A (3:35)

Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

B (3:38)

Well, let's start a little bit with your journey. What led you from traditional law to launching your own firm and ultimately legalpreneur?

A (3:44)

I was not made to work for anybody, you know, I, I thought I had my dream job right out of law school working in big law. And I, I honestly thought I was set for life. And I remember the first week I was there, I, I immediately was like, how, how do I get out of here? I'm. I can't stay here. And I just remember seeing, you know, people that were out the door for retirement, and it hit me. I remember thinking like, they've been here since they were my age and there's no way that I can spend the next 40 years of my life sitting in this chair. And luckily, maybe not so luckily, I already had another business that I had sold by the time I started at the big firm. And so that gave me a taste of entrepreneurship and also a network of business owners. So that network of business owners really is what catapulted me to starting my own firm because they kept coming to me when I was at the big firm. And the big firm obviously didn't want to help small businesses, which is totally understandable. Just not their. Just not their foreplay. And I knew somebody had to go serve these businesses. And I said, hey, why not me? So I launched my own firm April of 2018, and here we are almost eight years later. And it's just been a wild, wild ride. Wild, beautiful ride. And just so many ups and downs, twists and turns, and a beautiful learning journey as well.

B (5:10)

What's been your biggest frustration and going out on your own so far, my

A (5:14)

biggest frustration, I don't know that it's been a huge frustration. More just different paths of learning, just different avenues of learning. Like I always say that entrepreneurship is nothing more than a self development journey and it has just opened my eyes to brand new worlds that I didn't even know existed. And maybe, maybe the most frustrating thing, especially in my own healing journey, the most frustrating thing is the never ending onion. And just layer after layer, healing, healing. And it never ends. But also it's beautiful because every day we get to be better and better.

B (5:53)

I love it. Well, I find a lot of entrepreneurs and I have a lot of coaching clients these days and they hesitate to address legal concerns early in their business journey because they're not focused on that and they don't think it's important. What do you think are the biggest misconceptions small business owners have when it comes to legal protection?

A (6:09)

Yeah, I mean, honestly the biggest is it legal is scary and it's intimidating. And obviously it's not the sexy topic like sales and marketing. But honestly, if you do tackle the legal side of business proactively and you don't wait until there's an issue. And what I mean by waiting is waiting until you get that cease and desist letter, waiting until you get sued. If you're not waiting for that and you're tackling it head on, it's not expensive, it's not intimidating, it's not scary. And legal protection can actually help create brand new revenue streams, streams within your business. And that's really where it gets to be fun, is when you have all the protections in place and you've created your business, you've built your brand and then hey, we can bring in these new revenue streams because you have built this brand. So my, my biggest piece of advice to entrepreneurs is don't wait to tackle the legal stuff. And it doesn't have to be expensive like it can. Honestly, depending on what kind of business you have, it can be just a few hundred dollars. Doesn't it's people think they build it up in their head like, oh, it's thousands and hundreds of thousands and spend this money on a lawyer. And it doesn't have to be that. We, we built it up in our heads and really we just want to tackle it head on and be proactive.

B (7:21)

Well, can you have a recent example of something like that that's only a few hundred dollars that's helped somebody create a revenue stream? I'm just curious.

A (7:28)

Absolutely. So I, there's what I call the Big three. And these are the big three areas of legal protection that every business needs. This is your business entity, which is usually an llc, your limited liability company. And I've worked with a lot of solopreneurs that hear, oh, don't worry about the LLC until you're making a certain dollar amount. It's false, very bad information. And what most people are talking about or what they're referring to there is the S Corp election, which is a tax election. And that really doesn't benefit you. And you really can't make that election until you're making a certain dollar amount. But the LLC is personal liability protection and you want that first from day one. So ignore anybody that says, hey, don't worry about the LLC until you're making a certain dollar amount. You want that LLC from day one. And that honestly, if you're a DIY or do it yourselfer, you can file it with your state. Most states are $50, $100 to file the LLC. And if you work with a third party filing company such as LegalPreneur, it can be a few hundred dollars, a couple of hundred dollars, and we file your llc, get your ein, get your operating agreement, basically get everything you need up and running without spending thousands on a lawyer, and then you have your contracts. So if you're a newer business owner and you have what I consider a basic business, more like a service based business, a coaching business, a lot of the contracts, you can start with contract templates. Because what happened was when I was doing a lot of contracts in my law firm, new business owners would come to me asking for contracts for the business. They didn't know what they needed or wanted in their contracts. And so I was just essentially giving them my best practices in a contract. And after, you know, doing that for a number of clients and they were paying for my custom contract, but I was just slapping their name on it. I realized, hey, we can just sell these as templates. And that's how really how LegalPreneur came to be its own company was we started legal related services. So we have, we do the LLC filing through LegalPreneur, we have contract templates through LegalPreneur, and then we also have a trademark course. So talking about intellectual property, this is where you can, you can create those additional revenue streams is protecting your intellectual property and then monetizing it down the road. So if you have your signature coaching method, and then you've been coaching people for so long, typically what happens is you'll have coaches that come back to you and they say, hey, can I teach this? Can I coach people on this? And then that's where you can create a certification program. And a certification program. And there's so many ways to do this. It can be a license probe, a license agreement. There's so many different ways to do it. But a certification really can create true passive income, which a lot of people don't realize. Passive income is such a huge buzzword. But one of the only true ways of creating passive income is intellectual property royalties. And that's where a certification program can come in. Because you train them up front, they pay their upfront fee, and if they want to maintain that licensure, they want to maintain the certification, they have to continue paying year after year. And that's where a lot of the passive income can come. So that's kind of in a nutshell. My big three.

B (10:50)

I love it. And it's interesting because we are actually in the process of launching a blind blaming certification program to teach other people how to go out and use the framework to help others.

A (10:59)

Exactly. And it's. It's this beautiful natural progression. And clients will come to me like, oh, I want to create this certification program. How do I start? And I tell them, hey, you start by building your brand. You build a brand that other people are such fans of, they want to come and do what you're doing, and then you can, you know, there's a hundred ways to skin a cat, and it's, do you want to have coaches that are underneath you in your business, or do you want to empower them to go have their own business? There's no right or wrong answer. It's what's right for you. I personally love the certification programs because you can actually grow the brand a hundred times over by other people building their own brands.

B (11:36)

I love it. Well, you know, the podcast is about blind blaming. So in your experience, how often do entrepreneurs misdiagnose their legal issues?

A (11:45)

Oh, gosh, every day. Every day. And it's okay. I mean, that's not their. That's not their area of expertise. And that. That's why they have people like me. That's why they have their lawyers. They have people to point out those blind spots. And my favorite client is those that come to me and they're like, hey, I don't know what I need to know. Please tell me what I need to know. Please tell me what I need to do. And then, of course, you have those that come to. That come and they're like, hey, I need this done. I need that done, it should only take this amount of time. It should only cost this. Am like, hey, I'm not the person for you. Like, I understand that maybe you have been treated not so well by a lawyer before, but this is how we do things here. But honestly, it's really just those that are open minded and open to creative protection and creative ways to make sure that their business is protected. Plus also creating new revenue streams down the road.

B (12:38)

Well, as you know, beyond blind blaming, as I'm covering the real root of the problems, what are some of the most common legal pitfalls that entrepreneurs overlook until it's too late?

A (12:47)

Yeah, so the number one issue, there's really two, and they both have to do with intellectual property. First is trademarks. So what you have to understand with trademarks, this is your brand identity, your brand name, your logo, your slogan, any unique business identifier, your podcast name, the name of a service, the name of a product, any unique name within your business, it can probably be protected with a trademark. What throws a lot of people off when they're naming their business or a new program, a podcast is they'll search, they'll Google the name they want to use. They don't see an exact match like, perfect, we can use this. But trademark infringement is not just when it's the same exact name, it's when there's anything similar enough to where consumers are likely to be confused. So the name doesn't have to be the same to the infringement. It only has to be so similar that consumers, if, if a consumer pauses to question, hey, is this person that person? Does this belong to this person? Even the thought alone, the pause, that could be trademark infringement. So we're not looking just for the same exact name, we're looking for the similar names. So that's what throws a lot of entrepreneurs off. And really, the quickest way for an entrepreneur to get in trouble is trademark infringement. Because they've searched, they think they're doing their due diligence, which they've done some due diligence. It just isn't enough to relieve them of trademark infringement. So make sure you're doing a very thorough trademark search. Obviously, as a trademark attorney, I'm very biased. I think you should trademark as soon as possible, but you at least want to do a very thorough trademark search to ensure that you're not infringing on anybody's trademark. And the second thing is copyrights. So copyrights are your content, your creative work, your photos, your videos, your blog posts, your website copy, and the number one way I see entrepreneurs get in trouble with copyrights is using photos that don't belong to them, right? So they'll, you know, they're, they're slapping together their first website on their own and they go to Pinterest, Google, find cute photos to match their, their vibe. Guess what? Just because you can download it on the Internet doesn't mean you can actually use it in your business. And trust me, there's so much software out there, even I, I get clients that come to me that posted a photo and a blog five years ago and just now they're getting a letter that says, hey, you have to pay this money. And guess what? They do have to pay. I mean, they likely will have to pay something because copyright infringement is a very open shut case, especially when it comes to photos. Because if you use that photo, it's infringement. Even if you give credit, that does not relieve you of infringement.

B (15:33)

Interesting.

A (15:34)

It only relieves you of willful infringement.

B (15:36)

There's also a lot of scams out there for that very thing too, right? Because I know we've been hit with that because we've always bought our photos from either like Adobe or a big name photo person. And we've been hit several times where my staff's freaking out and I'm like, no, guys, we have the license. This is a scam. We don't, don't even reply. Don't engage them because they're very convincing. Any advice there?

A (15:56)

Yes. If you receive a letter, you want to run it by a lawyer just to see if it's a scam, number one. Number two, if it's not a scam, the way it works is there's a couple of law firms out there that basically create this as their business model and some of them are legit. Courts are not happy with it because they don't want the court system to be a business model. But lo and behold, I mean, it's, and when it comes to those firms, what happens is they'll send out just waves of letters saying, hey, you use this photo, you owe us this money. Unless you can show proof that you have a proper license. In a license is just permission to use permission, it's just permission. So if you can show the permission, the license, then hands are clear, you're clean, no harm, no foul, and you don't have to pay anything. But if you don't have that license, and oftentimes what can happen is you're, let's say you hire a developer or you hire somebody to create your website. If they don't know, I've had that happen so many times where it's somebody they hired. So they'll send out the waves, see who responds, collect the easy money, and then whoever doesn't respond or doesn't want to pay, they'll do further digging like, okay, who has more money to pay? Should we actually sue them? And then those will be the people that they sue. So even if you don't respond right away, they could still come after you years later and actually sue you. I've seen it happen time and time again, unfortunately.

B (17:30)

Interesting.

A (17:31)

Yeah. No fun.

B (17:32)

Yeah. So let's say somebody is either startup or they're an established business practice. There's a lot of different listeners that we have, some in the medical field, some not. What are some of the things that they need? Let's just start with startups, and then we'll talk about established business. For a startup business, what are the top three things that they need to do? Right away? I heard you say, I wrote down the entity making sure the LLC is set up correctly, and then I heard you say contracts and templates, but I missed the third one. What was the third area?

A (17:58)

Intellectual property.

B (17:59)

I got you.

A (18:00)

So IP is patents, trademarks, and copyrights.

B (18:02)

Okay.

A (18:03)

Patents are inventions, copyrights are your content, your creative work, and trademarks are your brand, your brand identity.

B (18:10)

Okay. Anything else?

A (18:11)

And for startups. Well, for startups specifically, of course, all of those, those three apply, but especially when it comes to startups, your funding, your. Who are the owners? What's the ownership percentage? Are you. Do you have investors? What. You know, what does that look like? What does dilution look like? So there's a lot more questions when it comes down to the operating agreement, the investor pool. So there's definitely a lot more that goes into the operating agreement and the startup document. But still the same applies as far as your contracts, your intellectual property. Definitely want to make sure those are taken care of.

B (18:52)

Okay. Well, can you think of a moment when a business owner thought they had one problem, but it ended up being something else? Do you have a story that comes to mind or did you think of anything, maybe in regards to yourself? As you're reading and prepping for the podcast, when we talk about blind blaming.

A (19:07)

Yeah, I.

B (19:09)

Or where it pops up in your own business, but go ahead. Sorry.

A (19:12)

This one is always a favorite of mine because it happens so often, but this was very pretty early on. This same client, she's had a number of legal issues, and I don't want to call it blind blaming, but just somebody that tries to push off the legal issues and then they just become bigger issues because they just fester and fester. So very early on she comes to me and she says, hey, I need to get these new contracts written. Here's what's in my contract right now. This is what I want it to say. And it was just a few changes, but after reading her contract and she got them downloaded off of one of the online like it was either Legal Zoom or Rocket Lawyer, and I said, hey, her name. Your contract actually says the opposite of what you think it says. And unfortunately I see that happen more often than you would think. So not that. And contracts aren't supposed to be confusing. They're not supposed to like, yes, there's legalese in there, but any normal person should be able to understand and read what's in the contract. So unfortunately, what she thought was in the contract was not in the contract. So we had to do a lot more revamping on her contracts. Luckily, it wasn't an issue. She was being proactive about buttoning up her contract. So it wasn't an issue with her contractors or anything. It was just something that we had to take care of. And something I want to point out here because unfortunately it happens more often than you think. So especially if you're somebody that does use has is using contract templates, make sure you are aware what actually is in the contracts. And what I always tell clients, especially if it's a newer business owner that I'm chatting with and they want to use templates, is I always say, hey, use templates as you're starting because likely you're on a shoestring budget trying to make your money go as far as possible. But as you gain more experience in business, you want to keep notes of what you like and what you don't like in your contracts. And then eventually you'll know when the time is right and then you'll graduate to custom contracts and you can afford to go work one on one with a lawyer. And even then that it doesn't have to be an arm and a leg. I promise legal protection is not as expensive as people think it is, but you want to make sure that you are still taking care of it. So keep in mind what you like, what you don't like, and then be a responsible business owner that does eventually graduate from the templates to the custom contracts.

B (21:40)

That's great advice.

A (21:41)

Yeah. The other issue that happened was the same business owner. I said, hey, she came to me, wanted to file a trademark, and I told her, hey, we can't file a trademark. You're infringing on this other brand. And as new business owners, small business owners, many of them want to say, oh, well, I'm so small they're not going to worry about me. And lo and behold, I'll never forget this because it was. This was like two years ago. So it was like three or four years after we originally spoke about this issue. I was on vacation. I was on vacation. And she calls me freaking out because the other party sent her a cease and desist letter. And it was, it was a. It was, relatively speaking, it was a pretty scary letter compared to the normal letters I see. And they're threatening to sue her within like five days. And just scary stuff. Especially if you're a business owner that has never got a cease and desist letter or anything like that. And so she's freaking out. And it was just one of those, like I told you so moments, like, yeah, unfortunately, like, you're gonna have to wait to deal with this when I get back from vacation because I tried to warn you of this for three, four years ago.

B (22:53)

Or are you actually suggesting that we listen to our attorney's advice? I'm confused. I'm lost.

A (22:59)

I know, right?

B (23:01)

Sorry.

A (23:02)

I.

B (23:03)

Funny. Not funny.

A (23:04)

But we got it taken care of. But honestly, don't be that business owner, because she got very lucky to wear. They didn't sue her. They didn't come after, you know, past profits. Because in with trademark infringement, not only do you have to rebrand and you lose that brand recognition, you have to. If they sue you, you would have to pay past profits.

B (23:24)

I see.

A (23:25)

So it, it can be quite the undertaking. And, and honestly, if you can, if you know that you're infringing on somebody now, just rebrand now. It's going to, it's going to save you a lot of time. Headaches down the road.

B (23:39)

Yeah, we actually call it mfd. You have to make an effing decision and you have to do it now. And it's better just to get it out of the way.

A (23:45)

Exactly.

B (23:46)

Well, we talk about the importance of reflection. Asking yourself, is there something else going on that I can't see? And then connecting with an expert or a coach like yourself. It sounds like you're a coach, especially on some of the legal stuff that you get as well. But then taking decisive action. Let's talk about those people that are already established, but they've not done anything that you talked about. What then? Because I know there's some listeners that have businesses that are probably going, oh, I haven't done any of this.

A (24:14)

Hey, it's okay. You're not the only one. Just get it done. Because what you're going to hear is. And what they're. What goes on in their head is, oh, it's not an issue. Like, I've been doing business this long and it hasn't been an issue. Yeah, my client, it wasn't an issue until she got the scariest letter she's ever received in her life. And then it was the biggest issue and the biggest headache of her life. And really, it's. It's not a problem until it is. And you may never be found out. You may never be caught. You may never need to actually use these contracts in court. You may never need this or that. But guess what? You may have more issues because you don't have these things in place. You may never have to sue a client for not paying you because these contracts exist. You may not have to sue somebody for trademark infringement because you have the trademark registration in. When somebody goes to the trademark website and does their searching, they see your trademark and they know, oh, okay, I cannot use this name.

B (25:11)

Yeah.

A (25:11)

Instead of. If you're waiting, like, oh, I'm not gonna worry about trademarks right now. And so you don't have a registration, you haven't filed an application. And this is what happens. A lot of times somebody else will come along after the original user and they'll see. And they may know about the original user and they'll see, oh, they haven't filed a trademark. I'm going to start using it and file the trademark and I'll make them stop using the name.

B (25:36)

That opens up a whole interesting.

A (25:38)

Oh, it happens. And the thing is, the law protects the original user.

B (25:43)

Okay. So that can't. They can't steal your idea and say, sorry, if you can prove that you were using it first out on the Internet or somewhere.

A (25:50)

Correct, Correct. Okay, but what happens, you know, the. The second user, they try to be smart and get the registration, and then if they open that can of worms and go after the original user, the original user has to file a cancellation against the second user, which can cost 20, 30, $40,000.

B (26:12)

So sometimes they take the risk.

A (26:13)

It sounds like, oh, yes, it's going to cost you 10, 20 times more than if you would have just filed the reg. The application.

B (26:20)

Interesting.

A (26:21)

Yeah. And that happens quite often. And it's frustrating because, you know, the second user tries to be smart and say, hey, you have to stop using it. I got. We actually just filed a cancellation last week and for this exact situation. And it's going to end up costing my client, you know, 10, 20 times more than if she would have just filed the application five years ago.

B (26:46)

It was almost like, it sounds almost like medical problems. Quick. You deal with it, the easier it is to deal with over time.

A (26:51)

Exactly. Yep.

B (26:53)

Well, you've clearly invested in yourself. I mean, you seem very intelligent, hard working. One of my favorite things to ask on our podcast is what is your favorite way to invest in yourself and continue to grow? Is it reading podcasts, masterminds? Do you have a coach talk to us about what you do to invest in yourself?

A (27:08)

Oh, I love this question. You know, I'm eight years into this business, my law firm and legal preneur and over 10 years as an entrepreneur and up until I would say a year or two ago, very much invest in business and masterminds and always listening to podcasts to be a better business owner. But that has shifted over the past year or so and really, really just investing in me and myself. This year, my biggest investment has been a nervous system coach, which is interesting. That's the greatest investment investment of my entire life. My entire life has changed this year.

B (27:50)

Oh, talk to us about that.

A (27:52)

Yeah, so it got to the point where I was, I was having like these same issues and it was to the point where I was like, there, like there has to be a, like there's something else going on. Like I've, and my, it's not my mindset, it's not this, it's not like I've done all the, this work. And one of my good friends that I met in a mastermind a number of years ago, she, I never knew exactly what she did and she always said she was like a lot of business owners best kept secret and we always kept in touch. And I was talking to her earlier this year and I, I was telling her what was going on and like, what did you do? Like, do you like, who can help me? She was like, oh, I think I can help you and Kevin. I've been working with her since April and my entire life has changed because what I, what I realized was, you know, I would ha. Like, I, I've been a very successful business owner. I, one of the most successful trademark attorneys in the United States. Just very much successful on paper, but couldn't internalize it and couldn't sit with it. And ultimately what we have found this year was like I could like attract all these good things and all these successful things, but my nervous system Couldn't hold it. My nervous system was so used to the chaos and so used to just pushing the good away because I was so used to, like, the negativity and the bad things. And so I had. I. This whole year, I've retrained my nervous system. I've regulated my nervous system to be able to sit with success, to sit with more money, to sit with, like, to slow down and sit in the calm. And it's so funny because this year I've done the least amount of work, like, work wise, and this is our most profitable year and maybe ever seem calm to me.

B (29:48)

But I know sometimes we can mask it and you're just a complete emotional wreck on the inside. We've all been there, so that's very interesting. I've never heard of a nervous system coach. I may have to turn that on to Jen because she's had some traumas she's having to deal with. So it'll.

A (30:02)

It'll change your life. And it's. For me, it got to the point where it's just like, I've done all the tools, I've done all the tricks. Like, there's no, like, thinking my way around this. Like, what else can I do? Like, there has to be another way. And there was. There was another way.

B (30:17)

That's so cool. Well, if people want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to get in touch? And we'll make sure we put this in the show notes and everything else. So if somebody wants to get in touch and they kind of hit a quarter of them today, what's the best way?

A (30:29)

Yeah, if you want to work with us for trademarks, I AM ranked number 22 out of 40,000 trademark attorneys in the United States. You can go to andreasager.com, see our trademark packages, and then the legalpreneur.com is more of your do it yourselfer. We have our LLC filings, contract templates, everything that is legal related but not legal services through thelegalpreneur.com.

B (30:51)

awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here. It was amazing time. Anything else you want to leave the listeners with before we sign off?

A (30:57)

No. This was fun. This was awesome.

B (30:59)

This is great. Yeah, I did a great job. Okay, great. Well, hopefully we'll see you again on the show.

A (31:03)

Awesome. Thank you.