to things on instagram at @thelaurenboyd and on the firm's instagram at @guidemybusiness. We put out content at least twice a week about copyright, trademark, employees, and all of our most frequently asked questions. There’s links there to our website as well. We really enjoy working with small businesses! Keep advocating for yourself, know your worth, and take a few small steps to protect it.
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