When it comes to protecting your business, it doesn’t matter what you do – what matters is that you take care and time to ensure that all your bases are covered. You might make jewellery, you might create content, or you might specialise in consultancy for high-level investors.
Whether you are a Durham based supplier of PVC shower panels or an international clothing company, everything that you produce needs to be to the highest standard – that goes without saying. But if someone has an allergic reaction to the earrings, the work is found to be plagiarised, or the high-level investment goes wrong – it is you on the hook. And rightfully so in most cases.
The cash you invested in your business, you and your client all deserve the absolute best that you can provide. The initial protection for your company should’ve taken place in the early days of formation.
Protection comes in many forms though, some of it is legal protection, others are insurance and some general tips. To make sure that you are fully covered.
Business Name
If you want to make sure that you aren’t going to run into trouble with your new business name, you need to perform the proper checks. The name you choose needs to be available and certainly not trademarked or copyrighted. The fastest way is to do a quick search online, on Companies House or Business Register in your state or country.
Once you have settled on your business name, you need to take steps to protect it. You can trademark your business name pretty quickly; once you do, use this checklist to make sure you are doing the following:
- Ensure you always have the first letter capitalized
- every item of branded marketing materials should have the mark
- Use the R in the circle symbol next to the logo, mark or word that you have trademarked
- Use the ™ only if you have registered in specific states or countries
Insurances
It is a strange thing, really, but many self-employed people, freelancers, consultants and small businesses owners simply don’t have the right insurance – if any at all.
If you don’t have proper insurance and a buyer sues you because of their dissatisfaction, you might find yourself in financial trouble. You should have professional indemnity insurance, insurance for the premises you rent or own, and all machinery or technology you employ.
Different forms of insurance are a good idea if you have visitors coming into your house. In the event of an accident involving one of your employees, workers’ compensation insurance will come in handy.
You’ll be able to use it to pay for things like medical costs and insurance in the event of illness. However, because every business is unique, you should always seek the advice of an expert.
And let’s not forget that business owners need life insurance too! The life insurance you choose will protect your business, family, and employees from being impacted should anything happen to you. It takes a minute to get term life insurance quotes to protect you and your business.
Website
All of your material will eventually be stored on your website. There’s a lot to keep track of, from downloads to user logins, your blog entries, images, and more. A privacy policy, a cookies notice, and a disclaimer are all required.
Any information you gather about users who sign up for your website will be covered by your privacy policy.
You’ll get some of their private details if they make comments, make a purchase, or just enter competitions – name, address, social information, and phone number.
Your privacy policy will explain what you do with personal information, how you keep it, and how and why you delete it. It should also include affiliates and Google analytics and any third-party applications or plugins that have access to the data.
Your disclaimer should explain who you are, what you do, and how competent you are in that field; it should also state whether you host content that wasn’t produced by you.
The terms of service will specify how visitors can use your website, which is very important if you have forums.
Contracts
One of the fastest and hardest lessons for many business owners is having simple agreements that easily find loopholes. Ending up out of pocket for something easy to avoid with the proper legal contracts.
Imagine chatting to a potential client, and during the conversation, some loose agreements were made – you think. But upon completing some work, you find that actually they were talking to multiple small businesses and chose someone else. You have lost time and money but learned something valuable.
This can be avoided if you never do work without a signed contract to start.
It sounds so simple, but in the heat of the creative moment, miscommunication does happen.
After the initial conversation, you need to finalise everything with a contract.
Check to see whether you’ve covered all of your bases. What is the deadline for the task, what are the payment terms, and what happens if they don’t pay or you don’t deliver? What is included and what is not includead in the work.
You may think this is overly formal, but it will protect you in the long term.
Information
You’re undoubtedly transferring a lot of data between you, your clients, and others working on the projects with you. All of this information must be carefully secured.
There are a few steps you may take to secure your clients’ personal information:
- Shred – any printed material that will not be utilised should be shredded. You should digitise everything you need to save.
- You want to permanently delete files off your hard disc, so you use a wiping application. If you do have something saved on an external drive, you’ll want to check that out as well. Summit Hard Disk Scrubber, Blanco, and KillDisk are just a handful of the solutions available.
- Encrypt data – You almost always have the option of sending everything encrypted, and you should. Here’s a link to a page that explains what encryption is.
Your freelancing career or small business are investments into your future, and some of the most important things might feel like the most boring too fo – but in the end, it is worth it.
