Welcome to Being Boss, a podcast for creatives, business owners and entrepreneurs who want to take control of their work and live life on their own terms. I'm your host Emily Thompson and in this episode I'm joined by online business lawyer Autumn Witt Boyd to check in on what you need to be updated on as a business owner in 2023. You can find all the tools, books and links we reference on
the show notes at www.beingboss.club. And if you liked this episode, be sure to subscribe to this show and share us with a friend. Whether you want to grow your business with content marketing, social media or speaking on stages or in highly produced zoom rooms, I've got a podcast recommendation for you. Queue up an episode of The Shine Online hosted by Natasha Samuel brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network
the audio destination for business professionals. On her show Natasha interviews the brightest entrepreneurs she knows to bring you no fluff advice, honest discussions about the mental health and lifestyle aspect of entrepreneurship, and actionable strategies and success stories of those who've mastered the art of shining online in this conversational podcast with some hard hitting episodes on marketing your business and filling the latest of her
lineup. Give it a search and listen to The Shine Online wherever you get your podcasts. Autumn Witt Boyd is a lawyer who helps million dollar coaches and online business owners build sustainable profitable companies. She provides sophisticated legal guidance with copyright and trademark protection, contracts,
team building, and problem solving. Along with her team at the AWB firm she loves helping online educators courses memberships and digital products grow their dream business with approachable advice and the right legal protections at the right time. The AWB firm also offers customizable contract templates that are quick and easy to complete and
cost a fraction of working one on one with a lawyer. You can find Autumn in Chattanooga, Tennessee hanging out with her three kids and husband reading a good book or sipping a glass of champagne before bedtime. Autumn has been a regular here on the beam ball show over the years. And if you'd like to hear more about her, you can go check out the following episodes, all of which are found in our show notes at beingboss.club. She has been a guest on episode number 72,
236, 252, 285 and 317. Hi, Autumn, welcome back.
Hi, Emily.
It's good to see your face.
It's so good to see your face.
I feel like we have to give like a like a cocktail hour update.
We finally did it. It takes an act of Congress.
It does it.
We've got sick people. We've got just stuff going on.
Always something.
But we did it. It was lovely.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So if this is the first time you've heard Autumn here on the show, Autumn is local to me. She's actually just down the street from me today. I thought we maybe could do this in person. And I was like that is too many things.
We'd have to move all of our stuff.
To many things. We're just going to record remotely but very nearby. And we like to have drinks together occasionally. And...
That's no the only thing we do together.
No, that's not the only thing but like but isn't it? Sometimes there's actually there's always food involved.
There's always food.
But over the past
And good conversations. Yeah.
Indeed, indeed, over the past couple of years though it's been a little difficult because of obvious reasons. And this year, there was a couple couple things that happened along the way. But we got together for our annual end of the year. It's usually the last couple of days of work. We get together for cocktails, we have a nice clink, and it's like cheers. We did it again. And it's become one of my favorite annual traditions. And I just need everyone to know that it happened.
Well, and it was especially special this year because I had a big milestone in my business that I like just realized that day and it was so fun to celebrate with you in person.
Yeah. And what was that milestone? Do you want to share?
I can. Yeah, we hit a million dollars in revenue last year, the AWB firm for 2022.
Right? And I will cheers to that all day every day. I'm so excited for you. And you know it's so funny you telling me those things because I do remember whenever we first met years ago you were just getting started and here you are meeting that big milestone.
I was a little baby boss.
You were with baby boss. Now you are the most Boss Boss. Well good. I'm very excited to chat with you today. It has been a whole year since you were here recording a show for us. I've enjoyed having you on the past couple of years to come on and do a sort of like legal recap, right of like what's happening in the world of online business. I feel like and you know, traditional business
mean things change but not super often. But as we are in online space, things are, in some cases getting defined for the first time. So I love having you on at least once of once a year to get us all up to date as to what is happening. But before we get onto that, I want to know what's been happening with you. So you meet reached a big milestone, but what did 2022 look like for you and your firm?
Yeah, it was a great year, we obviously.
Yeah.
We, we really kind of focused on loving on our current clients last year. So we did not onboard as many new clients, we had some changes in personnel, which, you know, can be challenging and can take time to, you know, off board, find the new right fit, you know, bring them into our culture. So we kind of took the time we might have spent on marketing, and really kind of, like I said, loved on our current clients, and, you know, really focused on building
the team and making that really strong. So we ended the year, I think, more intertwined or more, I think we've become a really integral part of a lot of our clients
businesses, and that is just an absolute joy for us. We really love supporting them that way and having them I don't love them calling us when things are going bad, but it is, you know, we love celebrating with them, like when they hit big milestones, or they're bringing on new team members launching something new, and then you know, being there to kind of hold their hand when things are not going so well.
So that that was pretty much our big theme of last year. We did not really we, we were literally almost at that revenue mark that year before. So we really didn't grow a lot. But we had grown a lot the prior two years. So the last year was kind of a stabilizing year, like we had to rebuild some of our systems to just accommodate the number of projects that our current clients are sending us, which is, which is great.
Yeah.
And I don't do that work. It's not my gift. We have an amazing team member who does. So shout out to Brooke, our systems person.
Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. I'd say it's so fun hearing from business owners who are in those phases, and then looking at the year ahead, because I feel like over the past couple of years, we've all had a year or two over the past couple where it's like this where like things need to be stabilized, like you've grown a whole lot. And then you've hired some and you've had to go in and and fix some things in the business to make things run more smoothly,
whatever it may be. And then there's a year where ideally you get to enjoy that and capitalize on it in a way that like you know, you've done all the hard work. And you've created the structure. Now what can the business do? And I feel like this gets to be the year for you.
I think so yeah, I don't want to say we're gonna coast because I think we're gonna kind of take off like a rocket a little bit
Soar.
Yeah, oh I love that.
Yeah, you should soar.
That's great.
Similar vibe, but like, but different. But different. Okay, good. That's very exciting. I'm very, very glad to hear that you're moving into 2023 with such opportunity on the horizon, and was such a great like business structure beneath you to help you do the thing. Now let's talk about all the dirty work. Or not, that is unfair, I should not call it the dirty work. This is these are the things that. It's funny, it keeps us up all night thinking
about all these things. And this is literally your day to day job, right? All of these like legal things.
It's all the bad stuff.
All the things that are getting defined and thrown at us at any moment, whatever it may be. So let's, I want to sort of go at this in two different ways. One, I think, obviously, there's the opportunity to talk about like, what's new, what do we need to look out for this year, all those sorts of things. But I also want to think of this for bosses who may be listening, you know, we've been doing sort of this, having you on the show in this way for a
couple of years. And I love that it creates an opportunity for everyone to think about what's happening legally in their business every year. So even if you listening aren't doing this on your own, just by listening, you're kind of doing it. So I'd like to know from you from that standpoint, when it comes to do an annual check in in your business around legal things. What can or should that look like?
Yeah, at a bare minimum, the number one thing you'll hear me say this again, like contracts, contracts, contracts. That is, in my opinion, and I'll get my standard disclaimer, since we're jumping into the legal stuff. I am a lawyer. I'm not anyone's lawyer who's listening except Emily. So please, you know, this is not legal advice. This is just information to get your wheels turning. But so in my you know, I'm only one lawyer, but this is my opinion. I think contracts are the fundamental
legal protection for every business. When we see problems and it's almost always like, the first question we ask is, let me see the contract. That is always our starting point when we're trying to look at these things. So I highly recommend at least once a year you are reviewing whatever your biggest moneymaker is. So that's going to vary
depending on your business. If you're consulting one on one that may be your client contract, if you're selling online courses or info products that may be your terms of use or terms of terms and conditions, we'll pull that out, dusted off. And take a look, because we changed so quickly, especially in the online business world that, you know, we're constantly tweaking or trying to improve things, or we
get feedback, or there's a problem. But often, we don't think to update our contracts to reflect the new or different ways that we're doing things. So pull it out, give it a quick read, you know, there may just be some little edits, you don't have to work with a lawyer on this, like, it may just be you need to adjust some things. And you can
do that on your own. Or I will say, if you have had significant client, you know, significant issues, I always ask when I'm talking with a new client, like, where's there friction? What what has been causing you, you know, like you
said, sleepless nights this year. And if it's the same thing over and over, it may be that you would benefit from talking with a lawyer, you know, some of those things are just business, but some of them can be, you know, made a little better with a little legal support.
Yeah, I couldn't tell you how many times I've gone back and look at contracts that I've been using for, you know, a year plus, and I read it, and I'm like, Oh, I forgot it said all of these things, or that thing that kept coming up was something that was actually defined in the contract. So I think like, yes, looking at it through the lens of like, what do I need to change, but also just update yourself on what your own terms and conditions are?
Like, Oh, I said I could charge a late fee. I've been having a lot of late payments.
Yeah.
Maybe I should start doing that.
Yes. Exactly.
Could be as simple as that. Yeah.
So okay, reading contracts. That's perfect. What about like, is, what about like, website terms and conditions? Is that one that we really should be looking at every year?
I have great news for you. Those are basically set it and forget it.
Oh, nice.
Yeah. So unless you again, unless you've made like huge changes to the type of business or you know what you're doing. Your website terms and conditions are just kind of, I call them the rules of the road for people who visit your website. So they're kind of just usually if you use a template like ours, it's, you know, things like you can't copy our photos without our permission, kind of any disclaimers or things like that. But they're pretty,
it's pretty boilerplate. So that is not really going to need a lot. I mean, maybe look at him every couple of years, if you change your corporate entity or your address or something, but most of that is not really changing.
Perfect. Anything else. Anything else we should be looking at?
The Privacy Policy is one that does need to be updated from time to time.
Yep.
So I know we'll hit on that a little bit later in our agenda. But you know, kind of if, especially if you haven't updated your since before 2018, which was when there was a big, big change in the EU and the UK called GDPR. That you definitely need to do a little updating again.
That one makes me make a face.
Yeah, you don't have to write this from scratch. Lawyers don't write anything from scratch. We are never reinventing the wheel. So we use templates and things too.
Awesome. Anything else.
No, those are the big ones that I will say the issue that we have seen the most this year, as far as disputes with our clients, is people asked me for refunds. We've just been like, there's been a deluge of refund requests. And then the client, our clients are trying to decide am I going to give a refund? If I do? Do I want to put some kind of guardrails around that, like, you know, am I going to kick them out of the program? And am I going to
require that they don't speak badly about me? So if you are seeing that come up in your business, I would just say you're not alone. We are seeing a lot of that. I think part of it is the economy. I think part of it is you know, we're two to three years past the pandemic surge in online education, and I think people are savvier. I think they're taking a closer look at what they're buying. And frankly, if they don't feel like they're getting what they were sold,
they are not afraid or not afraid to ask for a refund. So I would just as you are reviewing your contracts, make sure that you have a refund policy at all, even if you're even if that is no refunds that should be in your contract. And if you've seen again, if that's one of your areas of friction, that may be something you want to look at kind of how you're handling those.
Awesome, great tips than everyone that's a small to do list for you, right.
Short, very short.
If you haven't done these things for yourself yet, go refresh yourself on a couple of things, make some edits as you can and you will be more legally ready to slide in or slide further into this year.
To soar.
To soar.
Into 2023.
As needed as needed. Perfect. Then let's get into sort of what's happening these days or what is new what
I have PTSD. Yes. we need to be touching base on. I will never forget you brought up GDPR a few minutes ago. I will never forget that spring.Like there was a.
You said that and my face went crazy.
Were you still doing web design then Emily, I'm trying to remember.
Um not. No I was shutting down. I think at that point was shut, I was getting rid of my clients at that point I did not do. God bless, that would have been the final straw for sure if I had been still doing them. But I do remember a series of conversations that felt like unfortunate events that went from like, the high of the Being Boss book coming out, and then having lunch with you one day and you being like, so have you heard of GDPR? And
I'm like, no, what's that? And you were like, it goes into effect, like in three weeks or something. And I was it blew my mind.
Yeah.
Blew my mind.
May 2018 I will never forget.
That was so hard time for a lot of people. So that would really blindsided me. And since then, I feel like that was also very much so a wake up call for me at that point of like, okay, this online business thing is not the wild wild west anymore, right there, we have to start buttoning up. We can't just be like, you know, free flow and out there doing making selling whatever we want. Under
whatever terms we sort of makeup. Not only is there like structures for doing business, but governments are literally getting involved and want us to like, they want us to button up. So I remember that being a really shift in my mindset around doing business and doing online business and really put legal stuff at the forefront of if you're going to show up and do work in any space. But even in the online space,
you better be ready to know what's going on around you. So with that said, especially considering how quickly online business stuff changes. What are you seeing happening this year that we all need to be made aware of?
Yeah, so I've got three things on my list. So let's start with this is not new. But I think we're seeing more like you said, online businesses kind of waking up to this. So we're starting to see more enforcement. And that's Federal Trade Commission regulations, which is like the most boring thing that you can imagine. But this is basically think of truth in advertising.
Yeah.
So this is not new. There's been laws on the books and regulations for a long time. Basically, you're not allowed to lie to people in your sales and marketing activities.
You can't sell snake oil anymore?
You're not supposed to. Plenty people do.
Not legally.
They get that letter from the FTC.
Yep.
Or they get a complaint from filed with the state attorney general. So we're just starting to see more of that I've had that pop up against a couple of my clients this year. So they are definitely taking notice, I think the online business industry has been a little bit, you know, kind of off on an island. Like you said, nobody's really been paying attention. But there's, it's grown a lot,
a lot more, you know, regular people are investing. And so I think it's just starting to be on the radar of law enforcement. So that means all kinds of things. But I would say the biggest things we're seeing are, what kinds of claims are you making in your marketing, and we're seeing that most around like health and wellness, especially weight loss. So if you're, like promising someone, they can lose a certain amount of weight, or if you're using testimonials of
people with that have numbers in them. That is just something to be aware of that you should be, again, just be checking into this, seeing what you need to do. And then any kind of like business coaching, or course around helping you make more money. The FTC is very sensitive to get rich quick schemes. And I know none of us think that we are doing that.
But when you, I've been like paying attention to some of the decisions that have been coming out there, there was a housewife who is being sentenced, who pled guilty to some crimes involving a get rich quick scheme. You're like, that is crazy. But then you look at it, you're like, Oh, that's not that different than a lot of the things I'm seeing. So just again, be aware that there are rules around this stuff. And I think for a long time, people have been kind of acting
like they can do whatever they want. And those chickens are coming home to roost a little bit.
Indeed. And they're bringing some friends with them it sounds like.
Yeah.
I have a couple of questions around this.
Yeah.
Because this is a big one. I've been seeing some of these things as well. And it is just generally time. We all you know, we all fancy ourselves sales copy writers at some point, but if we don't know how it works, like in the real world, because it wouldn't isn't it also kind of fun that online world is now becoming more of the real world where like we're not just operating on the fringes.
I know I used to always say like, in my little corner of the internet. Well, it's like it's gotten to be a bit, a lot bigger corner.
Yeah, for sure. But what does this actually look like? You mentioned health and wellness. You mentioned testimonials. Are you talking sales pages? Are you talking email marketing? Are you talking social media like where are you seeing this happen the most?
All of the above.
Yeah.
The more public facing ones are obviously the ones that are going to get more attention. So social media posts, any paid traffic, paid traffic, paid ads. The emails are usually a little more behind the scenes, but yeah, sales pages, certainly as well. So yeah, you know, think anything public facing is going to be, you need to be especially careful there, although certainly we have had clients that, you know, their sales emails were forwarded to
the local authorities as well. So, and people can record phone calls, like we have some clients who are doing, you know, sales over the phone, which can be a very high pressure tactic. You know, I think another thing to keep in mind is, the more high pressure tactics you're using, the more it starts to look like you are being, you could be violating these rules.
Sure. Okay. And if someone is like, oh, maybe my testimonials are off, or my sales copy, is sure convincing, or whatever it may be. What would it look like.
Maybe a little too convincing.
Right? Maybe I'm just pushing the envelope a little bit. What would a review look like? And what would it look like to to fix some of those things?
Yeah, so I think we've talked about this before I take and again, I'm one lawyer with one viewpoint, but this is how I like to look at things is your when we talk about legal protections, I'm always thinking about risk. So what is the risk that something really terrible could happen? So with this kind of thing, we're thinking, you know, what is the risk that somebody could invest in something you're selling, and lose all their money and get angry and report you to the FTC. The FTC, or a state
attorney general could come after you. If your business is very small, you know, under 100,000 revenue, maybe you work with five to 100 people a year, you are very low risk, at any of this, you're probably not selling things for that much. Your volume is not that high. So this is something like of course, I at least really value running an ethical business and complying with rules and regulations as part of
that. You every person gets to make their own decision about where they land on that, you know, there are plenty of big corporations that are aware of the laws and hire lawyers to figure out how they can skirt around them. So, you know, think about your values, think about the size of your business, and what is your risk, as you get bigger as your
profile rises, you are more at risk. So you know, where I'm seeing this start to come into play more is with my clients who are doing multi million dollars in revenue a year who have a very substantial social media following. So those are
two kind of things to keep in mind up. So if you are in that range, or approaching it, or you think like I might be there in another year or two, you know, we've been doing this for some of our clients, it's really just taking a look at the marketing materials, it usually takes couple hours, you know, reviewing them, comparing them to the laws and the regulations and seeing are there some tweaks we'd recommend? Or are we talking about a whole overhaul of your whole, you
know, kind of marketing campaigns? It kind of varies depending on you know, I have some clients that have, you know, like six funnels with 100 emails, and it can it can vary depending on what your business marketing looks like.
Right? And I would say for anyone who's not there yet, and who's like, this isn't, you know, a problem or also I want to do it right. A lot can be said about starting things well.
Yes.
Right.
Yeah. It's easier not to have to go back and rewrite all those emails later.
Yeah. Yeah, do some honest business from the get go and it becomes significantly easier as you grow.
Well, and the bonus is, you're gonna have less refund requests.
Yeah.
Just everything is going to run more smoothly. I have found.
Absolutely.
Less churn, less people, more people are going to send their friends to you. I just think there's so many benefits to running your business that way.
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So FTC, breathing down our necks is one. As they should either and as they should, honestly.
There here to protect the customers so.
Indeed.
There doing their job.
Indeed. So FTC is one, what is another of your three?
So we have seen a lot of action with text message marketing.
Yeah.
So if you are like me, your phone is probably blowing up with like doctor appointment reminders and all that. It makes me crazy because I'm old. Like I just wish you would not text me because it feels like a to do item and I have to look at it.
Yep.
I don't know. I kind of I kind of hate text. I know lots of people love them. And they're very effective in marketing. So we are seeing more and more businesses you use them, especially online businesses. I don't know about you, Emily, we're seeing them for like webinar signups or reminders.
Okay.
People are using them, like I mentioned for doctor's appointments. For if you are booking a one on one call with someone sending them a reminder, you know a lot of that and then also just, as you would not as in the past, or even currently, you might run an email campaign, people are running text message campaigns. So they may have like a whole sequence of sales texts that they are sending, because the email inbox is more crowded, and the text inbox
is not yet. So there are it turns out many, many rules around how you are allowed to send people texts. And the platforms that are like allowing you to send texts are not telling anyone about that, which I kind of understand because it's not their job to be your lawyer. But I also feel like they're kind of doing a disservice by not even
like ringing the alarm bell at all. Because I pulled this we'd written a memo on this, if you the law at issue is called the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, it's not a new law, but it's kind of new that it's been applied to text messages. The TCPA, you if someone sue's you, if you do this wrong, a consumer can sue you, their damages are a minimum of $500 per text. So consider like you have a I have a client that has like a 35 texts sequence $500 per text.
$1,500 if they find that your actions were willful, so basically, like if you knew you were doing this the wrong way, and you did it anyway. So the damages are really high, you know, 35 times 500. I'm bad at math, but that's a lot of money. The other thing is these are being filed as class actions. So the plaintiff's lawyers know that if they find Sally who got your texts and didn't sign up for them, there's probably lots of Sally's out there, that you're
probably not doing this in an isolated manner. So then we're talking about just really, really huge damages exposure. And there are basically professional plaintiffs, a plaintiff is the person who brings a lawsuit who's suing someone. So there's basically professional plaintiffs who figured out that they can earn money doing this. So they are signing up for things, they are trying to find people who are doing it the wrong way so that they can get the texts and then file a
lawsuit. So it is yeah, we have had some clients who have I mean, it feels like entrapment. It feels really gross. But there is no defense under this law. So it's like if you do it the wrong way, it's kind of too bad. So this is one of those areas that I just want to again, kind of ring the alarm bell, because the text message platforms are not doing that. Just so that people know that this is a higher higher
risk activity in your business. So I just want people to go in eyes wide open, you may still decide that you want to do text messaging, if it's really effective, but there is a lot of Legal Compliance, I'm not going to go into unless you really want to go into all the rules. But this is definitely an area where I would recommend consulting with a lawyer. Because there's internal procedures and documentation you have to do. It's it is not it's not super hard, but it's
just kind of annoying. I would not trust it online checklist.
Right. I think we should probably schedule a chat. Because I literally finalized some graphics today for adding text message marketing to Almanac's newsletters stuff.
So I'll give you like 50,000 foot view, which is you have to they have to give their express consent. That's the biggest thing. And then there's like some other things.
Yes. Yeah.
But you can't just like have a spot on a form where they can fill out their cell phone number and then just start blasting them, which I have definitely seen people doing.
Yeah, for sure. No, as we have been putting things in place we've been researching. I knew that there was some regulations around this. And I know that I want to do things well from the beginning as much as possible. So we've done a good bit of research and things and been very careful about starting it and doing it slowly. It's It's not some some half baked idea was like, you know, two days it
goes like everybody, we are changing direction. Right. Now, we've been working on this for about six months, and really like taking your time to do some research, but I do think it probably would be ideal to have a chat about it.
Happy to chat.
Because too, you know, even in the Being Boss Community, there's occasionally conversations that come up around text message marketing, and really, really it is incredibly effective. The open rates and the click through rates are really tempting.
I'm definitely not saying don't do it. I just want you to do it the right way. And there's just like a couple things you have to do. Nobody wants to get the letter that one of my clients got that is really scary. Or get the lawsuit delivered to your door.
Yeah, no, none of us want that.
Let's stay on the right side of that.
Absolutely. Absolutely. So as as everyone is hearing, you know, all the things about text message marketing. Also, if I can, like, you know, finger on the pulse, you know how always like, you know, get off social media five years before everyone gets off social media, or I think this text message marketing thing is going to be relatively short lived.
Oh, hot take.
I do. And mostly because it becomes so much so fast on such a direct to your eyeballs thing. And I don't think very many people are going to be really diving into this. And if anyone does, I think they're going to get out of it really quickly. And or the numbers are going to tank so fast that business owners don't see really the advantage
of it in like traditional marketing ways. I think there is a difference between marketing and like the doctor's appointment or you know, marketing and your package has been delivered. But I do think for I'm interested to see, but my inkling is that for marketing, it's going to be relatively short lived.
Be curious. It's been used hugely in political campaigns. Yeah. Doesn't that make everybody feel gross? Never give your cell phone number to a political campaign.
No. Absolutely not. I even got I got a scam thing yesterday that I had like a fraudulent charge on my bank. And I immediately went to David and was like, David, I got this text message. I looked at it for a second and I was like, but it looks funny. And sure enough, so anyway, all this to say I do think that I'm interested to see but I do not think that text message marketing is going to get caught
on in quite the same way. We shall see. Okay, text marketing, if anyone is looking, if anyone's already doing it, check yourself. Yeah. Right. If you're thinking about doing it, learn everything you need to know before implementing it. And if you're like, that's not even for me, I love that for you. Um, what is the last of your three?
My last three there is California. It's just the gift that keeps on giving. Our friends in California last year, it's like full employment for lawyers in California.
I bet.
Yeah, so they passed a new law. It's called the California auto renewal law. We call it ARL. So this is meant to help the problem that I myself have faced where you sign up for a subscription and either for software or, you know, I signed up for Rent the Runway several years ago. And I could not cancel it. Like I had to call and wait on the phone wait on hold for an hour and a half, it was a huge pain in the you know what? So this law has very strict
requirements now. And if you're doing business anywhere, you're probably doing business in California. So it pretty much applies everywhere. But this is for paid subscriptions that renew automatically. So I just want to point out, it's not for payment plans that have like a start date and an end date. And you're kind of like splitting up the payments.
Those seem like subscriptions, but they're really not. It is for things like your Hulu subscription, or Netflix, you're paying every month, every month, it just keeps on rolling, you get charged until you tell them to stop. So the big thing there is there some new rules about like the notice you have to give on the front end. So we've been helping some of our clients just make sure their sales pages and checkout pages are compliant. And then there's also some
rules about how easy you have to make it to cancel. Like there has to basically be a button or a very easy way you can't force somebody to get on a call with you and you know, go through this 12 email sequence that I have seen, you know, please don't go. Like that's, that's not going to work anymore. And this is another one where there is a consumer right to action. So like if you Emily tried to cancel and you can't, you can file a lawsuit and you can get pretty big
damages. So it's just another one of those that it's it's going to start being a problem for more and more businesses. So but again, we shouldn't make it easy for people to end their relationship with us if they don't like it.
Indeed, indeed. So I was, I think and I think it's sort of like two pronged, right? Like one of them is don't do skeezy things.
Right?
Number one.
That could be the theme of this episode.
Indeed, indeed, don't do skeezy things. Number two is like is a tech thing. Because sometimes you're not meaning to be skeezy.
Right?
But the button is hard to find. And you don't you haven't you like you bought a template that was not great designed for user experience, or you're using a piece of technology that you're not familiar with, and you don't know how to make that button more visible or whatever it may be. Get your tech right as well so that you aren't inadvertently being skeezy.
Yeah, yeah. And I think this is gonna be like GDPR sorry to say it again. But like now, you know, a lot of website builders will have like a GDPR compliant privacy policy built in and all you have to do is like click a button. I think it's going to become like that where templates are going to start becoming compliant with this because it's going to be very widespread.
Isn't that funny. Isn't that funny. I remember selling website templates back in the day and there was just does it have an about page, a cart button? The bar was low. Right? But these days like I look forward to the day as someone who buys website templates even to you
We're all doing our best. know, looking at a template and seeing the list of compliances that it needs like it is GDPR compliant, it is this thing compliant, it like is just generally California compliant, because let's, let's face it, if it's California compliant, you're probably compliant everywhere other than
like Denmark, I don't even know. So, there I do, I'm glad to see these things happening as someone who came from the Wild West, watching everything be buttoned up a little bit and makes me more confident and doing business with others online. And the same way that I hope my customers are comfortable doing business with me online. Hear, hear.
Love it. Okay, so those are three really big ones. And those are like already happening. Yeah?
Yeah, yeah. Those are not TBD.
Those are real, real real. Right now. Yeah. Okay. Do you see anything coming down the pipeline?
Well, so we have like data and privacy on our list to talk about that. I'm not going to get political, but I don't think this Congress is going to get anything done. So you know, for years, there's been talk of a basically a US GDPR. Because our rules are so much more lacks than the EU and the UK, but I just don't think it's a priority. So I don't really see that changing, although, I mean, you never know, there might be another Facebook, you
know, huge data breach, and maybe that changes. But I think short of you know, some sort of event, some sort of catastrophe that pushes, I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon.
And what would this entail? Like is it pretty much the US version of GDPR? Or does it encompass other things?
I mean, who knows what it would look like in practice, there's lots of proposals that are floating around, but I mean, right now, I could buy a list from you and send them emails or call them. You know, you don't have you don't have to keep your customers data private in the United States, all you have to do is basically tell them
what you're doing. And nobody reads that. You don't have to give notice when someone gives you their email about what you're, what kind of emails you're gonna send them or kind of what they're signing up for. You can opt people in automatically. I feel like every time I buy something online, I get put on a list, even though I've never checked
that box, like that is allowed in the US. So there's a lot of things that just would not fly under GDPR, which has much more, they just, you know, kind of allow people to control their data a lot more than we do here.
Yeah.
We're basically for sale in the United States.
Capitalism. Capitalism, that's super interesting. I, my finger is not on the pulse of most of those things. That's why I've got you. But that is really fascinating. And I think, you know, maybe it doesn't happen quickly. I hope nothing crazy happens. But I do feel like they're all just sort of primed for those sorts of things to happen.
Even with GDPR I feel like there was maybe a two year phase in period, like, there was a lot of notice, because there were so many big changes that had to be made both technologically and just, you know, kind of staffing up people to handle it.
Yeah.
So, it wouldn't be overnight, but we'll see.
It felt like it was overnight last time. Anything else anything else you see coming down the pipeline that we just I just want like illegal gossip is basically what this is.
Legal gossip? Hmm. Trying to think we are seeing it we had cybersecurity on our list as well. I mean, this is not really legal. But we've had a lot of clients with like identity theft scams and our clients are really tech savvy. So some of them have been taken advantage of in scams. Been either with phishing or hacking into their email
and redirecting payments. So just be really careful if anyone is like sending you a new bank account number to redirect even with your team members like I would just you know never accept any of that kind of stuff over email. Make sure you have a phone call voice confirm is ideal. We just got to I think we're just going to have to be a lot more careful moving forward because the scammers have gotten so so good.
Yeah, I can I can second this. I haven't had any personal experiences knock on wood. But I definitely know of a couple of people who have. And it is always like it's so it seems so innocent when it happens. You know, they get an email it's like oh, sorry, like this invoice. This invoice is overdue like would you care to pay and they're like, Oh, this is like, you know, they've like.
And they can they can mask the email.
Yeah.
It looks very legit.
It does.
The one, my client was, one of my clients was taken advantage. And it was like in a reply to an email thread. So it was like it did not come out of nowhere. It was so, so sneaky. So
yeah. Oh, yeah, terrifying.
Be careful where you send your money.
Indeed. And I think that even goes back to like having processes, right like I was talking to someone the other day who was talking about their, their sort of accounts person on their team and just how buttoned up they are right with like, they're not sending money to anybody without like the right password. Whatever, which I think is smart these days just sort of flippantly sending money around is not how we do business
online anymore. Y'all, we make sure that is buttoned up, you're gonna get scammed real easy.
Yeah. And there's really there's no recourse. Like, when that money's gone, it's gone. I mean, there you have maybe like 24 or 48 hours to try and get it back. But it's gone real quick. Usually, by the time you notice it.
For sure. Okay.
I don't want to end on a whomp whomp.
But like, but what is it? What is it good legal note look, like?
I would say, on the plus side, we are seeing like, especially after maybe having a couple of these things happen. Getting burned by a contractor who leaves and, you know, takes things they shouldn't or starts going after your clients or any other things like that. We are seeing businesses kind of putting on their big girl panties and growing up a little bit. So I think that's been a theme of our conversation, we're not in the wild, wild west
anymore. And if you're acting like it, you're not going to have the kind of sustainable business that I think most of us want.
Yeah.
I think we're out of that, like, earn a million dollars in a year and then go live on a beach.
Right?
You can't really do that anymore.
high five to the dozen or so of those of you who did that. The rest of us are gonna sit here and do business sustainably, and responsibly. And I think that's And pay your sales tax remittances, like they will come put a chain around your door. If you do not pay those. It is no
In 2023, yup. really sort of the big feeling that I'm getting from this is like, this is a lot. But you know, I also run a brick and mortar store. So I know what it means to be up to the fire codes. And like, I know what joke. Right. So I have logged it in like an area of business where you just follow rules that are there. And it was fun to do business in a realm where there were no rules kind of for a
little while. But it does make me feel generally better that rules are being put in place, because not only does it protect our customers, it really protects us as well. But as we are also like, I'm also buying things from people on the internet, and I'm doing business in that way. So knowing that I'm protected, sort of from both sides also feels really great. Yeah, and I don't want to. I made a note, like I don't want the bosses listening to freak out and be
like, I can't get started because this is too much. That's why I really do want to hammer home. Like think about the risk proportionately to the size of your business. Like I would not let any of this keep you from starting. But these are just kind of watch outs as you're growing to kind of keep in mind.
Yeah. And also one of the things about the past 10-15 years of online business is made entrepreneurship and business ownership feel so incredibly easy, like falsely easy. Right? You know, you can just like, start a website and have a PayPal link, and you're in business. And that was great for 10-15 years, like those of us who did that. Love that for all of us. But that is not the reality of business like of working in the economy in this way, in any other
place than online business. And it is not the case now, either. So there is an adjustment to mindset that I think has to happen around what it means to be an entrepreneur, even in the online space. And it does involve getting buttoned up.
Yeah, and we haven't really had on team. But I guess that's something I mentioned, too, that I have seen, like with what you were saying. I think there's been an attitude for a long time that like I can just pay everyone as a contractor. I don't need to worry about any of those employment laws don't apply to me. I'm online.
Yeah.
And that is not true. So we Yeah, we're seeing a lot of people getting hit with unemployment audits and, you know, people not paying their taxes and the IRS coming after you like there's serious and again, I don't want to say don't do it, but this like if you're hiring people, you it's a real responsibility, like you have their livelihoods in your responsibility. So yeah, take that seriously. Make sure you're doing it the right way.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes to the team stuff that went has been that one's been really big. And we can almost thank the pandemic for that, right. I mean, everybody went online, and we had to make adjustments along the way. And as we have transitioned back out, a lot of people are left in that realm and need those protections as well. So that facilitated into the Wild West in that portion of how we do it as well. Was there, will there be any wild left Autumn?
I don't know, I don't know.
Maybe not. And I think I'm okay with that. More or less, more or less we have to move into online business being a legitimate thing, right? I think legal and legitimate have those like root words are the same for reason everybody?
I like that. I don't know, Latin, but I bet that's the thing.
Yeah, I made up. I made up that connection. But I would assume.
I mean, even in the normal business world, there's always going to be businesses that flout the rules and try and sneak around things, but they often get caught like it's a house of cards. You can only do that for so long.
Yeah. Okay. Well, no one do any of it button up. Do it. Right. Okay, then, last-ish question for you. Are there any things that you can think of that you would recommend that small business owners stay on top of this year, or it may just in general, maybe just like a final, if you could do only one thing today, here's what you should do from Autumn. Lawyer Autumn.
I'm gonna give you a shameless plug.
Yeah.
Which is our emails are really good.
They are.
So they're not pitchy, they're helpful, we are keeping an eye on all this stuff. So you know, no guarantee that we're gonna see everything because I don't promise that to even my uncle. But, you know, if there's a big trend or something really big coming down the pipe, like we're going to be talking about it. So I have something special that we put together. The 2022 version is out now.
And we're working on the 2023 version. So depending on when you listen to this, you will get the most recent version. And I'll give this link to you to throw in the show notes. But it's Bitly.AWBlegalreport, if you go to that link, you sign up, you will get our emails in addition to the report.
No text messages.
No texts, you can unsubscribe at anytime if you don't like them. But yeah, I mean, you in some way, whether it's our emails, whether it's, gosh, I can't imagine like having a monthly task to like, do a Google but I mean, just in some way, you need to be kind of paying attention to people who are talking about these kinds of things, because it is not something that you can really easily do for yourself. So yeah, outsource, outsource it to, to some other people who are staying on top of things.
For sure. I will say that you're like, I'm not a social media consumer, but a long time well, the things however, during early pandemic, when you were following all that PPP stuff, and really just like sharing and updating and all the things in the way that you best do was so helpful, and everybody it was free. It was absolutely free. And so you know, hopefully you don't have to go into anything like you had to go into that ever again.
Please.
However, the information that you do share on the regular is incredibly helpful. And especially during certain pinpoints have have even helped me make decisions and move forward even as someone who does work with you. But in those cases it was just Autumn online, which was great. So I do recommend everyone go sign up for that.
I mean, it's funny, I had a you know, we do have special client alerts that we send out once a quarter but a lot of our clients just get our regular emails and one called me today and he said I just I saw your email and it made me think of something and so I had to reach out. So you know, my big goal with a law firm is to help people avoid making expensive mistakes. And most of you did not go
to law school so you don't know what you don't know. So you've just got to kind of keep paying attention learn as you go. Outsource where appropriate.
Absolutely. Perfect. Then Autumn where can people find more about you in general?
Yeah, so we are AWB Firm and all the places that's our Instagram handle our website is AWBfirm.com We're on LinkedIn now so I don't know we're playing around with some new stuff.
Perfect well we will include the links of all of those things in our show notes and my last and final question for you for this recording is what's making you feel most boss?
Oh, I have to say so I've started like dressing again after the pandemic.
Yes.
It's still definitely leggings on the bottom but I've been buying some new fun outfits and just like feeling a little more put together.
Yeah.
Makes me feel boss to be in like a nice, well fitting, stylish outfit.
Oh.
So I hope you're enjoying today's look.
I do.
It is very colorful.
It is goregous. You have jewelry on like Yeah, from you know, the bust.
The bust up.
Shoulder up. Beautiful. Who needs to know that you are wearing leggings and probably house shoes under that desk.
Tennis shoes today but I do keep slippers at the office.
Same. Same. I will say I have also, I have also been dressing up like now that I'm working here in Northshore as well. And I have to like drive to work most days, which is kind of crazy. I'm also putting on clothes and like, I even find myself going to bed at night thinking about the outfit I want to wear the next day.
I sometimes like play around with different combinations.
Yes.
Yeah, haven't done it in a while.
I know same. I'm glad that you're enjoying that. I'm glad that that's your answer to this. And then I will also just say ditto, me too.
Love it.
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