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“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” - Benjamin Franklin

Handling the legal elements your small business requires is one of the most challenging aspects of being self employed.

Lets talk about some legal issues you need to be thinking about, and find out how to address them.

Liability Expsoure

Business is war, and if you own a business, you have a big red target on your back. The bigger your business, the bigger the target.

Know your enemy. Your enemy here is Liability. Understand every element of what you can be liable for in your business. It may be very limited, or it may be extreme. Once you know the framework of your liability, brainstorm how to limit it. Chat with your lawyer. They can help you with that. It might be as simple as posting some signs, to as complex as a heavily worded business contract. It may have dozens of elements

Your liability is as unique as your business. Study it. Where you cannot protect yourself, BUY INSURANCE.

Contracts

There are a great many types of contracts. Typically, their pupose is to define:

• A Scope
• Timeframe to complete, and/or milestones
• Contingences, recourses & liabilities of both parties
• Price
• Terms of modifications, Change Orders, and terms of change orders

They are usually to formalize a relationship. What constitutes a contract can vary. Depending on your local and state laws, contracts may be established verbally, through common law, or in writing. There may be other ways to establish a contract. 

Be sure you know what the laws are that apply to your region and industry, so that you don’t unknowning enter into a verbal, common law, or other contract.

This is probably the biggest area where small businesses really let the buck slide with lack of preventitive legal services. Don’t become a statistic.

Putting time in up front pays dividends on the back end. Build boilerplates and form letters before you need them.

Keeping the right letters, and proposal templates on hand will save you time and energy. It will also reduce your stress from not having to go reinvent the wheel when you need a specific document.

Frequent form letters include sales proposals, legal documents like Non Disclosure Agreements, Non Compete agreements, and waivers. It can also include letters like “Thanks for meeting” or new prospect teasers.

Good Practice: Keep a copy of letters in your “Drafts” folder in your E-mail client. That will make them quickly accessible from anywhere, especially if you use a web-based e-mail client, or a Hosted Exchange e-mail solution.

TIP

	WriteExpress.comIf you want prefab form letters, this is the place to go. 2,200 letters for the less than a pizza to your door. There’s no way you won’t get an ROI. Very smart choice for any small business owner.
	FindLegalForms.comThe easiest way to reduce your legal fees. Get these form letters and edit them. Get them as close to the real contract you need. Have your lawyer review what you have put together and save hours of their time, and thousands of your dollars. Stock up on these while you are thinking about it right now.

FREEBIE! 

 Here is a FREE tool we use almost every day. This product will allow you to “Print” any document to a PDF file. This is important because PDF files are a standard format almost anyone can view, and only people with very expensive software can edit! Great way to make a more professional impression.

From day one, marketing should not be an overlooked priority. You should set aside a budget equal to at least 10% of your net revenue, dedicated for marketing. Most marketing people will say it should be closer to 15%, but no matter what your budget, you need to decide how to define it. Spend money to market your company, and the money will come back to you tenfold. Spend it wisely though, because spending marketing money that is not giving you a return is just spending money. There is allot of information about this subject. There are many, many marketing techniques, each that apply to their own individual Vertical Market.

Do not confuse marketing with sales. While the purpose of marketing is to produce sales, sales are not necessarily contingent on marketing. Also, a common error many small businesses make is forcing their sales force to also be their Marketing Department. While some sales people can perform a hybrid role in marketing, it may be risky to go down that road. Don’t try to fit a square peg in a round hole here. At the very least, differentiate the two.

Find information that relates to how you need to market your specific product. For example, the most important element of your marketing campaign might be local publicity. You will need to approach that differently than if you want to find vendors from all across the country to resell a product you manufacture. Those would be marketed to differently than if your selling a product using the internet.

Marketing may require building a database of names that fit certain criteria, a direct mail campaign, or straight up advertising. Watch out, all this gets really expensive! Think of marketing more as promoting your business. Find ways to promote your business that don’t cost much.

Build a website. It’s one of the best marketing tools you can create, without spending much money. Visit our website section now for more information. Promote your website through Search Engine Optimization. The best  and online advertising services like Google Adwords.

TIP  Get the best set of tools to build your website with 1and1. We use them, and have sent them many happy customers. They have some of the best, easiest tools, at the lowest price anywhere. Go see what they can do for your business.

Use your local phone directory and find a local marketing agency. Call them up and ask to meet with them. They’ll almost always jump at the lead. Small marketing angencies are often hungry and can be negotiated with. Really good one’s however probably won’t be hungry, or as easily negotiated with.

Marketing agencies frequently bill you a rate by the hour. Try to get them to do “bid” projects. That means they “bid” on the project, presumably with other bidders, and you take the bid from the company with the best value. That does not mean the company with the lowest price. Let me say that again, that does not mean the company with the lowest price. You need to decide for yourself what constitutes value.

TIP  Save money. Use your marketing agency to make your written marketing plan. Maybe have them do some artwork, but use the tools at Vista Print to take their artwork (or use Fotolia.com’s artwork), write your own text, then compile your own marketing material and save money.

Here is the most imporant thing about marketing agencies: Always get a Written Release from them for any custom work they do for you. Otherwise, they may be able to file a lawsuit against your company for using their works, and get a percentage of your revenues. This is rare, and usually justified, but protecting yourself up front never hurts.

Setting yourself and your brand apart is what makes you stand out. Building a good business identity early on, and maintaining consistency in that identity is critical for successful marketing, brand awareness, and business success.This is a place where a business identity specialist comes into play. They are usually a element of your marketing agency. If you don’t have a marketing agency to help you here, there are several online resources which can get you through this.

Lets review some solutions, and find out how they can help you.

	Build a corporate identity with a wide range of promotional items, fully customized with your logo, company name and slogan. They provide printing services from everything to mugs, hats, shirts, you name. Go explore what they’ve got, and see how they will benifit your small business.
	Vistaprint is one of my personal favorites. They have one of the best publishing products on the internet. Free business cards are just the start. They’ve got hundreds of professional quality templates, and they have an amazing online solution that helps you put together professional looking publications in minutes. They also have extremely powerful and affordable creative services, and printing/mailing services to simply your marketing. Go visit them now and learn more.
	This group provides affordable professional logo design. Marketing companies charge thousands, but businesses like this provide a much less expensive route that is often higher quality than a “Ma and Pa” marketing shop. Check out their site and see if they can help you.

Overlooking the building of a business plan is akin to going on a road trip without a map. You might have a general idea of where you want to go, but you need to know how to handle junctions to get there. This is the heart of a business plan. To get a good business plan, you can go several routes. Most MBA’s (Master in Business Administration) have the training to write a business plan. You don’t have to be an MBA though to get through this though. You can find free business plan samples  all over the internet, or you can hire a business plan consultant. These are often available online, and are made up of MBA’s who crank out plans all day.

Alternatively, you can make your own business plan buy purchasing Business planning software.

The best business planningsoftware online is Palo Alto’s Business Plan Pro. It is easy to use, and intuitive. It will guide you through the process, step by step. Check out their website by clicking the box to the left, and find out if it’s right for you.

Small Business start up is a challenging road to chart. Finding the tools to help navigate is time consuming and costly. In the pages that follow, we have assembled tools and techniques that may help you successfully plot your course to success.

Each tool and technique we cover should be scrutinized for how you can apply it to your business, and increase your compeditive edge.