As a small business owner, dealing with your businesses legal needs can be extremely intimidating. Between the complexity of legalese and the sometimes-significant repercussions for mistakes or misgivings, handling your businesses legal issues can feel like a near impossible job. Fortunately, we’re here to make it a little easier on you. Here are our top 10 legal tips for small business owners.
Tip #1 for Small Business Owners: Ensure Any Permitting is in Place
This is the first and most important step for any small business owner. Depending on your business, location, and more, there may be local, state, or federal permitting or licensing that you’ll need in order to legally operate your business. For instance, if you plan on opening a bar, you’ll need business permits, liquor and food service licensing, and more. Be sure to identify if and what these requirements are before opening your doors.
Tip #2 for Small Business Owners: Get Everything in Writing
As humans, we’re inclined to trust the people around us, especially when they’re a close friend or a business partner. As a small business owner, however, being too giving with your trust can get you into deep water, quickly. When it comes to the management of your business, get absolutely everything in writing. Insist on written contracts with agreed upon terms and never trust a handshake. Even the most trustworthy seeming people can hurt you in the long run. A well-written contract will protect you and your business from the unexpected.
Tip #3 for Small Business Owners: Protect Your Intellectual Property
For many small businesses, an owner’s ideas and creations are the lifeline of their business. Proper legal protection of your intellectual property will protect you from copycats and intellectual theft. Protect your logo, business name, branding, and more with a copyright, trademark, or patent. If you’ve come up with a cutting edge technology, like CBDfx CO2 extraction process, protect it legally.
Tip #4 for Small Business Owners: Insist on NDAs
As a small business owner, trust in your employees can only go so far. A disgruntled former employee can quickly share information with a competitor that could turn your business upside down. A non-disclosure agreement is another way to protect your business from intellectual theft. Require all employees to sign them.
Tip #5 for Small Business Owners: Protect Your Customers’ Privacy, Too
If you’re dealing with the public in any capacity, it’s important to create a written privacy policy that tells your customers how you will handle their private information. This includes full name, email address, physical address, phone number, and any other information that you require from customers in exchange for goods. In the event that you pass their information along to any other businesses, be sure to be explicitly clear about this in your privacy policy. Otherwise, you may find yourself in hot water. Generating a privacy policy is a lot simpler that you think. There are many privacy policy generators that simply require you to plug in your information and return a full privacy policy ready for you to use.
Tip #6 for Small Business Owners: Never Mix Personal and Business Funds
For proper bookkeeping and taxes, it’s vital that you keep your personal and your business funds separate. Open a business account at your bank, get a credit card just for your business, and more. Mixing of the two can land you in a lot of legal trouble.
Tip #7 for Small Business Owners: Don’t Be Afraid to Seek Professional Help
If managing legal issues for your small business is feeling too overwhelming, you’re not totally out of luck. The good news is that there are so many legal professionals that provide legal services and consultation for small businesses. Chances are, there are a wealth of professionals that specify in legal services for your specific business type and in your area. Remember that the cost of hiring a professional pales in comparison to the penalties you may face if your legal matters aren’t handled correctly. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
