by eclewis | Mar 14, 2011 | Business News, Misc. Legal Tidbits
Business Continuity Planning
Anyone watching the disaster unfold in Japan is confronted with hundreds of emotions. Sadness at the loss of life. Disbelief in the amount of tragedy that is occurring – earthquakes, nuclear fears, tsunamis, and volcanoes all at once. Concern for the people who have lost their houses, their businesses, everything they owned.
However, those watching the destruction can learn lessons from it. Preparation for your home, your business, and your family is a must. To prepare your home, one can ensure you have canned food, bottled water, and heating and lighting supplies that don’t require electricity. To prepare your family, you can have exit plans, spare documentation, and emergency contact information. However, many people fail to plan for their business if they are self employed.
So how do you make plans for your business? First, you should make sure you business continuity insurance is sufficient. If you don’t have it, you should talk to your insurance agent about it. Business continuity insurance will cover destruction of your building, payroll if you cannot open your business, and in some cases even payments to the owner. Second, you should make sure you have backups of all your files offsite. If your files are digital, this may include offsite tape storage or a services such as Dropbox. If your files are not digital, it may include making digital copies of your files. Third, just like for your family, you need to have an emergency plan for your business. This includes having all pertinent contact information – for your employees, your landlord, your merchant account provider, your bank, your accountant, your Denver small business attorney and most important (yes, for a change, even more important that your business attorney’s number) your insurance agent’s number.
If you have any questions about a business continuity plan or any other business legal questions, please feel free to call me, your Colorado small business lawyer, at 720-258-6647 or email me today!
by eclewis | Feb 19, 2011 | Business News, IP Law, Online/Social Media Law
Hopefully this is a question that you never have to ask. However, if you have a profile that violates Facebook’s Terms of Service, this may be a question that you will be faced with if you don’t change your ways!
At a recent event I was at regarding online marketing, the speaker mentioned that the way their company helps people be found on Facebook by using the profile name to mention the business or service. For instance, instead of being “Elizabeth Lewis” on Facebook, they suggested being “Elizabeth Lewis (first name) Business Attorney (last name)” or simply “Business Attorney”.
This got me thinking on two issues. First, in the Facebook terms of service, it clearly states that a profile must be linked to a person and that the person’s profile name must be their true name. For me to use “Business Attorney” as my name violates the terms of service. Now, several years ago prior to there being Business Pages on Facebook, Facebook may have looked the other way and not done anything about these misused profiles. Unfortunately, they do not anymore. Stories have come out about businesses that have had hundreds, if not thousands of friends, who suddenly have their profile deleted due to the violation of the Terms of Service. All of a sudden a site that helped the business make money is gone.
So, how do you ensure your page isn’t deleted if the profile is a business’s name? First, you can change the profile name to someone in the business so that the account now belongs to a real person. Next, set up a business page and ask the people on the profile page to friend you there. And, maintain both pages – people buy products and services from people, not from businesses. A short post about why the name is being changed and who the person behind the profile is can go a long way to having great customer relations.
Now, for the more bothersome issue. From the discussion, the speaker at this event knew what they were doing violated the terms of service and knew that a company that did this risked having their page (that they paid good money to have done for them) removed by Facebook. I wonder, did they tell their clients this risk? Did they tell their clients that other sites like Google and Yahoo tend to disfavor these “black hat” SEO practices? Did they mention that by doing things like this, their sites may be put into a black hole never to be found by search engines again? Picking a social media/SEO company to work with is like picking anything else. Make sure you ask questions about what they are doing and become an informed consumer by reading sites Terms of Service to make sure you aren’t in violation as it is your page – and not theirs – that will suffer the consequences.
For more information about online marketing, please read through the rest of the posts or sign up for a class I teach on the issue! As with all the information on this site, it is for informational purposes only and is not meant to create an attorney-client relationship nor is it meant to be legal advice.
by eclewis | Jan 27, 2011 | Business News
The Small Business and Enterprise Council recently announced that Colorado ranked 10th place for states that were friendly to small businesses. Why you ask? Here are the top reasons:
• Colorado has no state death tax.
• Colorado has no corporate alternative minimum tax.
• Colorado has a relative corporate income and corporate gains income tax.
• Colorado has “fairly” low unemployment taxes.
Although we ranked lower than South Dakota (1) Nevada, (2) Texas, (3) Wyoming, (4) and Washington (5), Colorado can be proud to rant in the top 10! Make sure you contact your state congressmen and senators to make sure we stay in the top 10 by supporting a small business friendly-state!
by eclewis | Jan 13, 2011 | Business News, Misc. Legal Tidbits
In the January edition of the Legal Solutions for Small Business newsletter, I mentioned that January is the best month to review your business to determine if any changes are necessary. One of the first things you should do is review your files to make sure you have copies of all your important business documents. This includes any loan documents, any credit card agreements, any vendor agreements, any lease agreements, any client agreements, and any employment agreements. In addition, depending on your business, you may have additional agreements.
Once you have ensured that you have copies of all these agreements, to ensure that you have a second copy in case anything happens to the original, you should either make a digital copy and maintain a backup in a secure location (i.e. a safety deposit box) that is not at your main place of business or make copies of these documents and store them offsite. You may look at options such as Dropbox if you make digital copies. The reason offsite storage is so critical is that in case there is a fire or theft at your main location, you will always have copies somewhere else and you never know when you will need to refer to them in the future.
After gathering all of your contracts, reviewing them is a great start to getting your legal, and financial bearings for the year. In some instances, you or your attorney may be able to negotiate a better agreement than you currently have. For instance, if your phone or internet bill is month-to-month, you may be able to ask for a lower rate. If your loan agreement has a balloon payment at the end of the term, now may be the time to refinance into a conventional loan.
If you have any questions about reviewing your legal agreements, please call or email me, your Denver business attorney!
by eclewis | Dec 14, 2010 | Business News, IP Law, Online/Social Media Law
As some of you may know, the website Gawker and its corresponding subsidiaries were hacked. Already, there are questions as to whether LinkedIn, Google and other companies are shutting down accounts due to the leaked information. If you are wondering whether your account information was compromised, you can go to http://www.slate.com/id/2277768/ and enter your information. This is a good warning to individuals and businesses to ensure that the usernames and passwords that you use or make your employees use are secure and where they are stored is secure. If you have any questions about this or what type of policy you should have for your employees communications, IT usage, or social media usage while using company products, please call me, your Denver Small Business Lawyer, at 720-258-6647.
by eclewis | Dec 8, 2010 | Business News
A phishing email has been going around for about a month now. In most instances, if you have gmail, hotmail, yahoo, etc then it is going to your spam folder. But just in case, if you get an email that says your federal tax payment has been declined – ignore it! The IRS does not email individuals to let them know anything about their tax payments. In addition, by mailing your 941s and estimated tax payments certified mail, return receipt requested and paying by check, you can have proof of mailing (the stamped certified receipt), proof of receipt (the returned green card) and proof of payment (the copy of the cashed check from your bank.
