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Your Business Foundation with Kyle Durand

Right back over to you, I've said it about more very special guests. So am I really good ones? So one of the things that's been really interesting in my journey as an entrepreneur, I've been in business for seventeen years. As I told all of you yesterday, august fifteenth actually will mark my seventeen year anniversary or the day in which I left the my full time job, and one of the things that's been really interesting along that journey is learning about all aspects of business, and sometimes I think as especially folks who are creative, so coaches and, you know, clothing designers and documentary makers and graphic designers on dh wind gift vendors, you know, people, sometimes we can say a lot of things about ourselves, like, I'm an artist, I'm not a business person or I hate accounting or, you know, I just kind of make stuff up as I go along, and I don't really want to, like, stress myself out with all that business stuff, there was somebody I think was brian or maybes brainiac bef...

ore I always think of maniac and what's that movie from the nineteen eighties with jennifer what's her name help me out, you know, flashdance spot shin's yeah, I think maniac brainiac, anyway, okay. But she okay, so I think brainiac was saying something like, you know, just to start up, and I want to be experimenting, and I'm not a real business, and sometimes we can tell ourselves these things and actually totally ignore really critical parts of our business and one of the things that I've learned believe me with much pain and suffering with sometimes doing things the wrong way and not paying attention is that by focusing on building a strong business foundation, it actually creates freedom, it creates peace, it creates amazing information where you can actually make decisions about your business based on data of what's really coming through your business. If you've been it's very common for people who have been been in business for a long time, who might on lee, look at their financials at the end of the year when they do their taxes and just look at the aggregate numbers, they may not realize that there's one person in their business that's actually purchased every single thing they've ever had for sale, or there is a certain segment of people that are totally fascinated, you know, passionate customers that always buys in the first five minutes whenever you get an offer out, when you're when you're beginning to look at that, your financials, that the data of your company you're also leaning in and understanding your customers better, and you can really understand what you need to do to support your customers better. So for that reason, I am really, really delighted that we're going to be focusing on two segments this afternoon on your business foundation. So what kind of legal business structure do you want to have? I want to send apologies to our folks from the internet that may be from different parts of the world outside of the united states, because something's will talk about just apply to business structures within the u s but I will say, and my guest kyle, is familiar with different business structures because some of his clients live in different parts of the world will address the need for defining certain business structures. No matter what country that you're in, we'll look at some tax implications, sometimes for decisions that you make look at things like accounting systems, onda also later on this afternoon, we'll look at it, but my guess kyle durant is very exceptional person in many interesting ways. One thing I often call him, eh, I believe it's like a crazed a fool or a crazy maniac because kyle likes to not just do things like go running, he does things like go to south africa and run a double marathon. In durban, he doesn't just do, you know, a little jog, he does iron man hey really loves kind of endurance training, you know, he loves to be outside and be adventurous. He's, actually a commander in the navy and has eyes is a veteran of the iraq and afghanistan wars, which I think is amazing, and I'm very thankful to him and his service to our country. There are many, many people who are veterans who are actually becoming much more interested once they retire at a young age like kyle's going to do in starting a business, and they have some amazing experience, and I am personally really committed to being a port to those folks who have really sacrificed a lot for our country. So kyle has that experience. He's a post doctorate tax attorney, like who does that? Kyle does right note the thread of, like being, you know, really taken an intense interest in really understanding and diagnosing, you know, tax law and understanding tax law. He's also a business person himself, and he has created some businesses, will tell you a little bit about computer business, but also online businesses are deal dot com tax receipts dot com, which are all really set up in order to help entrepreneurs and particularly lean entrepreneurs, to run their business better. So because kyle is a lawyer I want to make exceptionally clear because lawyers can get in trouble sometimes that the information he sharing with us today is legal information it's not legal advice so you don't want to say my my lawyer kyle said I could do this because ethically he's not able to do that so I just wanted to make that crystal clear but I really am delighted that kyle is going to be joining us so welcome kyle hey, thanks a lot. Thanks a lot um pam's always the shaker information always amazes me surprising I learned something every every time I this nor speak which has been a lot of times and then susan's information earlier this fantastic right and so how many of you were going to start with cem some radical honesty here because I mean you have to come from a place of honesty right when you're dealing with foundational stuff and integrity how many of you here and on the internet when you saw business foundation is legal and financial thought that could be really interesting uh anybody that's more and I thought I got one I got a couple of these here all right? So that's so how many of you instead thought something along the lines like that could be really interesting but so could sticking hot pokers under my fingertips and I might do that instead I get that a lot and I I understand that really, because the way that this information is usually conveyed is done in a way that it's scary, right? That it's not fun, it's boring and, you know, I'm here to serve you as an entrepreneur, and the reason I went and learned you went through all the schooling and learned all the stuff I did is because I wanted to learn how to run my own business is mohr effectively? So I am out there every single day in my consulting business and in my computer business, slugging it out in the trenches with you, I get it, I've seen it, I've experienced it. And so that's, the place I'm coming from is a place of you know, of understanding and it's, not me talking with you and talking to you, it's me talking with you. And so I definitely want to hear about your concerns and how we can kind of work around some of those fears and issues that really tend to be problematic in this area, you know, a legal and financial stuff. So bash problem, crime to clicker, I'm like a monkey with a football when it comes to slides. So excuse me here, see as I said, wait. S so yeah, you know, I could sit up here and you probably hurt you you thought you probably thought when you went to go start your business I need to learn about business structures and financial stuff so you go with the bookstore you got a library you look up something online you see do this do this do this do this do this do this do this this this right here just like holy smokes all right? I'm gonna go get grab a glass of wine or a beer or something forget it um I think it's really important understand why why you want to set up a good solid foundation for your business? Because if you don't understand why it doesn't make sense to start doing the what right and that really makes that I mean that that cuts across all aspects of business why is the really big important question? Why is why I went to school for so long, my wise why I drive my wife crazy with all my questions about things you know why don't you have to eat the chicken when there's chocolate cake there what? Why can't I tunnel into the mountain in the back of our yard to create this layer for myself, right? Why why? Why? But honestly, why can't I go start a computer business when I don't know the first thing about software development? It why gets down? I think it it narrows your focus is too it looks at your motivations and also looks at the risks and the reasons for doing so let's let's talk about that why why is it important I like get some feedback why is it important to lay a good foundation for your fine for your finances from at the outset starting out on the right foot and making sure that later on down the line you're not gonna have one insists and pretty catastrophic you know problems were just tryingto really just trying to mitigate all your you know, all of those sort of challenges you may come up well, I think pam pamper up a really good point if if you don't know where you are you can't plot a course to where you're going right and and there could be you and I use this this analogy here this metaphor of of floating in a boat and if you don't know where you are you can't go where you want plus you don't know if your boat has holes in it right? And so I mean that's important you brought up it alerts you two problems ahead of time so if you have some structures in place you could see my but we're taking on water here we need to start plugging these holes as for the legal stuff why would it be good um to create a business entity you have business partners okay? Clear the ownership structure of the business yeah yeah then way see this a lot of people get really excited and they're like, hey, you've got this and I've got that we're going to go out we're going to be the wonder twins and we're going to take on the world there's a little more to it like laying out the expectations responsibilities for each person it's really important what kind of liability is this business going to expose us individually to and what type of entity should be setting a lot of people come to me initially they say I heard dear your legal guy I want llc then of course the first question I malign my mouth is why nobody wanted elsie why do you think that's the right question maybe that's why a lot of clay way but yeah actually it's why do why's that important and these air these are some way if you wish but we have some more people timing in jackie says protecting your I p and entity and three eighteen media says it also helps to keep out of trouble with uncle sam. It does it does really and I boil it down to, you know, keeping the government off your back which is which is a big part like as as entrepreneurs unfortunately, one of the costs of the barrier century is dealing with the government right dealing with all the administrative burdens that we have to deal with. So keeping the government off your back is one of them there's no creditor they can do more damage to your business than a good old uncle sam. No creditor has more power than on uncle sam and a few pieces he put in place can easily keep that from from occurring peace of mind again knowing where your ship is on this entrepreneurial journey where you might be taking on that water better relationships is huge huge, huge, huge. When I was a litigator, most of my my cases involved partnerships and business relationships and just falling apart because the expectations were met someone's on unstated expectations were not met the situation and it's really important that I look at it from the point of view that this stuff helps you maintain your most important asset, which is your relationships with your partners with you and with your customers and vendors on dh then no more money's always good. I mean, everybody likes more money and there are things if you track your finances and you have a good team on your side to help you with that that guaranteed that you'll save money in taxes I mean, I've seen clients save six figures in taxes just by tracking their finances and doing a few things right on dh then the freedom the freedom of making be able to make choices you put a few systems in place and you have the freedom to take advantage of opportunities so let's say you're looking for funding in your business is any business of any any bank any lender any institution that that might give you funding to grow your business the first thing they're going to ask is all right let's see your records if you have those records back in the funding you don't have the freedom to pursue those opportunities potentially so is there is there a question no I mean I was just gonna like add to that with more money um one of the reasons I was really excited about it because I think that I'm just like a non energetic level it's like creating the space for the money to actually come or like knowing like ok once the money comes in I'm gonna take care of it like I have this system in place right to manage that so it's like really like being open for business for real right right and being able to have planned for that future and having that that base for your business to grow in the future there's a there's a great story in the doubt a chain that I love it's called the third floor and it starts off with a there's this rich guys living in this village he goes to another away to another village far off village e he comes across the most magnificent matt, most magnificent comte magnificent isn't easy for you to say, right mansion he's ever seen and it's his three story mansions like holy smokes and of course, for the purposes of this story, the owners out in front of the mansion and invite any goes up to the owner of the mansion says, wow, this is amazing. I've never seen anything like this because well, won't you come on in tourism around, they keep going up and up and up to the third floor and they get to the third floor and they can see that all of the countryside, you know, that hill there, I need one of these, so the band goes back to his his hometown, and he hires the best craftsman in the region says, I saw this three story mansion or this three tiered mansion, and and I want one exactly like it in the christmas is, well, you're in luck. I actually built that mansion, so the rich man says, well, fantastic let's get started right away, and I'm going to go on vacation while you work on it. So again, for the purposes of this story, so the rich man comes back and having never seen something like this built, he sees all the workers and their they're laying out this slab with all these rocks so he's like, what are you doing to the to the craftsman? So what? We're laying the foundation and what what's the foundation for said when the craft was like, well, that's good obviously kidding, right? So I'll play along with it um well the foundation we put the first floor on top of it and the rich man's what's the first floor for well we put the second floor and what's that for and I get the craft and starts thinking himself I don't think this guy's joking with me um well it's to put the third for you know we need to build it just off the rich man's as well. So glad that I came here to save us all some time and money I just want the third floor way. See that a lot in business, right? You see, hey, all these get rich schemes I get rich, make money on diets in the same way. I mean, we see quick people want quick results right now, but in order to get there you see the end state you see, these these successful people those people spent on those businesses spent years building a foundation, been planning for the first floor building that first floor and the second floor and the way that I approached this really is you is to take an agile approach to through the business and the agile approaches take those little pieces you need at the stage of business you're in now so you don't need to go set up well unless you have a ton of venture capital funding, but in most businesses they're just starting out. As soon as you get this foothold in the market you see there's there's my market research is showing that there is a foothold I'm going to make some money here there's a desire for my product, we'll start putting those little pieces in place that allow you to build on that that business you don't need to go set up, build the three story building you just need to build the pieces you need now would attract this stuff you need. So as I said that's, we talked about the why this is usually what you get when you go to pick up a book in the library or the research how to start your business it's a bunch of whats and again is this what's there? These are all valid concerns, but they may not be for the stage of business that you're in, and so we need to pick the pieces and break these down into chunk it down into bite bites you can take a step at a time, and so this is my version of the what and three tiers I really think they're important isto first set up your business entity that's going to be you know the structure that holds your business assets that holds the liabilities that essentially deals with customers and vendors and partners implements and financial systems will talk about some real easy ways of doing that that are low friction just to get you started because again we want to get you started on your entrepreneurial journey we're not we're not looking all way down the road now we're looking for the next steps to get you going and then use contracts and we'll talk a lot about contracts because I'm a huge believer in those do we have a question yeah as you get into some of these what's we have some discussion in the chat room so I'm gonna share with you some of their what's that I'm sure you'll touch on your speech but jack yes has a question about using credit cards and getting small alone and also what type of entity to be in llc it's sandra so just keep that in mind I guess is you go through this we can also three eighteen media has questions about finding the right accountant not all accountants may know how to deal with your specific type of business absolutely and she she's concerned about that says you're all to keep in mind that question so I'm gonna I'm gonna write something down here so we're talking about entities will get into that the credit cards yeah credit cards versus small have a huge myth about credit cards coming up oh, family on then the accounts so getting I call it your posse everybody the business posse to run with and you hear that? You know, in general every business needs an accountant lawyer and as your business grows, you need bigger posse to bring on board so we'll get to those for sure absolutely. Uh let's talk about your business entity this I even went to hey hear the what's instead of the wise let's talk about the wise first this is there this example of your business entity it's the bubble in which all of your assets your liabilities go into and it's the entity that deals or it's d thing the person for like are better word or phrase that deals with third parties that deals with vendors it deals with customers that deals with the government what you want ideally in a situation when you're setting up the business is you went all of your business stuff in this bubble and then all of your personal stuff outside the bubble bubble there's some very important reasons for that um we talked about one of a liability um other other reasons can you think of other reasons why you might wanna have these separate it's kind of it's a nuanced question their financial you could do you could save taxes by doing planning properly you can prevent well we talked about liability you can also make sure that it's easier to grow if you have to have your business split off separately from you you put certain assets in this bubble then you khun grow by expanding that bubble of bringing on partner potentially licensing there's there's one thing kyle that I know a lot of folks that are starting out often have a situation it's the paypal situation if anybody's ever used paypal for their business which is a really common shopping cart system that people use and basically when people are starting there's you including this one account where money comes into paypal and then personally money goes out of paypal and there's no real distinction it just becomes this big pool of money it's really really common and some people run their business that way for a long time and it can be problematic depending upon your business structure because you're mixing your personal and your business assets but I think a bigger issue that comes up sometimes is you actually do not know like how much money you make or how much money your business is making and many people it's super common where they have no idea how much profit they're making they're like I don't know money just comes into paypal and like enough goes out and I can pay all my bills and life is cool, but they don't really understand much about their business, which to me is a big problem with that. Yeah, it is and that's that's what? As we talk about all these things, the business entities and the contracts and the finances, you want to create a separate bubble away from yourself for all of this stuff, all of the contracts, all of your assets, all of your finances separate from yourself and there's some very important reasons for that even if your sole proprietor so they're a couple different, they're the usual suspects here in the united states the sole proprietorship if you go out and you put open a paypal account and you sell something to somebody your sole proprietor, they're no registration requirements, anything or anything involved in in that if you decide to call your business something other than your own name, then there's a registration requirements called a fictitious name registration that you need to do a partnership is like a sole proprietorship for with more than one a person. If two people go out, they decide you're in the hallway and you just got a great idea. Let's, go do this. Put up a paypal account tonight you sell something to somebody, you have a partnership that's all it takes some states again have some registration requirements so they vary uh and internationally this applies to so if you have someone here in the states and then someone in canada and they decided to do an online joint venture, you have a partnership, the issues involved with or one of the issues it's a big concern or which could be a big concern for people with the sole proprietorship and the partnership is there's no liability protection there's no separate bubble, so if the sole proprietorship or the partnership is sued, you are liable each each person in that business is liable individually for that and in a partnership it's even more complicated because the things your partner does can couldn't make you liable. So if your partner goes out and decides to lease a brand new mercedes benz and doesn't pay for it and it's it's, you know in some connection with business, then you could be liable for that um the limited liability company and again these are in the states the c corp in the ass corporate they give you this bubble of liability protection so that that's the difference with with these but what's really important is to start off is to understand why you would want to choose one of one of these different options here some people ah lot of attorneys say he never be a sole prop, you know, proprietor because you're immediately liable for I don't necessarily believe that's the case, it depends on a lot of different factors, and those factors are your exposure to liability. If you're selling a new type of candy that has a glass in it, you're good then that you might have some might have some liability exposure there, but if you're doing something, if you're maybe selling, I know cem cem photo potentially, you know, or you're selling like a new type of cotton ball to somebody there's less less liability, so you have to have to look at your exposure to liability and the liability can be mitigated by getting insurance too, right? I mean, a lot of times insurance policies, they're cheap many many of my clients I deal with their service providers if their coaches, for instance, uh in annual insurance policy could run you maybe three hundred dollars. So if you live in a state where it's expensive to start one of these other types of organizations, then potentially sole proprietorship is a way to go get something you stay issue, we have some people asking about that photo. Todd wants to know what the pros and cons of creating an llc out of state is there any benefit to that there could be there? Some states are much more protective of the the privacy so there's some well known state, so wyoming is one of them that's well known nevada they there if privacy is a big concern of yours maybe that's potentially the drawback to that is that then you are registered you have to also register in the state where you physically are present so you are going to be paying in two places and subject to two jurisdictions laws so that's that's something that a lot of people don't necessarily understand is they think, hey, everybody incorporates in delaware right? So I'm going to go incorporating del I've read this block post and this guy really smart I'm gonna go into incorporating in delaware the problem becomes they're doing business in california state of california sends them a huge tax bill you know and say, hey, you're not registered, so we're going to find you for that also your doing business in california but I'm I register in delaware yeah, but you're sitting here in california doing business so it's called qualifying to do business so wherever you are physically you need to be qualified to do business and I understand this is very this changes with the types of business so let's say your photographer where where you doing business? Is it where I go take the photos if various online entrepreneurs it's so it's not super cut and dry it's not like if you have if you have a brick and mortar place it's pretty cut and dry right? But if you're running an online business, there are a number different factors but so let's get back to why you would choose different types of entities it's the liability protection potentially savings and tax money is another one and then looking at your growth where you're gonna go with with your company do you see taking on partners in the future? Do you see? And if those part if so then are those corporate partners different? There are a lot of different issues, but if you're just getting started you just need you just want to test and try there's nothing wrong with the sole proprietorship in my opinion a cz long as you've considered all these other factors, so okay decided this is when we do I'm gonna be a sole provider now what? Well you've taken the first step the first step is really choosing your bit like going through the process of choosing logically your business type why doesn't make sense teo choose this type of business? Another issue that comes up ah lot and we'll get into it in the intellectual property it is choosing a name. Unfortunately this khun b becomes very problematic when you become successful because then you're exposed I have dealt with many clients who have grown to a point where they've popped on the radar of some big company and who swooped in and said, hey you're usurping our name we have a trademark on that so it's important to go research the availability of thiss name not only in your state but in the u s patent and trademark office there's an easy search function there they've actually made it easy government has maybe he's so go and take a look at that if you're considering a name for your business and it's not just is the domain available but is the name available there's there and we'll talk again in the I p about that the registration with the state not always applicability for sole proprietors and partnerships so against state by state one thing that's always applicability is the tax id so if you were going to create one of these entities that's separate from yourself get a separate tax I d number even for sole proprietors there's another like little nugget tidbit information that's important get a tax I d for yourself and the reason is you can stay you can use your own social security number but you're going to be spraying your social security number all over the place to your vendors who were going to require you to report your tax id number so it's easy and fast just didn't know that so as a sole proprietor even if you don't have an l, c or other structure you can request for a tax I d number it's quick and easy process iris website do it, please! You do not mean the identity theft, the the the number of identity theft victims that are subtle providers is off the charts. So this's one little tidbit that you can protect yourself and then get a business. You'll need a business license wherever you're or you generally will need a business license, check your state or local just search for let's say you're here san francisco business life look it up, it's really easy, quick it's usually it's, usually cheap and that's one of the requirements to get to get started and to start selling to customers. Um, and then is that the same? Like if I'm a coach or someone doing copyrighting, or if I do web sites, business licenses in that state? Yes, looking online for online businesses it's the same because what you don't wantto fall into is the trap of saying you don't have an address at all because then you're taxed everywhere you go or everywhere you, you'll have to report income all this place is so mike have thirty five show state tax. Yeah, it's not good for my recipe, so the irs calls those people and this is I don't like this name, but they calm transience I always think of liking someone living in a box under that might be a catholic no but seriously you don't want to be a transient you want to establish a place of business even if it's you go down and you rent ups store physical address they give you an address on street and say that's my place of business is wearing registering that's it I mean it costs you I think that's one hundred dollars a year to rent with those boxes saves you a whole lot of headache off my account which is you wait alright so financial systems money is scary right by his terrifying money is also the lifeblood of businesses you you can't go out there and bring your goods and your services and your great work to the universe if you don't have the funds to do it and so the implementing financial systems is so so, so important just for making sure that you're plugging those holes you're being as efficient and profitable as you can and you don't have to go out and again hire kpmg, which is one of the huge accounting firms to do this. The prolific proliferation of online tools that are available now make this so quick and easy to do, but the first place to start really is what I call the money flow plan again we take our our bubble here our business bubble and we want to make sure that all of your money is coming into this bubble so if you have, like cube is incorporated here. Make sure every check is written out. The cube is incorporate, you have a separate bank account for you, busy incorporate even if your sole proprietorship get a separate bank account for your business. It's so, so important it's not required by the irs since not required by the states, but I've represents so many clients who are sole proprietors that did not have separate bank accounts, and if there are audited, that opens up their business to of being audited and opens up all of their assets to being audited and partnerships that don't have business back accounts. I've seen it where one partner gets audited, then the business gets audited than the other partner gets audited. So if you're separating all these finances, they're all separate. Iris will come in and audit that one entities that one person, the one business so it's really important to keep these separate plus it just makes your life so much easier. So if all of your money is coming into one node and then going out of one knowed, all you have to do is worry about this one one note and plugging like an online accounting software into this most online accounting. Software now is really cheap super cheap ten dollars a month you link it up to your bank accounts it pulls in the data automatically some of them even classified the transactions for you I mean there's no reason not to do this anymore uh it's it's cheap and it's easy can I ask a quick question kyle about so if you have a sole proprietorship which is where a lot of people start early and you would want to get a business account would that still be in your name? Would you want in that case to get a fictitious business name or a d b a doing business as and then open theatre count in that name because I know that can get a little bit complicated is that just a different separate business account that's important is the sole proprietor or would it be under a different business name so that's a really good point you bring up whatever so let's let's think about this way whatever name your clients would write a check too that's the name you would on the bank account. So if it's escaped from cubicle nation on dh it's just it's a sole proprietorship that's the name you want on the bank account that means you will have to go because it's not pamela slim you have to go and get a fictitious name registration and usually that's done by the state or by the city so the requirements that a bank will have to open a bank account is some sort of state registration if it's not being open to your your name so this fictitious name registration if your sole proprietorship or one of the other documents if you're not another type of entity and then your tax id so those are the two pieces that's all it takes to open a bank a business back account anywhere um the seas is it running? So with this being said, if you're putting your personal funds into your business, should you write a check to your business make account so you have a record of like with loans for example that you gave your business? Would it be considered alone? That's a fantastic question when you as the owner put money into a business it's classified is either dead or equity and it's up to you. I would talk with your financial adviser about whether its debt for equity but absolutely keep track of that because the money you put into that business when you pull it out it's tax free. Oh, so I did what I had when I see a lot of this people for all of this money into business is to get him started, you know, it takes a lot of fuel to get the business rolling and then when the profits start coming in, then they're taxed on all of those profits so let's say you've got your account here here is your business and you're just putting all this money into the business at the at the beginning to get it up up here and then the profits start coming in and fill it up to here they get taxed on all of this because they haven't tracked it you should on ly be taxed on this so it totally makes sense to keep track of what you're putting into the business and I guess v b it alone or equity again your your accountant to your financial visor could talk with you about that but yeah there was a really good reason to do that because it's tax free so with the credit cards this is another issue that comes up a lot what about separate I charged up in my personal credit card and that's another no no no no no keep it keep it separate that alone could open you up for an audit if your business is is audit I've seen just horror stories I I finished up a client case where I represented them for five years through all these artists through three different years because they're co mingling all kinds of funds between different businesses and using one businesses credit card for personal things or for another business is just the disaster make sure everything goes into one knowed everything comes out of that same same node for each business the credit card issue is also interesting because the number one credit card myth that's out there is that your credit card statement is enough to justify an expense I can't be emphatic enough that that's a myth if you du charge something on a credit card, make sure you have a receipt for that as well you need the minute, maintain receipts everything you purchase. The reason is let's say pam goes the best buy pampling quickly pam pulls out her credit card she buys uh a macbook air for her business, which is a justifiable expense, right? Plus she buys the eighty inch plasma screen for her living room, which is necessary for my business. I want to clarify critical right exactly. There you go. Thank you. So in that circumstance, if she has received for it, she should write off she should be able to write off the computer but not the tv, right it unless there's a reason that she's using for business let's just say that her son josh is playing his video games on it all the time. So it's not, um but I see a lot of people do is they don't keep the two receipts and so the irs would come in and say you got no receipts, we're not goingto get we're not going to take your not going to deduct any of it so the credit card statement says you went to best buy and bought something it doesn't say what you bought and so if you don't have a receipt, if you get audited all those expenses, they're going to get tossed out the window like use a service like shoe box where you like just take a picture of it is that sufficient? Very good question yes, excellent question the irs does except electronic receipts so I as pam knows I'm allergic to paper not not really issue with paper, he didn't like it at all. I don't like paper because it's too messy it's too easy lose you can't you can't keep a good record with a lot of paper, so I do use a service called shoebox, which is fantastic and take a picture of the receipt email it uploaded whatever throw the receipt away and then it just goes in the cloud you've gotta receipt that's it so absolutely make it is easiest possible if your finances are being already auto imported and categorized just do the same with the receipt it takes you three seconds to pull out your your smartphone, take a picture of it, send it off and then throw the receipt away now what can I say something and I'm curious what the folks are saying on the internet, but I will never forget for the rest of my life advice that that kyle gave me, which was, you know, sometimes when you start to learn more about things that you may not have known about, right, like there could be a gasp heard around the world across the internet where people are like, are you kidding me? Like my credit card statement is not enough, I haven't been doing that or I have totally been co mingling my personal and my business funds, and I feel totally freaked out and shamed, and I'm awful in it. I am totally telling you, I mean, and I just in the spirit of truth is we're saying here, I mean, I sometimes just by not knowing or being overwhelmed, I, you know, sometimes not kept track of the things like I need to one of things that kyle said to me that I will never forget for the rest of my life is whatever happened in the past is in the past, we cannot change that. What we can change is what you decide to do in the future, so there is no need to carry shame or regret or fear or doubt, but if for some reason you don't have all the information you need and you get audited, you'll figure it out when you get there, right? It's a bit of a crapshoot, we don't know how it happened but there is no need to really feel you know that anxiety from what you did in the past now that you get the new information this is where you can make some different decisions moving forward and I personally think that often when we're talking about finances we don't address the fact that often within the industry there is sometimes subtle and sometimes very direct shaming of people who have not always had good financial practices and I think it is awful because what we're trying to do is human beings in all aspects of our lives is to do better when we know better right so I just want to really reinforce that if there's anybody who's here if there's anybody that's on the internet that starts to get a panic attack because you haven't been doing things the right way it's totally ok like you did the best that you could at that time but why we're here today is so you could have the information you need to move forward absolutely and thank you thank you for bringing that because there is uh not only fear but shame is a big part of it yeah I think we've talked about this before they say counselors at law right a lot of time for just counselors and there because there are there are a lot of emotions around money and one of those is it's okay whatever happened in the past is repairable I mean I've done it many times before you find your financial adviser you're if you do get in a bind that they can help you out of that too but many times you don't even get to that point it's just a matter of starting here and starting to take just literate ivo steps to put these pieces in the place you don't need the whole three storey building you just need the foundation at this point and here's clarify just one little thing about like a sole proprietorship I mean since you are already putting your personal assets at risk anyway what would be the implications of like you know co mingling I mean I have separate accounts and I have separate credit cards but occasionally like I might leave one credit card at home and I you know but it's it's little but what would what would actually be the implications if they were co mingled since they could go after your personal assets if something were to happen anyway what can you clarify? Yes yeah it's good question and when you say they were talking about different parties yeah, right there there's a day out there monster the day is gonna come after but really the day here is when your co mingling money you're talking about uncle sam ire s coming in and because wreaking havoc on your life when we're talking about putting this liability protection over your business in many in many ways in many cases that doesn't stop uncle sam, but it stops other creditors so other creditors can come in and attach and go after your personal assets if you don't have this bubble liability protection um so the difference being uncle sam everybody else and by co mingling funds that's when uncle sam can come in and say you're not keeping clean records, it becomes, uh it just opens you up to all kinds of problems go back to the sole proprietorship um, I'm probably next to three months I'm gonna be launching kickstarter for a documentary film, so but I don't actually act as a sort of conscience would you say that I should start like a production company and then maybe doing jealousy for that? So when I haven't actually gotten to that point yet, where I don't know exactly because I know most of them were individuals and then there are other companies and stuff, but as a documentary filmmaker, I think it's I probably have to start a production company what do you need now? Do you need a whole company structure now what would you say you protect from a production standpoint or what? What what would you be worried about from, uh worried I mean because, you know, I keep hearing all these kicks stories, stories where are the a lot of the fun of the people that funded our you know they feel like they got chip it was like a lot of fraud and things like that so just you know, you know to kind of prepare that are so just let people know that hey look I'm you know a production company and we're a little and shit man and I'm just a guy that wants to get in the philippines for six months yeah that's that guess that's one of my fears so it sounds like the biggest concern for use liability right? We're talking about the different prongs we're talking about luck and choosing a business entity liability, taxation and then growth bringing on partners gross not going to punish you can always expand the sole proprietorship the funding is not issue here for you is liability and there are three again I like three's apparently there's three ways to protect yourself from liability one is the business entity the others insurance and the third is nice segue way way money should mention I know him so contracts contracts help protect you from liability if they're built right on dh that's the purpose of the contract really this this is what I think it's the number one contract myth in a contract doesn't mean I don't trust you a contract is not there to say yeah, you know this is going really well but you know you so much, you know, that's not what you're doing when you hand somebody a contract. In my estimation, a contract is just trying to lay all the expectations on the table. So what do I expect from you? If you're so let's, say I'm hiring you to do a kickstarter project for me. What are the services I expect from you? What? What kind of deliver balls do I expect to get from you? What air the payment terms you expect for me? When are we going to see this? What happens if things go south? In this relationship? It lays all these expectations. It acts as a road map for your relationship together. And again, I think you know, the one, the biggest assets, that you have a za business owner. Or is your relationships with different year of customers, your vendors and your partners? And so that's what this this does here? So in your case, ronnie, something you could do is make sure all of the terms are very clear on the kickstarter project for everyone that I think a lot of problems occur and in the crowd funding sense in any any type of business transaction, when the all the expectations are not laid out so unmet expectations are the biggest cause of litigation, I think. And of the break up of otherwise really great businesses like partners, you know? I mean, we're talking about when we talk about you know who you should have contracts with. My golden rule is everybody signed something e vo, if you're going to have to interact with me in a business context, you, you're going to sign something. So remember that everybody signed something that's treatable right on and that's not because I don't trust you. I love my client's ay dio I trust them, I love them, I'll go the ends of the earth for them, and likewise, but I want to make sure that we're gonna be we're gonna have that loving relationship for no forever. Hopefully, you know, so it's layout the expectations, and also as we'll see in the intellectual property module later, that they're some serious implications around when you're creating things together, whether it be tangible, tangible goods and products or intangible goods and products. So these are some of the the contracts, the agreements, I think everybody should have it in place. You should have agreements in place with your vendors and customers just lay out those expectations and then internal agreements for your employees, for your contractors and for your partners again, partners, that's, that's, the big that's where I see the most that's where I see the most problems with partnerships because everybody's friends when you when you start when you go out there hand in hand to take on the world oh, but the contract's help lay all these expectations out on the table and lay out here's what's gonna happen if you don't meet the expectations, right? I mean, it's hard to argue against the contract says that if you don't deliver by then by this point that I'm not going to pay you, okay? Whereas I see a lot of freelancers that they go out and they just start doing work for clients and they don't have a contract in place. The client expects, for instance, the client expects something the freelancer expect something else. For instance, I've seen seo companies say we'll get you on the first page of google for, you know, for x andi, you that's when the obligation is to pay us, they get him on google maps and the client says that's, not google that I want to see the first page a ghoul, then it gets in this big litigious issue. So that's, just one example lays out all of these expectations also with employees really important with employees, and we'll talk about this again intellectual property. But if employees working for you and the employee is creating intellectual property for your business unless you have an agreement that says that that is a work for hire than that employees owns that intellectual material in a natural property, so it's called the work for hire doctrine and make sure anybody who creates anything for your business again, everybody signed something right? And these guys who were creating stuff for your business, they're signing something it says that they're creating for your business is that when you hear those stories of, like somebody who hires the web looking at jane sometimes like seventy high that hires like a web designer and then you hear a story of then all of a sudden they say, well, I actually own this design, and so they take it with them or the individual doesn't own it is because they haven't clarified those terms absolutely so let's let's say a web designer uses some technology in the back end, the pre existing technology they've they've licensed, the client thinks, hey, this is mine now I go use it and they take that framework and start using it all over the place, and the company that owns the framework says, what is going on? These guys didn't pay for this. If they start pulling the thread, it comes back to the designer like your license for x, and then this guy's doing why so you owe us for doing that so again funky positions but clients can too I mean fonts or another thing you know I mean you might have agreed to give a client some files because you specifically you know created templates for them to use in house and maybe the payment was arranging all that but they don't get to have fun it's you know as well because you're violating your front licensing agreement if you just give mance they really have to buy their own and sometimes that's not discussed ahead of time it could be a big surprise or you know it's so what about on the internet? Do we have any questions or concerns on the internet about working with vendors or with contracts? Yeah absolutely I think newbie a swell some other people said I can see that my oppa is really, really bad you know here is well, question is oh, maybe this is the way find unidentified good and respectable cc cpas associations referrals are sometimes not efficient, right? Right I thank you. Thank you. Thank you for keeping me honest on this because again I'm not good with slide so everybody but working with advisers what what's important? What do you think is important when looking for adviser so let's say let's use the example of a c p a what's what's an important traits fill out tax forms properly so that that's interesting is are we talking so competency? Yeah is one um, you could generally most people who are out there filling out tax forms have gone through some kind of qualification. Now all of them have gone through qualification requirement used to not be that that way, but that should be, like the cost of entry. But so what else are you looking for? In the same? Just someone who's, like, patient enough to, like, really explain things? Because it could be overwhelming. So someone who isn't going to sound annoyed when you ask a question. So someone who's, like, really compassionate and someone that you trust that you feel like you can kind of, especially if, like you have shame around money, you want someone that you khun kind of trust and be like, oops, I was doing the wrong thing, are you? No, I'm weighing that over here, you know, just so having that kind of relationship having someone you could kind of, right, right? They understand where you're coming from the garden. Oh, and, uh, this might be a bit extreme, but for me, I mean personal integrity on any kind of partnership that I go into, like, I just got asked to do a workshop for another coach at a international retreat and I I literally grilled or on her personal integrity and we had this like beautiful discussion and I mean I mean our our business if I'm going to go somewhere and tell people he'd go to this retreat or if I'm going to give a my accountant our financial advisor is eating all of my financials and and that it might even be a bit extreme but but for me it's like it really has to feel good because then we're both able to kind of play full out and have discussions and I mean you're my accountant and you know it's like we have these discussions where it's ok like I want to be completely in the clear and I don't even want to be near the line you know it's like I wantto right because I don't want any of that stress it all on and I want to be ableto do my work and not you know worry about this stuff with and that's a good that's a good issue bring up also so not only just integrity but are you do you have the same values right? Are you on the same path so some people want to be real creative with their finances just write those are not the people that I work with I'm all for like the doing doing things by the letter of the law and taking advantage of every opportunity there is to save money and I went you know, I've trained I went to school for a long time to get the most value out of that, but if you're talking about something that's butting up against a line that's you're not the client for me and as you know, as someone looking for an adviser, what do you want there? Do you want somebody to be super aggressive? Are you willing to take the risk there or you know, where do you want to be in that line? How do you get that? I mean, obviously a lot of it you know, sometimes that stuff will just come up after the fact, right? You find out that these people don't have values friends I mean it's not necessary attacks, but in some previous employers of mine I thought they had shared shared values but it turned out that really they didn't, you know, and I found out after the fact so I had put a lot of faith in that so it's some other, you know, I went there c p a you're putting your faith in that right? And then how can you how can you let that head it up? I hearken back to the testing and trying right and small projects you don't have to jump full with both feet into this project there are ways you can I would first of all sit down and talk with is the epa if you're going to hire him or her, most people don't even do that much right? Or they just look for epa they expect they expect that the cia is competent and going to do a good job and that's good enough um really sit down and say here's here's what I want out of my business if you sit down with the epa and the epa doesn't ask you that question, what do you want out of your business? I think you start looking somewhere else because you don't want just a plug and play approach you're an individual your business is different than any other business out there and so you want to be treated, you know, as as an individual there's not a plug and play approach for every for every business. So I say take that testing and trying take those small steps there's some some clients with my firm they say we've got this project we need some budgeting done for it that's how they've tested us out and then they said, wow, you know fantastic or wow, we don't work well together, you know and that's fantastic that's great for us as the provider that's great for you is the client to know that ahead of time before you go and turn over all of your information and you invest all of this all of your trust and you know, you're all this this maybe if you have some shame around the money you know and your vest all of this in one person, you want to make sure that that's the right person for you and so those asking those questions, making sure they'll sit down and talk with you about these issues but it's also that also means it's incumbent upon you before you go in to understand what you need out of an advisor, right? So competency that's I mean that's that's those are the stakes were coming in the door I mean, those air table stakes if you're looking for any type of advisor or service provider, competency should be but there are ways you can you can potentially test that someone who understands your industry is many times very important. So for the online businesses where you have customers all over the world you have partners all over the world you don't necessarily always have a physical location. You may be moving it's really important when it gets complicated that you have an advisor to understand the all of the nuances that may be involved in your type of business like wise if you have a brick and mortar business standard traditional business it's really important to get advisor understands that as well personality fit we talked about that they insure your values align correctly because bike come goes to an accountant and says, hey, you know, I want to just do this right is like, well, not here you're wasting all kinds of money we could put something in an off shore and do this and that love above but at the end of the day it's your business on the line right? The irs isn't gonna go after that accountant iris and go after you and so not only is important from that perspective but that every interaction you have with that person is going to be grating because that their values are not aligned and there's always going to be some friction there. So if you value a ton of communication from your advisors you know, make sure you're getting advisor that's communicating properly or else there's gonna be friction grading every time you get an email your send off and email with the advisor it's going to trigger an emotional response that's not what you want it well, unless happiness on then similar work styles so you're creative entrepreneur he might be probably I would guess like ninety percent to the people out there are not real spreadsheet junkies, right? You don't like spreadsheets a time if if you have an advisor who is saying I need a spreadsheet for this a spreadsheet for that and you hate spreadsheets that's not a good fit likewise, if if your your work styles where you like t be flexible and free with when you, when you can get advice and get advice when when you need it, but your advisors locked in like work on tuesdays from one toe, one thirty and that's it obviously a problem these air again, these air these air things to really to talk about with your advisor, and I think the last three you are the most important ones, right understands your industry understands our is a personality fit for you understands where you're where you're coming from as a new entrepreneur and has, and you have similar work styles as well. There's one thing, kyle, that I notice and it's unfortunate I don't, I'm hoping it's nothing to do with my adopted state of arizona, which is where I went second, but there were some dear friends that I met that all had had a really traumatic situations where they had hired people who were accountants. In one case, it was somebody to work inside their firm, and after a long period of time, like ten years, they realize the person was funneling money outside of their business and it's just so heartbreaking. Sometimes when you look at the personality fit and people don't take all the factors into consideration, there could be somebody I like to think that most people are good and there's other people who are good who are temporarily making really bad choices and doing things like stealing other people's money. But sometimes if you only look for the personality fit and you don't check references, you know, in one case where somebody had actually been siphoning money out of a business, the person had been addicted before for another business and they hadn't looked because it just seemed like such a good fit for them, thie other things sometimes when you are maybe I'm not sure of what you're doing. A common thing that I know you and I have talked about kyle is sometimes or business owners who do find somebody who feels like a fit, and they're so excited that they just completely turned everything over to that person and don't take the time to say I'm not a money person. I'm so glad kyle that you're doing it all for me and don't actually stop and check the information or what can also be a real to me kind of a good sign is if you would get a third party let's say I was working with somebody else and I had kyle come in and kind of take a peek at my books and say, what do you think about the way that things were happening? Somebody to me who's, a professional sepa who feels good about what they're doing or a lawyer is not going to get their feathers ruffled depending upon how you do it right they're going to feel like hey, I have nothing to hide awesome I know you're working with kyle on this other project if somebody begins to get very you know kind of touchy and testy with you because they don't want anybody else to see to me that's a gigantic red flag and so it's really important you know when you might know people who are your peers and colleagues who have a long standing working relationship with people you know we're like you get recommendations from them for professional advisors but then also do your research right better business bureau yelp google searches if they belong to any professional associations see if there has been anything written up and you know I hate the fact that it happens andi just so happened that it was like some of the nicest people I've ever known which sometimes can be a pattern they're like I love you it's a great personality fit and then unfortunately some people can take advantage of that absolutely I don't want to misquote the person I think jack welch potentially said trust but verify really that's that's important and as as a business you're you're not a freelancer once you started as your business owner you're an entrepreneur part of being an entrepreneur is being able to understand teo look at the books and they say hey look this looks okay I understand this asks some questions you don't have to be in accounting ninja to run a business really I mean especially with the tools we have available now but you should be able teo understand all of your money goes in one place and look at the books where the money's going in and going out and understand too to a certain extent you know what? What about she is what different pieces of it mean because that's going to help you identify when they're those leaks in your business so this this person for instance probably never looked at there there his or her books they took over one hundred thousand dollars I mean there's time I mean unless it's a huge business one hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money teo just go missing and so as your again you should be tracking this ask your advisor questions I mean for all of my clients we use online tools so everybody has all of the data all the time can go in I think it's important I think it's important to use those tools because use the business owner and I know from running businesses myself I need the information when I need the information now I don't need to know in a couple weeks when you get back from vacation or whatever I need the information now because I don't know if I can go in this direction I take on this partner if I could go get this loan etcetera what's our cash situation can I invest this so it's important also for youto have visibility on your on your finances and as a professional business owner and entrepreneur it's part it's part of the drill and it's always isn't always the funnest thing but you know I mean they're just we're just talking about a couple pieces here and checking in I don't know if you mind talking about some specifics but I get a lot of people you know, asking me you know, do you have an account you can recommend had my taxes done by the same person for like, you know, ten years, twelve years and he's not nearly as hip as you are on dh I'm sure he's not watching I think I mean in this totally findings completely squeaky clean I'm tilly's quickly clean it's you know, it's kind of a boring relationship really, but which is fine, you know? But so I noticed that you call yourself an advisor, which which kind of has this you keep saying and it has this appeal to me and like, I can pretty much email him, you know, whenever I want and and if I want to have a meeting than then I pay but like I find that he that he doesn't really like offer up any sort of, you know, juicier advice to me when I asked specific questions about things and I was just wondering like, can you can you people have asked me, you know, how much do you pay for to prepare your taxes? And I just tell people, but can you talk about, like, a range of, like, maybe, like, really quickly, like just a range of fees for someone to just sort of do your taxes each year? And maybe you know how free they are toe ask advice and in what form and, like, what is the range? Because, obviously, you offer a lot more sort of like financial business advice, which I don't think my accountant, really I don't think it's his forte hasn't pushed it, he hasn't really offered it, and so can talk a little bit about yeah, different professions bring a different lens to each situation. My wife is a c p a and, um, she and I get in these, we get these, knock down, drag out, verbal fights, way don't literally fight because she would beat me down, but seriously, she brings a much different perspective to a situation than I do because of my experience in my training, you know, I I bring like, the legal perspective and running a business, she brings a very stringent tax and accounting she's she's got a master's degree she's she's by the book she sees all she's like the matrix going down she seems everything everything and so they're different perspectives she will be the first person to say that she's not the person to ask for strategic advice she will she will find like one decibel out of place in like thousands of lines of financial transactions but she's not the person asking for a strategic advice so that you know that maybe something you're looking for and it doesn't always have to be the same person either I mean you can have somebody if your account is locked on has your stuff like streamline that's great I mean I think that's fantastic you're way ahead of the curve so potentially you're looking for someone to take an outside person to take a look at those really locked on books and to see where you are, where you've been talk with you like a consulting type arrangement right? And say here's what you can do given this fantastic information that's already been provided by your accountant so you don't always have to look for everything in one person because I I think that that that does you disservice is an entrepreneur to again we need the the posse having all these different perspectives teo to bear on a situation I mean look at the different perspectives you have three days on all the different issues, so if you're looking for strategic advice, that's what you're going to one of the things you're gonna be looking for an adviser? Yeah, and probably, you know, it depends on the region depends on the person, but, you know, it can be so often in a general consulting price range like you'd have for a lawyer, so, you know, a few hundreds of dollars an hour, sometimes they're people who work on an annual basis for once a quarter, they might give you tax advice and planning, so I think some of it would be looking at who might be in your budget range that had the skill set that you want, you know, is as opposed to, like, one time advice. Yeah, I think that again, I bring my own lens to the situation, but you want to keep on ongoing relationship with someone, and you want to make sure that that information that your books are being taken care of, and you could make decisions based on on those if you're only checking in with your accountant once a year. It's problem that's a problem? I think, because that that person may not know what's going on in your business well enough to make to help you save money any any accountant should pay for him or herself many times over there's if your advisors not doing that then potentially you you should open up that start asking more questions of that adviser and providing more information and see if if that advisers giving you the information you need as for finding these types of people I would say that you can go you can go to the epa associations or the bar associations but really referrals really are the best best way of finding people and referrals from people in your industry because those people are gonna understand your industry and if the person you're getting a referral from is someone who has a similar work style than you probably on track for that as well so that that that's by far I think the best way to find and again as with any other service provider you get arranged you got they you know, like the quick wham bam let's get your taxes done and then you've got the full service working with you on almost a daily basis, you know and there's there's a range there and when you're getting started you have to think about what am I willing to invest in in this are their comments questions we have been through our own questions coming in how we doing on time? We have about five minutes before our scheduled break it but I know you're coming back so it's a good time for question please all right, awesome so some of these are going back, going back to some really basics for people who might be very new setting up their businesses from new yorker and nikki what light? What online or offline financial software accounting software would you recommend? I guess I'm one of these researchers questioners, right? So I dig in and I just if a new product comes out, I start going after digging in and not contact the owners on dh start and ask for demo versions of it. I again, because of my client base, they're mostly online entrepreneurs or people have created like probably I liked the cloud based software so that's, what I'm going to come from with my recommendations there's some really easy to set up solutions outright dot com is one of them very easy set up wave accounting is another one it's a free service their monetization strategy is is from what I understand is somewhat like mint dot com, so there you're sharing your information with the idea that they're going to share generally generalities to advertisers and vendors so that's something to understand for protection more robust businesses quickbooks is quick books online is the solution if you go to any accountant, even my wife just quickbooks like but there are other things not because it's been around for so long, it's the gold standard, really, but I also know that it's not the gold's may not be the right one for you, right? I mean, you don't know it takes some time there's a significant learning curve, but so outright dot com is a great option zero x e r o and less accounting. So l e s s accounting dot com where does fresh books fit in? Because I know sometimes for freelancers, they use that for invoicing. Is that just great question? Yeah, fantastic questions just came in from three eighteen media as well. Yeah, that s so fresh books wass solely and invoicing piece of software and they opened up and they've started becoming they've opened up expense reporting now, so it's becoming more of a accounting suite? From my perspective, I still think that they're they don't have all the options because you're just looking at income. You're just looking at income and expenses in fresh books now so you can see the money flow plan. It is fantastic, but you can't see where assets where assets lie, you don't know where owner equity is and loans and things like that so fresh I use fresh books myself for invoicing because it's it's fantastic, but then I link it to another account sweet, cool one more we have a lot of questions about receipts on people share your sentiment about hating paper spirits but willis creek wants to know how long should you keep receipts? I guess if they're in the cloud maybe forever but if people are keeping paper receipts is there a rule of thumb for how long? Yes so you're for federal purposes your audit window is three years so I would say keep receipts at least four years a tte the bare minimum states have different audit windows some states got the five years so whatever your state's audit window is if it's greater than the federal one at a year to that and keep it pray from that long as for your tax records keep those forever okay question in the studio I don't question about contracts so with my coaching as I have coaching agreement but I just have them like kind of put in their elektronik li like their initials like they don't actually like you know, sign it and like scan it and send it back to me because it ends up being a pain does that still work like or should I do like eco signer you know so there's a funny question on and it's a question I got a lot and why saw it started the software company have to do that because we were like, well I have this contract uh what do I do with it now elektronik signatures are as valid as a signature on paper, so any electronics and even they're some services where you can put a voice print on it anything that is some sort of prince of you on on the electronic document is good enough to make that a legally binding contract the issue is can it be sufficiently traced back to the person who supposedly signed it? So my problem? My problem always with the fax machine is I put a contract and this is back in the day when they're facts machines put a contract on a fax machine and get one back. I have no idea who it was on the other end of that, right, but that was legally valid and binding. So why isn't electronic signature where we have you khun do voice print you can capture an I p address all that stuff so also because kyle's being, you know, modest about it but I owe you our deal dot com is one of kyle's businesses where he set it up where you can upload your own contract. Uh, I'm a huge fan, so you know, I'm just going to say it, but you know, you can like let's say that mike and I wanted to do in agreement and so I was mike's client, he sends me the agreement, I read it through, I approve it and sign it on dh immediately as soon as I approve it, then we both get it's kind of elektronik. Lee valid. Signed agreements back to both of us. We both get email copies. If for some reason I wanted to edit it, I could do that. You can upload your own contracts. There's also a whole bunch of lean, simple but legally valid contracts for everything from like a, you know, audiovisual release too. You know, payment terms and all that kind of stuff. So it's really cool. I mean, he won't say it cause he's modest, but I can check out r our deal. Dot com o u r d a l dot com he's strong in business, I'm strong in marketing market for him. It's a good partnership. Um I alan says, wow, this information really is delivering the goods just the stuff that this creative is not aware of. And again thank you to speaking tio this audience specifically and then jennifer kent kyle's giving amazing information. Genius, where have you been all my sick months of entrepreneur? You know, leaving us yet tell us what we're gonna do when we come back. When we come back, we're going to talk about intellectual property and again, it might be might not sound like the most interesting, but we've got a couple little stories here make it pretty cool.