Working as a business owner, rather than employee comes with many benefits. However, it can also throw you into waters unknown, financially and emotionally. Taking the leap into entrepreneurship doesn’t just require a business plan and funding, it takes emotional intelligence- the capability to recognize and work productively with your own emotions and those of others.

Too often people think that business is all work with no play. It’s become the mindset of much of the country. Unfortunately, this very mindset is the mindset that holds you back from reaching your potential. Your happiness matters. However, the pressure of running a business can seem like prioritizing self-care and your overall well-being is next to impossible, or irresponsible. Despite this common belief, the opposite is true. If you set aside your self-care, your business will never succeed to the level you desire. It is a complicated balance that you will only be capable of mastering if you see through the belief patterns that are holding you back. Here is something to look at that can have a big impact on your achievement of true success, going forward.

Entrepreneurs often make up in enthusiasm what they lack in experience. However, passion alone is not enough to ensure the success of a startup. If you’re starting a new business, you need to avoid the six legal snares below.

Just about any business owner, whether they know it or not, has created some form of intellectual property (IP) during their company’s life. IP is an extremely key part of a business. Actually, it’s the most significant part. Your IP can make up 40% to 90% of your company’s total value. When it comes to IP protection, patents protect inventions and trademarks protect brand names, while copyrights can protect a wide range of original creative output, including literary, musical, dramatic, and artistic works, among others.

In everyday life, we see storms come and go throughout people’s lives, sometimes leaving them in shambles. For example, the hurricane that hit the Gulf Coast recently left communities shutdown and devastated. Entire cities were forced to enter survival mode.The primary key to weather these storms that come in everyday life is through preparedness. Unfortunately, many small business owners don’t realize where to start when it comes to devising an emergency preparedness plan.

If you get paid for a service, collecting that payment is the lifeblood of your company. Without it, growth is impossible! Yet, if you are like the majority of people, you have turned it into an postscript idea. For example, I could get a request from a client I’ve worked with a few times before to review her client agreement. What I see is not only an agreement that feels like a big turn-off, but a payment collection process that makes it less likely that her ideal clients would say yes to working with her.

Selling your business should be approached with the same attention to detail as when you start a business. There is nothing worse than wasting weeks of time on a deal that won’t actually go through because the buyer is not serious or does not have the cash to buy out your business. Spend some time to get to know in order to avoid nasty surprises. If you have all your buyers sign a confidentiality agreement before you share proprietary financial information. This is a standard, so if a buyer balks, it’s a red flag.

Before learning how to defeat a Goliath, let’s learn about what a Goliath could look like in your life. Terri Kelly learned this first hand when she was starting a flip-flop company. Terri designed a phenomenal product and worked day and night to get her products into shops, stores, and boutiques all across the United States. To promote her product, she trademarked the phrase: “YogaPants for Your Feet.®” Creative right? That’s what she thought too, and so did Skechers. Before Terri realized it, Skechers stole her trademarked term to promote their own shoes nationally...

With the cost of today’s tuition, paying for a child’s college education can feel like extortion. If your child is an adult, you may have decided that it is up to them to pay for tuition, but if you do want to help them with tuition, there is a way to do that tax free.

While there is no such thing as a business without risk, most business owners look for ways to mitigate risk as much as physically possible. No one likes risk except an adrenaline junkie! Being aware of these three legal risks can help your future business.

Taking on debt can help small businesses meet expenses and finance growth. The key to making it work is knowing what you will use the debt for, how it will generate a return on your investment and tracking.If you need support with finding capital for your business and tracking the use of that capital, contact us- we can help. If you have not done a great job with this in the past and your debt gets too hard to manage, you may be faced with some difficult decisions. With proper guidance, you can minimize the financial consequences and maximize the opportunity of taking on and managing your small business debt.You have to basic options when faced with unmanageable debt. Being smart about debt involves determining which choice is right for you.

You’ve put in the time to get your business going and now you’re up and running. You have a product or service, and it is selling well. The team supports each other well and you have a proven income model. Congratulations! You’ve overcome the biggest obstacle to business sustainability!

In today’s society, you can find all sorts of advice about how you should launch a business. With so much information, however, it can become difficult to know what you should heed and what you can ignore. To simplify things, we’ve made a list of five fundamental tips that will help you when it comes to starting up a business.

For many entrepreneurs, being a “workaholic” is a default status. Though this drive and dedication can be a good thing in short bursts, in the long run it leads to stagnation and burnout. Just as experts advise us to step away from what we’re working on for short breaks throughout the day to maximize creativity, the same applies on the macro scale.

If you are a business owner, working from home, you may be eligible for tax deductions on part of the rent or mortgage payments you make, but you may be afraid this puts you at risk of tax audits. And, rightly so. Calculating your home office deduction properly can minimize your taxes and keep you out of risk.

As a business owner, you’ve worked so hard to build your business. You have created products, service, and processes using strategies that drive your business. What would happen if one of your best employees, who helps you run these strategies, tells you that they are leaving? How do you keep your company secrets your company secrets? Hopefully, you had already established a confidentiality clause with your employee when you first hired them. A confidentiality clause (or agreement) requires that the person keeps certain information strictly confidential. Preferably, it sets forth the form of information you consider “trade secret”. You may later use this to protect yourself against competition or disclosure of your company’s secrets.

With the advanced connectivity available through media via IPhones, tablets, laptops, television, and other applications, more people are creating a livelihood by working from their own home. Many of us, may be so ingrained in the notion of being employed and reporting work at a fixed location that we don’t realize the many benefits of self-employment in a home-based endeavor.

Establishing your solid legal system changes everything. Many entrepreneurs struggle with developing systems because they don’t foresee the most common mistakes start-ups make. Foresight is everything. Avoiding these only takes a small amount of awareness and a bit of planning. Read on to see the top five mistakes new business owners make and how to avoid them.

Before you open your business, it is imperative that you have the proper coverage. A single lawsuit or catastrophic event can easily wipe out a company before it has a chance to get off the ground. That being said, there are many types of insurance out there, and some policies can be extraordinarily expensive. Therefore, it is critical that your company is prepared for any risks you may face and have the insurance to cover those risks.The following insurance types are among the most-often needed for practically every business, no matter how big or small.

Every business, big or small, is responsible for protecting the personal and corporate data and their client base. This data can include names, address, social security numbers, and even credit card information. Therefore, it is not only a good idea to have a safeguard, but it is also a legal requirement. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) imposes harsh fines and penalties for your failure to adequately protect this information. To protect your client data safely and to ensure your company is not sued, fined, or tarnished by a data breach, follow these tips.