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The Think Media Podcast
498: The $100K Mistake That Almost Cost My Business (And How to Avoid It)
00:46:24
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, before we jump into the show, I just wanted to take a second and say thank you for listening. I know that life is busy and you have a lot of options when it comes to the content you consume. So whether you're new here or you've been listening to the Think Media podcast for years, I just want to say thank you and I appreciate you.
- [00:19]
B
Okay, let's jump into the show.
- [00:20]
A
Is your YouTube channel legally protected? Is your online business at legal risk right now? Because a week after recording this episode, something happened to me that made this conversation very real. And why I think it's relevant that everybody learns this information right now. I actually ended up in the hospital for an emergency surgery. And the timing could not have been worse because I was hosting a two day event in Vegas. 81 people had purchased tickets to be a part of the event. Money was on the line, and the stakes were really high. So there I was, laying in a hospital bed, missing my event in Vegas, and actually thinking about a conversation that I had just had with Autumn, who's today's podcast guest. She's an attorney that's trusted by seven and eight figure entrepreneurs, and she had recently worked with a client who sold a similar event, a business mastermind, and had sold tickets to it. It was on the calendar, but then that person got sick and couldn't go to their own meeting. And the results that followed were disastrous. People started to ask for refunds. They were super disappointed, and it not only hurt her reputation, but it ultimately cost her over six figures of revenue in her business. So if you can imagine the catastrophizing that was happening in my mind as I'm laying in that hospital bed having just being told that story. Here's the good news. We were still able to deliver on the event with all of our AI tools, frameworks, coaches. We got great feedback, and I was able to do a bonus virtual session after the event. But that leads me to why today's conversation is so important. Because it's really covering things that most business owners and creators don't think about and things that you could include into your contracts and service agreements. And, you know, you might not even have those yet. But if you are building an online course or you're promising to fulfill on a membership, or you're doing virtual events or in person events, what happens if an emergency happens? What happens if the unexpected happens? Well, the good news is today you're getting the playbook. Autumn is the expert and she's covering a ton of topics in this episode. So you can Be safe and prepared for the unexpected. The truth is, there are legal mistakes that could wipe out your YouTube channel, they could wipe out your online business, but they are fixable, especially if you have the right information. So lock into today's conversation with Autumn Whit Boyd, attorney and legal expert. That's going to help you answer some questions you didn't even know to ask by the end of today's episode.
- [02:48]
B
Let's dive in. Access to a lawyer at her level costs hundreds of dollars per hour. But you can get this wisdom today in this episode for free. So stick around until the end. This is going to be a good episode to take notes and to not have anxiety about this stuff. But you need to be aware because you do not want to be surprised by a lawsuit or something that could cost your business hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. Autumn, what's the fastest way an online business owner, content creator, accidentally blows up their business?
- [03:23]
C
Not having a contract that protects them.
- [03:26]
B
What's a story of what has happened? Especially you. You help a lot of coaches, digital entrepreneurs. I'm very familiar with the YouTube space. Like, what would that look like in practice?
- [03:34]
C
Yeah, I'll give a good example. And this is fictionalized, but I won't give away any client secrets. But we had a client who had a big mastermind. It was expensive, you know, five figure price point. And they had an, several live events as part of kind of the package that you got the Mastermind. And they got sick and couldn't come to one of the Mastermind events. And just because they didn't really have the infrastructure, the, the clients met but they weren't there. They, they weren't really supporting anyone and they had a lot of very unhappy clients and their contract didn't really address what would happen in that scenario. So they were just kind of fighting fires here and there, you know, taking each person's complaint as they could. The clients were not satisfied with how they were being, I guess not helped. You know, they had some customer service challenges as well. So there are kind of problems on multiple fronts. But it ended up they got a ton of refund requests, they had to do a lot of refunds, they chose to do a lot of refunds. But it kind of spread like wildfire. And so they, they did end up, it was a, you know, a six figure hit to their business. When all was said, when and done, and also a reputation hit. There was a lot of public discourse about what happened. It was pretty ugly. So that's kind of worst case scenario.
- [04:56]
B
And so what could they have done differently.
- [04:58]
C
Yeah. So this is actually what we teach in our fine print academy, which we'll talk about more in a minute. We have this revenue protection system which starts with a solid contract. So making sure that your contract actually matches what you're doing on a day to day basis, how you're working with clients, you've got a super solid refund policy and you honor it when you need to and then that you onboard your clients and you really set expectations the right way. So you're getting that contract signed and then you are telling people what to expect. So we don't have these unsaid, unmet expectations. We find that almost all of the unhappy client, you know, chargebacks, refund requests are when the client thought they were getting one thing, may have been something you never talked about, but they just thought they were getting something and you deliver something different. And bridging that gap can be if you've got good customer service, sometimes you can bridge that gap even when you have different expectations on the front end. So just really making sure all the way through that client delivery that you're taking really good care of people.
- [05:56]
B
This could be very overwhelming and is overwhelming to someone that's wanting to jump into the creator economy, into the coaching space. And there's this opportunity to eventually create like a membership or a coaching program with popular platforms like School or Kajabi Teachable and you start uploading things to it. If you're at that level though, there could be that fear of, oh, you know, if I miss delivery of something or like, what would be the advice and risks for that solo creator that is excited to expand their business offerings, create maybe some type of offer connected to their YouTube channel, yet also listens to this and it's like, man, why do I even want to try? If there's a downside, you know, to me getting sued or having crazy refunds go crazy or something like that.
- [06:48]
C
Yeah. Well, I will encourage everyone to take a deep breath. This is not usually something that happens early on. This is a kind of mo money, mo problems type of scenario. And I'll get my standard disclaimer, this is not legal advice. I'm just one lawyer with one opinion. But the way I look at this is that when you're just getting started, the good news is you don't have a lot of complexity, you don't have a lot of clients, you don't have a lot of money coming in the door. So you have a lot lower risk than someone who is, you know, make, you know, earning Seven figures has a really expensive mastermind and all these different moving parts that are hard to keep track of. So I think if you are thinking about launching a coaching program or a membership, just keep it simple so that you're not having to keep track of a bunch of things. You don't have a lot of help. It can be as simple as, you know, a Google Doc with a checklist of like, these are the five things that I talked about during my launch that people were going to get. And just make sure that you're hitting those before you're finished. And then as your business grows, of course you will need more protection and the risk grows.
- [07:45]
B
So if we dive into some of the legal fears and really ultimately, of course this podcast is about solutions and positives. You know, we want to think about what we can do and take action. But in this space, if you're starting an online business of any kind of like, there's always a danger of getting sued, you could never prevent that entirely. Because anybody could sue anybody for anything doesn't mean they're going to win. But it could be scary because it could be costly, wastes time and energy. What are the types of things that you typically see if actual lawsuits happen in this industry?
- [08:19]
C
Yeah. Well, I will give all of your listeners and viewers again another sigh of relief. Lawsuits are very, very rare. Knocking on wood in this industry. The lawsuits are very, very ra. Um, the most that we see are the unhappy customers. But like I said, often the business had a chance to fix things and didn't. It's very rare that you really took great care of someone and did everything you were supposed to do and then they end up suing you. You do have those occasional odd ducks that you just cannot make happy. But it's very expensive to bring a lawsuit to start a lawsuit. I mean we're talking five to $10,000 to hire a lawyer, pay the court fees, do all of that. So it's pretty uncommon. I would say the larger your business gets, the more of a target you have on your back for that. The other area where we're seeing these lawsuits not related to customers. And again these are our seven and eight figure clients. So I do not want to worry are newbies about this, but you can just be aware are things like if they're sending text campaigns and not following the rules. There's really strict rules around text message marketing. There's some new rules around if you do have a membership that, that auto renews. So like Netflix, like you just stay in it until you Cancel. You can cancel at any time. There's some new requirements around that that we're seeing some lawsuits around. But again, the, the scenario where most people are being sued is there's a law that has really strict compliance requirements and there are what's called plaintiff's lawyers who are looking for victims. And so they're looking for victims with enough money to pay a settlement. So they are not looking at tiny micro businesses, they're looking at the larger businesses that they know. Oh, that's a rich target. If I go after them, I'm more likely to get a good result. So be aware. But we are really not seeing lawsuits with even up to half a million dollar annual revenue clients.
- [10:14]
B
So talking about these different areas, what about trademark issues? Does that come up very often?
- [10:19]
C
Yes, for sure. But almost all of those are. They start with either a letter, some sort of notice. It very rarely starts with a lawsuit. It's usually kind of, I think of it like a ladder. It's like an escalation. So usually my trademark has been infringed recently, so I'm now like the client. And that's been kind of interesting. We sent a cease and desist letter. I got no response. I sent a follow up. I have a response waiting in my inbox that I didn't want to read before I hopped on with you because I'm pretty sure it's going to make me mad. But the lawsuit comes usually after someone's been ignored or it's really egregious, things like that.
- [10:56]
B
Yeah, that's an interesting one. One of our students in our one on one coaching program was creating content, wanting to, you know, start building their personal brand, had picked out a name, hadn't done the research, and eventually learned somebody else had that name, like basically brand name. And then as a result, it wasn't a lawsuit, it was a letter. And they had to change their branding, they had to change their name. Do you have advice for someone doing research? And again, if you're small, it probably would never hit your radar. But the thing is, what foundation are you building on? Because you wouldn't want to get a ways down the road with your name and be like, oh, shoot, I didn't realize there's some other company. And now I have to make a pivot in my name or my branding.
- [11:39]
C
Yeah, exactly. This is one of the things we recommend. A lot of times we say you can DIY a lot. You may not need an LLC right away. You know, there's some things that you can wait as you're building your business but doing a trademark search as you're picking out a brand name for something is absolutely. And you can do it yourself. Doesn't have to, you don't have to hire a lawyer. But I would say that's a non negotiable to make sure that you're not accidentally stepping on someone else's toes because hopefully you're going to stick with that brand for a while, you're going to build on it, you're not going to be on anyone's radars, you're just getting started. What happens is three years later, four years later, once you've put a lot of effort, time, money into building that brand, that and you know, your visibility grows. Now you're on somebody else's radar and that's when you get the cease and desist and then rebranding is painful and expensive.
- [12:25]
A
Eventually.
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B
Many people already listening to this. We have some people starting out and they haven't hired anyone yet. But what are some of the issues and legal challenges of having contractor disputes and people that make mistakes with that?
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C
Yeah. So the biggest mistake we see there is folks not realizing that there are rules around who can be a contractor and who has to be paid and treat it as an employee. And those rules are different in every state in the United States. So if you, you know, I think a lot of us operate in this online world where it's amazing you can hire someone from anywhere, you can get really good help. You're not just stuck in your own local community. But that adds cost and it adds risk. So anytime you are looking at hiring a contractor, you really need to be looking at their state law and the state law where you sit. You have to look at both and see what are the requirements. Kind of general rules for any state is you want to make sure that they, a contractor should be operating as their own little business. So you really should watch how much control you have over them. The more control you have over them, the more it really looks like an employee. So I'll give you an example. So let's say you hire someone to do social media marketing for you. If you say I want you to log on at 8am and I want you to follow this checklist as you do all of your work. I want you to use our, our guidelines. I want you to only use our templates. I'm going to send you a computer to use. You can only use our software. You know, you're really micromanaging them. That starts to look a lot like an employee. Even if you're calling them a contractor, the way this goes wrong is let's say you fire them and they're unhappy, they could report you to the state and say, they were paying me as a contractor, they should have been paying me as an employee. That can trigger an audit, it can trigger back taxes, be very, very expensive. Expensive. So it, it is a big risk
- [14:18]
B
if you have somebody editing video for you or designing social media stuff for you. Could they claim as a contractor that they own what they edited and what they've designed?
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C
Yes. So you also need to make sure you have in your contracts really clear language around who owns what. Because in the United States, the default rule is that the contractor owns it. And no one wants that to be the rule. Even if you've given it, you know that you've given them the raw footage and you've given them direction and all
- [14:45]
B
of that, and you're in it.
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C
Yes.
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B
And it's you. So. So. But if your contract is locked down, then you'd be safe, correct?
- [14:54]
C
Correct. But it has to be in writing. It can't just be a conversation, it can't just be an email.
- [14:58]
B
Okay. And you know, I would ask about using AI, but what I want to do is point listeners to the whole other episode we did to listen to after this one that'll be linked up in the show Notes. We went deep into all things AI, protecting yourself, copyright. There's a lot of things that go deeper there. But as we summarize or kind of move into this next section, let me know if you have any thoughts on this. I wrote down kind of a list of the ways that a YouTube creator, online business owner could blow up their business. Weak contracts, refund terms that don't match the sales page.
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C
Yep.
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B
No enforceable payment clause, no IP protection, no privacy policy, or hiring contractors without ownership terms. Do you want to expand on any of those?
- [15:46]
C
Yes, all of them.
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A
If you're an entrepreneur or a creator that wants to scale their online business, that's why we created the Think Media mastermind.
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C
I have so much more clarity as to my ideal target audience now, which means my content is about to be so much better and more targeted towards the exact person I'm trying to reach.
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A
Super intimate, high level strategy.
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C
I had the skills that I already knew sharpened. I feel like I went to my next level.
- [16:13]
A
For entrepreneurs and creators that want to scale with YouTube, this was the first
- [16:18]
B
time that I was able to get in a room with a lot of other serious youtubers and talk with other people who love creating content and love YouTube. Usually I don't get to do that. So this is really special.
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A
You can check it out@thinkmediamastermind.com the contract
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C
I really think is the foundational protection because almost all of the disputes that we end up handling, it comes back to that contract. And it's usually an unhappy customer, unhappy client. So if you do nothing else, making sure that that is really solid and matches the way you do business and has everything in it that it needs, I would, I'm not just giving myself a plug, but I would caution you from borrowing your coaches terms or going into ChatGPT. You just don't know what's missing. And so if you. I highly recommend contract templates, whether you get them from us or someone else, but from someone who understands the type of business that you run so that they know what are the problems that come up and they make sure that your contract actually addresses that. Like, we have a, like a creative services template that's totally different from the coaching template because they're totally different kinds of relationships. And so you could, you know, ask ChatGPT or borrow a template and it just doesn't make sense for what you're doing. So just making sure that it actually tracks the kinds of problems that you want to avoid.
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B
So to be clear, weak contracts is one of the biggest ways that people blow up their businesses in two areas. Clients contracts and then also customer contracts.
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C
I consider those the same thing, basically. Yeah. Or customer.
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B
But if it's okay. No, then maybe I should say clients and customers. And then the other one would be team, which would be like contractors. So even if you don't have employees, making sure any interaction you have with a contractor also has a good contract.
- [18:07]
C
Yes. And even if you hire them from Fiverr, even if you are, you know, using these marketplaces, take a look at the terms, they're not always really what you want, so you may be able to, you know, message on the platform and just have some extra things that you ask them to agree.
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B
Hey, before we get started, can. I'm going to send you over like a DocuSign or something. And here's what we do before we work with somebody.
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C
Exactly.
- [18:27]
B
Yeah, that's really good. Now again, you said, you know, not just plug in your stuff, but I'll plug your stuff because this is incredibly powerful. And if you want help with that, you do have a program called Fine Print Academy and it walks you through locking all this stuff down step by step with actual attorney guidance that'll be linked in the show notes so that it's a whole proprietary process. Right. What do you, what do you do inside of Fine Print Academy?
- [18:54]
C
Yeah. So we have two major things that we help you put in place, but it's super easy. This is not another thing on your to do list. We make it really easy and quick. So you're going to get a revenue protection system. So that's all the things around your contract, your refund policy, making sure your payment plans hold up so that you know the longer you're in business. It's not if it's when you have that unhappy customer that you can't avoid that situation, but you can put yourself in the best place to protect that revenue that you've already earned, hopefully. And then the second part, after we've got your revenue really well protected, we protect the business. So do you need an llc? What do you need to do with insurance? How can you protect your intellectual property? And then team is a big part of it. And we've got contracts and templates that go with all of that.
- [19:36]
B
And I would encourage listeners, I mean, that's not for everybody. But if you're listening to the Think Media podcast right now and you have any contractors, you have any clients or customers, I want to encourage you to check out that link in the description. You can actually basically get your program for the cost of hiring you for one hour. Because hiring an attorney, it's not far off.
- [19:57]
C
Yes.
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B
Yeah. And, and so, and I mean, hiring an attorney is so expensive for just one hour as opposed having you have a team, there's a group, they're responding. And then you're also not the big mistake. You're not relying on chat GPT, which is generative and can hallucinate, but you are in a program that's being updated in real time as things change.
- [20:17]
C
Yeah, yeah. If the laws change, we're updating everything.
- [20:20]
B
Yeah, I love that. So if you want to check out the Fine Print Academy, there is a link in the description on either the audio podcast or on video. So you said, I mean, you, you, you could expand on all these, but we said weak contracts, refund terms that don'. The sales page.
- [20:36]
C
Yes.
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B
Any additional thoughts there?
- [20:38]
C
This actually came up just this week. I was looking at a colleague of ours and they had kind of a satisfaction guarantee in the marketing. And then you looked at the terms and I guarantee it was not on purpose. I guarantee they just decided to change it on their sales page and they forgot to update the terms. So there was a mismatch. It just didn't make Sense. And so if you do get a refund request now it's like, which one is right? It becomes very messy. So making sure that that's all really clear.
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B
Okay, and then what about IP protection?
- [21:09]
C
Yeah. So when we think of ip, two main types of IP with an online business, copyrights protect your content. So be like videos, any course materials, if you've got curriculum or frameworks, things like that could even be your internal. Like if you've got things that you use with clients internally that they don't even ever see, but it's how you do business. All of that is proprietary, protected by copyright. Also things like books, music, things like that. And then trademarks are going to protect your brand. So think about the name of your channel, the name of a podcast, could be a social media handle, your, you know, name of a program, things like that. Trademarks protect your brand. You do have, in the United States, you have some automatic protections for both, but you get additional protections if you register those. So we walk through kind of pros and cons. When does it make sense to register versus just relying on those automatic protections in the academy?
- [22:02]
B
So it might not be like day one, you said when you're just starting, you might not need to stress out about that. However, there's a large percentage of listeners that are maybe far along on their journey enough to like. You probably should have worried about that a little while ago. What do you think is kind of like a milestone in, let's say, annual revenue or let's say audience size or email list size? If you were to give a general approximation, like you've got some momentum, you should really be thinking about this.
- [22:29]
C
Yeah. So for copyrights I typically think of, it makes sense to register. If you've got something you're selling, like a product or a program and it's making six figures or more in revenue and you're not changing it all the time because you have to send a copy of it to the copyright office. You have to upload. It's like millions of videos and files. Usually it's a whole package and it's kind of frozen in time. So we want to make sure you're not still fiddling around the edges, that it's pretty set, we'll register it at that point. But it needs to be important enough to your business that it's worth spending for a copyright. $1,000, $2,000 in legal fees to do it the right way. You've got filing fees with the copyright office. So I always want to make sure we're not just doing things to do them. I want you to get an roi. Yeah, but if it is, you know, a significant revenue generator in your business, I think it makes sense to register the copyright.
- [23:19]
B
And so trademarks, you should do a trademark search so you start something that's not trademarked when you actually build your whole business. But then at what stage do you actually think about filing a trademark for aspects of your business?
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C
Yeah, so I kind of use the same thoughts. So usually it's going to be either the name of your business, the name of a key asset, the name of a channel or something. Sometimes people will come with us and they're like, I have six trademarks, but they're just catchphrases or they're things that are not really mission critical in the business. So we'll typically prioritize them honestly in order of revenue generation because we'd like to think about what is the threat if it, if, if you get copied. So with, with your course, you know, you could lose revenue because people are confused. They go buy somebody else's course instead of yours because it has a similar content with the trademarks. It could be that someone goes to your competitor instead of you because it's a similar name, you know, name brand. So I care most about the things that are going to have a revenue impact if something goes wrong. So again, I use that kind of six figure as just a back of the napkin. But then we also think about, would you be willing to spend time, money, energy to enforce your rights? So with trademarks, you have to monitor the marketplace and you're actually required to send cease and desist letters to enforce your rights or you will lose them. You don't have to do that with copyrights. But so that's an important thing to think about with trademarks. Like, do I have someone on my team who could do that, or am I willing to do that or would I hire a lawyer to do that? Because it's kind of an ongoing.
- [24:50]
B
You have to do that. So by.
- [24:51]
C
You have to do that or you'll lose your rights.
- [24:53]
B
It is your responsibility to monitor the marketplace, correct?
- [24:57]
C
Yeah, if you want. So what, what we see happen is, you know, there you get a trademark registration, there's some people violating it, but they're small and you don't really care. It's not really a problem. And then a big fish, you know, you have a big problem. And now that big fish is going to point to all the small fish and say, well, there's a lot of us using this mark and they didn't have a problem with it. So it's become generic. And that is a situation you don't want to be in. You want to be able to enforce your rights when it counts.
- [25:23]
B
What is a privacy policy?
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C
It is usually on your website, linked in the footer, and it's just a document that basically tells anyone who comes to your website what you're going to do with any data or any information they share with you. So if you have a lead magnet on your or freebie and opt in on your website, if they give you their name and email, what are you going to do with that? Are you going to sell it to Think Media or are you going to just use it for your own internal purposes? It is. The privacy policy is really all about disclosure. So just telling people what they can expect. It is required in all 50 states because there's California rules and we're all doing business in all the places. There's stricter rules in the European Union and the uk so we write our privacy policy to comply with all of that. So you just kind of don't have to worry about figuring that out.
- [26:15]
B
Okay. There's more mistakes and I kind of want to go into sometimes, maybe kind of a lightning round of mistakes many online business owners and content creators don't even realize they're making. What about copying templates from Google, like a contract or a. Yeah, copying anything from just a Google search or from somebody else's website. Is there danger in doing that?
- [26:42]
C
Yes, for sure. Copyright infringement.
- [26:44]
B
Okay. So even copying somebody else's privacy policy,
- [26:48]
C
I mean, no one's going to come after you for their privacy policy. I was thinking more their content.
- [26:52]
B
Their content?
- [26:53]
C
Yeah. I would say the risk if you're copying someone else's privacy policy is they've customized it and you don't know what decisions they made or how they customize it. You don't know what they chose to leave out. So it could be missing some things that you might need.
- [27:07]
B
And I guess when I say Google, you also might say AI. There's this world where people are just quickly creating content that is generated, generated by AI or, or plagiarism. But trying to spin it a little bit. I mean, if we zoom out a little, there is a whole industry on YouTube, it's called YouTube, AI automation. And this is what's taught. They say go find viral content, download the script, tweak it just enough and then re upload it. And so when it comes to that thinking, what are the red flags?
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C
I mean, that's Clear copyright infringement. Okay, but does work like, does that trick the YouTube algorithm?
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B
Well, number one, it's being cracked down on right now because AI, very conscious AI channels are being demonetized or deleted. But the, I guess the reason it does work is the case study is 10 silliest animals in the world and you, you go find a video that has already gotten millions of views and so you make a video about the same 10 animals, but maybe you reorder them and you basically you use the same script. But you know, whether it's people that are not just faceless, they're teaching on camera, they could be taking business frameworks, taking, I mean theft and just the AI acceleration of plagiarism is, is wild. So that's kind of the big topic.
- [28:32]
C
Yeah, for sure. So in the United States, under our copyright laws, copyright is what we call a strict liability problem, which means whether you knew you were doing it or not, there's no defense. Most of the time, fair use is basically the, the only defense. And that is not going to apply in what we're talking about here. And so then the question is there's no Copyright Police, like YouTube, you said, is trying to shut down on this, but a lot of this lands in the content creators, lands at their feet to enforce their own rights. So I think that's clear copyright infringement. But it's probably now a whole second job to try and hunt that down and find it and shut it down.
- [29:13]
B
What about using AI to edit contracts?
- [29:16]
C
Yeah, so I think with contracts AI is a good tool to help you understand something that you've been sent to sign. I think the trick is it's only as good as what you feed into it. So where you found the thing you're feeding into it, you don't know what it includes or doesn't include. So I'm hesitant. We are now seeing a lot of our clients are bringing to us AI contracts that they created, thinking that it will shortcut our hourly fees and it almost always takes us twice as long because the AI doesn't have judgment and doesn't have context to know what's important and what's not. So we'll get like a 20 page contract for a one on one coaching relationship that just has a bunch of stuff in there that doesn't make any sense or that has stuff left out that we think is really important.
- [30:08]
B
One thing that is specific to anybody selling anything and probably especially if they are selling high ticket, is this idea of chargebacks. And what is your, what is maybe the risks or Challenges or protection. You know, you could define it better than me, but one you would hope a you've got a good refund policy and that anyone who does business with you reaches out and then you give them a refund that is drama free. There's no impact. But of course a chargeback is them going straight to their credit card and canceling clawback chargeback of the actual fee, but also can hurt you with your payment processor, etc. Any advice here?
- [30:51]
C
Yeah. So step one is to make sure that your contract is really clear and that you get it signed and that you have evidence that they signed it or that they check the box as kind of like an audit trail. If you get a chargeback, you do have a chance to dispute it with, with the credit card processor. They're gonna, they're gonna hold the money. But you do have a chance to try and argue your case. Kind of like going in front of Judge Judy. So you're going to need to have all of your evidence to have the contract that shows they agreed to pay whatever the amount was and you ideally want to have some sort of evidence that you provided whatever you promised. So that might be showing that they logged into your kajabi or that they accessed, you know, a certain number of modules in your course or you might have recordings of coaching calls to say, you know, I delivered six one on one coaching calls on these dates and here's proof. So just think about as you are delivering whatever you promise, how are you kind of tracking that and keeping at least basic? I mean it does not have to be super fancy, but just like basic record keeping will really be on your side because often it's just buyer's remorse on the other person or they've had something come up and they just wish they had the money, but they've signed a contract. I mean a chargeback is basically a breach of contract. If you've done what you said you were going to do, then they are not paying for whatever they received. Yes, the credit card processors definitely tend to side with the customer. So if you want to win, and especially if it's high $, you really need to have good evidence be organized because the time to respond is fairly short. Also, I think it's usually 30 days or something, so you don't have a lot of time to waste.
- [32:27]
B
And then, I mean, is it true that somebody could owe you $2,000 and you can't legally enforce it because your contract is weak?
- [32:34]
C
Potentially, yes. Yeah. If your payment plan is not clear, if the there's A part at the end called termination. You know, some people in that part, it's not clear what happens if someone quits early, if they still have to pay the rest of the contract or if they just get to be finished. So, yeah, for sure.
- [32:54]
B
So clearing the contract, what point? Because I think also too, as a business owner, I mean, like, our ethos at our company too, is, is we have incredibly low refund rate, incredibly high net promoter score.
- [33:08]
A
And we're.
- [33:08]
B
Because we're real humans that are also here to talk to real humans. And if something comes up and it's, you know, it's reasonable. Of course, in that moment, you're like, okay, maybe, you know, we just stop payments or we do whatever. Like, we understand there's been a life change or a life shift. At the same time, there could be somebody that very much is being, you know, abusive or whatever. They've. They've totally taken advantage of the program. They are, you know, causing issues. The whole. This whole spirit of it isn't right and it's in breach of contract. At what dollar amount, though, is it even worth dealing with as far as the cost of following up if somebody is, you know, owes you money? And lots of listeners here, too, run all kinds of businesses, so they're building their YouTube channels, but they already know what it's like. Like, this is. My parents, you know, have a telecommunications business, but they're always business owners and entrepreneurs and have dealt with, oh, yeah, that client didn't pay that client. Delayed in paying that client, like any. Any. I'm sure lots of listeners can relate to that. You know, what. What is the dollar amount? Where. Because what do you. Where does it go next? Claims, Small claims court kind of a thing.
- [34:14]
C
Yeah, well, I think the first thing to think about, like, before you bring the client on, as you're structuring your program and structuring your payment, whether it's a payment plan or just how people pay you, is trying not to get too far ahead of what you've provided versus what you've been paid. Because I think where you really get into trouble is where you've provided a ton of value and you don't feel like you've been paid. You know, they still owe me $50,000 and I built them a whole website. And, you know, I think that's where it can get really messy if you're trying to track, okay, I've done 25% of the work and I've been paid for 15 of the project. Like, we're not super far off yeah, So I keep that in mind. It's not a dollar amount so much. Although I will say anything under a few thousand dollars is probably not worth pursuing legally because your legal fees are going to be be higher. But I think for every business, it's good to at least have some internal systems for just up on unpaid invoices. I think sometimes also if we're not reminding, you know, people get busy, they. It's not always that they're being terrible. Sometimes it just slips through the cracks. I mean, we definitely have emails that go to the spam folder.
- [35:22]
B
Yeah.
- [35:22]
C
Sometimes those are invoices. So we have a person on our team and she follows up and our accounts receivable is really low because she is very persistent. And you know, every now and then we get burned. But you also have to look at, if you're sending someone to Collections, they're going to be very aggressive. So that can be a reputational hit for your company as well. If you, you know, had that had a good relationship and now someone is upset because collections is coming after them and they felt like they should have been treated differently.
- [35:52]
B
So yeah, I learned that lesson early on when I started a video production business called Clear Vision Media. Instead of waiting until I had fully delivered every edit, every video, the wedding video to get paid, and then there were times when I just did it. Get paid at least half down or stages and steps that'll save your life right there. Because like you said, you still might not collect that last piece. Frustrating. But if you got that far into it without getting paid, you made a mistake early on with exactly how you said it. Try not to get too far ahead of what you've provided versus what they've paid.
- [36:29]
C
Yeah. And also collections agencies take a cut of whatever they collect. So once someone has decided to stop paying you, it is very hard to get them to pay any more.
- [36:39]
B
Yeah.
- [36:41]
C
So the collections agency is maybe going to collect a small percentage of whatever you're owed and then they're going to take probably half of that. So the effort and energy is not always well spent, in my opinion.
- [36:51]
B
Yeah. Okay. If someone actually like you catch a someone copy your course or your sales page or something like that, is there a time and place to do cease and desist DMCAs? Is there a cost in an action documentation break this down?
- [37:07]
C
Yeah, absolutely. So we take kind of a laddered approach. I don't always come out guns blazing in the very beginning especially. Often it's somebody you know, like it's a peer or it's somebody you were in a mastermind with or someone who was on your team or a student of yours. It's often not a stranger on the Internet.
- [37:24]
B
True.
- [37:25]
C
So I like to be kind of kind like let's assume best intent in the beginning. You know, I saw this looks awfully similar to mine. I'm sure it was an oversight. I'd appreciate it if you change it or take it down or whatever. And then depending on how they respond, you know, you just, you make every decision is kind of amping it up. But you're in a negotiation, so you have things you can threaten or things you can offer. You know, you can kind of play good guy, bad guy. But you know, usually we'll ramp it up after the first one, the nice letter, if they either don't respond or they respond flippantly, you know, the next one is more firm then maybe the next one they hire. You hire a lawyer and you get a letter on letterhead. But that's going to be a few thousand dollars. So again you've got to think about how important is this, how much damage is it doing, is it worth this investment? But if it's something where you feel like they're taking your students, people are confused. They're using frameworks that you feel like are really proprietary to you. It can absolutely be worth going after them. Obviously the last step is a lawsuit that is like dropping a bomb. It's very expensive.
- [38:29]
B
What exactly is a cease and desist?
- [38:31]
C
Yeah, it's just a letter that tells someone to please stop. That's what it means, cease and desist. And usually you ask them maybe to take things down. Sometimes you ask for payment. Honestly, in a lot of these you just really want them to stop.
- [38:44]
B
Yeah, it's so cease and desist is sort of that first step. What is a dmca?
- [38:48]
C
Yeah, so we, that's a kind of another tool in your tool belt, only with copyright. So trademark does not have this as a tool in your tool belt, although a lot of people use it that way incorrectly. But so DMCA is a law in the United States that basically was intended to insulate, to protect YouTube, Facebook, X, all the big social media platforms that host a lot of user generated content. Because YouTube does not want to have to worry about taking down every, you know, copyright violation that comes across it. So we have this procedure where if I think someone has violated my copyright, I can file this notice. YouTube will take it down if I file the night the notice properly. But then it gives the other person the chance to respond. So if they think that it was incorrect, that they didn't really copy my stuff, then basically YouTube will put it back up. And YouTube does not want to be the decision maker. It's like, I am not getting in the middle of this. I'm following the process. So if the person responds and YouTube puts it back up, the only way to get it down is to file a lawsuit. So it's great. It's not perfect.
- [39:53]
B
And does documentation matter here?
- [39:56]
C
Yes.
- [39:56]
B
Like, I mean, documentation, like what you actually do, how do you prove it, or what. How do you measure going through a process like this? I mean, screenshots, like, I guess you're just asking them first, but, like, what are the organization system in this case for?
- [40:13]
C
Yeah, so most of the big platforms, you don't have to send a letter. They've got a form on the website where they'll ask you for the different. You know, usually they'll want to see where is your original content, and they'll want to see where is the infringing content. And they'll kind of compare them and then. But they take down almost everything in the first instance, which can be frustrating because people can use DMCAs in bad faith to attack competitors. It's. It's not great.
- [40:37]
B
So I have one final question for you and to kind of give us some next steps, like if we kind of have a checklist. Our big idea today was really protecting our business. There could be just one fixable thing that because of avoiding this stressful topic, we just want to make content. We want to serve clients, we want to build our brands, we want to have fun. We want to do the stuff we like to do. But this is kind of like that stuff that keeps us safe. So I always want to turn this into kind of like some final thoughts and some action items that we'll hit in just a second. But if people want to connect with you and follow you or check out your website and stuff like that, we'll make sure it's linked up in the show notes. Where can they connect with you?
- [41:16]
C
Yeah. So we're AWB firm. It's just my initials, awb, F, I, R M on all the social platforms, on YouTube, on Instagram, and that's our website as well.
- [41:24]
B
Amazing. And then if you're also listening to this and realizing that you've been guessing on some of this stuff when it comes to contracts or your intellectual price, privacy, protecting your revenue, protecting your business. Autumn does have a program called the Fine Print Academy that walks you through locking everything down, step by Step with actual attorney guidance. We'll make sure that's linked up in the show notes. Cool thing about it is the investment into that program is basically what it would cost to just get one hour with an attorney. But now you have access to resources, her team, and so it's so cool that you've put that together. And really a smart move. I mean, who's that for? If someone's listening to this and is like, is that right for me? Am I at the right season? Who is Fine Print Academy best for?
- [42:09]
C
Yeah, so I would say anywhere from someone just getting started. Don't have your first client yet. All the way up to about half a million in annual revenue is what we've designed it for to be really everything you need to help you get your contracts in place. And then, you know, when those sticky situations do come up, you've got someone to lean on to help you walk through it.
- [42:26]
B
Amazing. And then I want to hit this final section which would just be, okay, we've covered a lot, maybe increased our cortisol levels a little bit because we're like, yeah, there's, there's things to do or am I protected? Practical next steps. Like, what could we do after this episode? Besides side note is make sure to watch the AI episode. That's even more information but so important and that's linked up in the show notes. The other conversation I had with Autumn AI is so huge. So that's a resource for you there as well. So that's a great next step. Check out Fine Print Academy. But let's do some action steps. If all we do is take a few steps to think about protecting my online business, my online brand, what should I do next?
- [43:07]
C
Yeah, I'll give you three such a short list. Number one, read your contract with your client or your customer if you already have one. If you don't go get one, make sure it matches how you're actually doing business. Number two is check the name of your main money maker so whether that's your YouTube channel name. If you've got a program, the name of a podcast, your business name, check and see if someone else might have been using it before you were. That may be a kind of red flag. In the United States, trademark rights go to the person who uses a name first, so you want to make sure you were the first. And then number three is check your website if you have one, for a privacy policy that is required by law. It's very easy. That's like almost said it and forget it. It doesn't Change very often. That'll take you maybe 20 minutes with a template.
- [43:56]
B
And we'll go ahead and link up the United States Patent and Trademark Office link in the description so you could check. Yeah, that's totally free, and that's free to do. But it was interesting what you just said. Maybe nobody has filed a trademark. Here's a weird exercise. You go to YouTube and you type in a brand name, you know, digital entrepreneur accelerator. And you might actually see multiple YouTube channels with that name. You might see. Or you go to websites. And so. So would the action item be like, go look for your actual name on YouTube, on Google, on social media. But what I'm hearing you say, if somebody just got that on the Internet first and there's no actual trademark, trademark rights could go to that first person.
- [44:44]
C
Correct. In the United States. Other countries have different systems.
- [44:47]
B
Yeah.
- [44:48]
C
But yes. Yeah, you have to be actually selling something. You have to be using it in commerce. So just having an Instagram account with nothing really happening is probably not enough to worry about. But you do have to put your detective hat on a little bit and kind of dig. But a deep Google is usually what I recommend, kind of.
- [45:04]
B
Yeah, that's smart. And what a lot of people will do there too, though, or what you'll see is you actually see a lot of orphaned accounts. You'll see like some dead channel. You'll see like some random social media account or an outdated website. So that's not as much of a red flag when it's like they're not active.
- [45:19]
C
Correct? Yeah. Usually we say three to five years if it's been inactive, they lose those rights. Yeah.
- [45:26]
B
And the hope would be like, as frustrating as that could be, somebody listening is like, oh, no. Like this brand. I already put my logo on a T shirt. And you. You actually find something. I mean, that information is good because better to know now and perhaps make a pivot.
- [45:41]
C
Yes, exactly.
- [45:42]
B
Well, really good advice, Autumn. Incredible episode today. And. And I want to give a one final shout out, if you want to kind of basically just get the full checklist and have a whole process, then definitely check out Autumn's Fine Print Academy, which we'll link up. But really good. Next steps. This is the Think Media podcast. Autumn, thanks for being on the show. My name is Sean Cannell, your guide to building a profitable YouTube channel, and I will connect with you in a future episode.