Legal Tips for Founders

Speaker 1: hi I'm Melanie bar welcome to the she builted experience with Melanie you're here because you want to experience the life and business that you crave join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it a career and business that they love we dive into the topic of how they built it and talk about everything from Having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech innovation magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's dive in Kelly Jones Esquire is the founder of Kelly Jones law she works to counsel entrepreneurs small business owners and online coaches through the process of Legally protecting their business mainly through Federal trademark registration contracts and other business strategies thank you for joining us Kelly have you always wanted to be a lawyer and share with us the pivotal moment when you decided to launch your business and what gave you

Speaker 2: the courage to do it I didn't know that I always wanted to be a lawyer in 2020 as I was working at a private firm I of Co courts were closed so obviously we were not going to court every day that's when I decided to open my own firm so it's been a little over two years now if

Speaker 1: someone is considering getting a trademark or if they already have one what are the questions you should ask yourself if someone doesn't have a trademark and how do you suggest we protect our Brands if we do have one the

Speaker 2: first thing I usually ask people is do you have anything that's in your business that you want to use for the foreseeable future your business name maybe it's you know a podcast name a course name tagline or slogan or logo that you use something that you see lasting in your business for at least the next couple of years if you say yes would you be upset if someone else had either the same exact name or something very similar within a similar industry if someone was a copy brand even if they didn't know they were be doing that um and and if so then you should definitely think about getting a trademark because the benefit of it is protecting yourself from those copycat people even if they're not intending anything malicious from it it's still your brand at the end of the day and the point of the trademark is so your brand stands out and people don't confuse your brand with someone else and I've had that happen to me she built it his trademark someone started a she built it podcast and I thought okay this is too close because there she built it and built by she that are close it's interesting because there's also some she built it design or she built it home design which I I don't necessarily think those could be confused she built it about empowering women it's different if you building a house um because that's not what we do

Speaker 1: but how do you suggest that we protect

Speaker 2: ourselves when those things happen yes the first thing is look at is there really a possibility of confusion that's where you look at what you're doing and what they're doing and that's kind of where it starts because you you can't get a monopoly over just words for absolutely everything but it's really in connection with what you're doing and anything that a consumer might find it confusing if you are a personal finance coach and you have something that's the same name as someone else but they're selling hot sauce you know I wouldn't worry about that too much because very different if the industries are similar the names are kind of similar then you have to look who has a trademark who was using at first it all comes back to like you don't want the customer to be confused and I've had that happen to me too before someone I met said didn't I meet you at a conference in Canada and I thought I know exactly who you're talking about because our our brand names aren't the same but they're very similar yeah so it's interesting when you have those those points of confusion

Speaker 1: yeah definitely share with some of the

Speaker 2: legal ABCs of an online business what are some of the important things we should know yes usually there's a couple of things that I focus on and that's thinking about what type of business entity you want whether it's an LLC or a corporation that along with contracts and trademarks every business is different someone who is taking clients on oneon-one maybe their first thing is a client contract whereas someone else who is like the financial industry it's still online but they're talking about investing you might want to make sure you have your LLC as soon as you start those are the three main things that I say to look at and then of course depending on what exactly your type of business is may depend on which one is

Speaker 1: more of a priority first we have all seen the content copycats on Instagram we were just talking about that how do you recommend we protect ourselves from

Speaker 2: copycats yeah there's two things really

Speaker 1: what are your suggestions for adding

Speaker 2: additional income one thing that I recommend business owners to do is create some type of digital product for me those are my contract templates templates are a way for me to package like my expertise in a way that makes more affordable for entrepreneurs and now they can purchase it over and over again without me having to invest more time or money into creating things so this is a great way for entrepreneurs to make another stream of money you know and it doesn't have to be templates it could be a course or an ebook or email challenge or something like that there's something really for every type of business owner that doesn't have to mean adding more time on your schedule or more work and stress in your life so

Speaker 1: true and really good advice can you tell

Speaker 2: us about your contract templates I have contract templates that are mostly for online business owners course creators coaches service providers the way that I break down contracts is that there's four types of contracts so I have contracts in each of those four types

Speaker 2: main ones that you'll need either as you start your business or as you continue

Speaker 1: to grow and scale it that's great for people just starting out we all need those agreements and having to try to tailor them for each situation could be really timec consuming so having one

Speaker 2: that's mostly tailored I'm sure is really helpful yes definitely I try to think of all of the what if scenarios what if could go wrong and that's what goes into your

Speaker 1: contract magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy what is the one way that you make sure to find and live your joy each day

Speaker 2: focusing on things that I like doing whether that is playing with my dog or social media so like content creation

Speaker 1: for me is something that I actually enjoy it's so interesting because I like the social media part too I don't necessarily want to do it full-time but it's fun and it's creative it get you out of your daily routine exactly it's like my creative Outlet especially when the legals can be so boring it's my non-boring thing your creative side which is so fun yes exactly

Speaker 2: thank you for joining us today Kelly can you tell everyone how they can find you

Speaker 1: sure you can find me on Instagram at lawyer Kelly Kelly with an iore or Tik Tok or my websites Kelly Jones law or lawyer

Speaker 2: Kelly thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello Sheil it.com on our Sheil website or at Sheil it on social thank you to my editor Rich draino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave