Latest / Business Roundtable / Legal Made Simple: Your Business Audit Starts Here

Transcript

Legal Made Simple: Your Business Audit Starts Here · Business Roundtable

0:31
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Business round Table podcast. I am
0:34
Speaker 1: David Carr, your host of Steward Your Business, where we
0:36
Speaker 1: bring teams together to accomplish great things, and we also
0:39
Speaker 1: bring amazing guests here on the podcast.
0:42
Speaker 2: This week, I've.
0:43
Speaker 1: Got Melissa Gray of The Last Spot, and I'm so
0:47
Speaker 1: grateful to have Melissa on here. We actually haven't had
0:49
Speaker 1: a legal counsel on very often, and so I'm actually
0:52
Speaker 1: very excited to get Melissa in here and start sharing
0:55
Speaker 1: some nuggets some wisdom with y'all on the podcast today.
0:59
Speaker 1: So Melissa on behalf of the Business round Table podcast.
1:03
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us.
1:05
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.
1:07
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
1:08
Speaker 1: Melissa and I had connected last year and I said, well,
1:10
Speaker 1: we've got to have you on the podcast, Melissa, because
1:13
Speaker 1: you know the work that you're doing in helping businesses
1:16
Speaker 1: get started stealing, dealing with intellectual property, our rights, i
1:22
Speaker 1: should say, and you know, dealing with contracts. There's a
1:27
Speaker 1: whole host of things that as a business in my face,
1:30
Speaker 1: I realized there's a lot I don't know, and I
1:33
Speaker 1: can get myself into trouble real quick if I'm not
1:36
Speaker 1: you know, taking the right steps. And so Melissa, I
1:38
Speaker 1: want to just thank you for coming on here and
1:41
Speaker 1: you're going to hopefully walk us today. We talked a
1:43
Speaker 1: little bit before we start recording, kind of you know
1:45
Speaker 1: how you can walk yourself through, audit yourself, see where
1:48
Speaker 1: you're at in your business and see where you might
1:51
Speaker 1: be missing the mark where you might need some.
1:52
Speaker 2: Help in the legal space.
1:55
Speaker 1: And you know, all things good, All things are great
1:57
Speaker 1: until it's not great, right, and then you're totally unaware
2:00
Speaker 1: kind of. And so what I find legal help coming
2:03
Speaker 1: like UMLESSA coming in is they're looking at the gaps,
2:06
Speaker 1: are looking where there's there's some things where you have
2:08
Speaker 1: risk and helping you avoid that, avoid those pitfalls. And
2:12
Speaker 1: so UNLESSA, I just want to say thank you for
2:14
Speaker 1: coming on here and in walking us through, because it's
2:17
Speaker 1: so important as a business owner, especially when we're just
2:19
Speaker 1: starting a scaleing out. I was telling you earlier and
2:22
Speaker 1: people say, well, I got my LLC or my ESCORP
2:24
Speaker 1: and I'm ready to go.
2:25
Speaker 2: I'm like, are you really have you thought through all
2:27
Speaker 2: this stuff?
2:28
Speaker 1: So tell us a little bit before we get into
2:31
Speaker 1: the meat and potatoes of everything, But tell us a
2:33
Speaker 1: little bit about your background less as a lawyer, where
2:36
Speaker 1: you're at and yeah, just a little bit about the
2:38
Speaker 1: lost spot.
2:39
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I have started my career in private practice,
2:44
Speaker 3: and so I worked at a law firm serving individual clients.
2:50
Speaker 3: I had managed large intellectual property portfolios, so people's businesses
2:56
Speaker 3: that have trademarks, copyrights that manage those those marks, both
3:02
Speaker 3: in the United States and worldwide. When I had my
3:05
Speaker 3: first child, I went in house at a company, thinking
3:09
Speaker 3: that was going to be a little more predictable pace,
3:15
Speaker 3: but it ended up being an enormous opportunity to learn
3:19
Speaker 3: the intricacies of a business from the ground up and
3:24
Speaker 3: really gave me an education that I don't think many
3:27
Speaker 3: many lawyers appreciate that. Like you've got to roll up
3:30
Speaker 3: your sleeves and you got to work with the business
3:32
Speaker 3: units and every single department, you know, from the warehouse
3:36
Speaker 3: employees to the c suite, has their own initiatives, getting
3:40
Speaker 3: them all aligned for a single vision and goal, and
3:42
Speaker 3: then trying not to be the department of no but
3:47
Speaker 3: really supporting the business in their long term objectives while
3:52
Speaker 3: safeguarding it from the risk in compliance, you know, pitfalls
3:57
Speaker 3: that might might come. So that was that was a
4:00
Speaker 3: very formative part of my career. And then post COVID
4:05
Speaker 3: did go back to private practice and started my firm
4:10
Speaker 3: about two years ago. Now, so I am the owner
4:14
Speaker 3: founder of the Lost Spot, and my vision was to
4:18
Speaker 3: you know, bring this level of accessibility to legal for
4:23
Speaker 3: these business owners that might find this area just super overwhelming.
4:30
Speaker 3: Just like just like people look at finance, you know,
4:35
Speaker 3: as this like box of things that they don't want
4:37
Speaker 3: to look at or dig into, I feel like legal
4:41
Speaker 3: can can have that reputation as well. And really, you know,
4:45
Speaker 3: legal Simplified is my tagline because I do want I
4:50
Speaker 3: want entrepreneurs to feel empowered to understand, at a baseline,
4:54
Speaker 3: not necessarily do it themselves, right, but take ownership of
4:59
Speaker 3: what those buckets are are, understand that they need at
5:03
Speaker 3: least you know, an annual check in, and then really
5:06
Speaker 3: empower them to say, Okay, how am I going to
5:10
Speaker 3: make a plan to mitigate this risk? How am I
5:12
Speaker 3: going to make sure that I don't you know, put
5:15
Speaker 3: my business in jeopardy long term? And all of this
5:20
Speaker 3: goes back to just being proactive about this component. Just
5:26
Speaker 3: like looking at your numbers is how every you know
5:30
Speaker 3: business would be on it. You've got to look at
5:34
Speaker 3: the legal you have to just make sure that you're
5:36
Speaker 3: aware and then you're taking action that you need to
5:41
Speaker 3: to safeguard yourself. So that's the that's the last spot.
5:45
Speaker 3: In general. I've had a had a really fun time
5:48
Speaker 3: sort of building and growing the last two years. And
5:51
Speaker 3: uh yeah, happy to.
5:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I think done today.
5:55
Speaker 1: What I love, what I love about what you're messaging
5:58
Speaker 1: here is simplified. And Melissa, because I think what you
6:02
Speaker 1: mentioned the financial side of.
6:04
Speaker 2: That area and legal.
6:05
Speaker 1: I've heard business owners or individuals they feel intimidated talking
6:10
Speaker 1: with somebody in this space. Sometimes they even feel they're
6:13
Speaker 1: even almost I don't say feel stupid. They feel like
6:17
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm doing, or when they do,
6:18
Speaker 1: when they do finally reach somebody, they don't have a
6:20
Speaker 1: positive experience, it's very negative or it's very overwhelming.
6:24
Speaker 2: And I you know, I hear, I feel the warm,
6:26
Speaker 2: I feel the care that comes across from you.
6:28
Speaker 1: And Melissa likes, look, I'm I'm I'm I'm not this
6:31
Speaker 1: gigantic firm. You're not just a number to me. You're meaningful.
6:34
Speaker 1: You have a direct connection with me, Melissa, which a
6:39
Speaker 1: lot of people don't have. They don't know who I'm
6:41
Speaker 1: going to get I'm just going to call some kind
6:43
Speaker 1: of phone. Who's who's going to be at the other
6:45
Speaker 1: end of the line kind of a thing.
6:47
Speaker 3: You know, right, And I think I think that initial
6:52
Speaker 3: you know, it's a strategic partnership. Your your relationship with
6:56
Speaker 3: your attorney should not be transactional or you're you're being
7:00
Speaker 3: reactive not proactive. If you call somebody that you have
7:03
Speaker 3: a relationship with, it should theoretically save you time, energy,
7:08
Speaker 3: and money because you've already laid the foundation for educating
7:14
Speaker 3: your partner. You're a lawyer on the objectives of your firm,
7:18
Speaker 3: your three five, ten year goals for the firm where
7:21
Speaker 3: you are, and when you pick up the phone for
7:24
Speaker 3: that triage or whatever issue that might come up, they're
7:28
Speaker 3: already integrated and they know, Nope, this is our plan,
7:32
Speaker 3: this is how we've already mitigated the risk, and here's
7:36
Speaker 3: what our here's what our strategy should be because of X,
7:39
Speaker 3: y Z. So it's not often, it's not always done
7:44
Speaker 3: that way, but if you can, if you can navigate that,
7:47
Speaker 3: it sounds a lot less stressful, and it is because
7:51
Speaker 3: you've already put in that work to establish the relationship
7:55
Speaker 3: with somebody that understands your long term objectives and the
8:00
Speaker 3: operational components of your business from a risk standpoint.
8:03
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's absolutely And this is part of the reason,
8:06
Speaker 1: you know, why we do the Business round People podcasts
8:08
Speaker 1: because we want to hear people like yourself, Melissa that
8:11
Speaker 1: share this philosophy of you know, how we come alongside
8:15
Speaker 1: business owners and it's different, like you said, than a
8:17
Speaker 1: lot of other ways. And I think this is so important,
8:21
Speaker 1: the relationship to understanding that you're building and you're collaborating
8:24
Speaker 1: together so that you can really be there because it's
8:27
Speaker 1: we don't want the opposite of like, well I don't
8:28
Speaker 1: want to call it's going to cost me, you know,
8:30
Speaker 1: It's like that's totally counterintuitive. It's not the way that
8:34
Speaker 1: you work the way that I work. But it's like, no, no,
8:36
Speaker 1: we're here to help you along the journey. And so again,
8:40
Speaker 1: so important was of why you're here today. One of
8:43
Speaker 1: the things you're gonna we're gonna walk through the day,
8:44
Speaker 1: which I really appreciate is how as a business owner
8:48
Speaker 1: can I look and start like kind of the self
8:50
Speaker 1: audit process to look at saying, you know what, I
8:54
Speaker 1: might need some help here, here's some things I should
8:56
Speaker 1: be considering so that you can get somebody on early on,
9:00
Speaker 1: like you're saying, Melissa, instead of waiting till oh man,
9:04
Speaker 1: somebody is infringing on my intellectual property. How am I
9:07
Speaker 1: going to deal with this? And it's already late and
9:10
Speaker 1: now it's you're trying to catch up. So being preventative
9:15
Speaker 1: and working with somebody like you so that you're going
9:17
Speaker 1: to actually scale up safely and and and you know,
9:21
Speaker 1: build a strong business. So if you would, m Melissa, I
9:25
Speaker 1: would just love you to have share so because I
9:27
Speaker 1: think it's going to be so informational to our audience
9:30
Speaker 1: here on the Business Mind Table podcast.
9:32
Speaker 2: Sure.
9:32
Speaker 3: Absolutely. So you know, if I'm meeting a new client,
9:36
Speaker 3: we have what we call the spot on legal audit.
9:38
Speaker 3: So when I meet you, I want to understand sort
9:41
Speaker 3: of the snapshot of your business today and then understand
9:45
Speaker 3: where you want to go in the future, whether whether
9:48
Speaker 3: that's a really rapid scale up, whether you're just sustaining,
9:53
Speaker 3: Like it varies for everyone, so the plan will change
9:56
Speaker 3: for everyone. But the main components of that are understanding
10:02
Speaker 3: the structure of your business from an entity standpoint, Right,
10:06
Speaker 3: are you an LLC? Are you a corporation? Was that
10:08
Speaker 3: set up properly? Do we have partnership agreements in place
10:11
Speaker 3: for all of those individuals? Do you have you know,
10:15
Speaker 3: are you in compliance with the local and state regulations?
10:18
Speaker 3: Is all of that foundational preliminary work done correctly? Hopefully
10:25
Speaker 3: it is. You'd be surprised how often it's not. There's
10:28
Speaker 3: so many people that skip the partnership agreement and then
10:31
Speaker 3: they only get to that point where they have a
10:34
Speaker 3: dispute with their partner. And if you don't have an
10:39
Speaker 3: agreement in place with your partners, Texas has one for you.
10:43
Speaker 3: And it's not always what you guys would have agreed
10:45
Speaker 3: on if you had just taken the time to document
10:48
Speaker 3: your understanding. Maybe you have a money partner, maybe you
10:51
Speaker 3: have an equity part or you a money partner or
10:53
Speaker 3: sweat equity partner and knowing what you intended, you know,
11:00
Speaker 3: hindsight's twenty twenty. So making sure those things are there
11:04
Speaker 3: so that as you're growing and scaling, those are not
11:06
Speaker 3: going to come back to bite you as you go.
11:09
Speaker 1: And wait, I want to just worry Melisa, because I
11:12
Speaker 1: think it's so important. I don't know if audience is listening,
11:15
Speaker 1: but if you're getting in any kind of partnership. Please
11:18
Speaker 1: listen to what Melissa is saying, because I've heard too
11:20
Speaker 1: many business owners say I'm screwed by my partner. I
11:23
Speaker 1: don't know how to get out of this. This is
11:25
Speaker 1: this is not fair and equitable. There's a whole host
11:28
Speaker 1: of things in there, like you're saying, Melissa, and so
11:31
Speaker 1: they just I you know, I'm a very optimistic person too,
11:35
Speaker 1: and I want to like, oh, it's going to work
11:37
Speaker 1: out great, of.
11:38
Speaker 3: Course, right, And I will just add one, especially in
11:41
Speaker 3: the family context, people you're going into business with your
11:47
Speaker 3: members of your family, that is, it's even more important
11:52
Speaker 3: to put it in place because that's those are the
11:55
Speaker 3: most wild I believe of stories. So just do it
12:00
Speaker 3: all everyone's getting along and not after Thanksgiving dinner blows up,
12:04
Speaker 3: you know, from a political conversation or whatever the case
12:08
Speaker 3: might be.
12:08
Speaker 1: Right, right, No, So I just want to reiterate that
12:11
Speaker 1: if you're listening and considering, even if you're currently in
12:14
Speaker 1: a partnership, get it checked out.
12:16
Speaker 2: Make sure everything is looking good. But anyways, Melissa, go ahead.
12:19
Speaker 3: Absolutely so and along that line, right, that's a contract.
12:23
Speaker 3: So pulling out not just the foundational contracts, but all
12:27
Speaker 3: of the contracts that you have with your vendors, depending
12:30
Speaker 3: on you know, what your product service is. Where are
12:33
Speaker 3: the levers of you know, where are the risk exposures
12:37
Speaker 3: within those documents and how can you mitigate them, either
12:40
Speaker 3: you know, through insurance or some other deferred you know, liability.
12:46
Speaker 3: There are opportunities to sort of just tighten that up.
12:49
Speaker 3: Have a really clear picture. We source from X country.
12:55
Speaker 3: They you know, if it gets lost in transit, who's responsible?
12:59
Speaker 3: You know, understanding where the uh the dollars could get
13:05
Speaker 3: lost and where your your vulnerabilities could be. So just
13:09
Speaker 3: making sure that one you have a have an agreement
13:14
Speaker 3: yes again you would be shocked how much that doesn't happen,
13:18
Speaker 3: and then that it's you know, up to date and
13:22
Speaker 3: if the terms have changed, getting a new amended agreement.
13:26
Speaker 3: It is not a set in stone document, right If
13:30
Speaker 3: you had an agreement five years ago and you've now
13:32
Speaker 3: doubled the amount of orders, like your relationship has changed
13:36
Speaker 3: and that should be documented and those updates should be
13:40
Speaker 3: put in writing. So statements of work, you know, statements
13:44
Speaker 3: of work getting actually revised and signed so that everyone
13:48
Speaker 3: is aware. And if you are adjusting the terms in
13:51
Speaker 3: real time because of some market condition that you're just
13:54
Speaker 3: making sure that you have all of those things clear
13:58
Speaker 3: from you know, a contract standpoint is key. The third
14:04
Speaker 3: bucket is your intellectual property. What have you developed in
14:10
Speaker 3: your business? And that's just that's not just your name,
14:16
Speaker 3: a logo, a design mark for your your business. That
14:21
Speaker 3: is what do customers identify as you as source of
14:27
Speaker 3: goods or services for you? Do you use a new
14:30
Speaker 3: tabline that's been very successful. Do you have this particular
14:35
Speaker 3: type of packaging that is really unique? And I had
14:39
Speaker 3: one example there was this cosmetic brand that used a
14:43
Speaker 3: burlap sack for their their makeup product. I forget exactly
14:50
Speaker 3: what it is, but that was a trade dress for them,
14:54
Speaker 3: so that everyone who saw that burlap sack for that
14:58
Speaker 3: product knew that it came from them. So think about
15:02
Speaker 3: the brand equity that you've created in a way that's
15:05
Speaker 3: holistic and not just an afterthought, like what is really
15:10
Speaker 3: driving customers to you and what do you want them
15:13
Speaker 3: to remember? And then take steps to protect that, whether
15:17
Speaker 3: it's copyrights, patents, or trademarks, and invest where your dollars
15:23
Speaker 3: are going from a product and service standpoint. So that's
15:30
Speaker 3: the IP and I could talk about IPL day. So
15:32
Speaker 3: if we want to dig into that.
15:34
Speaker 1: We can.
15:36
Speaker 3: But on the growth side, you also want to audit
15:40
Speaker 3: how your employee stack looks right, So we're moving to
15:47
Speaker 3: the people part of the equation. Are you using independent contractors?
15:52
Speaker 3: Are you classifying them correctly? Are they actually W two's?
15:56
Speaker 3: Do you control where they work, when they work, how
15:59
Speaker 3: they work. Are you providing tools to them? Making sure
16:03
Speaker 3: that you're complying with those rules and those can get
16:10
Speaker 3: can get a little wealkey in terms of what you're doing.
16:13
Speaker 3: I know a lot of people in the trade businesses
16:15
Speaker 3: that sort of skirt that line of what constitutes an
16:19
Speaker 3: independent contractor versus an employee. So and there's movement there,
16:24
Speaker 3: so you want to pay attention to what that looks like.
16:26
Speaker 3: Are you providing benefits? Do you have an employee handbook
16:31
Speaker 3: that you need to update because like, for example, everyone
16:35
Speaker 3: updated their handbooks during COVID because we had never had
16:39
Speaker 3: COVID before. And know what the work from home policy
16:42
Speaker 3: was or all those things. So what's your AI policy,
16:46
Speaker 3: what's your social media policy? All these things that are
16:51
Speaker 3: coming down to you as a business owner. You need
16:55
Speaker 3: to think about how you want your employees to act
16:59
Speaker 3: with respect to that thing, and if there's something new,
17:02
Speaker 3: then updating those understandings with them so that you're in
17:07
Speaker 3: alignment on what your vision for your company is and
17:10
Speaker 3: making sure that they're aware of it.
17:12
Speaker 2: Yeah.
17:12
Speaker 1: Most you mentioned a couple of important things that I've
17:15
Speaker 1: seen over the years. As as you know, I'm here
17:17
Speaker 1: in California. We have some really epingent laws and focus
17:22
Speaker 1: on whether you're an employee or independent contractor. Yes, and
17:27
Speaker 1: I've seen some businesses getting some serious hot water because
17:30
Speaker 1: they were treating people as an independent contractor when they
17:33
Speaker 1: really should be pretty like you said, in an employee
17:36
Speaker 1: and so at least evaluating having somebody like Gameless, like
17:39
Speaker 1: evaluating what's the risk, what's the exposure here are? And
17:43
Speaker 1: you know some there is sometimes there is an interpretation
17:47
Speaker 1: of the law and you're saying, are we inter you know,
17:49
Speaker 1: what's the precedent here right? What are the things that
17:52
Speaker 1: are been you know, trending or not, And so having
17:55
Speaker 1: somebody like Gameless to advise you and say, look, here's
17:58
Speaker 1: where your exposure is, you know, setting these things up.
18:01
Speaker 1: I often see a lot of smaller companies, Melissa set
18:04
Speaker 1: up master services agreement, Like you said, these scope works
18:07
Speaker 1: or these task quarders. But they might have set these
18:09
Speaker 1: up years ago and they have not looked at them.
18:13
Speaker 1: And so you know, how often would you say you
18:16
Speaker 1: need to be looking at some of these kind of
18:18
Speaker 1: documents or agreements Melissa once you.
18:22
Speaker 3: I mean at least annually, right, like I every January?
18:25
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, or maybe you do it in the spring.
18:28
Speaker 3: This is like spring cleaning, right, what are you doing
18:31
Speaker 3: now that you weren't doing a year from now? And
18:34
Speaker 3: really ideally it's by if you run your business by
18:39
Speaker 3: quarter yep, like and you have like a quarterly review,
18:43
Speaker 3: did we like just check the boxes? Did anything change
18:46
Speaker 3: on these core issues during the corner? And you don't
18:49
Speaker 3: want to have to be updating your MSA every quarter
18:52
Speaker 3: that would be ridiculous. But at least make sure that
18:56
Speaker 3: you are setting the road map for Okay, this is
19:01
Speaker 3: going to need to be addressed, and that you know
19:04
Speaker 3: where it is in terms of your priority schedule, and
19:08
Speaker 3: it doesn't just get forgotten, right, put it on a
19:12
Speaker 3: list if you if you follow uh, you know traction
19:15
Speaker 3: or the EOS method, you know, put it on the
19:17
Speaker 3: action item list. Just don't let it fall to the
19:21
Speaker 3: you know ether and and never address it again because
19:25
Speaker 3: it's it's inevitably the one that will come right.
19:29
Speaker 2: It's you're so true, that's what I've seen. So are yeah,
19:33
Speaker 2: where are you putting it on there?
19:34
Speaker 1: Because what happens that I've seen less as the business
19:36
Speaker 1: owner they get started, they get these things great, and
19:38
Speaker 1: then they put on the shelf and they're going, going, going,
19:40
Speaker 1: and there's nobody else looking at this. I didn't as
19:43
Speaker 1: supposed to look at this, and the business owner doesn't, isn't,
19:46
Speaker 1: hasn't anybody prompting them like useless as saying have you
19:49
Speaker 1: reviewed X, Y and Z?
19:50
Speaker 2: Have you looked at these things? Oh?
19:52
Speaker 1: No, I haven't. Well, we probably should dest that off.
19:55
Speaker 1: I definitely know them. Play handbooks for sure, you know,
19:59
Speaker 1: always or getting it almost like a living document, but yeah,
20:01
Speaker 1: trying to like should be yeah.
20:03
Speaker 3: A living document. And and you know some of the
20:06
Speaker 3: have come up already, but but so and moving to
20:09
Speaker 3: the next bucket, it's compliance, right, tax compliance, But did
20:13
Speaker 3: you or were you traditionally in you know, a certain
20:18
Speaker 3: subset of products that didn't charge sales tax and now
20:21
Speaker 3: this particular product does, and like making sure that you
20:25
Speaker 3: are just making sure that you check the boxes on
20:28
Speaker 3: your federal, state, and local taxes. Uh that you have
20:31
Speaker 3: your your relationship with your advisor. I am so you know,
20:36
Speaker 3: apparently they're like purple unicorns in terms of finding somebody
20:39
Speaker 3: that that you really resonate with on this on like
20:42
Speaker 3: a CPAs or tax advisor side. But that is much
20:46
Speaker 3: like an attorney relationship. They should they should also be
20:51
Speaker 3: on your list of Okay, this is our new initiative.
20:55
Speaker 3: What is what is on the tax implications for if
20:59
Speaker 3: we start this this new line of services or goods?
21:03
Speaker 3: Do we need to do anything internally to change that?
21:06
Speaker 3: And the challenge for small business owners you're in this
21:10
Speaker 3: like a lot of my clients are not necessarily to
21:14
Speaker 3: the level where they have on staff controller or CFO.
21:18
Speaker 3: So it's like this this just void of help. When
21:25
Speaker 3: you're in this, you know, under under ten million or
21:29
Speaker 3: you know under five million mark and even under a million,
21:33
Speaker 3: you know, you're just you're doing your best and you
21:37
Speaker 3: don't know what you don't know. But asking the question,
21:40
Speaker 3: just asking the question to the professional is where you start?
21:43
Speaker 3: And same on the insurance front. If you start and
21:47
Speaker 3: if you've doing something that you never have done before,
21:50
Speaker 3: like if I were to add securities work to my firm.
21:54
Speaker 3: That is a different component and it require me to
21:57
Speaker 3: disclose that to my insurance carrier because it's a different
22:01
Speaker 3: risk profile of the business than what I originally got,
22:04
Speaker 3: you know, malpractice coverage for so all of those conversations
22:10
Speaker 3: are they might come up in your renewals, but just
22:14
Speaker 3: checking the boxes where are we And then digital compliance
22:19
Speaker 3: This is one that people forget about, but there's regulations
22:23
Speaker 3: on your website for complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
22:29
Speaker 3: There's you know, are your terms and conditions up to
22:32
Speaker 3: date on the privacy policies and cybersecurity measures that you're
22:36
Speaker 3: taking for your business. I know you're gonna have someone
22:38
Speaker 3: on here to talk about that, so, but like the
22:41
Speaker 3: just making sure that it aligns with what you're actually
22:44
Speaker 3: doing with the information that you're collecting. There's are are
22:48
Speaker 3: you GDPR compliant? Are you required to you know, comply
22:52
Speaker 3: with the California Consumer Protection Act? Do you know all
22:56
Speaker 3: of those things are are not necessarily difficult, but you
23:01
Speaker 3: need to make sure that you're there. Do you have
23:04
Speaker 3: a uh provision for the d m c A? If
23:10
Speaker 3: someone uploads a picture, can someone complain about it? And
23:14
Speaker 3: then you have a procedure for how to take it down.
23:16
Speaker 3: Those things enable you to mitigate your risk of intellectual
23:20
Speaker 3: property infringement and other just easy procedural things that could
23:27
Speaker 3: result in a in a judgment for you can just
23:31
Speaker 3: be mitigated. And then you've got your industry. You know,
23:37
Speaker 3: specific stuff if you if you do real estate, you
23:40
Speaker 3: probably should be up to date on you know, the
23:44
Speaker 3: environmental regulations for certain pieces of property. If you're in
23:50
Speaker 3: in the AI space, you want to pay attention to
23:53
Speaker 3: what the Supreme Court is going to decide about, you know,
23:57
Speaker 3: whether something is copyright infringement like those just knowing what's
24:03
Speaker 3: specific for your industry too, should be added to the
24:07
Speaker 3: audit right like if you know, there should just be
24:11
Speaker 3: a little miscellaneous one at the bottom. So that's that's
24:13
Speaker 3: my standard sort of checks for a business, and we
24:19
Speaker 3: could we kind of just give them this list for
24:24
Speaker 3: them to do a self evaluation say okay, yeah, I
24:26
Speaker 3: think I'm doing okay here, I think I really need
24:28
Speaker 3: some melp here. And then when we take that back
24:31
Speaker 3: we say, okay, here's where here's where we're we could
24:35
Speaker 3: use some tightening up, and then we prioritize it in
24:39
Speaker 3: terms of length of time, budget and risk, and that
24:43
Speaker 3: way you're just you're strategically addressing things because to do
24:49
Speaker 3: everything all at once can be super overwhelming, and it's
24:52
Speaker 3: not no one wants to. You can't necessarily sacrifice the
24:57
Speaker 3: the trajectory of the entire business just to address one thing.
25:01
Speaker 3: But you can chip away at it over time and
25:04
Speaker 3: really integrate it into your processes, so it's not so
25:07
Speaker 3: burdensome because if you understand where those lovers are from
25:12
Speaker 3: an operational standpoint, this can actually be integrated very easily
25:16
Speaker 3: into a process. But you've got to know what they
25:19
Speaker 3: are to know where to fit them into your process.
25:23
Speaker 2: Yeah.
25:23
Speaker 1: Oh man, Melissa, you've hit a lot of good points here.
25:25
Speaker 1: I mean, what what I hope business owners are hearing
25:29
Speaker 1: is that you you said, like number one, I'm going
25:31
Speaker 1: to make sure everybody has all your contact information how
25:34
Speaker 1: to get ahold of you in our show notes here,
25:37
Speaker 1: so definitely're gonna be able to find lost spot.
25:39
Speaker 2: And Melissa and I also connected on LinkedIn and things
25:41
Speaker 2: as well. But I liked how you broke it down.
25:44
Speaker 2: You said, you know you're looking at you know, what's
25:47
Speaker 2: the risk that once we finish this on what's the risk.
25:50
Speaker 2: How much time is it going to take? You know,
25:54
Speaker 2: what's the budget here? You know, you're helping evaluate treats
25:58
Speaker 2: because sometimes I find business owners we might choose something
26:01
Speaker 2: that is maybe that's not as risky, and we're focusing
26:04
Speaker 2: on something that and more like we're ignoring something that's
26:07
Speaker 2: much more risky. You're like, oh, I didn't even realize that,
26:09
Speaker 2: because I just went with what I kind of knew
26:11
Speaker 2: or knew more about. And so having somebody like Gameless
26:15
Speaker 2: that's coming through and getting this audit and saying, Okay,
26:20
Speaker 2: I didn't even know what I didn't know right, right.
26:24
Speaker 3: And it has to That's why it's just so imperative
26:29
Speaker 3: that that be a two way conversation because unless your
26:32
Speaker 3: lawyer knows what your objectives are, then that what I
26:36
Speaker 3: think is the priority isn't necessarily what's best for the
26:41
Speaker 3: business in that moment or or where those risks are
26:44
Speaker 3: going to come to head, you know, more immediately than
26:48
Speaker 3: something else. So it's a really it's a really good process,
26:51
Speaker 3: and internally I think it's a it's a great exercise
26:56
Speaker 3: just to go through on at least an annual basis,
27:02
Speaker 3: at least.
27:02
Speaker 1: At least I would one hundred agree with you at
27:04
Speaker 1: least an annual basis. And looking at that and depending
27:08
Speaker 1: on in one industry. And I've done a lot of
27:10
Speaker 1: work in the environmental consulting professional services based Melissa and
27:15
Speaker 1: and and like looking at you know you mentioned msas
27:20
Speaker 1: but sometimes or not say partnership, but what just pure
27:23
Speaker 1: teaming agreements going after particular work.
27:26
Speaker 2: What does that look like?
27:28
Speaker 1: And again, have been working with somebody you like Melissa
27:32
Speaker 1: and say, let's look at what this opportunity is and
27:34
Speaker 1: how you guys are gonna work together.
27:36
Speaker 2: It's a worth why do you investment?
27:37
Speaker 1: If you know obviously you have to look at the
27:39
Speaker 1: you know, does it you know, if you're putting all
27:41
Speaker 1: this effort together and you really want this to work out.
27:45
Speaker 1: I've seen businesses that haven't done that well and then
27:47
Speaker 1: they're really frustrated, but they've won work and then like
27:50
Speaker 1: well that similarly to a partnership, the teaming agreement wasn't
27:54
Speaker 1: clear and so end up the way they really wanted
27:57
Speaker 1: it to be. And it keeps everybody just you know,
28:00
Speaker 1: very intentional about how are we going to do this?
28:02
Speaker 1: So nobody has you know, misunderstandings, right Melissa coming in
28:05
Speaker 1: there and you're like, here, you're an advocate for your client, Like,
28:08
Speaker 1: let me help you get the best for you guys.
28:12
Speaker 1: You know, and I'm looking after you.
28:15
Speaker 3: And really, once you go through the motions, unless you've
28:20
Speaker 3: got just so many segments of your business. Right you
28:23
Speaker 3: sell widgets, we know where we get our widgets from,
28:26
Speaker 3: we know where we're where we're selling them to, we
28:29
Speaker 3: know what states we're in. Like, if you can get
28:33
Speaker 3: your your team aligned on what your playbook is with
28:38
Speaker 3: your lawyer, like, nope, everyone agrees this is the minimum
28:41
Speaker 3: threshold of risk, and then you guys can play within
28:43
Speaker 3: these bounds. It actually makes your sales teams so much
28:46
Speaker 3: more empowered to get those initial term sheets set because
28:52
Speaker 3: everybody knows, nope, we're this is our minimum threshold. And
28:58
Speaker 3: then if it requires is going up the chain, it's
29:02
Speaker 3: it's a really easy Okay, we got everything we wanted,
29:04
Speaker 3: but they want to increase this provision. Are we comfortable
29:08
Speaker 3: with that?
29:09
Speaker 2: Right?
29:09
Speaker 3: And it just can It can create a lot of
29:11
Speaker 3: efficiency on the on speed if you align with your
29:20
Speaker 3: legal team upfront. But that's that's a perfect world, you know.
29:24
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, Well again, as we're getting close to the
29:28
Speaker 1: end of the episode here. You know, I think it's
29:30
Speaker 1: so important to be able to come to somebody like you, Melissa,
29:32
Speaker 1: and like say, like, you know, I'm you know, I'm
29:35
Speaker 1: I'm not sure.
29:35
Speaker 2: I've got some.
29:36
Speaker 1: New contract from you know, a new you know client
29:42
Speaker 1: that I'm going to be a part of, and you
29:43
Speaker 1: know it's not my contract, it's theirs.
29:45
Speaker 2: What am I agreeing to?
29:47
Speaker 3: Right?
29:48
Speaker 1: And there's some other terms in there, And I've seen
29:50
Speaker 1: some pretty kind of they they sometimespecially larger firms of
29:54
Speaker 1: the just this big boiler plate one and it's like,
29:56
Speaker 1: I don't you're asking me to carry X Y insurance
29:59
Speaker 1: or this other thing. And I'm like, I don't even
30:01
Speaker 1: do that stuff, and so it doesn't make sense. So
30:03
Speaker 1: like how but how I don't know how to respond.
30:05
Speaker 1: I don't know legally write how to respond to somebody
30:08
Speaker 1: talking like Unlyssa, somebody say let me help you, let
30:11
Speaker 1: me look at this, uh and be an advocate for you, right.
30:15
Speaker 3: Yes, And I think this is one of the pain
30:17
Speaker 3: points that I I've seen and I'm actually I'm trying
30:21
Speaker 3: to address with my clients. So I built I built
30:24
Speaker 3: a tool to empower internal.
30:28
Speaker 1: Teams to You're getting You're getting that No.
30:36
Speaker 3: I've built a tool to empower internal teams to do
30:40
Speaker 3: that first past themselves with uh aiing a tool called
30:46
Speaker 3: spot check, which is uh it's it's trained to. You
30:52
Speaker 3: can upload the document and it will pull out the
30:56
Speaker 3: key provisions for you, identify loophole, It'll simplify definitions. It
31:02
Speaker 3: will give you a score of risk so you can see, okay,
31:07
Speaker 3: in the grand scheme, what are the problematic provisions. It's
31:12
Speaker 3: going to call out things like insurance, indemnification, attorney spees,
31:17
Speaker 3: key dates, you know, depending on the contract type. It's
31:22
Speaker 3: going to analyze what the most common industry terms are
31:26
Speaker 3: and where this might differ from that, so you can
31:32
Speaker 3: decide as a business right, Nope, this is risky. We
31:35
Speaker 3: need to get this reviewed and changed or you know
31:39
Speaker 3: what we're We're gonna let it fly this time and understanding.
31:44
Speaker 3: You know, AI is not perfect, but it is a
31:46
Speaker 3: great first tool. Sure for a business owner that doesn't
31:51
Speaker 3: necessarily have you know, the firms in Dallas, I'm sure
31:55
Speaker 3: in California and New York as well, there's that they're
31:58
Speaker 3: charging you know, one thousand dollars or whatever it is,
32:02
Speaker 3: and you don't necessarily need that level of lawyering on
32:07
Speaker 3: a document that's like that, when all you need is information,
32:10
Speaker 3: you're not necessarily at a leverage position where you can
32:14
Speaker 3: change the terms, but you need to understand what they
32:17
Speaker 3: are so that you can either shift the risk or
32:21
Speaker 3: you can say, you know, this could actually crush us,
32:25
Speaker 3: we're not going to do this, so and that it's
32:28
Speaker 3: just information, and so I would I've just I want
32:34
Speaker 3: to empower my business owners to look at the agreements,
32:40
Speaker 3: have that level of ownership over them, and it just
32:45
Speaker 3: makes my ability to help so much better and enjoyable
32:52
Speaker 3: to be like, Nope, everyone is aligned on what this says.
32:55
Speaker 3: We all know this is a percentage of risks that
32:58
Speaker 3: we're okay with and we're going to push forward in
33:03
Speaker 3: spite of it, or we're going to push back on
33:06
Speaker 3: that term because we're not okay.
33:07
Speaker 1: With it, right Yeah, No, I mean, so as we're
33:12
Speaker 1: wrapping up here, what's the best ways for folks to
33:14
Speaker 1: get a hold of you, Melissa, because I thinkre's gonna
33:16
Speaker 1: have a lot of questions.
33:16
Speaker 2: You're gonna a lot of pop following up, like, Okay,
33:18
Speaker 2: give me the add to help me, help me figure
33:20
Speaker 2: out where I have this this risk disclosure So.
33:23
Speaker 3: My website is the losspot dot com. You can there's
33:28
Speaker 3: lots of resources on there. I'm on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook,
33:33
Speaker 3: social media. I give a lot of helpful tips and
33:36
Speaker 3: resources there, so follow along. You can schedule a consultation
33:41
Speaker 3: with one of me, with either me or one of
33:43
Speaker 3: my attorneys directly on the website, and you know we're
33:48
Speaker 3: I'm happy to to be a resource for the small
33:51
Speaker 3: business community and look forward to doing that. So thank
33:56
Speaker 3: you so much for having me.
33:57
Speaker 1: No, Melissa, it's really great having you here. I think
34:00
Speaker 1: you gave so many great nuggets. Uh definitely ones that
34:03
Speaker 1: I work with business owners that need I feel really
34:05
Speaker 1: need to hear would be so valuable.
34:08
Speaker 2: I'm super excited about what you're bringing on.
34:10
Speaker 1: With your your news service with a spot Check as
34:14
Speaker 1: well as part of the Lost Spot and all of
34:16
Speaker 1: that you're doing. Thank you for being here on the
34:18
Speaker 1: Business round Table podcast. I'm sure we'll have you back
34:20
Speaker 1: because hey, you like you said, there's annual reviews. We
34:22
Speaker 1: got got to stay up on top of all these
34:24
Speaker 1: legal issues, right.
34:26
Speaker 3: Thank you, David, thanks.
34:28
Speaker 2: So much for being here.
34:28
Speaker 1: Thanks everybody for listening in on the Business round Table podcast.
34:32
Speaker 1: Of course, you love having your comments, your feedback, your
34:35
Speaker 1: reviews online and joining us and if you'd like to
34:40
Speaker 1: be a guest, reach out to me. We always love
34:41
Speaker 1: having you guests like Melissa here from the Lost Spot.
34:45
Speaker 1: Thanks everybody for being a part of the podcast today
34:48
Speaker 1: and until next time, take good care.
34:49
Speaker 2: Thanks everybody,