The Small Business Safari
Have you ever sat there and wondered "What am I doing here stuck in the concrete zoo of the corporate world?" Are you itching to get out? Chris Lalomia and his co-host Alan Wyatt traverse the jungle of entrepreneurship. Together they share their stories and help you explore the wild world of SCALING your business. With many years of owning their own small businesses, they love to give insight to the aspiring entrepreneur. So, are you ready to make the jump?
The Small Business Safari
Finding the Right Legal Partner to be proactive in Small Business - Matthew Fornaro
Ready to unlock the secrets of a successful business partnership? Join us on this enlightening episode of Small Business Safari as we sit down with legal expert Matthew Farnaro from Farnaro Law. We'll guide you through the crucial steps of setting up a partnership, from establishing clear guidelines to handling disagreements and exits. Matthew shares his wisdom on how to safeguard your business legally and be PROACTIVE in your business to avoid legal pitfalls that can undermine a business.
Matthew Farnaro offers invaluable insights into common issues like partner disputes, financial conflicts, and intellectual property protection. We also touch on the significance of maintaining strong client relationships and the benefits of working with specialized professionals. Tune in for a blend of expert advice and genuine laughs with the GRITTY GUYS of the THE SMALL BUSINESS SAFARI
I know a lot of people who they start out in business together with a partner and it's just kumbaya. They're super excited and then five years later they want to strangle each other. What needs to be put in place in a partnership at the very beginning with somebody like you to I don't know? Ensure that there's guidelines and what happens if there's a disagreement and what happens if one of them wants to leave, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, the first thing is you have to understand that.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the Small Business Safari where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls and dangers that lurk when navigating the wild world of small business ownership. I'll share those gold nuggets of information and invite guests to help accelerate your ascent to that mountaintop of success. It's a jungle out there and I want to help you traverse through the levels of owning your own business that can get you bogged down and distract you from hitting your own personal and professional goals. So strap in Adventure Team and let's take a ride through the safari and get you to the mountaintop. Well, it feels like it's been a month, but it's only been a week in podcast land. But, alan, we have not been together for a while and I'm telling you, man, I didn't realize how energized I get just getting together with you and getting a chance to talk with people and kick it around talking about biz well, and I mean, I know we don't like time stamping ourselves, but think of what's happened since we actually last met.
Speaker 1:We had a poop show of a debate, we had a presidential candidate get shot then we had another one drop out. We have a new presidential. I mean, how's your business surviving with all that chaos in washington, is it?
Speaker 3:it's funny you should say it because I I just had a a big company-wide meeting this morning where literally one of my slides was presidential debate. Don't let it interfere. I said presidential election, don't let it interfere with what we do. I was so worried that it was going to be a big distraction for us and I'm wondering now if it's going to be such a big distraction that it won't be a distraction, because every election year we always slow down right before the election starts because uncertain money doesn't spend. People don't want to work on their house. They want to see if their guy gets in and if they do, well, we go back to working on their house it kind of goes to show how resilient americans are.
Speaker 1:It's like this. This should be really concerning, and everybody's just cruising around about their day. Yeah, yeah, and I mean it couldn't get any more comical.
Speaker 3:It's. Yeah, it's actually that's. I actually have some friends in england uh, through the show and I uh texted him and said I think I might be moving to england. He goes no better here, mate. So well, let's get in speaking of elections and legal stuff. We have a great guest today, matthew fernaro from Farnaro Law down in South Florida, going to drop all kinds of legal nuggets on us on what we can do with our business, how we can protect ourselves, or maybe we just kick around and talk football. I don't know, we'll see.
Speaker 1:Whatever happens, I know you, chris, you're going to try to get 45 minutes of free legal advice out of this and I'm hoping you send him a big fat bill.
Speaker 2:Chris and Alan thanks for having me. It wouldn't be the first time someone tried to get free legal advice from me for 45 minutes. What?
Speaker 1:We weren't the first.
Speaker 2:He knows At least, this is a podcast, so that's good.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, Matthew, thanks for coming on. So let's start. Were you always going to be a lawyer? Was this your thing? And then did you go big corporate law and then start your own gig? Give us a little background.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a pretty good guess, chris. Yes, I kind of always knew I wanted to be an attorney. Even when I was a little kid I liked watching the People's Court and the Judge and other TV shows not necessarily other legal dramas or anything. So I always kind of knew I wanted to do that. I was a political science major in undergrad and then I went to law school. Coming out of law school I worked for two large AMLAW 200 law firms and did a lot of commercial litigation and corporate stuff. And then I had the opportunity to work for an even bigger law firm but I decided I wanted to go out on my own and focus on helping small and medium-sized businesses. That was about nine years ago and that's what I've been doing since.
Speaker 3:So, as you made that change, you're doing the big, large corporate. I guess in the beginning too Was it the meat grinder, where they had you working like hour upon hour billing as much as you could.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's everything you think it is, you know, and then even worse, so it's a lot of back in that. Remember, this is all pre-COVID when you ended, like being in person, so it's a lot of like being the first person in being the last person out of the office to show like you know, you're a hard worker and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:That's what you still expect, right? Chris?
Speaker 3:I do. Actually I'm going back right after this podcast to desk check everybody at 6 o'clock tonight. No, of course not.
Speaker 2:But yeah, that's the kind of stuff that would happen. You know tremendous amount of billing, hard work, stuff like that, All right.
Speaker 1:So you wanted to be an attorney when you were a little kid.
Speaker 2:So were you argumentative in school? Did you talk back to your parents a lot? I really wasn't argumentative in school. I used to try to manipulate my parents a lot, but I think I used my skills more to be solution-based than I was to be an arguer or be manipulative. But I had a lot of toys growing up, so I made up pretty good.
Speaker 3:Nice, so you honed that skill early on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had toys all the time. I was pretty good.
Speaker 3:Let's talk about that leap into the business world as opposed to the legal. When you looked at it, did you have a bevy of clients? Did you have a business plan? How did you go about starting it?
Speaker 2:well, I know now how I would have liked to go about starting.
Speaker 2:But you know, I mean it was either now or never kind of situation where I was always either going to be, you know, in the big grind or go do my own thing.
Speaker 2:So I kind of you.
Speaker 2:I had some clients who I took with me but I had to kind of figure out a lot of stuff on my own because I didn't really have any practical real-world business training to do anything. So I kind of had to do a lot of on-the-job training and figuring out while I go, which I think I'm pretty good now, you know, almost a decade later, and I kind of take all that knowledge and stuff and try to pass it on to my clients while being there, not just their attorney but their counselor at law. But I did a lot of. I did like two programs to like better teach me about small business and they were pretty helpful. One was the Kaufman Institute and one was the one was the Moran program through Florida State University. So they both were really good at helping me like figure out small business and how to do things. And now I'm able to help out my small business clients by kind of passing that information on and then also using skills and knowledge that I've learned over the last, like 10 years or nine years.
Speaker 1:So if you had it to do over again, would you just started by taking those classes and getting that knowledge before you launched?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would, because it made things a lot easier and made things like. You know, like, come up with like a written business plan and make sure you have everything in place before you do everything and make sure you make really, um, sound choices and you know really, uh, think about before you do stuff. So you didn't, you didn't have a written business plan when I started out?
Speaker 2:no, I didn't. I mean I do now, I've had one for years but when I started out I didn't have a written business plan. Well, that that's something that you know. I tell them. I tell you you have a written business plan. It's like the first thing you need to do.
Speaker 1:Not that I had one, but do you have one? Yeah?
Speaker 3:So as you, as you started to build your book of business, you know we checked out your website. That's one way to get clients. How did you find your best way to get clients and what was the other ways?
Speaker 2:you did it like the top two or three well, I can tell you what the bottom two or three are. First, yeah, let's do those. So I wasted a lot of money doing like different I don't want to say like different like print advertising and different web stuff. That didn't really work. So that didn't really work. So that didn't really work. The thing that works for me now is mostly peer to peer referrals and referrals from other professionals and other attorneys and other clients is probably the best way I get business right now. But obviously the web online SEO presence is also good. That's probably the second biggest way I get business and you know being I don't know, my social media stuff is probably the third biggest way I get business. But, um, you know, starting out, I mean I can. I went through a whole bunch of like trial and error kind of stuff to figure out what works best and now I had to.
Speaker 3:You know, after all these years I know what works best for me yeah, how do you develop those peer-to-peer relationships in the law world, legal world?
Speaker 2:you know, I started out when I went out on my own and, oh, look at that, I just got a jim moran institute email while we're sitting here. So while we started out, um, you know, I went to like a lot of networking events and I joined like a business networking group and that worked out okay, but it kind of really wasn't for me and I kind of outgrew it. What I do now is I have like a for lack of better term, like a for lack of a better term like a business coach.
Speaker 2:But he doesn't he facilitates me having one-to-one interaction and one-to-one relationships with other professionals. That's primarily what he does and that's how I primarily meet other professionals and get to know them and then, you know, develop a relationship and then refer business and things like that.
Speaker 1:So when I talk to a lot of my friends in business, they think of attorneys. As you know, it's kind of an after the fact. I have a problem and I get do you know? An attorney. So talk to our audience a little bit about the value of you know. Meeting with an attorney is as important as meeting with a good banker and a good accountant and that kind of thing to just be part of your team.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when you launch, yeah, that's a good point, Alan. I we know when I represent businesses and people, I focus on like a team concept where you're the business person. Ideally, I want you to make business decisions and leave other decisions to professionals who are part of your team. So that's why I always encourage business people when they start out to have, like a banker, an accountant, like if they're into the internet or web, like a internet webmaster and an attorney, because working together as a team, they will take all those separate areas and focus on their area so that you can focus on just the business part and ideally, you're just doing business stuff and not having to worry about, you know, tax, administrative, legal stuff and have your professionals do that. So those are all necessities. As much as you'd think they're luxuries, I mean they're necessities in business. So as part of when I tell my clients, my new business clients they need to budget their time and their expense to have, ideally, an accountant, ideally a banker, ideally a business law attorney on their team.
Speaker 1:Because it's all proactive, doing things correct to begin with, rather than being reactive and having to deal with problems after they arise. Can you give us some examples of things that that can prevent from happening by having a good relationship with an attorney who knows your business?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so just from the absolute beginning of doing anything I mean before you even start your business the attorney is going to work with you and your accountant to figure out what the best business organization for you is. Because someone maybe a C Corp, an S Corp, an LLC, a partnership, you don't know until you meet with an attorney for the legal part and an accountant for the money part to figure out what's the best business organization for you to even start out with, and then with that you have your written business plan. So the attorney won't necessarily write it for you, but they'll help you set it up and then they'll help you register the business and then go from there.
Speaker 3:So when somebody comes to you after the fact, you know, and that's where it usually happens, right, you said, be proactive, not reactive. But what that's no?
Speaker 1:actually I said that Did you. Yeah, usually happens. Right, you said, be proactive, not reactive, but what that's? No, actually I said, that did you. Yeah, I did, thanks for paying attention, chris.
Speaker 3:So he said it was a good point, did he? He did? I said it was a good point. Yeah, mark that. Oh fine, all right. Proactive, reactive, fine. But but literally five percent of people out there are proactive right. I gotta imagine most people coming to you are like oh, I got this happening and I need some help. What is that typical? What are more the more common? Oh my god, I need your help sure it's.
Speaker 2:You know a lot of it's stuff that could have been prevented if you came to me before you started your business.
Speaker 2:But a lot of it, some of it's out of your hands, some of it's just stuff that happens while you're being in business. But I would say, obviously, a huge part is problems with your business partners or people you're in business with. You know people who owe you money or people who you owe money to landlord or tenant issues, vendor issues. You know things like that, things that if you had an attorney on board to begin with, probably they wouldn't be as bad as they are, because an attorney would help you create, like, if you're a corporation, would help you create bylaws and help you create articles of incorporation. Or, if you're an LLC, an attorney would help you create a operating agreement that you would have in place to tell you what to do if there's ever a problem versus you. Just kind of formed it, went online, signed up, and now you're kind of just floating along with no, none of those agreements. So those are probably. You know, probably those five or six things I've talked about were probably the main things that people come to me about.
Speaker 1:You touched on one thing that I find that I would like to ask about, which is the partnership piece. And you know, longtime fans of our show know that Chris doesn't play well with others. So you know this is. You know you can just identify as that that's right.
Speaker 1:But I know a lot of people who they start out in business together with a partner and it's just kumbaya, they're super excited and then five years later they want to strangle each other. What needs to be put in place in a partnership at the very beginning with somebody like you to I don't know? Ensure that there's guidelines and what happens if there's a disagreement and what happens if one of them wants to leave, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, the first thing is you have to understand that someone who you call partner isn't necessarily your partner. They're your business affiliate or your business associate. The only way you're a partner is if you have a partnership, like you formed a limited partnership or an actual partnership. If you're in business with a guy or a lady and you have an LLC or you have a corporation, you're calling that person your partner. You're not really their partner, you're just in business together. So it's kind of a misnomer when people use the term partner, because unless it's a true partnership, you're not really partners. You're people who are in business together. So, assuming that most people who interchangeably use the term partner, most of the time they're really talking about a corporation or an LLC that they're part of.
Speaker 2:And the way you avoid problems is that, like I was just speaking about a little earlier, if you're a corporation, you have your bylaws that explain everything about your corporation. They explain how you take on members, how you get rid of members or, excuse me, shareholders and officers. They explain what they're supposed to do. They explain what they're not supposed to do. They explain how the company works. They explain how, if there's a stalemate or if there's a problem, what you do. It's the same thing with an operating agreement for an LLC. So once those documents are in place, that's kind of your roadmap to when there's any kind of issue, and particularly when there's an issue between two people or three people or whatever who are in business together to figure out how do we fix our relationship, how do we get rid of someone, how do we bring someone in, how do we close down the business, how do we separate the business, that kind of thing.
Speaker 3:So how often, when these people come in, they think, hey, well, we've got a partnership, we've got a disagreement, or usually it's one person coming to you, not both, right? Is it more often than not that they don't have a true LLC where it's a 50-50 split or there's a 75-25 documented split?
Speaker 2:I'd say it's probably 50-50, but I will say the 50% of people who do have documents aren't great, like there's stuff that they found off the internet or stuff that they went to like a legal Zoom and had them just do like the 99-99 special or whatever.
Speaker 1:Did that hurt chris?
Speaker 3:yeah, like I did not do the I, I literally just had it. I literally just had another employer say yeah, you can go out and do your own trust. You know, I said so, you like legal zoom? He goes, whoa? I said exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I would say it's usually that kind of percentage of people and it's a very I don't say very small, but it's a smaller percentage of percentage of people and it's a very I don't want to say very small, but it's a smaller percentage of people who actually have good business documents in place.
Speaker 3:How about that? Again, it's the stuff you don't want to think about. Right, you got this new sexy widget. You got an idea, you want to start a handyman company. Let's say, for example Hypothetically. Hypothetically. Yeah, you just go out there, you're running, you're trying to figure out how to run the business. You're not thinking well, I got to protect myself. I gotta have the right organization, the right articles of incorporation, the standard operating agreements. You just don't think about that stuff. So I, I can see where you know having somebody like you get involved.
Speaker 1:But again, that's being proactive well, and I think so many people are afraid of attorneys and they're afraid that it's really expensive and and I think you, you're one of those- I am yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean no, no offense, matthew, but I don't like attorneys. I think you have it too expensive.
Speaker 1:It's probably way more expensive when you come in with a big goddamn hairball, as opposed to just having a relationship ahead of time? Do you think?
Speaker 3:I do, yeah, and of course, the relationship I did have here. He retired two years ago, so I don't. I'm actually probably because of you.
Speaker 3:he's probably operating somewhere else under an assumed you know he did take my call, but he did tell me I'm retired, so can we go back? Yeah, all right. So what are some of the bigger issues you've seen with companies that have been in business for four or five years? They got over that hump there, you know, cause that's hard to do, even to make it to four or five years. What do you see with those companies as they're emerging and growing?
Speaker 2:You know they have growing pains as far as like, are they going to scale up and be bigger? Are they going to stay where they are and kind of be stable? So it's a lot of you know. Do I take on debt? Do I take out a loan? Do I take on quote unquote partners, which are, you know, really just other people in business? Do I expand? You know, that kind of kind of teething pains and things like that are a lot of what I see um growing established businesses face. Also, you know everyone faces the same kind of problems where there's, you know, sometimes there's labor issues with your employees and other issues you deal with and kind of your business culture is, you know, not what you want it to be and you kind of got to either reboot it or figure out what you want to do. So those are probably the main issues of like an ongoing concern that just have like non-emergency kind of issues that arise. Otherwise, like emergency issues are always, like you know, people owe me money, I owe people money.
Speaker 3:We entered into a contract, someone breached it, that kind of thing if you were giving advice for people out there looking for a lawyer or a business lawyer to be a partner with? What do you think some of those questions, what should they be prepared to be asking you to get the right partner on board with them?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, one of the things I would say is you want to find out what their experience is actually working with similar size or similar working with similar size or similar area businesses.
Speaker 2:So if you're, you know, if you have like an ice cream shop, let's just say and you're looking for a business law attorney and there's a guy who's the ice cream shop guru and then there's someone who's not, you're probably going to want to go with the ice cream shop guru over someone who's not to be your attorney. It's the same thing with any other area. You want to find someone who ideally represents other people in your space not necessarily your competitors, but other similar kind of businesses and have had similar experiences in the past. So they know what your business is about and they kind of know what your industry is about, if possible. If not, you want a business law attorney who understands business, not just you know someone who just grinds along and perfunctory, does things and generates documents, whatever. They actually understand what it means to, like, make payroll and have to take out your deductions and pay taxes and all things like that.
Speaker 3:That's a great point, because you brought up the corporate law and then you said, hey, I didn't have the experience and I've heard that a lot about lawyers and doctors specifically very good at what they do, not very good business operators, and that's why some of these have been come right for consolidations and acquisitions, and so I find that interesting. So know somebody who's in your industry, find them, seek them out and then do that. So how do you know that they know what they're doing? I guess you get referrals, you talk to some other people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean look as much as you want to believe or not believe what's on the internet. I mean you can always look at Google reviews and look at legitimate Google reviews, not like bots or something like that and see what people's ratings are and then go by word of mouth Like you can ask. You know, if you're in business I'm assuming you probably know other people who are your competitors or your colleagues in your business ask them like who's your attorney? Who do you think's a good attorney? Who have you used? Because most of the time, unless you're in like some cutthroat business where you're you know like uh, hatfield and mccoying it up there or whatever.
Speaker 2:I mean most business people will be nice and cordial to other business people, particularly when they're like seeking business advice. So ask other people what they think like who's a good accountant that you use, or who do you know who knows a good accountant, or who do you know who is a good attorney, or who do you know who knows a good attorney. You'll find someone and generally referrals are better than just finding someone yourself because they've already been vetted by someone who you already trust. So they've already kind of passed that first hurdle. So then you kind of know what you're getting once you hire that person.
Speaker 3:No, that's. I think that's an excellent point and obviously there's a lot of specialties, and one of the things I just attended was an exit forum where we had a M&A lawyer focused on business exits and that's his specialty. In your case, would you be the lawyer who takes that company from beginning to getting ready to exit, or do you help people exit?
Speaker 2:I've helped people exit, but I would. I've helped people exit but I would, um, that's something that I would bring in a con, a um, a uh attorney who focuses on that area because I want it done well, like I can do it, but that's not like my particular like focus. And if we're going to sell your business or we're going to do whatever, it's going to be a big transaction, no matter how much money in it. It's a whole shift of things. So that's when I would want to bring in, like a transactional attorney to help me with that, because I can do it but I'm not going to be great at it. I want someone who's going to be great at it to do it for my client.
Speaker 3:That's solid. I love that idea too. So, like an HR law, you go out and find somebody who's maybe specialized in HR. If something like that happened as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like HR. I mean, I have an HR person who I'll refer all those issues to, because, yeah, I know HR stuff, but I'd rather you go to someone who's like board certified in that or someone whose full focus is just doing HR stuff all day long because they're going to.
Speaker 3:You know, be focused on that and know things that other people don't or other attorneys don't know. Yeah, I love that. He knows how to bring in the specialists because, again, a lot of us don't know that. And actually when I went to that he's willing to do it. Yeah, and then that's obviously a great guy to have in your in your camp as well, because when I listened to this forum and he said I specialize in M and a, I mean it hit me I was like, oh yeah, it makes a lot of sense. There's just a lot, a lot that goes into that, especially in a transaction of any size. So as you're operating, you're working with companies that are operating. How often do you talk with them? Do you proactively touch them? Do you wait for them to touch you after you guys have a relationship? How does that work?
Speaker 2:I mean I proactively touch them because, like I have, like you know, I send out all my you know, like all my newsletters and all stuff like that, just to make sure I say top of mind of them, in case they ever need to come reach me and they, you know they're like, oh, I should call Matt or I should, you know, always reach out to me. I don't care, give me a call, give me an email, whatever. So I try to stay proactively in on the top of my clients' minds or, you know, top of other people's minds, because I like to, you know, kind of brainstorm with them to avoid future problems before they get to that point. But then, you know, a lot of the time people tell me after there's an issue or when there's something that needs to be fixed.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I got to believe in my mind. Attorneys have always been reactive, except, obviously, I have a good friend, troy, who is a lawyer, and so I use him and he's got a good business head on his shoulders as well. So he's been my proactive lawyer, but he's in North Carolina and that's my question for you, matthew Do you work with people just in South Florida? Can you work with people virtually outside of Florida? How's? How's your mix look?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I work with. I have clients all over the country and I have, like, some international clients too. Um, you know, obviously the focus of what I do is in florida. Most of my clients are in florida just because geographically and whatever. That's how everything happens. But you know, for the most part, you know there's 50 states, there's 50 different corporate regulations, there's different sets of either state tax or no state tax or corporate tax or no corporate tax. So I generally work with outside businesses outside the state of Florida. But I always work with a attorney who's, you know, localized to where they are. If I'm going to help someone, like you know, in North, north carolina, I'm gonna seek out like, okay, well, I can help you do this and this, and we're gonna bring in a north carolina attorney to make sure that everything's done correctly. And that's kind of how, just like I was talking about bringing a specialist or bringing someone who's focused on something same thing, not just subject matter, but geographic focus, bringing someone for a geographic focus.
Speaker 3:No, that makes a lot of sense. Obviously that makes a ton of sense.
Speaker 1:Can you do a pros and cons on somebody selecting an attorney? And you're looking at the big firm because maybe they've got more experts that can do more things versus more of a boutique-type firm.
Speaker 2:I mean you can find great and terrible attorneys at both. I mean I'll leave it as bluntly as that. I mean, just because someone's at a big firm or just because it's a big firm doesn't mean that you know they're going to do a better job than someone who's at, like, a small firm or a boutique. And just because someone's at a small firm or a boutique, it doesn't mean they're going to be more focused than someone who's at, like, a small firm or a boutique. And just because someone's at a small firm or a boutique, it doesn't mean they're going to be more focused than someone who works at a big firm. It's more. You know, it's certainly subjective. I would look more for the attorney than the law firm as far as what you're looking for, like what we talked about before as far as referrals and things like that, Because there's some great attorneys who are big firms or some great attorneys who are small firms.
Speaker 3:No, that's good advice. Obviously, you want to work with people you like, people you can trust. It's just finding them. I mean again, I was just thinking about that I'm here in Nary, which is the national association of remodeling industry here in Atlanta, and I'm also on the national board. I was in both of those meetings the last two weeks and I was just thinking about that. I'm like why isn't a lawyer in our group and why isn't a lawyer talking to all these other remodelers and contractors about the things that we need to be thinking about? I think we're ripe for it. I know we're ripe for it. How about that Tongue in cheek? So who do you mostly work with? Who's your biggest industries?
Speaker 2:You know it's funny you should mention the construction-ish industry because a lot of what I do is construction-related stuff. I represent a lot of general contractors, subcontractors, material men, things like that, just because, particularly where I am in South Florida, that's just a hot issue of people, there's a lot of construction, there's a lot of people who don't like construction or people who are in construction, so there's a lot of issues and that's always hot down here. So I would say probably my biggest hot button industry would be construction industry. But then you know, I represent all kinds of different businesses from across the game and I mean I represent, you know, like all kinds of different businesses from across the game and I mean I represent you know like a couple apps, like people who own apps that are on, like the apple store for, and you know like doctors, dentists, you know just all kinds of you know air conditioning companies, just all kinds of different things let's go into that app thing, because all of us think that that's where we're going to all make our million dollars.
Speaker 3:Uh, I have no delusions of that okay, well, uh, some of us who are younger than you, yeah, uh, so tell us a little bit more about what you should be protecting from an ip perspective yeah, I mean the technology stuff is a tough bracket because it's very thought intensive and very capital intensive.
Speaker 2:But if you're not just for technology but for anything, you want to protect your intellectual property, because that's you know, I mean that's equity and that's income.
Speaker 2:At some point it's going to be going to be. So if you're into like tech stuff and you're inventing stuff, whatever, obviously you want to patent stuff that you invent. If you're coming up with designs and stuff, you want to copyright or trademark them. So another thing you want to put in your I don't say budget, but in your forecast of how you do your business is, if you're into something where you're creating intellectual property, you want to make sure you protect that intellectual property.
Speaker 3:So that's obviously something we want to ask you about, because you know, for example, my, the trusted toolbox. I have it trademarked or copyrighted, one of the two. I have it marked somehow, I don't know, but I keep it up with it, I've been keeping up with it. So that's the thing. I think a lot of us aren't really sure what is intellectual property. And hey, I got a great idea. Shouldn't I protect that before I do anything with it? I've heard somebody's completely on one side. I don't want to tell anybody about it until I get an attorney involved and I have other people say, yeah, I'll tell you everything. And then, so is that something you could advise somebody, as they're trying to figure something out? Is this going to be something I should patent? Should I trademark it? Should I just keep going with it and then come back to you later? Is that the kind of advice you would help them with?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that's one of the things where, again, I bring in the IP specialists to help out. But if someone tells me that they're inventing something, obviously attorney-client privilege you can tell me all about it without risking giving away your secrets or whatever. But then if it's something that you're serious about, we're gonna have to go try to patent it or try to do something with it. Same thing with you know, like trusted toolbox, something you ever trademarked. Same thing we've got a. You come up with the design or come up the logo or name you got to it, so you've got to trademark it. Or you write a book or something you want to copyright it, so you've got to protect it. But that's another thing where, yes, I can do it and I do do it, but I bring in my specialists to help out and that kind of thing. Particularly with patents, because patent is totally different subjects, totally different animal, you need a patent attorney or a patent agent. You can't nobody can just go willy nilly and get a patent. You have to have very special people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's a lot involved in that. I know that's a big deal.
Speaker 1:Super complicated.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what is the coolest business you've ever worked with? I mean, when you think back man that coolest people, what's the coolest business?
Speaker 2:Um, think back, man, that coolest people. What's the coolest business? Um, you know, I mean I, you know I don't want to play favorites, but there's. You know, there's some businesses that are a lot cooler than other businesses as far as like, wow, that's pretty cool business. Um, I would say, probably back in the day I would say this one business that I represented, that this was in 2004. Um, they kind of cornered the market on every website possible regarding the law, so we trademarked like 50 different names for, like just the most basic stuff you can like. I can't believe this stuff wasn't taken by that point, like personal injurycom and stuff like that. So it was interesting because, um, you know, to see all the people who then came and like were like, I'll pay you this amount of money for that website or whatever, like years later and I still have my name, like on those trademark applications, was pretty cool.
Speaker 2:But then there's other businesses that are you know like I, like you know some of you know like I like the people as opposed to just the business. I mean, there's like I represent the largest large format graphics printer in the country. So this guy prints all the stuff that you see at disney and universal like every single sign he makes at a warehouse in fort lauderdale, and then all the different things you see on cruise ships and at the port. He does all that in this warehouse and so he's got stuff in that warehouse that the general public won't see for like a year, particularly like the star Wars stuff. Like he's got stuff like the secret Disney stuff it's not going to come out for a long period of time and that's like in his warehouse, like right now.
Speaker 2:So it's pretty cool I like, I like going over there to visit him because I see stuff and then when my kids were younger I used to get like incredible star wars posters and stuff that I would bring home nice dad.
Speaker 3:Dad's a hero. Yeah, exactly, dad being a. What's dad do? He's an attorney. What's he really do? I don't know, but he brings me cool star wars stuff. Yeah, matthew, we're coming to the end of this. This has been dynamite dialogue and great information. How can people find you? Let's get those information out there. I know you got a great website, sure.
Speaker 2:The best way to reach me is my website, which is FeneroLegalcom. That'll take you to all my online presence media, because I have Facebook, x, instagram, linkedin, all that stuff, and then I have a whole thing of videos and white papers and like blogs, where many of your questions will be answered merely by going to my website.
Speaker 3:There you go, free legal advice on for narrow legal, what you were looking for this whole time.
Speaker 2:I was all over that website before we got on this thing, man, well before my crm call to the go to the media and uh discussion portion and all your free legal devices there all right, and I'm gonna start following them on the gram baby.
Speaker 3:So that's awesome stuff, but we can't let you go without asking our famous four questions. First is what is a book you would recommend to our audience either looking to start a business or trying to scale a business?
Speaker 2:I would recommend reading uh seven uh steps of highly effective people. Seven habits love it.
Speaker 3:It's classic, I'm through three and a half of them no just because it's always good.
Speaker 2:I mean, look, there's like so many books that are good to just read and stuff. I mean that's just a good book to read. It is not just once, but every once in a while to brush up on it that's actually a really good point that's when you can go back just couldn't get past being nice to people, though, right, chris, is that?
Speaker 3:were they, were they. I skipped that section. Chapter next chapter what nice. No, you know, the book I just uh finished was grit, my angela duckworth. That uh, one of our other podcasts, and I would have to say that was a pretty good book. Man, I uh it was a good stuff in there. She did a lot of research and dialogue in there. But uh, grit, that was good for me. But okay, seven habits, highly effective. People love it. What's the favorite feature of your home?
Speaker 1:favorite feature of my home would be, uh, the wi-fi I thought he was gonna say the view of the intercoastal no, it's a I.
Speaker 2:No, I wish I was on the intercoastal. I'm on a lake, though, but I would say the Wi-Fi, because that connects me to the Internet, which I'm addicted to, and to my television, which I'm addicted to.
Speaker 3:So last night we had a huge storm in Atlanta and my Internet was out for three hours. What on earth did you do? Oh my gosh. I said I should read a book. My son was home and he goes. I guess this is a good time to read a book. I'm like yep. And then I figured out I could find a way to get my iPad online through my cell, and so I went back to watching receivers on Netflix.
Speaker 1:Truly addicted. Do you have gators in your lake?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a bunch of lakes that are like interconnected underground, so technically it's all one giant like ecosystem and there's like a nature preserve near me so there's a bunch of gators over there so sometimes they come over to my small lake. But if I want, I mean I can walk out and see a gator. It's no big deal, wow, no swimming with them.
Speaker 3:That's kind of a deal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you don't mess with them, they leave you alone.
Speaker 3:All right, I'll let you test that theory. All right, one of the things that we are prideful of here is that we are customer service Freaks, thank you. What is a customer service pet peeve of yours when you're out there and you're the customer?
Speaker 2:when I'm the customer um crappy phone reception like you know, that is a good one when you call in and you get routed around to different um.
Speaker 1:Press one for english oh, you hate the decision tree.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the decision tree, because, like you know, I just want a person to speak to who I can easily get my answer from, but you're hiding that person from me via having to press like 50 buttons, so that always irks me.
Speaker 3:Speaking of which, did I mention? My Internet was out. My provider is now a verb verb for me, and that's I've been comcasted and I've tried to cancel comcast, right. Well, I, I get the callback number. Instead of waiting, I said give me the callback number. Well, I had blocked their number years ago. So I did this for three days in a row and I'm like these bastards won't even call me back. And I went back and looked at my block calls and they were all there. Now I'm open to back up.
Speaker 1:So much for Comcast being a sponsor of the podcast.
Speaker 3:I don't think Comcast can be a sponsor of the podcast.
Speaker 2:I have Comcast. They're decent. I used to have AT&T until they decided to change their business model in my area and not support the platform that I was on, so I just switched to Comcast support the platform that I was on, so I just switched to comcast.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I may stay with him on the internet, but I'm ditching the cable. That's the big thing, because they got rid of the braves games and that's oh god, don't, don't get me started oh, I know I almost did all right. I don't know if you've worked on your house much, but one of the things we love to hear are diy nightmares, uh, that you've done in your own home, so give us a diy nightmare story uh, well, it would involve ikea, my wife.
Speaker 2:You know I don't really do a lot of diy stuff, even though, like I was really good at shop in middle school, like I won the award for being the best shop student, so I used to be like really good woodwork, like I could do the scroll saw, the band saw. I'd do all that stuff. But I don't do it as an adult.
Speaker 2:So my wife got a multi-part slatted mirror system from Ikea, where it's like five different rectangles that you artistically put next to each other to form a giant mirror, but there's gap, like you know, there's gaps in between, so it's like artsy. So I couldn't get the gaps equal for like the whole time because I kept I would hang like the five up, I'd measure them to be like three inches apart, and then I'd be like I'm done, and then my wife would look at it and be like it looks terrible, and then I'd like measure it and it'd be like, well, it's only two inches here, four inches here, three inches. So it took me like an entire afternoon to get it right and I had to nail all holes in my wall and luckily it's all covered by the mirror. But that was not a fun experience because that is mad.
Speaker 3:I just couldn't get it. I know that is so maddening when you're hanging a mirror and, uh, and it's no, it's an inch off. Okay, move it over. But my biggest one is we did a mirror that was four feet by 10. It came out of a Houston's restaurant. We mounted it over a mantle in this customer's house. It was a customer's shop and I made this. This is back before they made these metal cleats that they have today, which I should have patented. But I made my own wooden cleat and I, I did it, I did all the work with one of my guys. We hung it and she says, hmm, it's like a half inch too low. And I was sitting there when she said that I'm sitting on the scaffolding because we had just got done setting it all. And, thank God, the husband came in and rescued me. Oh my God. It said hey, honey, I think that's okay, I think we can let it. I think you rescued her because you were going to kill her. I was coming off the scaffolding, I'm talking, I'm thinking.
Speaker 3:You just think right now, that's a different kind of attorney, I've got to bring in another specialist Actually if you worked with me, you'd have to probably bring in a lot of specialists, that's for sure, cause I need a lot of help. Matthew, this has been awesome guys. If you guys didn't learn something today, that's on you. Enjoy your time in the truck If you'd stay with us to the end. Thank you so much. Go out there, tell your friends, go out there and listen. You can get a lot of good.
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