How to Legally Protect Your Business – In Just 7 Minutes with Heather Pearce Campbell

Resources/Links:

• Want to know more about everything legal you need in your business? Click here: legalwebsitewarrior.com/legalbasicsbootcamp

Summary

Have you been wanting to legally protect your business from potential copyright infringements?

Legally protecting your business leads you to become a better business leader– want to know how?

Heather Pearce Campbell is a warrior mama, nature lover, and dedicated attorney and legal coach for world-changing entrepreneurs. She is based in Seattle, Washington, and can be found online at www.legalwebsitewarrior.com.

Dive into the world of legal basics with Heather and learn what it means to legally protect your business and how it can help you become a better business leader.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 02:28 – Heather’s ideal client: My ideal clients, like we said in the intro, are world-changing entrepreneurs. I call them “information entrepreneurs”. They’re generally online experts, speakers, and authors.
• 03:05 – The problem she helps solve: So, a couple– the list of legal problems is long but going, you know, moving out, the bigger picture, typically, the largest problem people face is getting a legal understanding of their business, having what I call “the map”, right?
• 03:55 – The symptoms of the problem: Well, so one is they’re just not connecting with somebody who they feel understands their business from a legal perspective, that’s like an entry-level pain point. But the other pain points are they’re hiring.
• 05:39 – Clients’ common mistakes before consulting Heather: They will often attempt first a do-it-yourself approach, cobble a contract together, or borrow it from somebody else’s business when it’s not really a fit for them. The worst is going to Google and just taking whatever they find, which can often- yes, templates.
• 07:52 – Heather’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): A step in the right direction is to get yourself organized. Go gather up what you do have in place. So, for example, maybe you’ve got a client agreement in place for your standard client services.
• 09:01- Heather’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Want to know more about everything legal you need in your business? Click here: legalwebsitewarrior.com/legalbasicsbootcamp
• 09:33 – Q: What is it that I wish people knew about legal that they don’t? A: A couple of things. One is that it is synonymous with business leadership. I joke with people that I deliver legal services, but what I sneak in is actually better business leadership.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“Get yourself organized. Go gather up what you do have in place.” -Heather Pearce Campbell Share on X

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 00:10
Greetings, everyone, and a warm welcome to another edition of Marketing the Invisible. Today, I’m joined by Heather Pearce Campbell. Heather, a good day from Down Under. A warm welcome! Where are you hanging out?

Heather Pearce Campbell 00:21
Excellent! So good to see you, Tom. I am over in Seattle, Washington.

Tom Poland 00:26
The home of Oldham and North America’s greatest coffee. The scene and culture and innovations are quite extraordinary. So, for those of you who don’t know Heather, she’s warrior mama. And by golly, sometimes you have to be a warrior mama. How old are the little ones?

Heather Pearce Campbell 00:43
Yep, so I’ve got one who is four and about to turn five. And my nine-year-old just turned 10 a couple of days ago! So, we joke, we have a little person who’s already a decade in the house.

Tom Poland 00:55
Right, very cute ages, both of them, especially the four-year-old. So, in addition to being a warrior mama, she’s a nature lover. She’s a dedicated attorney and legal coach for world-changing entrepreneurs. She can be found on-site, on the website, I should say, Legalwebsitewarrior.com. Folks, really, really important subject. A lot of people, and I’m one of them, get hot and heavy about marketing because you got to make sure that your asset is protected. You may be doing all the right things. You might be being quite careful but there are some pretty malicious people out there because the north of the USA is hot and heavy about legal stuff. I’ll say a quick story. I was looking to franchise in the US and I went to see a franchise specialist in the US he sat me down in front of his desk and he was in the old days where you picked up the phone and talk to your receptionist, “Dolly, bring me in the phonebook.” And Dolly brought in the phonebook, the Yellow Pages. And he grabbed the Yellow Pages. And he had rifled through it and he held up the Yellow Pages. And the Yellow Pages were sort of you know, three inches thick, reading one section. He said the first thing you need to know is that’s the number of attorneys that want to sue your ass.

Heather Pearce Campbell 02:07
Nice visual demonstration, just in case you’re wondering.

Tom Poland 02:10
Welcome to America! Yeah, welcome to the minefield. And it’s true, you’ve got to have your legal. You’ve got to have your I’s dotted and your T’s crossed. Otherwise, you could be losing your shirt, all in all, work. So, let’s get on with the interview, “How to Legally Protect your Business.” Our seven minutes start now. Question number one, Heather, is, who’s your ideal client?

Heather Pearce Campbell 02:28
My ideal clients, like we said in the intro, are world-changing entrepreneurs. I call them “information entrepreneurs”. They’re generally online experts, speakers, and authors. They do all kinds of things in their business, you know. They’re podcasters, but they are largely dealing with information, right? Consultants and coaches. People whose entire business is developed around a body of work.

Tom Poland 02:52
And very appropriate that you’re on the Marketing the Invisible Podcast because what they have is not a physical product, but intellectual.

Heather Pearce Campbell 02:59
That’s right.

Tom Poland 02:59
So, tell us, question number two, six and a half minutes left, what’s the problem you solve for these world-changing entrepreneurs?

Heather Pearce Campbell 03:05
So, a couple– the list of legal problems is long but going, you know, moving out, the bigger picture, typically, the largest problem people face is getting a legal understanding of their business, having what I call “the map”, right? The legal roadmap to your business. People tend to cherry-pick their legal needs, like, “My business coach told me this”, or my friend in business told me this, but they’ve never sat down with somebody to get a comprehensive understanding top to bottom of their legal needs, so that they can, from a strategic perspective, prioritize what they need.

Tom Poland 03:41
Right. Thank you for that. What would you say are some of the typical symptoms that your ideal clients are experiencing before, but they’re sort of- what would give someone listening to this a bit of a heads up that they need to find out more about what you do? Five and a half minutes left.

Heather Pearce Campbell 03:55
Right? Well, so one is they’re just not connecting with somebody who they feel understands their business from a legal perspective, that’s like an entry-level pain point. But the other pain points are they’re hiring. They might be hiring internationally. They’ve got an online business, and they’re facing privacy issues. They have intellectual property issues; they’re concerned about launching a new course or program or they’re thinking maybe I need to get a trademark. They’re reaching into the US and I work with a lot of people internationally as well. So, they’re facing the whole sea of legal issues that you just referenced in that Yellow Pages book, right? They’re facing being in the marketplace. So, they generally have a host of legal things going on in their business, but one of those pain points is going to jump up and bite them.

Tom Poland 03:55
Are they in that sort of situation where they don’t know what they don’t know, but they know that they don’t know what they don’t know? If you like, it sort of says, you know. Because you’ve got intellectual property protection rights. You’ve got potential litigation for which they need some sort of legal professional identity or protection.

Heather Pearce Campbell 04:58
That’s right.

Tom Poland 04:58
Is the outgoing legal stuff to protect your intellectual property as well as the incoming?

Heather Pearce Campbell 05:03
It’s all of the above, right? And the ways that we grow our businesses through relationships, are all opportunities for things to go sideways.

Tom Poland 05:13
You’re right. Tell me about it! I mean, the thing is that folks, you can be as pure as the white-driven snow and as well-intentioned as Mother Teresa, and you can still get someone who wants to have a go at you. So, let’s just assume that people are aware that there are some legal issues that should be taken care of, what would you say, question four, are some of the common mistakes that people make when trying to resolve those?

Heather Pearce Campbell 05:39
Yeah. Totally. They will often attempt first like a do-it-yourself approach, cobble a contract together, borrow it from somebody else’s business when it’s not really a fit for them. The worst is going to Google and just taking whatever they find, which can often- yes, templates. But if they- the crazy part about the online world is you can often find yourself in a copyright infringement scenario, not thinking like, “Oh, yeah, legal work belongs to somebody.” So, I end up chasing down people all the time that have ripped information off of my client’s websites, right? So do not do any of those things!

Tom Poland 06:23
A sub-question, how much of you, and I’m stopping the clock here because I’m squeezing another question in. How much of your percentage of your time is chasing people who have infringed copyright? I mean, we have it all the time. People just blatantly copied our programs and courses and put them up on their websites.

Heather Pearce Campbell 06:38
You know, for once I enroll clients, especially clients that have good visibility in the marketplace, and truthfully, all my other clients, too, are on their way to good visibility, if they don’t have it already. I tell them, you just need to plan for this. This is the reality, unfortunately, of yes, it’s going to happen. It’s not really a matter of if, it’s a matter of when and it tends to be ongoing once you’ve reached certain levels of business.

Tom Poland 07:03
I would say we discover someone every week. We now have a system in place that once a month, we have to scan for our product names, and we find people-

Heather Pearce Campbell 07:11
That’s right.

Tom Poland 07:12
Yeah, and, folks, it’ll happen to you before you think that you’re highly visible. That’s the thing that I was surprised at. Okay, back on track. Thank you! Just under three minutes left. Question five, I know from painful experience, that people should not try to do this themselves. We’re coaches. We’re marketers. We are whatever we are, but we’re not legal people. And DIY is just a frickin disaster! You could actually create more problems than you’re trying to solve. So that said, that’s a big mistake. But we’re not suggesting people should do it themselves, but give us one valuable free action that someone could take to not solve the whole problem, but take them a step in the right direction.

Heather Pearce Campbell 07:52
Yes, a step in the right direction is to get yourself organized. Go gather up what you do have in place. So, for example, maybe you’ve got a client agreement in place for your standard client services. Maybe at some point, you did put a privacy policy from a template generator site on your website. Create a legal file for yourself and go gather up the resources that you have. This will help somebody like me do an audit for you very quickly, right? You’ve got your stuff altogether. And also, if you haven’t done this, like, Tom, I’m sure you’ve got a million pages all over the internet, Tom, between landing pages, sales pages, webinar funnel, like all the things. Make sure you have all of your online real estates because that is where our IP lives, most of us in the online space, documented in a spreadsheet tracked by page.

Tom Poland 08:01
Excellent idea! Pain in the butt, but just so important.

Heather Pearce Campbell 08:35
You will feel so good when you’ve done even just that initial step.

Tom Poland 08:52
Right. Okay. Thank you for that. 70 seconds left, two questions to go, and one valuable free resource. Where can people go to find out more about what you do?

Heather Pearce Campbell 09:01
Yes, legalwebsitewarrior.com/legalbasicsbootcamp. This is a free, really mini, bite-sized legal basics boot camp that will walk you through a framework that I created that will help you quickly understand your business from a legal perspective.

Tom Poland 09:18
So, folks, it’s www.legalwebsitewarrior.com/legalbasics, plural, bootcamp. Go get it! 40 seconds left, Heather. What’s the one question I should have asked you, but didn’t?

Heather Pearce Campbell 09:33
You know, what is it that I wish people knew about legal that they don’t? A couple of things. One is that it is synonymous with business leadership. I joke with people that I deliver legal services, but what I sneak in is actually better business leadership. It is about it- because the entrepreneurs that I serve, don’t have in-house counsel. They’re not Starbucks and Nike, but they need to be leading their businesses in a very specific way, right? The other thing is how you-

Tom Poland 10:04
Five seconds.

Heather Pearce Campbell 10:04
Okay, all wrapped up.

Tom Poland 10:06
Alright. Heather Pearce Campbell, thank you so much for your time.

Tom Poland 10:11
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.