Hey, everyone out there in podcast land. We've got a guest today that's gonna answer the question that's on everyone's mind. What do we do with those terms and conditions on our website? Do they need to be updated? Do it does anyone even read them? What happens if you do have them or they're not looked at? Today, we've got Mark from Live Terms who's gonna be going through exactly that.
So tell me, Mark, what was the point of the the terms and conditions in the website, and are they worth what they the their weight or not? Hey, Josh. Thanks for having me. Yeah. That's the that's the million dollar question. Do I need terms? Can I download them? Can I ignore them? So yeah. No. We're getting to a point where, yeah, the, Australian consumer law, it's kinda made it pretty clear. I guess, two
types of websites. If your website is an ecommerce website, as in if you're trading something or selling something or providing a service, then, yeah, you you you need some terms and conditions now. Yeah. Yep. And and so, does it vary if you are selling a digital service versus physical product? Or so so for instance, I'm running an IT business, and most of everything we sell is, professional services, but then there are
a sprinkle of physical products. Does that change if you are selling a physical product like you were saying with an ecommerce store versus Yeah. It does. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's kind of separate areas there. Yeah. I mean, if it's if it's physical, then you wanna be including you your refund, repair, replacement, effective kind of policies as well, shipping policies, whereas it's a bit more of a service, then, there's some
some other areas if you're providing advice. You've got your indemnities and liabilities, and and warranties as well. So it's, it's a little bit of a matrix. It just kinda depends on, yeah, what type of business you are and also what industry you're in as well sort of thing, the value of the goods, how risky, the kind of services are, what kind of advice you're sort of providing. So, yeah, depending on kind of the answers to a couple of those things will depend on
what kind of causes you wanna include. Totally makes sense. And I guess, like, obviously, a lot of people listening to the podcast, have terms and conditions on their website. They may have been reviewed recently. They may not. Everyone knows. It's probably they're not very sexy, are they? Sort of sexy topic, but we're we're gonna make terms on website sexy again. Yep. And, what have you seen? Like, how often should they be reviewed?
What are what's what's the process? What's the catalyst? Yeah. It's a tricky one. It's yeah. You're right. It's it's not very sexy. It's what we write all day. We we think they're awesome. We think they're cool. Yeah. If I if I catch up with people like a at a barbecue or something, and they're like, so what do you do? What yeah. But what exactly do you do? And then you kinda I don't know. You you like you know those t's and c's that everyone clicks on, clicks on, probably 10 a day every time
your iPhone pops up with an update. We write those things. We write those things that nobody reads. Well, it's you you are right. Like, I funny enough, when I first started my business, and this is going back twenty one years ago, government had a bunch of different items that you could read in literature, physical literature. And, one of them was all about GST, and it was a 60 page book on
GST. And I went through and I read the whole lot. When I got my first credit card, I read the the actual PDFs, and I was like, oh, wow. I wanna make sure I'm doing the right thing. But But you get pretty lazy. There's so many of them smashed in front of your face. It's impossible to be able to read them all, which is, I guess, the point of the terms on the website is to shift the responsibility or understanding of the relationship to the end
customer. Is that pretty much the end end goal? And Yeah. Yeah. Or not yeah. Not just gonna shift the responsibility, but just kinda keeping them, kinda fair and reasonable and just making it obvious who's who's on the hook for for what. So if you're the provider, exactly what are you going to provide? And and if you're the consumer, you know, what exactly
can you expect? And when you said about that, that's a good example, about maybe shifting or or applying the responsibilities because the, A triple c are actually cracking down on on unfair terms and conditions and and kind of unbalanced terms, and and they've really been cranking up those sort of fines and penalties. They've revised that legislation, and I think it went from, I don't know, $10 to now it's it's it's really big it's really big numbers and or a percentage of your profit.
And, potentially, if you've if you've really had a bit of a howler, you can be decided for three years from being a director, of a company in Australia. So, yeah, some big penalties. That's nuts. And is it better? Because I know it it a lot of people are guilty of just copying and pasting from a competitor search search for something and then change it out, and and it's definitely not what should be done. Is what what's your opinion on, terms on website? Are you better off having no terms
or bad terms? What would be worse? Yeah. That's a tricky one. Yeah. No terms. I guess bad. He had to choose bad terms. You because you might be halfway right. Like, the argument that comes up might actually fall in the half that you that you copied that we're okay sort of thing. But, yeah, it's it's definitely worth, yeah, it's definitely worth having a bit of a review and and and kinda checking them, especially with these latest, you know, sort sort of
penalties. And I don't think, I mean, I don't think the a triple c are actively going out and looking looking for problems. Like, I don't think they're looking at people's websites, so it's nothing to be sort of paranoid about. I'm guessing the ones that have been pinged have come out of maybe some kind of a a dispute or an argument or it's or they're they're just kind of in the public eye, and it's just been a major a major
thing. But, you know, with AI and and all the rest, you do just wonder, will there be a point where they can just start, you know, or even before AI, maybe if they just load up five or 10 guys in the in in the a triple c just to go go looking and check me out a few things. And I'd say there'd be a lot of websites out there that, yeah, have no or will have the, you know, the wrong t's and c's. Yeah. Well, I think and it's, from my perspective, I could see that there's a number of of roadblocks in
in place there. Like, it's people get busy. They might not read the email or they might have just taken on, from their web developer to just pop something in there, and they're not necessarily someone that should be you should be taking legal advice from, particularly for the running of your business if you're putting that in the public eye. So I would say webmasters would be a bit of a roadblock
when it comes to updating terms and things like this. Are there other things that you've seen in the way that have caused friction, and, have you found ways to overcome that? Yeah. It's it's tricky one. In the past, what we do, we've got a, a big spreadsheet, and down the left hand side, it has all of the and it it's a little bit complicated in Australia because you you don't just have kind of the law. You can't you have acts, policies, which are separate to regulations.
You've got your code of code of practice, and there's guidelines as well, and they're different to each state. So it becomes a little bit kinda confusing. So what we've done is kind of just had that down the left hand side, then all the clients in their industries across the top. And when there is a change or there is, you know, something needs to be updated, we kinda do a bit of a blast out to the people that it affects. And if we blasted that out up to a hundred people, honestly, like,
maybe half are kinda coming back going, oh, yeah. Yeah. We better look at that. And, you know, people get dizzy, and then you're like, okay. Well, here's the change. Here's the exact text. You know where it needs to go on your on your website or in your contract or on your agreement. And then, yeah, by the time it gets to the webmaster or somebody and they're pretty under the pump as well,
often it just doesn't quite go live on the website. And it's just it's a lot of manual kinda pushing for an outcome that, yeah, it doesn't get there. So it's a little bit, yeah, it's a little bit worrying. Like, how do we how do we get them to how do we get these t's and c's in up in the up in the cloud everywhere to be to be updated to me. Correct? And also yeah. And and it it's the the traditional process is very manual involving a lot
of people with lots of manual steps. Like, you you may say your terms need to be updated to the business center. The business center needs to approve of the business center then you you then write the terms, send it across to the business center, they send it on to the webmaster, the webmaster then puts it on to the website, the website then something's gone wrong with the formatting, and then it goes all all the way backwards and forwards through the chain. So, yeah, it I can
see it. It could be a process that's bought with danger, particularly with something that's quite as sensitive as this where you do wanna quite literally dot the i's and cross the t's. You do. Yeah. You gotta get a again, because in in our language, it's it's all about, like yeah. Like like, we we're right. It's a little bit legalese. You know, it's it's it's they are legal documents, and we we're just in that kind of world every day, so it makes sense to us.
And then you you could shoot it through, and then you review it, and you're like, oh, no. No. We then take that bit out, and that'll replace this bit. And, you know, there's a lot of put a double handling sometimes to kinda, yeah, get it just perfect. Yeah. Well, Ken, it could definitely be a drama. And, how often if if if your website's never had a review by a lawyer for your t's and c's, they should be jumping onto it now straight away. Like, I would imagine. Yeah?
Yeah. Definitely. In the area of t's and c's and also privacy policy sometimes get forgotten about. So the office of Australian information, commissioner this year 2024 have just put out in September some more updates to the guidelines. So, the privacy policy is another kinda gray area. Like, often, the the terms of use like the, you know, you'll do this and we'll do that. That kinda gets
all the attention we sort of find. And then by the time you've dragged somebody through that process and they get to the privacy policy, they're like, you know, what what's that all about sort of thing. So there's there's been some new changes with that. You know, that that comes out of all the kind of stuff ups over the last couple of years from big banks and everybody else and offshore and and moving information around. So it's really under
the spotlight. So, you know, yeah, yeah, now is a good time just to give them a bit of a a fraction up and make sure you've got the latest stuff in for privacy policies. I think it sounds, like, sensible time than than ever. But with with that, when you do go to, update them, my understanding is you've got a pretty new cutting edge process that you've developed that is streamlining a lot of this for businesses. Would you like to talk to me about how Lifetime
works and benefits businesses? Yeah. Yeah. It's perfect. So, it's a plug in, basically, a lot of terms, and and the website, liveterms.com.au. And, yeah, plug it a little bit like WooCommerce or Sitemaps or Elementor. You can just, go to the the WordPress store and and plug it in, and it just sits where at the footer where usually you click on your terms and conditions or your privacy policy, and it would just open another web page, on your
website. We've got basically a a tunnel, I guess, a tunnel to an area where, you know, we can look after it for for clients. So if there are changes, we can just say, yep. Okay. This is a change for these states or the whole of Australia by this industry. Do a quick flash report. Let the client know. Hey. Look. This is the latest revision. Happy with that. Yep. Cool. And then we can quickly make
the the the changes in their life straight away. So it's, yeah, just sort of sits there as a as an update, and it and hopefully, it, yeah, kinda cuts out all of the all of the manual and and, you know, human processes. Yeah. Well, I guess it puts the tools in your hand straight away instead of, mitigates a lot of that risk. It's removing all the different delays with webmasters. And even to a degree, business owners don't necessarily need to
know about the terms and terms and conditions that they've changed. They might need to know about the change. Is that fair to say? But they don't need to necessarily approve it, and you're kind of taking on that, making sure they're staying protected straight away as soon as you've seen a change in the industry. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Pretty well. Yeah. Yeah. We're taking care of that kind of risk just to just up update bits and pieces, and, that takes it,
takes that time away. Otherwise, yeah, I mean, directors, you'd be it's it's a lot of hours to stay updated and get the email blast and and always be checking. And it sort of makes sense for one person or one one company, I guess, to to kinda kinda do it once and roll
it out to everyone. There's some economies of of scale there. Sort of, yeah, we're we're trying to provide something that's, you know, at a kind of a a price point where it can take away the headache and, you know, they can just move on and focus on other other parts of their their business. I love it. And have you got any case studies? Just because it's a very weighty topic. That's quite
important. What what case studies do you have out there where people in Australia have been sort of fined or have done the wrong thing, and, and and you've been able to either help them out with that or mitigate the risk before you've seen it. Like, I'm I'm sure you've seen some doozies that you've had to correct. Yeah. Yeah. We do. Yeah. I mean, ideally, you know, you kinda catch them before that sort of sort of
point. But, yeah, there's been some some good ones there. For some specific examples, probably, what I could do in is shoot over to you for the show notes is just some examples in in the blogs in the a triple c Australian Consumer Law. They just sort of publicized, you know, what's what's happened, what went wrong, what could have been prevented,
and then, you know, the final, the outcome. So, you know, if if people have got two seconds to click on a few of those, there's some really big, yeah, really big cases where people have, you know, got a been slugged with a a big penalty, unfortunately. Well, I think it's a it we'll definitely chuck a link in there because it's something that, as a business owner of seventeen years, I'll tell you straight away, we had our terms and conditions
chucked on our website. That's probably actually, it was five years after that we had it reviewed for the first time, and then you reviewed you actually reviewed it. That's how, we we we came in in parts a few years after that. That was 02/2018. So, yeah, so we we're probably getting hours reviewed, but it's totally me just saying it's probably a good idea, and doing that every five years, which business owners, aren't keeping on top of it. That's taking me half a decade to remember
to do something. So it's good that you've created this live term service that mitigates that risk. Because anything could have happened to us over that five year period, and there could have been something that's come in and stuffed us up. And, in in fact, we'd gone from having our website where we're just selling digital services or professional services to then selling physical products, and that would have changed our terms considerably as to what
we have on the website. So it's it's a big risk that people don't hold with the weight that it deserves. So it's great that you've, removed that friction for business centers with live terms, and you've, you've you've put in a spot that that means that, they're mitigating their risk and also saving themselves time. It's a win win for everyone, really, isn't it? It is. Yeah.
Yeah. And and not to beat ourselves up because we're all busy. It's it's human nature to kind of, you know, try and just just stay on the line and and and get, like, get the business going and get it get it happening because there's nothing stopping you from registering maybe and opening a bank account and and and starting to trade, and you're getting paid and and everything's good sort of thing. But no one really there's no checklist out there. No one sort
of the bank manager never says, hey. Have you got insurances? Have you got a company constitution? Is there a shareholders agreement? And, you know, terms and conditions, is there is there things in place just in case it it goes wrong? And it's a little bit like, you know, sneaking five or 10 k's over the speed limit. Like, there's nothing stopping you from speeding on the on the highway, until you get caught sort of thing. So
it's Yeah. Yeah. It's it's that tricky one. And and there's always gonna be a percentage of probably the market that are like, you know, we're we're happy with that risk tolerance or whatever. We're just we're just gonna get in and out of this maybe or, you know, hear a a lot of different sort of reasons for it. But, yeah, I think for, like, a a smallish fee, like, that it's not huge dollars, like insurance. Like, I mean, you you're really leveraging,
leveraging an insurance part. It's probably a good example for what you kinda pay in deductibles and and annuals versus what you could pay if something went wrong with, you know, a a car accident or your home insurance or your business insurance. It's it's a little bit like that. I guess, it's just a a small fee to make sure you kinda got that
that kinda covered. This depends on the mentality of the person, doesn't it? Like, some people, like, living on the edge of the knife, having that risk, not not sleeping and have it take up that mental real estate. A lot of business owners have are reactive instead of proactive until they find out that something goes wrong, and then then then they're very keen to see something change. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. And and that's been the uplift in the probably the last couple of years
because we've been doing this for probably about twelve years. And at the start, it it really was only the, kind of the the medium sized companies, the more risky companies, anyone in oil and gas, mining, maybe construction that are that are kinda kinda worried about it. And but now it's starting to get traction with these fines and penalties, and it seems like it's kinda starting to trickle through to all of the all of the industries now sort of things. So people are getting a little bit
more, you know, aware of it. Yeah. I've got a probably a bit of a weird question. It comes down to what we're saying a little bit about the no terms versus some terms. So, if you if if you just started your business and you decided, you know what? I'm a I know. Pick a category. You're you're Sparky. You've just started a business as a Sparky or selling pies. I registered your AVN number. Your company structure's all fine. You don't really need a website. It's just
word-of-mouth, and that's been working alright for you. But then you do something wrong, you sell something to the wrong person. Where where do you keep your terms and conditions for businesses that may not necessarily have a website or would it be sensible to get a website just to make it clear and have it in in the public eye as to where your positioning is? Yeah. Yeah. In that case, and and that's no drama. It's been it's like a yeah. A
lot of, like I said, manual work and and trade sort of work. But you can attach it to the back of a quote as well if you go around and someone says, oh, I need all my lights, you know, changed out or whatever. And, and, you know, he'll go back or she'll go the Sparky will go back to their office or they might have an offsider or wife or somebody who does up the quotes at the end of the day, it says, yeah, only $600 plus
GST. And if you wanna go ahead, here's our t's and c's. So you might often get, you know, attached onto the back of the the quote or the invoice. There's a couple of apps now as as well. So, there's, yeah, I guess just because you're you're kinda doing manual work and you you don't wanna be running a a website, there are some pretty cool apps where it kinda handles everything. Shows you availability. You can book in with the person, with the Sparky, for example. It sends them the reminder to,
you know, what day to be out there. And then within that app app is all the terms and conditions as well. So, you're kinda looking for those kind of digital spots. I think we've probably gone past the days of, you don't be turning up with a 10 page document and say, you know, sign initial release 10 pages. Yeah. The carbon paper. The carbon paper making a copy for them. Okay. Yeah. On the, yeah, on the bonnet of the of the sort of thing. Like, probably, yeah, probably
not probably past all of that. But, yeah, just having them having that kind of coverage at least in a in a quote or something. And then that's the old argument. Like, does the consumer does the consumer read the 10 pages, or are they just like, I'm in a hurry. Kids are screaming. The, you know, the the house needs to be fixed. Let's just go ahead. But at least, you know, they're there, and they're they're fair and reasonable. Everyone knows sorta
sorta what's going on. So in a couple of places like that, you might be able to tuck them in. Yeah. Cool. We're we're getting close to the end of the podcast, and I would love to hear from you a a couple of questions, I guess. What drove you to start live terms, and how has it brought business freedom to you? Obviously, the podcast Business Built Freedom. I'd love to hear if it's been doing what it's meant to be doing and
and what the future looks like. Yeah. Yeah. It it has because the initial push were the the clients who who are already paying us to do, you know, to to do the job manually. So running all the spreadsheets and ringing them up and all the rest. So we basically converted them from a process where they're paying a retainer or a fairly heavy, you know, hourly rate for us to look at things. And then for them to be bugged by us and updates and
all the rest of it, it's kinda twofold. It's it's actually costing them a little bit less. Generally, we we pitch the terms around around $20 a month. So if you've got terms and conditions and a privacy policy, it, yeah, might be $40 a month, and we take care of all of that. Whereas before, manually, you know, just the hours, it was it was quite a little bit
quite a lot more expensive for them. So they we've had that kind of initial push where people are, like, already in that space with us or with somebody else anyway, and they're just like, yeah. We jump over to that, and that's been pretty good. And then out in the in the real world, I think, yeah, people are starting to find us, you know, organically now and through through ads and word-of-mouth and that kind of thing and and kinda coming through. And and, yeah, I think that so far, they've
been pretty happy with, like, no one's come back and said, oh, gee. That sounds like a lot of money. You know, $20 is a cup of coffees these days to take away the headache and and the work sort of things. So, yeah, so far, the pickup's been been pretty good. I love it. I think it's it's a it's a game changer for the entire industry because of the scale that it can be done at and the speed that it can be delivered. It's, I really
like it, and I've I've really appreciated our chat today, Mark. Yeah. No. Thanks, mate. Yeah. Yeah. It's gonna be an interesting sort of ride. Yeah. Yeah. And that and that that leads us to the the freedom part, I guess, because we're doing a job kind of a little bit smarter than working harder, as I say. And instead of being manual, we just we can ban ban out these updates so quickly, and then you times out by how many websites there are in
in Australia. And, you know, if if we have 10% of the market even sort of, switch to the live terms, it it's really exciting to make sure that that you know, it's a lot of people that are covered and, you know, are all up to date, and you can focus on other things that are a little bit more interesting than long terms and conditions. Well, you you've managed to make terms and conditions sexier, so you've done well. Yeah. Yep. That's the
yeah. Brilliant. And, over the years in business, is there a a favorite book that you've read or resource that, you'd say has, shaped the person that you've become? Yeah. We I do a lot of reading. Yeah. I do. I mean, get a lot of recommendations and, and things like that. But and I'm a little bit old school. Probably back to kind of philosophy, kinda Greek like Aristotle, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius. I think the writings of those guys, it's it's
something you can read. I mean, like you said about terms of conditions five years later, you you pick up again five years later, and you're and you're in a different spot or you're in a different business or you're a different sort of frame of mind. And it's it's a completely different kind of message or interpretation again. So I'm kind of a big fan of the the old school sort of
stuff and, you know, yeah, it's helped your business. And it applies to everything in life and and what you do is so that that's my kinda fix is going back to the the the back to the roots, I guess. I think, well, there was a a quote more knowledge equals more happiness or something like that. Am I getting I might be stuffing that up. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. I think that's, yeah, pretty well paraphrased onto, yeah, what it is. Yeah. And it just
and it just explains, you know, you could apply it to everything. Macroeconomics, what's happening, running a household, a business, any kind of goal or something you're sort of working towards and just, yeah, help to kinda declutter the mind a bit because you are hit from so many different angles as a as an employee or an employer, and and now we've we've kinda confused everybody else with a with another set of another terms and conditions, but I didn't think they had a problem until half
an hour ago. So there's you know, you are and the phone goes off all the time, so you are hit with so much going on. And it it is good to kinda, yeah, just be able to zoom out a little bit and kinda prioritize and, you know, what do I work on first, what's important, and and what's not important. And I think, some of the old philosophy kinda really helps with understanding that and obstacles and, you know, it's, just because this happened today and it wasn't the plan, well, maybe that is the
new plan and and something kinda kinda cool comes out of that. And that's what we found with live terms and and all of this is if the obstacle wasn't there, I guess, then we wouldn't we wouldn't have a a solution to go around and help people. So it's kind of a pick up. The obstacle is the path. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. That kind of yeah. Kinda. Yeah. Obstacle is the way. Yeah. It's yeah. It's interesting. It's cool. Yeah. Yeah. We like that, and and it's a
good team. We've got a really good team with that, and everybody kind of, yeah, had those quotes around and helps each other out and kind of yeah. Yeah. So when you're surrounded by, yeah, those kind of people, then you you're always, yeah, you're always looking for new knowledge and learning new things. Yeah. Cool. Oh, I
love it. Well, Mark, I've loved having you on the show, and thank you very much for your time and imparting all this awesome knowledge on how we can make it sure everyone's terms and conditions on their website are better with live terms. One website at a time. We're gonna we we we looking forward to it. Yeah. It's gonna be good. Yep. Take a note about one at a time. Yep.
And, if if anyone does have any more, questions that they have for Mark, we'll have him in the, group chat on Facebook as well as we'll put Danny's details here to be able to reach out on the live terms website and make sure that your terms are doing what they're meant to be doing, and you're you're not gonna be stuck stuck in a rut. And we'll chuck down some case studies on on some some of the the the ways that people
haven't haven't had their terms right. If you have enjoyed the podcast, leave us some love, give us a give us a review, and, as always, stay good. And thank you very much, Mark, again. Yeah. Thanks, Josh. Thanks for having me. See you, mate.