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Honeybook Panel

Lesson 13 from: Legal Steps Every Business Owner Should Take

Christina Scalera

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Lesson Info

13. Honeybook Panel

Lesson Info

Honeybook Panel

Welcome I'm Natalie Frank. I am the co-founder of The Rising Tide Society and Head of Community here at HoneyBook and I'm so excited and so honored to be sitting here today with three extraordinary women and moderating a panel where we're gonna be talking about all things entrepreneurship. So as we get started, I want to take a moment and allow each of these amazingly accomplished business owners to share a little bit more about themselves. So we'll start with you Christina. Thanks Natalie. Hi, everybody. I'm Christina Scalera I am an attorney. I am the only founder of The Contract Shop where we provide contract templates to HoneyBook and other entrepreneurs in different various creative disciplines. Hey there, my name is Ashlyn Carter. I'm a calligrapher and copywriter at Ashlyn Writes where I help creative small business owners sell more with their words. Hello, my name is Dominique Broadway. I'm an award-winning Financial Planner, Personal Finance Expert and the founder of Fin...

ances Demystified. And I'm so excited to be here today to talk about all things money. I love it! Well let's start with something that I think all of our entrepreneurs listening need to know as they continue forward in their business and that is a simple question. What do you wish you knew when you started your business? So let's actually start here with Dominique and then if all three of you guys are willing to share a little bit we'll go from there. Yeah, so there's a lot I wish I had known honestly. I think one of the biggest things, one of my biggest immediate failures in my business was not charging enough. And I had... people say you follow your passion and the money will come. It's true but you still have to have structure in place. You still have to make sure that you're charging enough to support the business, yourself, the expenses, and to be able to grow. And so I wish I had... I also started my company in a week but that's another story but I wish I had took more time to put the financials in place honestly. That's another reason I talk so much about that but figuring out exactly how much to cost. What's the realistic time they're gonna take to service each client and things of that nature. So that's something that I feel like I went wrong and just an immediate thing I wish I had put more time and energy into. It's funny how you're talking about something that I like now teach on. I think my thing would be, I remember hearing niche down, like go go lower and I just remember like in that stage of starting your business where you like listen to all the podcasts on the way to your regular job and you go like, I think I could do this. And I just remember hearing all the time like niche down, niche down, and I just thought I was like, there's no way, like why would I say no to work? I thought that was the dumbest thing and then is actually you, we were out to lunch and in Atlanta one time and I remember you just continue to kind of harp on me like Ashlyn, you seem to really like launch copywriting, like what if you just focus on this? And I will say the more that I niche down, the thing that I wish I knew was like truly at least from what I've seen, the riches are in the niches. And like if you can drill, it's so scary to say no to things. I know it is but like by doing that I was really able to kind of like set a name for myself and yeah, so that's what I wish I knew. That's good. Mine's definitely a combination of both y'all. I had such a lack of focus and it was so difficult because one, you didn't know where that focus was gonna come from or what the right thing to focus on was. But what really changed things for me and where I started to turn my business around from just kind of like a hey, I'm here to I am here was when I started to focus on one thing and it wasn't the right thing. I didn't get it right the first time but just focusing on the one thing helped to give me the skills that I needed to apply to the next thing that I tried and then the next thing and then each of those things got progressively closer to the right thing. Amen. All three of you mentioned in one way or another, failure. You touched on it a little bit, right? Either fear or fear leading you down this path where you're afraid of ultimately failing. So I'm curious and this is open to anybody but what role do you think failure plays in success as an entrepreneur? Does it have a role, is it something to be afraid of or embraced? I'd love for you guys to share. I think for me my favorite quote and I don't know who came up with it, I kind of say I did now 'cause I think I did. (laughs) It's don't fear failure, fear regret. So I'm actually driven a lot more by waking up one day and regretting not taking that step. So I understand, in the beginning I was scared of failure but I was more scared of not trying. And so it's like okay, I'm gonna wake up at and be like oh I wish I had started this thing or I wish I had traveled here or I wish I had... So that actually is what drove me but failure now is, it's like a really good book from college. It's like the best lessons that I've learned, becoming a woman, becoming an entrepreneur, those things. So now I look back like oh, so this failure equaled these lessons. And that's where failure has taken me now. So failure has actually been what I like to call just a really good inexpensive textbook. (laughs) My failure was much more expensive. (laughing) Mine wasn't cheap either but you know what I mean. (laughing) Yeah, for sure. No, it's funny everybody's like when was last time you were here in San Francisco? And I was like well, I don't know four or five, three, I don't know how many years ago for a yoga teacher training because that's what I was gonna do. I was gonna take a 180 from legal and if I hadn't done that it wouldn't have opened up the possibility to connect with people in RTS which led to literally all of this. So it's really interesting because just failing and failing and failing, having every door slam in my face was eventually what led me to the community that I'm super proud and honored to be a part of and just has opened up all the doors for the right thing. And I think that's the difference is like where the doors were shutting in my face before, everything feels effortless, not like it's easy but it's effortless. Things are happening and it's almost like they're meant to happen whereas with the yoga/blogging train I was on, it was like everybody said no. Like across the board. I hope us talking about failure can be encouraging because I just remember when I was starting my business hearing other entrepreneurs talk about failure and you kind of have to get in the mindset like it's gonna happen, it's just a matter of when and it's gonna happen a lot more. I have to tell myself like reframe the way it looks. Like it's either great, that worked well. We can do it again. Or like it didn't work, it needs tweaking. It's not like, it's just a mindset approach, like just done's better than perfect. Like you said, like you got it out there. There's some quote like if you thought about it, like it was too perfect then you shipped it out too late. Like go ahead and get it out and like play with it and you'll bounce back, it'll be fine. But that mindset shift has helped a lot because you have failures monthly. Sooner than that probably. Fantastic, I love all of those answers and so much that could be taken from all of them. I want us to dive in a little bit specifically for each of you because it's not every day that you get three extraordinary women who have expertise in very specific fields on one couch to talk about business. So let's start with you Dominique. I have a question here from PJ Done. So these questions I should say, sourced from the community. There was a lot of interest in just getting some time with you guys. So how do I ever scale my prices and get people to pay them when there are so many people offering to do things cheaper? That's a really good question. So I think when it... when you think about pricing there's also confidence. And so I think it comes down to confidently selling whatever you're selling. So I think what it comes down to is the value that you're providing. So yes there could be one person selling... Example, you can go to McDonald's and we love McDonald's and get a burger or you go to Shake Shack. And it's gonna be more expensive if you go to Shake Shack, you're probably going to have to wait in line a little bit longer but you're gonna pay more because you like the value, you like the ingredients better, and the overall experience is better. And so I think that when you're looking into scaling and you're looking into and you're like wow, so and so is charging less but I'm charging more, remember the value that you're gonna add for your clients and that should be what you should be portraying when you're selling but also selling with confidence. So I think we've all seen people say yeah, so I'm selling this thing and I mean if you want to pay five, yeah, I'll take five but you know, whatever you want to give me is fine. Versus I say, Natalie, this is $20. It's gonna do X,Y, and Z for you and it's gonna make your whole problem go away. You're gonna buy it. You're gonna be like what? You're about to solve all my issues? Give it to me for $20. And so I think that that's where people mess up sometime with pricing. So remember, just make sure you're able to say exactly what value you're providing, how you're gonna solve their problem, and sell with confidence. I love that. I absolutely love that. We have a question from Kate for Christina as well, keeping it moving. Do I need to retain a lawyer to review my contracts or will I be okay using a generic one that I've either purchased or for example, HoneyBook has contracts embedded in the system. So should a creative or an entrepreneur also have a lawyer take a look? It depends because for me contracts are about the relationship between the two parties. Usually that's two people but sometimes it can be a company on one side and a company on the other or an individual and a company. So for me it's all about defining what the relationship is and the expectations and boundaries that are present within that relationship. So for example, if you are a wedding photographer and you require certain things on the wedding day in order to create a great experience for your client, those should be in the contract. You should talk about that not just in the contract but in your consultation. Maybe you have a client magazine that accompanies the contract. Anywhere that you can help to define that boundary and that expectation is going to lead to a better result for that client. When the client has a better result then they are more likely to refer you, your business grows, and so as far as practically speaking, should you have an attorney review your agreement? I mean that's a great idea if you can afford it but the reality is that most people can't and so that's why we collaborated. I'm an attorney, I wrote the agreement that is now in HoneyBook included free as part of your membership. There's no extra upsell or anything. So I love that that's there as a resource and a tool for people to lean on because if you're getting started and you don't have anything else to lean on, you don't have the funds for an attorney who can cost $250, $350, $450 an hour. It's really essential for you to at least define that relationship and have a solid boundary or container or whatever you want to call it around it so that you guys can have a great... just have a really great experience at the end of the day. So do you need an attorney to review your contracts? That's like the gold standard but no, I don't believe that's what you have to have. I think you know your business better than anybody else and so for you to look at your contract and incorporate the things that are important to you that you know is going to be a big part of your client experience then that's what's more important for me as somebody who regularly looks at and drafts contracts then to have some attorney who has no familiarity with your business, who has no idea what a floral designer even is. So I think yeah, it's the gold standard but it's not necessarily going to be helpful if you're excited about your business and you understand what you want the result to be out of the relationship. Excellent. Ashlyn, we have a question from Caroline. So Caroline asks is it really that bad to try and wear the branding or marketing hat just as I get started setting up my business? I'd love to outsource and hire somebody down the road but up front the cost seems so daunting as a brand new business owner. When is the right time to hire an expert? Okay not only do I think is it really not that bad, I think you need to do it. (laughing) I think you have to wear the hats at first because I at least like we have people come to my team and I wanting to outsource. It's like when they find out there's somebody who can like write their website and their content for them, they're like take it off my plate, I hate this. But the problem is I don't want people to outsource their words if they're outsourcing the psychology of sales and a lot of times entrepreneurs inadvertently are outsourcing the psychology of their sales. They don't know how to explain it, kind of talked about in my talk but why they do... You talked about it as well and I think to your point about talking about finances, like you can charge your worth. Like don't worry about being the best, be the only. Like how can you position yourself in a way and those are all things that you need to figure out before you pay somebody because even if you they figure it out for you I don't think you're gonna understand it as well. I just think it's so important like your first website, write that. You know like even investing in like logos and website, like use templates, there are great templates out there. Use those to get started and I also say that because I think we all actually have pivoted in our businesses. And like I'm so glad that I didn't spend thousands and thousands of dollars at the beginning because my goodness. (laughing) Okay, Christina as an example. I guess you probably did spend and I just think that. Yeah, on my first vlog because I had no idea that templates even existed. So I scrimped and saved to buy a logo and a website from a very, very famous designer at this point but... Oh gosh, it was not worth it. Yeah, like hit your stride. Get in the saddle where you know your clientele and you know your target audience. You know your message and then you can start investing I think but stick with it for a while and then begin to invest. Can I add too, I mean, I think that's a great point and I think that's like where a lot of people go wrong sometimes when they're starting their business. They're like I need to like empty out my 401k and just throw it all in the business and like you said... I mean I've always been in the same line of work. I didn't switch from finance to selling shoes or anything but I've always, I have pivoted. My services have changed. I have a new website launching in two weeks that I'm super excited about which looks nothing like the original site. But also I think when it comes to finances and branding using your resources. So when I started my company I wanted to be completely involved because I wanted it to be me, Dominique Broadway, making finance fun. I couldn't do it like any other company that was out there. I had to do it my way. So I wanted the colors to match my favorite colors, which was turquoise so my branding was turquoise and I wanted to have events that centered around talking about money and brunch and happy hour because that's what me and my friends did. And so that would have been really hard for me to portray really to another company. They wouldn't have really got it and so I called friends like who can do this? And I had a friend help me create it and really I ended up bartering. Honestly, like he needed financial help and I needed some branding and he knew me and he knew my personality and it helped. And so I had no startup cost there. So I think sometimes look at your resources and see who's around who knows who can help put your personality into your brand before dropping too much money and then changing your mind six months later that you want to switch it to something else. I think trade is such a good thing when you're with some people like in the same... I remember finding somebody in the Rising Tide Community in Atlnata. We we're kind of on the same page and like same stage of business like baby businesses. But being able to trade with one another and help each other was really such a gift. Amazing answers, I love it. (laughing) I've made some of those mistakes myself early on so I'm nodding in the corner here as you guys are talking. These questions are so great. Dominique, I've got another one for you. So as a new business owner focused on expanding and growing, this is from Tamara Manahan. As a new business owner focused on expanding and growing I have yet to pay myself. Should reinvesting in my business for growth come before paying myself? So the paying yourself question is, it's a hard one. And it can vary. When I started my business, I didn't have an option to not pay myself. So sometimes when I hear people say when do I pay myself? I'm like how are you not paying yourself because I've always taken care of myself and so I had to depend on myself. So I was paying myself everything that I was making, I was pretty much paying myself and then in that reinvesting when I could. If you're in a situation and you don't have to pay yourself, I would say weigh out the options. So if you are not paying yourself and you say okay, I have this extra $2,000 that I've made that was complete profit, Can I take this $2,000 and turn it into more money? Example, putting it into ads which will be scalable or putting it into getting a vending booth at a wedding conference or something like that. If you feel like that's not something that you can do right now and you're like hey I really need to pay this bill, then pay yourself. Don't beat yourself up because we didn't start these businesses to not make money. Even nonprofits make money. So I would say kind of weigh out the pros and the cons but if you're in a situation where like I said, you don't necessarily have to pay yourself, look and see how you can make more money but if you do have to pay yourself, pay yourself. Like you're making this money, it's okay but don't put your business into a hole where you're paying yourself and you're not able to invest back in it. If that if that's a good answer but I really like the book Profit First. I think it's a great book which really helps entrepreneurs, give you specific breakdowns of how you can start to pay yourself but like I said, if your entrepreneur like myself, like there was nobody else paying the bills so I had to pay myself and I didn't really have an option. So that hopefully that kind of answers her question. Excellent. So as somebody who's worked with you, actually breaking it down from like a very clear spot and not a panicked oh my gosh, I need to pay this bill spot. Working and creating that, I don't like can we call it a budget, is that a bad word? But creating that ahead of time and saying this is what we're going to a lot to this, this, this and like here's the overflow where we can kind of fill in the gaps as need be. That was super helpful. So I think you talked about that during your talk as well. Yeah and I think... I always talk about the budget. People hate the word budget and a budget, it's not like people are like oh no, I hate budget, it's not fun. Okay budgeting is not the sexiest thing in the world but all it is, is telling your money where you want it to go. I think like, that's what we did Christina. Okay, these go here. This needs to go there. This needs to go here and then you have this. We're just allocating. So it's like you tell your money where you want it to go so you're not like oh no, where did my money go? 'Cause that's what most people, like oh my god, my money is just going away, it's floating. Like it's really not. Like you're spending it, that's where it is. But we need to get better control of it so we can tell each dollar where to go. That's all you need to do. My financial coach and helper calls it a spending plan instead of a budget so people like it better. Yeah, don't say budget. Call it a spending plan. Just tell your money where you want it to go. You control the money, don't let the money control you. And worst case just rebrand the word budget into spending plan. (laughing) And then we're ready to go. Excellent, excellent answers. Christina, here we go. So I have a question here from Alison Jefferies from Maryland, Alison I know you. Is there any legal recourse you can take if you discover that someone has copied your work if you don't have a copyright? So I want to almost expand this as well. I know she's a designer product maker but let's talk about that. So what can you do if someone copies you and is there a way to protect yourself? Yeah, absolutely. So the thing about copyrights is that they're fixed as soon as you create something. So as a photographer as soon as you take that snap even before you hand it off to the client, there's a copyright that's created in that image. Now whether in your contract that belongs to the client immediately or you is a different story but copyrights are really interesting because you don't have to register them. They're one of the really unique forms of intellectual property in the US and Canada and related jurisdictions where most of our watchers probably are. And with the registration you are afforded a lot more flexibility when it comes to collecting money. So the clients that I've had where we have registrations on, usually it's photos that have been screenshotted and stolen, we get a lot of money when that happens and someone has taken a screenshot of their photo and use it on a different website or something. So even the ones that haven't registered their copyrights, it's still possible to collect money on, it's just much harder because of the ways that copyright laws are structured in the country. So if somebody has genuinely taken a screenshot or copy and pasted something from you and you know you own it, it's not a client's work, then there's a lot of legal recourse and possibly money that's at stake that could be coming into your pocket. So I would encourage anybody that has been copied to contact an attorney. Copyright is a really interesting form of IP law where it's very, very fact-based and an attorney won't necessarily be able to tell you yes, this is considered infringement or no, it's not unless it's like an exact copy. But they will be able to tell you whether they can take it and then possibly what the odds of you getting any kind of... I guess either getting the work taken down so that you can continue to sell on Etsy or your design or someone's impersonating you as a photographer, which happens a lot. They can tell you what the result is going to be likely and then they will also be able to tell you about how much money they could look at collecting on your behalf and then paying you. So even if you don't have a registration for your intellectual property, which for this audience we're talking mostly about copyrights, some trademarks. Patents, I think that's a little off the table here but even if you don't have a registration, there are still common law rights so I would encourage them to reach out to an attorney if it has been an exact copy. And if it's not an exact copy, that's going to be a a lot harder for an attorney to deal with on your behalf but it's still possible. So maybe looking for attorneys that offer free consultations to help you through that situation and just seeing if they want to take it. If they do there's probably a decent payout. (laughs) Or help for you that's available. I have a follow-up question to that. So when do you know if it's time to actually register for a copyright or a trademark of some sort? Like what is that point at which you're ready to actually put pen to paper and file? Yeah. So for copyrights, for photographers, I personally really like it when photographers register the images that they own, that the client doesn't own again. Or designers, that they register the designs or the photographs that are being pinned a lot or reshared or regrammed. Those are likely to be taken and misappropriated on large news sites, places where you really should be paid for your work, but they're just taking it off of Instagram as if Instagram we're a stock photo site. That's not cool with me. I don't think it's cool with the designer or the photographer and so if that's the case, where you're seeing a lot of viral potential for a piece of art, a design, a photograph, those are the ones that I try to encourage my clients and friends to register with the Copyright Office. And the Copyright Office, like registering a copyright is very easy and cheap comparatively to any other kind of IP in the country. So I think it's like a no brainer for copyrights if you have a viral piece of content. As far as trademarks go, that's something I think people need to do as soon as they can afford it and in my presentation I talked about this, it's typically about $2,000 to get a decent attorney to look at your stuff and then register it. So if you're paying less than that it might go fine but if you can't encounter any kind of problems later, they're probably also not the attorney that's going to be able to help you. They're more like, I don't know what we would call it. Like a big box service for trademarks. But yeah if it's an important piece of, component of your brand and your business cannot survive without it, it's a good idea to have that looked at early so that you know that you're not creating all this branding material or a logo or investing just lots of money creating this brand that actually could be infringing somebody else's mark or problematic later on, where you have to redo all that work and spend a lot more money to fix it. Maybe you get a cease and desist letter in the process. So trademarks as early as possible but not everybody can afford an attorney. So doing Google searches and quotes is really helpful. Trying that out with different phrases, like testing the waters with different versions of the name that you're trying on. Facebook searches and then finally searching the USPTO database. The trademark electronic search system. I've spent way too much time on that database searching. (laughing) You should have seen some of the names we almost named The Rising Tide Society back in the day until we realized well, there are about three different places where that could be infringement so we have to pick a different name. So that, I think that's incredible, incredible advice. Ashlyn, alright, let's see. Oh, this is a good one because I actually want to know the answer to this. So Kate asks what is the biggest mistake that you see entrepreneurs making with their brand voice. She specifies brand voice. I'm gonna say brand or a voice on social media. Okay, I'm gonna say just like copying others. It's like and I can use Jenna Kutcher for an example because she's a dear friend and client but I do feel like she's like spawned it, like for our creative bubble a lot of people look at that voice and start to emulate it. And I understand that. Especially like when you're starting, goodness, like you just copy the masters. And that is like kind of a creative habit. Jeff Goins talks about it in, what is it? Real Artists Don't Starve. Boom, so good. Such a good book. Everybody should read it, put it on your book list. But he talks about like we learn our crafts and our trades by copying masters. So I understand it but I do think that we just have to be careful to like add to the body of work out there and not put stuff out there that is like a little too close to like what somebody else says. So a good like practical way to get around that, I tell my students start a copy bank, I call it. Like a swipe file. Like start your own documentation in your business, I talked about it a little bit in my talk but words that sound like you. Phrases that you hear, maybe you're listening to a podcast or a sermon or you're reading a book and you find like a great quip or a phrase like bucket that. Keep on hand a batch of phrases, phraseology, that you can then use and I think that will help you kind of get out of the swoon worthy, it was like a word I feel like in the creative bubble, in the wedding industry, that like everyone was using. So kind of just like train your brain to use your own resources. But yeah, that's probably the biggest thing that I see. Dominique, I have a question from Jen Larson. She asks should I start saving for retirement at the same time I'm able to start making profit in my business? as an entrepreneur who doesn't have a 401k or anything like that set up from a day job, starting from scratch, how do I set myself up for success in retirement? You touched a little bit about this on your in your talk but love for you to dive in a little bit more. Yeah so I I think if you can afford to start saving for retirement, of course why not start. The sooner you start saving the better. Obviously it's proven mathematically if you start saving earlier you actually technically will have to save less than if you start saving later. And it's a huge, like a huge difference versus if you start let's say saving at 24, versus starting at... Let's say you could start saving 300 a month at but if you start at age 40 it's like 2,000 a month, like it's crazy. So the sooner you can start saving the better but I always tell people too, make sure before you start saving for retirement that you have a good emergency fund in place. Because there's no point of saving for age if you can't get through next month. There's no point. So I always say make sure you have your emergency fund in place. You don't have tons of debt and things that nature before you start putting money for later on in life. And if you are ready to start saving for retirement, you can start somewhere as simple as doing like a Roth IRA where anything that you put into the Roth, you can take out completely penalty free. So that if you do have an emergency, you could take that out without having any penalties. But if you're a little bit further along, you can do something like a SEP IRA which allows you to contribute tons more and you can go any of your favorite banks or investment firms and start these things and like I said, you don't have to start investing with hundreds of thousands or tens or even thousands of dollars, but something as simple as putting a hundred bucks away or $50 a week or 20 bucks just something. And then increasing it over time is really a good place to start. That advice is incredible. Again, I'm so glad you're here sharing that all of you guys and that CreativeLive and HoneyBook are bringing this to the forefront because I wish someone had said that to me when I started my business and I'm glad they did a couple years in but I can only imagine if I had just even understood, what is a SEP, what is a Roth IRA? I mean those words were foreign concepts so I'm just, a little moment of like fist bumping because this is fantastic knowledge. Fantastic knowledge. Christina. So we we have another question about trademarks but we kind of touched on that so I'm gonna keep moving here. We have a question from A Maker. She asks I make custom products and I'm asked all the time if I can incorporate elements that I'm pretty sure are trademarked by other brands into my designs. How do I handle this ethically as a business owner respecting trademarks when there are so many who are willing to infringe just a secure a sale? Yeah, so there's a couple ways to look at this. One is that the end user owns the intellectual property, whatever it is that's created and I don't agree with that. I love trademarks, I love being an IP holder, and protecting those who have IPs so I don't necessarily agree that you should just do it and put it out there and say well it's your problem now because I've assigned all of this to you. But at the same time it's hard because I had a girl call me actually from the RTS Atlanta chapter and she was asking about a Chanel thing, a Chanel logo on cupcakes or something and it was for 10 people at a party and she's like can I do this? I don't give out legal advice to this giant audience, that's impossible but you know generally speaking, if somebody is approaching you like that, which happens obviously a lot. I think the appropriate thing to do is have a conversation and gently inform them about what intellectual property is and why trademarks exist and it could be something as simple as this is owned by XYZ company. It's actually their property just like they would own you know a building or a car or a backpack or a laptop and so for us to use that on the design that you're requesting or cupcake or whatever it is that you're, stationery, it's actually like stealing that and taking that laptop when they needed it to use their business. So even though intellectual property isn't property that you hold in your hands, that's why it's called intellectual, it's still property of somebody else and if you are really concerned and you still want to do that, there are licensing agencies and authorities where you can approach them and it's getting easier and easier especially with music. Music used to be impossible and now it is so much easier to license certain songs for projects but for stationery and design it is possible to license certain trademarks if it's a client that's interested in doing that. And so presenting them with information because they're probably just either misinformed or not informed about what intellectual property is. Presenting them with that information and then presenting them with the option of well, we can try to do this but it's gonna be XYZ more, probably a lot more at this point. It will get easier as the years go on. Things are getting easier and easier to license but just showing them what is possible for them or what isn't is probably the best way to approach that situation and just-- That's a really good question actually. Now I'm thinking like... you know how you're scrolling through Instagram, you see all these like yummy cakes. Like you say they could be Chanel or Doc McStuffins or you know and I'm like I never thought about that, like that's totally like stealing. But I mean I guess, would a baker just be like... Example, like you said, if someone's like hey, I want 10 cupcakes with Doc McStuffins on it or MAC lip gloss or whatever. Which I've seen on people's IG, like could they get in trouble for that? But if you're only making a dozen cupcakes, is it like eh? It's just a dozen cupcakes. Well the standard for trademark infringement and copyright infringement are different. For copyright infringement it's access and similarity, substantial similarity. So there could be a copyright problem if it's a logo because certain parts or aspects of logos can be considered protected under copyright law. It could also be trademark infringement. So for trademark infringement there's a lot of factors at play but some of those factors include is this... the biggest factor is will the consumer, like will the end person watching this on Instagram think that this is a cake made by Chanel or is this somebody that is going to understand the difference? So it depends on the level of sophistication of the end person who's using this or possibly consuming it. With trademarks it's difficult because people are so... big companies are very knee jerk reaction like easy. They're very interested in making sure that any kind of use of their trademarks is licensed and available and even though that's not... Like trademark law didn't start off in a place where that was the standard but now that it's just so much easier for the companies to protect themselves, they are much more likely to go after people that are using their logos and things like that on social media because it's so easy to confuse where that cake or where that stationery or something is coming from. Or for people to think that this big company has licensed their logo to this little stationery designer and the company doesn't want to be associated with stationery for whatever reason. So it's definitely shifted away from trademark law as protection for consumers and it's shifting more into trademark laws protection for the big companies that own the intellectual property. Because it seems things like people aren't, like I said I'm just thinking about cakes because I'm like wow, I never thought about that but like it seems like people aren't turning them down because I mean people are getting these themed cakes all the time but I guess they could technically get sued. But if you eat the cake there's no evidence, I guess, right? (laughing) I didn't hear that. I love when you talk about this stuff because I was telling Christina this morning like legal stuff is the kind of things that I thought would come in time in business maturity. And two months into my business was the first time that I was like oh my gosh, why is this happening? Like this is supposed to happen to the big girls. So I just I think that legal information, you're gonna need it sooner than you think in your business. I remember the first legal letter I ever got and I probably have been around for a year and a half maybe. It was a blog and the intern had used an image, I guess it was a Getty image, and put it on the site. Now, of course that was her job. I write the blog post, she found the image, wherever. I remember getting a letter and like... so nervous. I'm like oh my gosh, what am I gonna do? And I'm like well you know, it's fine. My intern because I didn't do it but I'm not putting it on here, you know what I mean. And we were flipping the letter over and it's like frequently asked questions. Yes, your intern may have done, that was like oh my goodness. They thought of everything. It was hilarious, we worked it out. I didn't have to pay anything but you're right and that's why you really do need to protect yourself. Because it's not just the big people they're going after, it's the little people they're going after. But I'm also not easily scared. I did meet a lot of people that were like oh my god, I just gave them the money. I was like I didn't. (laughs) And I was able to work it out but you do have to protect yourself and realize that you're in business and you're subject to be sued. One last thing, I think it speaks to the creative thread in our community and so when people are asking me questions like that I get a little concerned because I really hope that people create their own works and create things that speak to them and aren't just a reflection of somebody else's brand and what they're building like you were talking about. Yeah. I could go a whole nother level with that but yeah. It's amazing. So many good little tidbits. (laughing) It's fantastic. Ashlyn. Okay, so this is one again, I love these questions for you because every time I read it I'm like I need to know that too so help me out. But this is a big one because I hear this a lot. It's the question of what if my market is too saturated? There's no way I can stand out among all of the other incredible people doing exactly what I do. What advice do you give to somebody that feels like there's just already enough of whatever they do out there, how do they stand out? Okay poll of us, who thinks they're in a saturated market with what they do? Just wondering. You don't? I can prove it. Okay, I feel like... To me I feel like everybody feels like their market is saturated and kind of like it's 2018, there's an internet. Like every market is saturated. So honestly I think it's a good thing if your market is saturated because it shows that there's a lot of customer interest in what it is that you do. And where there are a lot of customers, there are a lot of people who have different needs. Like there's gonna be more people that are shopping around, price shopping, comparison shopping, like wanting to find the best thing. So honestly it's a good thing if you look at like basic supply, demand, economics. So what then our goal, like to flip that around, as the marketers of our businesses, as the CEOs, it goes back to what Dominique and I've talked about like you've got to figure out then what's different about you. That's what I tell all my students. We spend so much time. I call it your only-ness factor but it's your unique selling proposition. Your unique value proposition. What do you do differently? Maybe it's your story that you laced into what you do and people love that about you. Maybe it's your process. Maybe it is where you source things from but there's got to be something about you that's different in the saturation. So it's okay to go into it. I'll say it's also okay to not go into a saturated market. I remember when I first realized I wanted to be a copywriter for creative entrepreneurs. I would hop in The Rising Tide Facebook group because I was like what are people asking about copywriting? I'd search copywriting. Crickets. Like no one cared or like even knew that word. Well now, you search it and there's like a whole bunch of people that pop up. So I don't think it is a problem either to go into a non saturated market if that's what listeners or viewers are thinking about. You are probably gonna have to educate a market on what the thing is that you do. So that's gonna take a little bit of time but I think either way is fine. Don't pick one or the other for your business idea just because saturation or non saturation. Both are a good thing and can be done really well. But I think also too that comes back to confidence. Like you can't be un-confident entrepreneur and even like, I don't necessarily think I'm in a... I don't think I'm in a saturated market at my level. I will say I think there's some saturation happening of people trying to get into personal finance who are just starting out. But I think I took the time, keyword time, I didn't wake up and say hey, I want to be this top person. It took years. And I have tons of people who reach out to me all the time like Dominique I want to do what you do. How can I do it and I just tell 'em you can't do what I do because I'm Dominique, I am me, you can't be me. But what makes you different, right? And so if you can figure out what makes you different then you can get to the top at your thing but you're not gonna be me because God made me the way I am and so in that aspect, I don't think that there's... I think all markets are saturated. No one's out here recreating the wheel, I mean to be honest. But you really have to... you really have to realize what makes you different. You really do and I don't even like the word saturated because there's so many people that need whatever you're doing but they need to get it from you. They need to get it from you. There's some people that want to work with me. There's some people that want to work with friends of mine in the personal finance space. You know what we do? We collaborate and we put our brains together and we make things better and so I think that, don't think about the saturation, sometimes think about collaborating. Two are better than one. Me and my other finance friends, we'll work together, we'll do an event, we'll put on content together, and we make it better and we reach our respective audiences and there's some people who connect more with me and my story. There's some people who connect more with this person and their story so you've got to figure out what makes you unique and like go for it. That's just fear, it's fear, like uh-uh, we're not doing that. It's not gonna work. Fear and entrepreneurship don't go together, they don't. I love that you said story because the whole time you were talking I was thinking like story, like this is why it's important to share your story because somebody's gonna connect with yours. I'm the copywriter for some people, I'm not for others. I'm a clicker for some women not the others. So like whatever it is share it because somebody out there will pick it up as a breadcrumb. I'm hearing some common threads. The idea of confidence. I'm hearing a lot about like a mindset of abundance. This idea that there's enough to go around and all of that for me, and you guys know this, community over competition and that mantra and that idea, it's successful and it works when it's rooted in this mindset. This collaborative mindset where there is enough to go around and we can confidently step forward and say this is who I am and this is what I contribute to this ecosystem, this world, this economy as an entrepreneur. I love it, I love it. And I hope everyone is just soaking this in because I know I am for sure. All right, let's keep rolling here. So Dominique, I feel like it can be really overwhelming, this is a question here from Jennifer. I feel like it can be really overwhelming with all the different types of IRAs and insurance plans so what I would love to hear, is just some simple advice, straightforward strategies on retirement savings. Like where should somebody start if they've never saved a dollar? Okay so if you've never saved a dollar for retirement, hopefully you've saved for your emergency fund, let's talk about that. But if you have not saved a dollar at all for retirement, I think if you're eligible financially, meaning income limit is not higher than the required amount, start with the Roth IRA. I think it's the best place to start and I say a Roth IRA because like I mentioned earlier, anything that you put in to a Roth IRA you can take out completely penalty free. So if you put $2,000 in today and god forbid something goes wrong and you like the four new tires and a roof on your house next week and you need to take all of it out, there's no penalties whatsoever. But if you put two thousand dollars into this account today and the stock market blows up and all of a sudden it grows to $3, now you have a $1,000 profit, right? So let's say if you say hey, I want to take this whole $3,000 out and me and my boo are moving to Australia, you only have to pay a 10% penalty on the earnings. So that's just a thousand dollars. So I think that that is one of the most simplest easiest retirement accounts. It's a great starter account, you're not locked in until age 59 and a half, which is pretty far for most of us. So I think that's a great place but what you want to do like I said, there's an income limit you just want to confirm, check with the IRS or contact your investment broker and say hey, what's the new inc, because it changes every year. What's the new income limit? So there is an income limit and what they call your AGI. Your adjusted gross income. So you go to page two of your and see what your adjusted gross income is. It is over that certain limit, you're not eligible to contribute. So I think for an individual it changes every year, it's around 130,000 AGI. If your AGI is less than that, start with the Roth, max that out at 5500 a year. Once you start making more money, if you're an entrepreneur possibly move on to a SEP IRA or maybe even a solo 401k based on your specific needs but that's where we start for retirement. Then really quickly on insurance, you can't build wealth without insurance because there's no point of taking the time to create these awesome businesses and put all this work in and you're not protecting it. So I like to say the umbrella, you're protecting yourself from the storm. And so you want to protect everything that you built so you need to have insurances on your business, if that's errors and omissions, which is something I have on my business which I had starting out as a stockbroker because we're placing trades and if something goes wrong we got to cover ourselves. But also having insurance on your life and this is another place that people do not take the time to put into. So insurance on your business, insurance on your life, but also insurance on your ability to work which is disability. So people don't think about that. Especially a lot of people, let's say even like in The Rising Tide community, creative entrepreneurs most, 95% of them have to physically go and do that job. They have to physically go and do the video. They have to physically go and take the pictures. They have the physic we do the calligraphy. They have to physically make the flowers. And what if you wake up one morning and you can't? Your arms not working, your legs not working, you can't go do hair, you can't go do makeup, you want to have insurance in place that can cover you for that time. So you want to make sure that you're protecting everything that you're building by having these necessary insurances. So I always say bare minimum try to get disability insurance and also make sure you're getting some sort of life insurance even if it's a 30 year term policy which means that it lasts for 30 years of time at 20 bucks a month for a hundred thousand dollars death benefit. Get something to protect what you're building. Amazing. I'm going to record all of that, obviously we have here, and just play it on loop whenever somebody says they're starting a business. I think that is all incredible. I want to ask very, very specifically with Christina, let's talk electronic contracts. So when I first started in my business I had good old-fashioned paper contracts. I'd fill it out you know with the information for the couple, send it to them, I'd scan it back in those days. They would fill it in. They would fill it in and then they would actually mail it back to me. Thank god for HoneyBook, the process has changed a little bit since then. Now we've got electronic contracts but one question that we get a lot, we see it in The Rising Tide Group, we see it in different forums, are electronic contracts valid? Are they the same as a good old-fashioned pen and paper contract? Well if you're buying a house, I'd say no. So for large very permanent type real estate deals especially they need to be recorded and they are not considered valid at this time. However the legal system is moving almost exclusively online to the point where there have been several federal judges and instances where they've been pretty, without using any bad words, mad. That people aren't filing electronically even if you know it's an option or to do either/or. So with that being said, it's definitely moving more towards electronic. My eye started twitching when you said what you were doing because I can't stand as a client and as a contract attorney I just cannot stand paper contracts. My insurance companies, they all want me to take photos or faxes, I don't even know where I would find a fax machine, and it drives me crazy because it's a horrible experience for your client. It lets them know that you don't care about their time because they cannot just pull it up on their phone and conveniently read it wherever they have their phone or their computer or whatever they want to access your contract. So now they're less likely to read it which is the most important part of a contract to me and they're not signing it and getting it back to you. They're going with somebody else who was easier to work with. And then finally, I think electronic documents are way more secure because you can track it back to the person's IP address. You can track it back to exactly the date and time and location that it was signed. So for me to see somebody's signature that can be forged and faxed in by anybody, I'm kind of dubious and the legal system is now very dubious about physical copies of documents which sounds kind of funny, like for those of you who are still out there filing your contracts away in a filing cabinet. You can stop and you can use-- People do that? Yes, you can use a tool like HoneyBook where it records exactly who signed it, at what time, what date, and for me it's much more secure. There's no possibility of somebody hacking the fax line or intercepting the mail or whatever kind of crazy scenario that really isn't so crazy in today's world could happen because they're just logging into a secure portal and signing and reading it over and over again and assessing it anytime they want which is the best part because like I said, it's really important, you guys were laughing at me yesterday. I was actually reading a contract. It's important to read contracts and so if it makes it easier for your client to work with you and to read, that's more important to me than making sure that you have a physical copy and a filing cabinet somewhere that you forget about or god forbid something happens to your house and you can't access it anymore. So anyway, yeah, I think electronic is definitely the way to go. I mean unless there's some outstanding circumstance where you're buying a house or it's some kind of will or trust. Those still are not considered valid if there isn't like a notary present. When I sold my house recently we sign most things online but I did have to go into the house to sign the final closing documents-- Probably to record it. Yeah, before I flew back because it was certain documents that had to be written but most were actually, the sales agreement, everything like online. I was like wow this is so easy. Yeah and that's the key, the ease of it. I think the client experience side, we all know it's like you need it now for client experience but I love hearing to just the security side too and the ease for that client to reference that contract and I mean I'm on board. Finally, I mean let's be honest, it took me awhile after I lugged around the binder of contracts long enough I was excited to the electronic version. Life literally got lighter, right, life got lighter? My whole life got lighter the minute I could put down the really heavy binder. Oh gosh, Ashlyn, okay this is such a good question. When do I start an email list? This is a good sort of and do I need to do it? I'm gonna add an extra little conversation here 'cause Tuesdays Together a couple months ago someone was chatting and saying, do I really need an email list if I've got social media platforms like Instagram and that's where most of my following is. I know I see Christina 'cause that's how I thought, I was like (gasps) so we're gonna talk about it. When should somebody start an email list and is there value in the world where most people just spend time on social? You got your eye twitch, I get my like heart palpitations. This is one of my emoji heart eying. I love talking about 'cause I got to do email marketing before it was like cool. I feel like in agency days so I love talking about it in this capacity. Okay, the first thing is it's so important not to build your business on borrowed land. Like you really need to build your business where you can own the assets. We don't own Instagram, we don't own Facebook. It's just don't build your business there. Own as much as you can even if you, I think a lot of like B2B creatives who want to like have freebies out and that kind of thing understand a little bit more and I think it's those people who are B2C, people servicing brides, couples, they don't quite see the correlation yet but I would urge you to start thinking that way because there's going to be a time when the marketing flips again. It's gonna always flip, we're gonna see this. So go ahead and start before or soon. I have a few different thoughts on this. The first is like, we were saying earlier, done's better than perfect. Like start your email list. I remember it was like in those days where I was podcast listening and driving to my corporate job, all of them were saying start an email list. And so I started one so soon in my business, terribly. Like I had some random survey out and like the people that... like I got them in an email for like six months but you know what, I started. So start somewhere. Obviously as a copywriter I'm a big fan of welcome sequences leading into a long-term nurture funnels leading into a launch pitch and tripwire but like you don't have to have all that. You're not going to right away. Just start, be able to commit to yourself, that you're gonna send out regular content. If all you can do is monthly at first, that is okay. Just stick with that but it's more of a like personal experiment I think. Get yourself in a habit of like this is what it feels like to create regular content on an email platform because you are going to have to depend on that in time as you grow your business. As far as tools and I'll include a link in the resource packet but there's a lot of great email list building tools out there. A hometown girl and MailChimp is great I do actually recommend a tool called ConvertKit though. Yeah, you use it too, that's right. To build up to I think it can even work for a list of under 10,000. First you're gonna hit that 100 and it's gonna feel so good and then you're gonna hit that 1000, like you can do this. It's gonna take some time but as you work past the 10, we can talk about other options but use a tool that you feel comfortable with and just start, like just start. That's the most important thing I think. I have a follow up to that so a lot of times when we talk about email lists and you nailed it here when you said people think B2B. So that would be for example, all of us in this room educate other entrepreneurs, it's something we do. but let's say you're B2C. Let's say you are calligrapher servicing couples or a wedding photographer servicing couples, what kind of content could you share via an email list? Like what would what would be the benefit of that? So good and that yeah, actually we've talked about this before I think. I'm so jealous of B2C, they have it so easy and they do not believe me. Yeah but I love when you talk about this. Explain why you think that. I mean you could literally send out weekly emails for a year and then copy and paste those into an automation and when they sign up, it sends. So now every new person who is now a bride and they weren't six months ago, they're getting into your automation, you don't have to do anything and you're communicating with them for a year. I think Amy and Jordan do this. It's brilliant. It's yeah, I think there's a lot of great options out there. If you can't figure out what to say ask them. Use those survey questions that I included, like go through and just start to figure out what do they want to know? Do they have no idea what to wear to their engagement session? Do they have no idea how to, do I need to make a shot list? Can I trust my photographer? Like I didn't know that as a bride. There's so much content. You are in your zone of genius and you forget what you know. So just ask and like figuring out that content, like Christina said if you service a group, if you service moms-to-be or brides who are in a stage of life for a little while that's awesome because you get to create content that's can live on and live on and live on. And even if you're not, if you create hand-lettering products and you sell those, maybe I also I mentioned it in my talk a bit, get ideas from companies outside of the creative bubble. So get on email newsletters for brands that you like. Start to look at how they market and just get ideas from that but oh yeah, I agree with you. I think the B2C space, there's some great opportunity there to just have fun and send people some happys. I think another thing that, an area I've been... for the past year is text messaging too. So you don't just limit, so remember back in the day you wanted to get people's... what's it they called? Your address, mailing address. Who does that anymore? So you get your mailing address and then it moved to email address but I'm really focusing on capturing text messages as well because that's another great place. The open rates are so much higher than emails and then also to I've been using a tool like Mini Chat so that I can get into people's Facebook DMs. Now we're DMing people. And so you want to hit them as many places as possible but if you can use a tool that will capture their email in addition to their phone number, that's great because sometimes phone, I mean emails get caught up in spam. Text messages come through and you see the text message open rates and you could even send them a link to a blog post. Send them a link to an email that you sent out. Send them a link for a coupon code or just send them a text say hey, it's wedding Monday and I don't know, whatever. Just whatever you want to text but people actually really enjoy that as well so I would say, like they said. This is all borrowed territory and like when people start freaking out when Facebook changes something, like oh my gosh. You shouldn't be doing that if you already own the ability to access your community, you're not gonna freak out. Social media they're seeing what, like 6% of our audience is even seeing our posts. Yeah, now you gotta pay for people to see anything. Don't worry about like, and you said Mini Chat like bots as tools, emails as tools, it's because like you need to get in front of your people so they see you and they remember what you do and so-- And they see you frequently. Yeah and they're not seeing you as much as you think they are on your social media accounts so be sure that you're looking at other avenues. Amazing. I have a question for all three of you guys. There's gonna be somebody watching this who is fighting the comparison battle right now. I have a feeling there are a lot of people who are either starting a business or in a season of business where maybe they're pivoting and this is gonna be a resource that's going to set them up for success but we all know underneath all of that the psychology of impostor syndrome and you add in the fuel of social media and watching what everyone else is doing. I just want to hear from the three of you, how do you combat that? How have you experienced comparison? How do you do deal with it? I would just love some advice and honestly maybe even just some vulnerability because people look up to all three of you. I know I do and I'd love to hear if this is something you've dealt with. I know I've dealt with it. I mean, if someone hasn't I'd be surprised but they say comparison is the thief of joy and it's true. Impostor syndrome is real but that whole comparison thing, I mean what I realized is we're comparing ourselves to someone else's highlight reel. And I remember when I thought about that I started sharing more about behind the scenes. It's like yes, I had a great day but my stepfather passed away today and this happened and this happened and it's like yes it seemed great but in between these great things happening I had a lot of really, really crappy things that happened. And I remember one time I went to Dominican Republic like last year and I was posting the good things that happened. And it was funny because I got back from the trip and I said man, that trip kind of sucked. I mean there was a lot of good things but what I didn't post is that one day I woke up and I hives all over my body. And then we went and had to switch hotels because I got sick of that hotel. Went and stayed at Airbnb. We wake up and apparently there's an explosion of bees that happened in the living room and I didn't post any of that. Now mind you I still have hives. I take medicine, I can't wake up because the Benadryl is too strong. Anyway I booked a one-way flight because I do that sometimes. I can't fly back, my mom's like why would you book a one-way flight? And I'm itching, I have hives, but from the outside I had like four really awesome pictures from the Dominican Republic-- Before the hives? Before the hives and then the pictures stop. But I was like if I did this, imagine how everyone else is and it started reminding me I have to show the good and the bad. And so I started showing more of the bad, like yes I woke up and I don't look great and I don't have makeup on and this is how life is gonna start and it's not going to end that way. And that reminded me that if I'm going through this, other people are going through this. I know I even really appreciate even you sharing your battle that you went through and I was like wow, Natalie was going through all this and building all this and it just really shows like we have to stop comparing ourselves. So little things that I've done is a lot of times I won't get on social media probably for the first couple hours of the day. I do not do that because what will happen is I would sometimes wake up, I wake up, rollover, check my phone. Check Instagram, check Facebook, check email, and I get stuck on Instagram, I'm like what? She got engaged, she had a baby, she hit a million dollars, she made $20,000 yesterday and da da da. I'm like oh my goodness, I'm already behind. First of all I woke up late and everyone else is already winning and I had to stop that and so I tried not to look at social media until midday so even if my posts are going out automatically and people are liking and commenting, I'm not looking at it because it can really mess up my day so I had to start doing that. I didn't have a lot of thoughts. (laughing) Yeah, I have definitely felt impostor syndrome as far as like some practical ways that I've like gotten through that over the years. I think one was starting to hire coaches who can tell me... okay so back to, okay I'll back up even further. So this morning, did y'all hear the trumpeter outside of our room? Yeah, yeah. You did? Yesterday. Was that yesterday, there was a guy-- The tuba man? The tuba, yeah. Okay so there's this man outside like only in San Fran. Okay he's like practicing but it just reminded me recently I was reading, you've got to practice in public to get good at whatever it is. You got to play loud like you're gonna have to. So I think like some of the impostor syndrome sometimes comes from like you're gonna have to put yourself out there to get found and so like you're doing the right thing, you're putting yourself out there, that's a good thing but to bring it back to what I was saying with coaches, that investing in my business and having other people that I consider to be experts look at my stuff and where I'm kind of like oh, here it is, like what do you think? Gave me such confidence and was worth the money and the investment. So that's like one practical thing. Totally agree with you and like social media. I think it's The Tech-Wise Family, in that book they talk about take off one hour a day, one day a week, one week a year from social media. I unfollow a lot. I don't follow people usually who do what I do. They're doing beautiful work but I can't see it because my heart, you know? So I think just yeah, protecting yourself and your inspiration is not gonna come from the internet anyway so like don't look there for it. I feel like the Instagram and Facebook algorithm is scientifically calculated to find the people that are going to drive you crazy. Everyone's doing so much better than you, like look at these people, you know. Yeah, no I mean this is something... like walking into this room I'm comparing myself to Kent and you and I'm just oh my gosh, I'm so behind but I think the other part is then I sit down here and I'm just so grateful for being here and having this opportunity and that's what really pulls me out of those funks is I'm like oh they didn't do this and I didn't do that and I'm like wait a second. I'm 30, I'm healthy, I have great friends, like there's just the things that are really helpful that I'm grateful for even if it's just like this cup of coffee is not cold or whatever it is. If you can cultivate that which I always thought was super cheesy and I never wanted to do it but if you can just sit there and think about things that you're grateful for even if it's the fact that-- Write down three every morning. Yeah, that you're like breathing like that's enough. So it's not anything life-changing but if you can just put yourself in a different mindset whether it's gratitude or prayer but like whatever it is that's gonna shift, I mean what's the neurology, the neuroscience behind this. There has to be something that's changing the brainwaves. Yes, it does. Gratitude actually impacts levels of dopamine and serotonin in the same way that you know some SSRIs do. Yeah, it's a real, we talk about it like a fluffy context but it's a deeply impactful process. And then surrounding yourself by people that support you. I mean the whole time we've been in San Francisco, we've all been, we didn't put each other down. We're like oh, maybe don't wear this, don't wear that but it's like we've only been uplifting and supporting each other and that's what it's all about. Surrounding yourself by people that care about you and your passion and they can see where you're headed. And I would say like kind of to that like paying for the conferences, paying for the retreats, like going to community events, like those are a great way to get out of your funk in your head and like just realize the community around you and yeah, yeah we need it. Well I am grateful that I've been surrounded by this amazing community today and got to learn so much from every single one of you. I cannot wait to rewatch. I got the privilege of getting to see behind the scenes of each of your classes but I can't wait to rewatch it and I can't wait for all of you to also see their amazing classes. And as we sort of come to an end in our conversation here we just want to take a second to thank every single one of you for being here and sharing your knowledge. And thank you so much obviously to HoneyBook and CreativeLive, two powerhouses in the creative economy coming together to bring incredible knowledge and education right to your computer screen and your device wherever you're watching this. So we can't wait to see more from all of you and thank you guys so much for tuning in.

Class Materials

Free Bonus Material

How to Run Your Business Like a Boss
Legal Resource Guide

Ratings and Reviews

marymenger
 

I loved this course! Covered so many topics I've been wondering about in an easy and understandable way!! Brilliant! Thank you!

user-c49d1c
 

Every minute of this is filled with such valuable info! She covers every legal topic you could possibly need to know about as a creative small business owner and clarifies lots of confusing topics. I feel super confident about my small business ownership after watching this. Thank you Christina!

KimberlyAnnMurphy
 

Amazing! This stuff can be so hard to try and wrap your brain around but this is simple, easy to follow advice.

Student Work

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