Oh, y’all, I am so excited to introduce you to a special guest poster who I know you’ll just love! Meet Genavieve Shingle of Genavieve Shingle Law, a beautiful boss lady running a top notch crash course in all things legal for small business owners just like you and me. Because let’s face it, we’re probably thinking less about what type of contract we should send out with this design proposal and more about the gorgeous color palette options we could present this client with! Enter Genavieve – she’s a bar certified lawyer in the state of New York who just so happens to care about making sure your business is fully covered. And today she’s here to help those of us with an online shop figure out how best to protect our businesses through strong contracts and appropriate disclosures!

Virtual entrepreneurs are the new black.  Our industry is rapidly expanding as more and more business owners are starting to operate completely in cyber space.  And why not?  Limitless potential clients, cheaper expenses, sweatpants are the new business casual…sounds divine.  And for the most part, it is.

What many virtual entrepreneurs do not realize is that there are legal requirements for having this virtual presence.  For starters, anyone who has a website, is required to have the following two documents: Terms & Conditions and a Privacy Policy.

Now, I’m sure you have seen these docs before – if you go onto an big website, there they will be as a link in the footer – Google, Amazon, Nordstrom – they all have them.  And that’s a good thing because … well, it’s the law!

So what are they?  Terms and Conditions are basically a metaphorical contract between your business and those who visit your website.  It will describe your services, limitations of liability, governing law, and the various intellectual property rights of your business (boring legal words, but this is a super important part), such as copyright by noting that the content on the site belongs solely to YOU as the business / website owner.  This doesn’t protect you from everything, but it’s a great place to start.

A Privacy Policy is for businesses that sell products on their site, collect any sort of information, such as a name and e-mail for a newsletter, a blog, etc..  This Privacy Policy promises to those who visit your site that you will neither sell their private information nor spam them with unnecessary information.  It also provides that you will securely store this information.  I have found that the foundation of this document is to provide peace of mind for your potential clients / website visitors.

Now you may be thinking that you can just go and copy someone else’s Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy and make a few tweaks for your business.  Don’t do it.  This is copyright infringement. Just as you do not want anyone to copy anything from your site, this applies to other people’s sites as well.  These documents are written specifically for a certain business and then it belongs to that business owner.

The next, and most important legal consideration would be CONTRACTS. Doesn’t sound sexy, right? But you know what else isn’t sexy?  Delivering your hard work to a client only for them to disappear halfway through your coaching program (and not paying!). Or designing gorgeous branding images and having them ripped off by someone else. Contracts are here to protect you and your business like shiny platinum armor.

Client Agreements are for those who run a service-based businesses, while Product Purchase Agreements are for those who sell and deliver physical products.  They’re similar in what they cover but some important provisions that you want to include are:

• Description of the product / service – tell your potential purchaser exactly what it is that they are buying from you
• Price, payment plans and how you will collect payment
• Refund / cancellation policies
• Disclaimers – SUPER important to protect yourself.  Are you a life coach that is going to be giving advice regarding one’s mental state? If so, you want to make sure the potential client knows that you are not licensed as a psychologist or as any medical professional (this covers your booty big time).  Are you selling a product that is dangerous for children? Make sure that is SUPER CLEAR on the description of the product on the site and on the purchase agreement.
  • *Law is all about what a person KNEW (or should have known) before they made a purchase. This is why contracts should be provided up front – prior to payment.*
• Expectations that you have of the client – setting boundaries is important in your business.
• Governing law and dispute resolution clauses
• No Guarantees – in short, previous results do not guarantee future results.

There are going to be a few more sections in there that are totally legal in nature, but the ones above are important for you to decide and consider in your contracts.

A lot of legal jargon, I know.  Plain and simple – protect your ass(ets) and get yourself these documents.  Questions?  Feel free to contact me with the information in my bio!

With Love and Legal-Ease,

Genavieve Shingle Jaffe is a  sparkly lawyer here to help you cover your beautiful business booty with legit legal protection. She runs a law practice, Genavieve Shingle Law, and an on-line legal course, Damsel in Defense®, where she educates and empowers female entrepreneurs with the legal side of their business.  She believes in magic, unicorns, pink hair, miracles and that mint chocolate chip ice cream is a perfectly acceptable dinner.  To learn more about her, come say hello at genavieveshingle.com.

*This is for legal information purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice.  Genavieve Shingle is only licensed to practice law in the State of New York