The Wedpreneur Podcast
{EP30}: 4 Layers of Protection For Your Wedding Business with Braden Drake
Welcome Wedpreneurs!
Today I'm joined by Attorney Braden Drake - known as "your gay best friend, but also an Attorney who will do your taxes!"
We're talking about layers of protection in your wedding business - not the most glamorous topic, but one that is absolutely critical in your business! Braden is sharing some basic steps you can take to ensure that your wedding business is properly protected - AND - he'll be continuing the conversation LIVE in the Wedpreneur Community next week!
Join our community!
Instagram: thewedpreneurcommunity
Facebook Group: The Wedpreneur Community
Facebook Page: The Wedpreneur
Website: www.thewedpreneur.com
Welcome Wedpreneurs!
Today I'm joined by Attorney Braden Drake - known as "your gay best friend, but also an Attorney who will do your taxes!"
We're talking about layers of protection in your wedding business - not the most glamorous topic, but one that is absolutely critical in your business! Braden is sharing some basic steps you can take to ensure that your wedding business is properly protected - AND - he'll be continuing the conversation LIVE in the Wedpreneur Community next week!
Join our community!
Instagram: thewedpreneurcommunity
Facebook Group: The Wedpreneur Community
Facebook Page: The Wedpreneur
Website: www.thewedpreneur.com
This is your host Mary Swa field, and welcome to the web printer podcast. Join me and my guests each week as I take a deep dive into wedding business. Best Practices, examine challenges facing our industry and interview wedding industry experts and thought leaders who will share their strategies for taking your wedding business to the next level, whether you're new in the industry or a seasoned pro, each episode is filled with valuable information, aim to help you build and grow the wedding business that you are dreaming about. I'm ready if you are, so let's get started.
Speaker 2:Hey, wed preneurs. Welcome to the latest episode of the Smart Business for wedding pros podcast. I'm your host Mary Swat field, and if this is your first time tuning into this podcast, welcome, welcome, welcome. I am so glad you're here today and I hope you enjoy the podcast. I also want to give a shout out to all of my regular listeners and subscribers. You guys are amazing and I want to thank you for your reviews and your messages of support. Today. I am joined by fellow podcast hosts, course creator and founder of the creative preneur community, Braden Drake Braden is an attorney for creative entrepreneurs and he's going to be sharing a ton of information today on how to protect your wedding business. So I want to share a little bit about Braden before we begin. Brayden's tagline is your gay best friend, but also an attorney who could do your taxes. He's the creative, he's the owner of the creative partner community, an online education platform for creatives. In addition, he has his own law firm, Braden Drake law, and is the host of the creative preneur podcast. Braden lives in San Diego with his husband and their three dogs. He's a self proclaimed tax Bert and an iron man triathlete for the sake of balance. He also has an unhealthy passion for baked goods and Burrito's. Braden is originally from Indiana and graduated from Indiana University with majors in Russian and political science with a minor in business. He's a licensed attorney in California with a masters in tax law. You guys as attorneys go. Braden is a unique combination of no be as straight up wisdom. Add a ton of fun. This interview is jam packed with great information so depending on when you're listening to this podcast, Braden also has a really great free masterclass coming up so you definitely want to go check it out and grab your spot. You can had to legal gbf.com to register and I've also invited Braden to join me live in the wide printer community to dive deeper into the legal side of owning a wedding business and he's going to be answering questions live in the group. We're going to be going live at 6:00 PM eastern on Wednesday, May 29th so if you're listening to this before then be sure to head to the community on the 29th and tune in. If you aren't yet part of the web preneur community, this is the perfect to join so you can be part of the conversation for free by going to the wed printer.com forward slash. Join. All right, it is time to get down to business. So let's get right to the interview. Hey Brayden, welcome to the smart business for wedding pros podcast. Hi, thanks so much for having me. I am so thrilled you're here today because I've been looking forward to chatting with you for a while now and I'm really excited about our topic today because even though it may not be like the sexiest subject, it is incredibly important and it's something that I actually get asked a lot about in the communities. So I'm so excited. Can't wait to dive in. But before we do, as per what printer tradition, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you serve the wedding space?
Speaker 3:Yeah, of course. So my official job capacity is a little confusing. A lot of people mistake me for a CPA, but I am technically a tax attorney. So what that means is I am licensed to practice law in the state of California. I am barred in California and then I also have a masters in tax laws. So what that boils down to as I do small business legal work, and then I also do tax accounting and tax returns. So essentially everything you don't want to do in your business I can do for you is how I explain it. And then, uh, my primary, my law firm is Braden Drake, law.com. And then I have a second business called creative prenuer community, which is an online education platform. So I serve specifically creatives. And then I would say within that, about 60 to 70% of my audience are in the wedding business, specifically planners, photographers, and floral designers.
Speaker 2:Awesome. And what, what does the creative printer community do? What does it all about?
Speaker 3:So I have a podcast called the creative preneur podcast, if anyone wants to check that out. And then I have blog content, free downloads courses, and a membership program.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. Busy Guy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I kind of suffer from wanting to do literally everything, but it's a work in progress.
Speaker 2:Oh, I feel, yeah, 100% I'm with Ya. Okay. Well this is fantastic. So as I mentioned during the Intro, you have a really awesome masterclass coming up for wedding pros and other creative printers. So I want to encourage everyone to stay tuned right until the end of today's episode. So I'm going to share how you can get access to that, how you can get registered for it and it's going to be fantastic. You're not going to want to miss it, so make sure you stay til the end and get that information. But for now, let's jump right into today's topic. So today we're going to be talking about four layers of protection for your wedding business. And I think this is such an important topic. I'm going to be really, um, blend here. I have been sued in my wedding business before, so, um, a spoiler alert, I won the lawsuit and all is fine all as well. It was many years ago, but I know more than a lot of people how very important it is to be in your business. So it's an incredibly important topic and I think that protecting your business is critical and often we don't think about it until we absolutely have to, Aka when you find yourself in the middle of a lawsuit or something similar, so really excited about it. Can you talk really quickly about what you mean by four layers of protection? We'll get into the specifics in a moment, but what does that mean generally?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I just, I call it four layers of protection, but really it's just for different things. Plus I have a bonus tip, spoiler alert that you can do to help protect your business and what I say protect your business. It means protecting the viability of your business if you have a legal dispute. So if someone sues you, are you going to be okay? How does that work when you have a dispute?
Speaker 2:Okay, awesome. And I love this because especially in the wedding industry is so many of us got into this industry because of our skill at a specific craft or in a specific area and not necessarily because we had a business background, right? So I think that this is going to be a really great, really great information. So why don't we dive right in and why didn't you share the first layer of protection for everybody's wedding business?
Speaker 3:Yes. So first layer protection is contracts. But I want to take a slightly off topic. Uh, you did not tell me before we started recording that you've been sued before. Do you mind if I ask you a little bit about that? Because it might be a really good running like in textual example through these tips?
Speaker 2:You sure can. Um, so I was actually sued. It's, it's kind of convoluted. I was not sued by a client. I was actually sued by someone that was working for me, that we had started creating or started working towards having a partnership in the business. We hadn't gotten there, there was no paperwork saying we were partners or anything like that. Um, and long story short, over the year that we worked together, I determined it wasn't going to work out and I terminated her employment. So, um, and then she came back and she sued me for ownership of the business, emotional damage and about 47 other things. I kid you not. So, um, in a way it's a little different because it wasn't a client coming after me, but there are certain things that I know now that I didn't have in place to protect me in the event of a lawsuit. And I know we're going to talk about some of those things today. So, yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay, perfect. So to quickly, I talk a lot more about client examples, but a couple of the tips we're going to give would be really helpful for that kind of situation as well. Another important caveat is obviously I am a US attorney, specifically California. I'm assuming your lawsuit was under Canadian law. It was. Okay. So they're going to be a lot of similarities I'm assuming. But you know, I'm an attorney. I was given legal caveat. I'm not a Canadian attorney, so you know, consult with Canadian attorney
Speaker 2:100% and our listeners are, are, you know, international at this, this much I know about my listeners. So that caveat goes to everybody. And of course we always recommend, anytime I speak to any sort of lawyer, I always say, you know, make sure you consult your personal attorney or I'm someone who knows the law in your state, province, country, wherever you are. So we've got that taken care of.
Speaker 3:Perfect. Okay, so a layer number one, it was contracts. So first tip, super simple, use the contract. Seems like an obvious one, but I talked to a lot of people who know that they need a contract, but they're either too lazy when it comes to using it or if they're really good friends so they don't think they need to and then it doesn't get signed. Typically the closer you are with someone, the more important a contract actually is. Believe it or not, in my opinion,
Speaker 2:[inaudible] I would believe that a hundred percent base through based on what I went through, 100% yeah.
Speaker 3:Yes. So I, I pad my cousin, do graphic design work for me. I've done work for my sister and we've always used a contract really because I'm not worried that there's going to be a dispute. But by having a contract, it's really, really clear what the deliverables are, if there's a family discount involved, what that is and what it entails. So that's the first tip. The other thing is make sure it's specific to your jurisdiction. So if you're in the u s you want to have a contract drafted to the laws of your state. So this can be an issue. I know, especially with online templates, I sell contract templates, so I know that they can't always be state specific, minor drafted according to California law. But if you were to buy one outside of California, I would tell you, hey, go take this to a local attorney. Maybe just pay them for a one hour consultation and asked him if there are any provisions that might need to be altered or amended based on that state's laws.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love that. You know, I find it really interesting too that, um, in the wedding space there are some specific industry, um, specialties that tend not to have contracts, which kind of surprised me. I talked to a lot of, for example, um, commissioners who feel that they don't need to use a contract because their service they're providing is for such a short amount of time and it's so small. And that always gives me like the Heebie jeebies like I 100% think that everybody, right? Like hair and makeup artists, everybody should have a contract. Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean if you're providing a service or some type of compensation, you should have a contract. Amazing. Amazing. Okay. Yeah. So that's, that's that tip. And then I can give a specific example as well. Like I know I had a client who asked me to draft in a non disparagement clause into their contract because they'd had some Yelp review issues with the prior client and in California goes, just typically are not enforceable. So I told them, you know, we can put it in, but it's, it doesn't, doesn't hold up here. Whereas in other states that might be totally fine.[inaudible] goes with,
Speaker 2:sorry. That's a really good example. I just want to chat about that real quick because I think this comes up more and more, especially our day and age, right? Where, um, where the subject of reviews that are not, like we can't even verify them all the time. And also sometimes we get vindictive clients. So, um, this I think is a whole topic for an entire other podcast. But what I like is, you know, you can put something in your contract and, and often that will, do you find that that will, um, in a way suffice in terms of giving fair warning to the client even if it's not necessarily enforceable?
Speaker 3:Yeah. It can for under the assumption that your client is reading or contract. Yeah. Fair. Yes. Which actually leads me to another point which is take time to explain your contract to your client. So I think that's super important. A lot of people do not do that.
Speaker 2:Yup. This is really, really important. I'll tell you something really fun that we did recently with our contract is it's full of all of the legal provisions all the way throughout it. We took the time to add little paragraphs after all of our sections of our contract and put like in plain English. So and explain why we have that section in our contract and what it actually means. And we have gotten such a great response from our clients with this because they feel like, oh, okay, that makes more sense now. And we're very transparent. Like we're not trying to sugarcoat anything in any way, shape or form, but you know, it just helps them and, and for them to really understand what's in it because you know, if they don't understand your contract or they feel like, I find sometimes if they don't understand it, if they feel it's over their head, it makes them uncomfortable and that makes the client experience not so positive.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's one of my tips is usually I always tell people a contract is only effective if all the parties to the contract understand what it says because it's mostly, it's a preventative tool. So you want people to be able to read it and understand how the relationship will work. So if you hand me a contract to sign, I need to understand how much money I owe you when I need to pay it to you, what's going to happen if I pay this money to you late? When are you just going to like cancel my entire wedding? I want to know that they can't understand your contract. That's problematic. Yeah. Another tip that I give is you can do like a loom video or some sort of simple video and that it somewhere on your website and give a video explanation of what your contract says. So it's kind of like a tour of the document and then you can just send that to the client as well.
Speaker 2:Ooh, I love that. I am all about automating and making things really simple. And uh, as we all know, video is far more popular than reading through a whole bunch of stuff these days. So that's a great, great tip.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that's what I do for my contract templates. So I, it's called the c store on my website, but whenever you purchase a template from me, it comes with about a one hour long video where I explain every provision, what it says and how to customize it and how to explain it to your clients. And that was really well received. So I started telling, well you could do this for your clients as well if you wanted to do that. So good. That is amazing. I love that. Perfect. So some other, some other tips under contracts, you want to make sure it's thorough. Ideally for most wedding industry fields, you're not going to need a contract longer than about 10 pages. So don't hand your client 30 page document. It's probably going to be really overwhelming. Uh, so like don't get your template from like the apple terms of service. That's not a good place to start because we all read that. Right, right. Totally. And then we already kind of discussed this, but knock off the legal east. So if it's built with legalees, no one's going to like that. This is a problem that I see when this is might be counterintuitive, but when I have clients who go and get their initial contracts from traditional attorneys, so when I use the word traditional, I mean the like 60 year old dude and the corner office in a suit because he's used to working with large companies and their contracts are going back and forth between one another's legal departments. Right? So, um, yeah, so knock off the legal ease and that, I always say like if you're going to have a payment provision, the provision should read something like this client who would be me, Brayden agrees to pay Mary on the first of the month for the deposit for this wedding. That deposit amount should equal 50% of the total contract price. The remaining, the remainder of the contract price is do at least 30 days prior to the wedding. If client does not pay at least 15 days before the wedding, Mary reserves the right to cancel her services. Simple. It sounds great. Perfect. Okay. Um, should we move to tip number two or do you have any contract? You know what, I could ask contract questions all day just because I've, you know, having been in business for over 10 years now, my contract has gone through so many different iterations and of course every time that something happens I add something to my contract just to make, you know, mitigate as much as possible that I won't dive too deep into contracts here. I think those are some really, really great tips. Um, so what is the next one? I'm ready. Let's do it. Okay, perfect. So that, sorry that did bring up one more tip. Um, always great to add your contract over time, but be really careful every time you add that what you're adding doesn't contradict any other provisions in your contract that would, yes, someone will write like a late payment penalty and of their contract without realizing that had already had one of those and life by and a provision like five provisions before that. Oh, oh yeah, absolutely. Good tip. Okay, so a second layer of protection is having an LLC or some type of quote unquote formal business entity is what I call it. And this is, I'll tell you, this is where I started to get into trouble. And when I first went to hire, um, legal representation, when
Speaker 2:I was served with the lawsuit, the first thing he said, so here in Canada, it's an LLC as essentially being incorporated. He said, are you incorporated? And I said, no. And he literally was like, do not pass. Go. Do not collect$200 like you need to go get incorporated right this second. It's probably too late to help you, but you're going to do it right now. So yes, please explain to the audience why this is so important.
Speaker 3:Perfect. Before you were incorporated, are you called a sole proprietor in Canada or did it have a different name? Yep. Okay, perfect. So I will see a lot of people, especially in Facebook groups online, we'll also call it a DBA that's technically a little bit different. But the way I explain it is as soon as you start operating a business, and I will say you're operating a business as soon as you start to monetize your creative passion. So if you decide that you really love Pinterest and you're on there all the time looking at wedding stuff, even though you're not getting married any time soon, so you decide that you're going to become a wedding planner and a plan for your best friend's wedding. I'm sure that's how some people get started. Uh, you have a business, so now you are a sole proprietor. Even if you have a filed any documents, you haven't sent anything to the state, the county, the city, but you took money from a client to provide a service. Now you have a business, you are officially a sole proprietor. If you are doing that wedding planning with a friend, you are now in a partnership, which a lot of people also don't realize. So as soon as you start taking money with a friend and a business, you have a partnership. So those are the default entities. So anything other than the default entity will provide you with liability protection. So an LLC here in the u s or a corporation in Canada being incorporated. And then I know most other countries have their alternative versions of this as well. So I always like to describe the LLC, uh, with a really fun analogy that I found works pretty well for people. I know, I know it's hard to make podcasts visual, but we're gonna make it happen with you. So I tell people, think of your incorporation of your LLC as a magic bubble. So I always picture like Glenda from the wizard of Oz, which I used to watch all the time. This is how my parents should have known. I was gay probably, but I was think of her floating along and that bubble. So that's what we're picturing. But inside of the bubble rather than Glenda, it's your business. You're running businesses in there. And this thing is basically made of like steel. So if anyone wants to sue your business, let's say it's a really serious lawsuit and it's actually a viable one. So they'd go after your business and that literally explodes inside of your bubble. Well, that magic bubble protects everything you own outside of the bubble. From that we call it liability from the shrapnel of that explosion. That's how I describe it. Yeah. So, and then it's really helpful when we talk about people who have multiple businesses and multi-passionate entrepreneur. I always get the question of I put both my businesses in one LLC and then I tell them, well if you put them both in one LLC, then um, they are liable for one another inside of that bubble. Or you can put them both in their own magic bubble.
Speaker 2:Oh, that sounds totally cracked. It's so funny that you say that because, um, I am a multi passionate entrepreneur obviously, and I've had a lot of people actually asked me how come for example, my wedding planning business and the wide printer are under the same umbrella company. And that's part of the reason why, like first of all, my wedding planning business, we are a partnership. So I don't want to make my business partner in that company in liable for anything that happens in the wet printer and vice versa. So that makes total sense to me. Okay.
Speaker 3:Yes. So that's, it's super important. I find that's like a good way to explain it as well. So you can separate the businesses, but when you don't have the LLC, that bubble is not there. So everything you own outside of it is viable or at risk when you have a some sort of suit against you.
Speaker 2:[inaudible] and I will tell you that that was one of the most terrifying parts, um, when I was served the lawsuit. And of course just for anybody who hasn't gone through this. And I hope none of you have and none of you will like it is absolutely terrifying to get, like I was served at my home by a process server who basically had to meet this lawsuit and immediately because I knew, um, so getting incorporated with something that had been on my list to do for so long and I just hadn't done it. And the most terrifying thought for me was I could lose my house. Like I could lose everything. And it was at that exact moment where I was like, I will never put myself in my family at risk like this again for my business. Right? So it's really, really important. Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, super important. And that's really, in my opinion, one of the least expensive ways that you can get peace of mind. So in the u s California naturally as the very most expensive state to do this, and the annual fee is$800. So is the peace of mind worth$800 a year? I would say probably yes. Most states. Uh, I know in Texas it's free up until you're making like$200,000 and then on a lot of states it's between 100 and 300 a year
Speaker 2:to completely affordable and completely worth it.
Speaker 3:Yes. So there are some other options as well. Uh, I have really dove into escorts on some podcasts cause people have questions on those, but it is a little bit complicated. So we're going to hold off. But essentially what I want people to know about escorts is that an escort's not technically a type of legal entity. It's a tax status. And the way that works is you form an LLC and then you send off this magical piece of paper to the IRS that says, Hey, I want my LLC to be taxed under subchapter s of the United States tax code. And that gives you some tax benefits on employment tax. Typically you're not going to want to do that until you are netting. So income minus expenses profit equals 60, 70,$80,000 or above. So once you're at that point, uh, go pay a professional to get their opinion on whether you might want to do that.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's great advice. Awesome. Okay, this is fantastic. What is the third way to protect your business?
Speaker 3:Okay, so the third way is insurance. And interestingly, I can't really speak on this very much. So this is just more of a get insurance and talk to an insurance guy cause I'm not one of those, but it's still worth me bringing it up. So, uh, typically depending on which area of the wedding business and you're in, you might need a different kind of insurance policy. I work with a lot of photographers. So generally they whine general liability insurance to cover their photography equipment, but also if they were to lose some all of someone's photo files, they want that to be covered as well.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And this is another thing that I think, you know, people hold off on thinking that they don't need it, but insurance is one of those things that you don't ever want to need it. So, so it's good to have it and you don't know what's going to happen until it happens. And then if you find yourself without it, it can be really highly damaging to your business. And one of the things that I know having, you know, through all the event management programs that I've taken in the courses I've taken and everything is that in particular, if you're a planner or a venue owner, you're, you're at the top of the, the responsibility chain, let's say. So you definitely want to protect your business. You definitely want to make sure that you've taken every step possible. Um, and insurance is definitely one of those. And I know it can be expensive, but my advice having gone through this several times now with several different businesses is shop around, don't, don't hesitate to shop around and try to get your the best possible rate that you can.
Speaker 3:Yeah. From, from what I've seen, because I also do taxes, so I do bookkeeping for my clients. So I see the line items that come through. Yep. And a lot of them seem to be around$40 a month. So depending on, it might be different based on your industry, but don't think that this is going to cost you like hundreds of dollars a month. Like it does for me and my law firm's, unfortunately.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. And it is quite affordable. I was shocked at how affordable it was. I really thought it was going to end up being ridiculous, but I think I ended up paying, I think I pay five to$600 a year. Like it's really, really affordable.
Speaker 3:Perfect. Yeah. So my other, my other tip on this and not really a tip so much and it's an explanation is a lot of people always ask, well why do I need insurance and an LLC? Well, a few reasons. Your Llc, you just protect your assets with, which means if someone were to sue you, they cannot get a court order judgment against your house to satisfy that lawsuit. So it's protected. But an LLC doesn't pay anyone like[inaudible]. Your Llc can't send money to someone who ends a lawsuit against you, but your insurance can. So you're in, the purpose of your insurance is to cover your legal costs if you get sued. So your insurance company will pay your attorney and then also the actually pay out that claim. Once that happens, if someone gets a judgment against you for an amount larger than what your insurance policy is, then your LLC will protect your personal assets. And then also there's always a risk that your insurance policy might not cover the type of claim being brought against you. So then your LLC as important there as well.
Speaker 2:Right? So they go together hand in hand is what I'm hearing.
Speaker 3:Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2:Okay, fantastic. Okay, so let's, let's regroup to where we are so far. So the first thing we were talking about is having a good contract. The second is to have an LLC and the third one is insurance. So what is number four?
Speaker 3:Okay, so number four is the most fun one and it is common sense[inaudible] I love it. Yes. So I have found in my working with clients, and I don't do a lot of litigation, so I don't text, I don't really go to court, but I would say that 80 to 90% of the lawsuits that happen happen because of communication errors or animosity. There pretty much always a relationship issues and not really legal issues. So we all have disputes. We're all going to have that client that we just don't Mesh with very well at a certain point in time. Maybe a former employee and dependent contractor. But there's usually ways that we can diffuse a situation before it gets into court. Absolutely. What are some recommendations you have for diffusing? Yeah. So it depends on the circumstance. But I saw, I got tagged actually in a Facebook group about a month ago. I don't remember which one it was. It was probably a Tuesdays together group or the gold digger group. I don't know, people tag me like all the time, but it was a wedding planner who had a wedding at a particular venue and after the wedding, the wedding planners clients. So the bride and groom wrote a negative review of the video because of something that happened. And apparently the venue owner was just a very difficult, difficult personality. So this venue odor then told the wedding planner that she needed to have the clients take the review down or the wedding planner was going to be barred from re entering that wedding venue. And this particular planner had to upcoming weddings at this venue that was in the Wellpreneur community. Oh, was it? Yeah. Okay. Perfect example and perfect. That's so funny. Okay, so that's a, that's that's a particular issue, right? So stuff like that might happen all the time. And I think I posted a comment, something I don't even remember. I guess we can look it up. Um, but I think I suggested, well, what's the personality of this venue owners? So sometimes you can send back a pretty strongly worded response and say, you know, I don't want to get my attorney involved but I, if I have to, I will. And that might dissolve the issue. But if they are a particular hostile person that might just frustrate them even more and make them less that able to work with you. So that's kind of one of those things where you have to consider common sense, right. Use your common sense. And just because you have a legal right doesn't necessarily mean that's always the best time to put it out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Like pull out the big guns right away, I kind of thing. Right, exactly. You know what I find too is, um, these, these topics come up all the time, especially in the wet printer community. And my first question to everybody is always like, have you picked up the phone? Because I find that when we're sitting behind a keyboard going back and forth and back and forth, there's so easy to misinterpret things or, or just to be maybe more aggressive than the person would normally be, you know, in real life. So for me, I find it's so much easier to diffuse a situation and just have a conversation with someone if you pick up the phone now, that's not saying that they'll take your call if there's no guarantee there or that they won't as hang up on you or whatever. But at least then you're, you're showing, you know, showing your clients too that you're doing everything you can, you know, to try to resolve the situation without it getting really ugly really quickly. And in my experience, I've had my share of really strange clients and really strange vendors that I've worked with over the years. And I've encountered some of these situations. And for me, I hate talking on the phone. I, it's not my favorite thing in the world, but I will pick up the phone and just make a phone call and just say, Hey, can we talk about this? I'm confused and I must be misunderstanding what's going on here. Can you explain your position to me? And, and just by asking that often, it just diffuses the situation I find.
Speaker 3:Yes. I love that tip. Um, I have had the same thing happen. I had one particular client circumstance where I finally just was like, let's get on a phone call worked miracles. I'll also suggest, this is just what I always do. If you're ever in a particularly frustrated place and you're about to hit send on an email once, write the email and like a Microsoft word doc who go to lunch, maybe like leave for for the day and come back and read it the next day before we
Speaker 2:yes, save as draft. I used to have that like on my desk written on my desk because I am a notorious hothead when I'm typing so I can get really upset. And especially in the comment section on Facebook news posts, just so you know. But anyways, I will get like super hot headed and I can, I'm like, I feel like I'm the most confident myself in writing. So I'll just pounded out and then I have learned over many regretful emails that I've sent over the years that I need to save as draft and often I need to sleep on it.
Speaker 3:Yes. I also asked, I asked my dad one time because he's also an entrepreneur. He's been a self employed contractor for probably almost 30 years now I would guess. But I asked him if he'd ever been sued and I'm pretty sure you told me no man, he maybe has like once or twice, but I was like, how do you manage to stay out of court? Because you know he's always having people. If the roof ends up leaking, if it hails or something, they're going to come to him and be like, why didn't you do this correctly? And he said, well if I, you know, get that phone call. I'm just like, okay, what day do you want me there to fix the problem? Like I said, okay, smart. Right.
Speaker 2:So Funny Brighton because my boyfriend tools is a general contractor and every time I'm having any sort of challenge at all, he's always like, why don't you just pick up the phone and tell them you'll fix it? And I'm like, oh that is spoken like such a contractor. Right. But it's good advice. Like it really is like you need to do whatever you can to fix it. And often sometimes we have to, you know, swallow our pride a little bit and, and just even if we know we're in the right, sometimes it's far less painful just to say, okay, I understand where you're coming from. How can I fix this for you and do what needs to be done rather than, you know, risk going down a path of increased hostility and negativity. Right,
Speaker 3:exactly. And it's also understanding that when I tell people one of my tips is having common sense, I don't want any of you to think that I'm saying that your nonsensical, but a lot of the times in the heat of the moment you're not thinking most clearly. So your common sense should tell you to take a pause. Take a pause, take a moment. Absolutely. Circle back. And I also, I have one other tip that did pop up. So I always tell people in other piece of common sense is if you have in your contract that if they don't pay their full balance at least 30 days before, I always call it the event date. So the wedding date, you're going to define it in your contract, probably not a good idea for that. You to email the client or send them a text message 29 days before the wedding and tell them that you're just not coming. So, so obviously always good to give a little bit of leniency. But with that, I give the tip that you need to have a provision in your contract called a no waiver clause. And what that does is it tells the other party that if I am lenient on a particular contract provision and I allow you to pay late or I don't enforce a provision, that doesn't mean that I'm waiving all of my rights underneath of this document. That's a
Speaker 2:good one. And I remember we did a masterclass with another um, lawyer last year and I remember her talking about this because
Speaker 3:she basically said like, if you don't have that clause, as soon as you don't fulfill what you've said is going to happen, then it can render lots of stuff null and void. I can't remember her exact, her attack. She didn't say lots of stuff. I'll say I'll point that out that that's me just not being a lawyer. But yeah, that's really interesting. Can you say that one more time? So it's a no waiver clause? Yes. So I like the language lots of stuff because that tells everyone what they need to know. Oh good. Sensually yes. Essentially what you're saying is, and it can be super simple, I'm going to like give an example for vision. I don't want anyone to quote exactly what I'm saying in there and they're talking it like a research a little bit more, but it's called a note waiver clause. And essentially it's saying that if company, if company does not enforce a particular provision of this agreement, then that does not void the rest of the provisions of the document. Oh perfect. That's a really, really good one. I love that. Okay. Any other common sense tips you want to add? I think we covered a lot of them. It's always a good opportunity to get contextual examples that I think we walked through a few of those. So good stuff. Amazing. Okay. Now you mentioned a bonus tip I did. So my bonus tip is pay your taxes. So that's a way to protect your business. Since I do taxes and talk about tax a lot on my own podcast and with clients, I had to bring that in. But right now in particularly, I'm very in the zone on quarterly taxes because I just filed a lot of tax returns for wedding industry clients who did not pay quarterly taxes. So they got rather high tax bills and my goal is for everyone that I am connected with to not have that problem next year. Oh that's such a good one. And you know what? I, part of the reason why I started the web printer was because I have made so many mistakes early in my career and one of them was being really, really willfully in denial about, and I made some good money in my first year and second year of business and did not think to set aside money for taxes. It never crossed my mind. Actually that's not true. It did cross my mind. I just chose to ignore it and boy was I ever in for quite the, you know, heart stopping surprise when I got my taxes at the end of the year. It was horrifying. Yeah, it can be very scary. And I do because of this issue, I created a brand new freebie on my website. It's very comprehensive. I call it my ultimate quarterly tax guide. If you're in the US, it will help you calculate how much you should be saving for quarterly taxes. I tell you how to save them and then I give you step by step instructions on how to go to the IRS website to pay them. Oh my goodness. Okay. Where can people find that? So you can find it. My website is creative[inaudible] dot community, so not.com,[inaudible] dot community. And then you could just put in backslash quarterly guide, no hyphen. Uh, also if any of you want to connect with me on Instagram, you can just DM me and say, Hey Braden while is that quarterly thing and I'll just send you the link.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. And I will link to it in the show notes as well. And for those of you Canadians who are listening, um, obviously this won't be very helpful for you, but listen, we're Canadian and we know we just have to pay a mountain of taxes. That's the technical term. It's just a mountain of taxes every year. So, um, I'm kidding of course. But, um, that's amazing for Def, definitely for our us listeners. That's going to be fantastic. Um, do you have any tips in terms of, you know, an aside from once you figure out what percentage of your revenue you should be setting aside for your taxes, do you have any tips on saving for it? Like, do you recommend, here's what I do. For example, as soon as I get revenue from a client, I automatically take out. For me it's 30% I take about 30% and I put it in a separate bank account that I can't access easily because I know myself, I know myself so well. So do you recommend something like that or or are there any other strategies you have around just making sure that you're putting that money aside?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's actually exactly what I recommend. And do you do yours manually or do you have an automated?
Speaker 2:Um, I do it manually, so I do it twice a month. I go in because I separate it, I follow the profit first formula. So I separate it actually into five bank accounts, which is a whole other podcast into itself. But I do do it manually.
Speaker 3:Okay, perfect. So you can do it that way. Um, I know that I'm just too lazy. I probably would just never make it happen. So what I recommend is it's actually a phone app called a crop at all. Q, a, p. I t a, l a. And interestingly, I just had a podcast come out today called how to pay yourself as a small business owner. And I think I talk about this on their, can't remember I recorded a while ago, but um, crop it'll, and what you do is you just link your bank account just like you would have with quickbooks or something. And you say every time money comes into this account, I want you to automatically withdraw 30% and it just saves it within the APP. And then once you're ready to pay your taxes, you can transfer the money back to your bank account and then go online and make the payment.
Speaker 2:Oh that's fantastic. And probably not available for Canadians, but that's okay. Usually I can find a similar app for these things. So I'm gonna link to that in the show notes as well cause that's incredible. And I'm going to see if I can find an international version of it as well if it isn't international. So that's fantastic. I love that. Thanks Brayden. Yeah, no problem. Okay, so this has been so incredible. I just want to recap these tips, four tips and then one bonus real quick for our listeners. So the first one is to have a contract. Number two is to have an LLC or to incorporate if you're Canadian. Number three is to have insurance for your company. Number four. And my personal favorite is to use your common sense and then the bonus is to pay your taxes to, did I get all of those? Yes. Nailed it. Fantastic. Okay. Now a little Birdie told me that you have a masterclass coming out that's going to dive into this and some other great material in just a few days. So by the time that we released this, your masterclass will be just a couple of days away. So can you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So the uh, official title of my masterclass is called a winter. Nope. It's time to get legally legit inform your business. And by illegally legit, I mean getting your LLC, getting your local and state business licenses, all that kind of stuff. So we'll talk about the difference between a hobby and a business. Uh, once you've been in business for Awhile, why of your licensing requirements are, and we'll also talk about taxes a little bit and what it means to truly be an entrepreneur. So those are my talking points and if people want to sign up for that, they can go to www.legalandgbf.com which stands for legal gave us for, and that's my tagline.
Speaker 2:Ah, I love it. Okay. So that was legal gbf.com. Um, that is amazing. Okay, fantastic. So this has been so informative. Um, before I let you go, I want to ask you one more question. It's kind of a serious question. Um, you're a business owner and you're, sounds like you're the son of a business owner as well. So I'm curious, what's the best piece of advice anyone has ever given you in relation to running a business?
Speaker 3:Oh boy. Okay. Um, really putting me on the spot here. I know it's my favorite thing to do. I think so, yeah. I'm like singing the jeopardy song in my head as I think about this, which you know, we very much what I do. I do believe that the whole like be yourself thing has been very important for me. And then also niching down. So those are two different tips, but a little less than a year ago. So I'm circling almost finishing my third year in business, but about a year and a half, two years into business is when I niche down to creatives. And then one day jokingly I posted on Instagram, I just, with the caption new tagline question mark and the image said, your new gay best or you're, you're gay best friend, but then an attorney who can also do your taxes. And I got so much engagement on that post that I decided to make it the banner of my website. And I honestly think that my conversions have exploded from there. So if there's anything that's particularly interesting about you, you should just embrace it and make it part of your brand. And now I work with people who will literally email me and say, oh my God, I need a gay best friend and I don't know anything about taxes. Will you please help me? How much money should I say to you? I got an email that said that like two days ago. That's incredible. Yeah, so I think, you know, just being your authentic self, we probably don't like you're at a time, but it's really impactful and then people who don't resonate with that message aren't going to contact you, which is good because it helps prevent some of these client disputes from the outset that we were talking about earlier and honestly it probably is going to put more money in your pocket as well, which is, you know, I'm, I'm a very brass tacks kind of person and that's what a lot of this is really about when we really boil it down.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I love that. And I love what you said about if you're, if you be yourself, you're going to attract the right kind of clients and that'll protect you from getting into some of these disputes with, you know, the clients that aren't your ideal clients. It makes perfect sense. Exactly. Okay, this has been fantastic. So I just want to remind everyone about that masterclass because it's coming up. You do not want to wait on this, so you're going to head to legal gbf.com and get yourself registered for this masterclass. Okay guys. Awesome. Okay, Braden, any final thoughts before I let you go today?
Speaker 3:Uh, I don't think so. Just keep plugging along, crush it in your business and let me know if you have any questions.
Speaker 2:That's fantastic. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you. My pleasure. Okay, bye for now. Well guys, what did you think? Right and shared a lot of really great information during that interview. I love how he broke everything down into four layers of protection. Well, five because he threw in a bonus tip for us for your wedding business. This stuff is so critical when it comes to running a successful business. And like I mentioned during the interview, this is stuff you need to think about now, but so often we put these things off because let's be honest, it's not exactly the most glamorous part of running a business. Okay, so as a reminder, be sure to sign up for Brayden's free masterclass coming up and if you have questions for Brayden, write them down and join us live on Wednesday May 29th where he'll be sharing even more information and responding to your questions. Now, if you're listening to this podcast after May 29th do not worry. You can always watch the video replay in the webinar printer community after the fact and reach out directly to Brayden with your questions. That is a wrap for today, my friends, thank you so much for listening and supporting this podcast and listen, if you've enjoyed this episode episode, I would love it if you could leave a review on iTunes. I love hearing from my listeners and the reviews help get this podcast heard by more wedding pros. So help me spread the word and don't forget to tune in. Next week, I have a fantastic guest. Next week is going to be talking at all about how to be authentically you in your wedding business. See you then.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for joining me for this week's episode of the wed printer podcast. I'm so incredibly grateful to all of my listeners and would like to take a moment to invite you to keep the conversation going. Head on over my free online community@thewetpreneur.com forward slash join if you enjoyed this episode, help us spread the word by leaving us an honest review on iTunes. I appreciate each and every one of you and welcome your feedback. Until next time,
Speaker 4:[inaudible].