Hey my fellow business owner, are you taking the important steps to protect your work? Putting in place the necessary legal contracts and policies in place to protect your work may not be the sexiest thing to do – but it’s so important! That’s what I want to talk to you about today, because it’s something I think a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners overlook.
Why do you need to protect your work?
You’ve poured your heart and soul into your business. In fact, it’s way more than just a business to you – it’s your passion and your purpose. So the question is, why wouldn’t you want to protect it?
Even when you are just starting out, there are important steps you can take to ensure you are protecting yourself and your business from liability and risk.
Ways to Protect Your Work
The things you’ll need to do to protect yourself vary depending on what your business is, but these are a few that I’ve found apply to most small business owners.
- Trademark: Trademarks protect anything that distinguishes your brand from someone else’s, like a design, word, or phrase. For business owners, the most useful thing to trademark is your logo. By registering your trademark with the U.S. Patent Office, you are protected if anyone else tries to use your business name, design, or logo.
- Copyright: Copyrights protect the original works that you author or create. This can be important if you create courses, write books, develop PDFs, or other materials.
- Contracts: Contracts between your business and your client or freelancers are important to protect you and the other party. A contract outlines responsibilities and clarifies what happens if anything goes wrong.
- Website Policies: If your business has a website, you should have Terms and Conditions listed on your site. These cover the intellectual property of your site, provide important disclaimers for anyone visiting your site, and help you comply with GDPR if you collect information on your site visitors.
Where to Get Started
As business owners, we tend to wear many different hats. Although this is somewhat unavoidable when you are just starting out, I’m a BIG believer in focusing my time and energy on the things that fill me up and that match with my strengths. Guess what is not one of my strengths? Legal matters!
So instead of spinning my wheels trying to figure out contract language and terms and conditions that are just not in my wheelhouse, I’ve decided to work with experts who can make sure things get done right the first time.
While you may need a lawyer in some situations, there are also great templates out there that can help you sort through some of the legal aspects of protecting your business. I’ve personally used templates like website terms and conditions and client contracts from Artful Contracts, and loved them. It has seriously made protecting my business a breeze! If you want to check out all the templates she has to offer, you can use my affiliate discount code NICOLEPOWELL to get 10% off at Artful Contracts.
What steps have you taken to protect your business? Tell me below!
