Where do I start? - 34

This is Law and Wit, episode 34: Where do I start? Welcome to Law and Wit, Creative Counsel for Entrepreneurs. I'm your host, Brittany Rettell, mother of 4, entrepreneur, naptime lawyer, and attorney for creative entrepreneurs. I'm here to share inspiration and action so that you can tackle your business blocks and confidently own your business in every sense of the word. Thank you so much for being here. Welcome back to Lon Witt, and I'm so happy that you're here. So today is the first in a new series where we are going to be talking about foundational business and legal systems for your creative business. So this is a new series. So I'm planning on having a few episodes that are kind of addressing those most common getting started questions that I hear over and over. They're the questions that I get in my legal lives that I do on Instagram. They're usually where I start off with when I do client consults. These are the ones that I know are my FAQs. And so we're going to start today on on the first ones in terms of how do I set up my business, how do I know if I really have a business, or if I want it to be a quote-unquote real business, what does that look like? So that's what we're talking about today— the money, the mindset, and everything in between. Um, so hopefully you're ready to dig in and that you're also ready to get the handout that goes along with this episode. It's at brittanyratelle.com/34. So make sure you grab that, um, or grab it soon after the episode. With that in mind, um, everything we talked about today is just for informational purposes only. While I am a licensed attorney, I'm not your attorney unless you want me to be. So anything we talk today is just for educational purposes. If you have any questions, please consult with a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction. I wanted to kind of go back to basics. I realized that I've been, I've been reviewing my content and looking at what I'm serving up to you guys and what I'm focusing on each week, that I maybe need to go back to the beginning, not to go full Julie Andrews on you, but let's start at the very beginning, that it might be helpful for people regardless of what stage in your business are, for me to kind of set out, um, in a couple— a series of episodes. So this will be the first one in the series of, um, Getting Legit with Britt, like the business systems for creatives. And that is in fact what I'm calling it. There you go, spoiler alert. I named it myself because it's my show, and that's what we're going to call it. So this is your 101 class. And so what we're talking about today is the very basic beginning in terms of, do you have a business, or do you want to have a business, and where do you start? How do you make that happen? How do you start that process? And if you have even been some steps down that process and you feel like maybe your business foundations need to catch up with where you're at, where your dreams are at, or where your revenue's at, then how do you do that? And how can you do that quickly and efficiently with as little pain as possible? So, so that's what we're going to talk about today. So let's get going. And I'm also going to refer you to some of my previous episodes because I've you know, I've talked about all this stuff, but it may be a little jumping around a bit, which may be hard for you as a listener, you know, looking at now as we're moving forward with episode numbers, knowing, okay, well, which ones do I need to listen to? Do I— is it all of them? Do they all apply to me? So I'm going to try to give you some kind of roadmap, some indexing there so that if you want to go back and some of these areas are definitely raising light bulbs in your head of like, yes, this is me. I knew— I know I need more information about this. Definitely dig into those episodes. Okay. So, um, probably the first question I get when I get on the phone with clients, new clients, um, as we talk about it, and I'm going kind of through my checklist, which by the way, um, you have access to that basic, you know, business legal checklist that I use when I'm talking to clients and we work through, um, what do they need for their businesses? You can get it at brittanyratelle.com/newsletter. That's B-R-I-T-T-A-N-Y-R-A-T-E-L-L-E. Www.laurierlaw.com/newsletter. And you can get my free legal checklist and also, yes, get added to my amazing newsletter with all my legal tips and tricks. But people want to know if they are a real business. And if that depends on how much money they're making. A lot of times this will happen if someone is thinking forward, if they're still in the business planning stages, and they're like, I'm going to form a business. So what do I need to do first? And they're still in the business formation stage. But other times I get this question when someone's like, already going and then wanting to know, well, what do I need to do, or what's the most important thing? So, um, and really, I mean, you can decide that you are a business owner as soon as you want to. You can create that reality in your head. You can go buy a Boss Babe sign, um, buy a t-shirt, put it on, you know, buy yourself a whiteboard. There you go, and a pen. You are now a business owner. Um, but in terms of what kind of systems do we need to create, or how do other people view that, that you might care about, and that's maybe what you're driving at, you know, the IRS considers you a business owner if you are making more than $600 from something, you know. And you guys will recognize that that's also the threshold that we use for those lovely 1099s, you know. If you paid someone more than $600 in a year, the IRS wants to have some sort of record of it because it kind of seems like that's someone running a business, that you're not just paying for their lunch or, you know, buying them a coffee or something. That sounds more legit. So that's— so if you are kind of in that space where maybe something's a side hustle or a hobby and, you know, maybe, maybe you're making something on the side or you're kind of exploring still that stage, um, and you're not making that much amount of money in a year, um, then you, you're right, you may not be a business yet and none of this stuff may apply to you. I'm guessing though that that's not the case, that you are making more than $600 or you plan to make more than $600 in a year. And in that case, you're a business owner, honey. Congrats, all the confetti! Yay! Slow clap for you. So what does that mean next? Well, that means that let's talk about what systems that we need to create so that you can be successful and that you can be keeping track of your money, of what's coming in and what's coming out, and that you can do it in a way that is going to protect you and to support your business dreams as you want to move forward. Okay. And the first thing that we want to— we need to talk about there is about that money, honey. Okay. So, um, As you get started in your business, you need to ask yourself some questions. So you need to work through this. Um, and don't be alarmed if you want to have all this written down and you're worried that you don't have something to take notes. I'm going to have all this in a, um, a little printable for you after the episode. So it's going to be at brittanyratelle.com, uh, slash 34, because it's episode 34. Um, so how much money do you need to earn to float this business? Um, and in that you need to include if you have any run costs. By like run costs or run rate, when people say that, they mean like what are your things that going to have to pay for. So your website hosting, if you have a building, that's your building space. If you have some sort of like license or something else that's due every month, it's that. If you are running ads, if you have equipment that you need to buy or you're leasing, that's your run rate. Those are things that come rain or shine, they don't care if you're making money. Those people have to be paid, okay? Those bills have to be paid. That's your run rate, okay? And what you need to decide is, you know, break it into business, you know, chunks or quarters. Look at it in like in a 90-day period, you know, in a business quarter, How much do you need to make in that short term? And what is your plan in the short term of making money? And what's your hope and plan in the long term? And recognize that those may be different things. I, I have a lot of clients who they get started by doing something, um, and maybe they're doing affiliate sales or they're creating content or they are sell digital content of some sort, um, or they're doing client services one-on-one. Client service is probably the easiest to get started in terms of right away. And these are people who are graphic designers designers, photographers, social media managers, virtual assistants, okay, freelancers of any type, copywriters. These are all service-based businesses, and they're trading their time for hours. They do work, they get paid, bada bing bada boom, and that's their plan for making in the short term. Long run, some of them want to move to other things. They want to become coaches, they want to have digital content, they want to be digital course owners, they want to make money from affiliate programs or masterminds or small group coaching or live events. Or podcasts or other plans as they move for further in their career. And that's great, but you need to have a plan in terms of, again, how you're going to cover that run rate, what are you going to pay for now, and then what's your plan long term and how are you going to plan on that. And I know what you're thinking to yourself is, what does this have to do all with legal? Well, making money has everything to do with legal because there's no point in talking about how legal is going to protect you in your business if we're not willing to take talk about the money and how that money system will interplay with legal, because legal is going to be in all, all up in that business, in your, in your business. Okay, um, so now that we've talked about, you know, the how much, um, let's talk about the how. Okay, how are you getting paid? Literally, how are people getting their money from you into your pocket? And with this, I'm, I'm going to highly recommend that you set up your EIN. Okay, I've talked about this before. This is also called your tax ID number if anyone's ever asked for that. Your EIN stands for Electronic Identification Number, and it is the number that the IRS assigns to businesses. You do not have to be an LLC to get an EIN, okay? You do not. If you are just a sole prop, if despite my best intentions here and otherwise and from probably everyone else in the world to tell you to set up your LLC, if you are not going to do that yet, if you're just going to be stubborn about that, you know, you do you. Even if it's not a great choice, you do you. I'm not going to judge, I'm not going to judge. I'm just going to send out really good intentions and vibes in the universe that you listen to me and set up your LLC. Um, you can still go set up your EIN, okay? Just go on the tax ID in the IRS website, Google it, go set it up. It's, it's when you know you've come to a boring, uh, bureaucracy-laden, slow government website, you know you're in the right place. Yeah, that's, that's absolutely the right place. Um, I have a tip in my Instagram highlights. I walk you through, uh, I set exactly how to do this and with some tips like, hey, the IIN website is down, has certain hours. I know it's the lamest thing ever that a website has hours, but it does. Okay, so get your EIN in. I'd also recommend setting up your LLC. If you need more of a pep talk about how to do this, about why, if you're going to try to attempt this without an attorney, which you totally can, you can totally do it yourself. Although if you're going to be setting up a business with someone else, if you have a partner, um, even if it's a spouse, I highly recommend that you hire someone for your founders agreement or your operating agreement, okay, to write one of those, because that's going to talk about like the nitty-gritty, the details of like who is doing what and what happens when someone wants to leave, when they're done with the business. How can we make that breakup go smoothly and then avoid a really nasty business divorce, okay? Um, and that's what we call in the biz when partners want to leave or one of them wants to sell, or literally one does get divorced and there they have to take their shares with them, or they have to cash out or get equity or whatever. Um, and they can be really awful or they can be really great. And I've worked with people and they've been really smooth and it's been, hey, understand we built this thing, but our interests and tastes and challenge and dreams and visions change. And we just want to have people be able to go their own way, um, and recognize that and recognize what we created, what are our assets, what are our liabilities, and how do we split the baby in a really, uh, fair way, in a safe way. Okay. But to have all that go smoothly really, really helps when you've had some of those conversations in the beginning. So if you're planning on having a partner, please hire someone to help you with your LLC and listen to episode 6. Okay, episode 6 of Loan With Us. All— okay, and then the last part to finish up our discussion of this business foundation with our money and our entity is setting up your payment processor. So now that you have your EIN and you've gotten that either under your own name if you are still a sole prop, or you've gotten that under your LLC name it's really— it's the same process. You'll just answer those questions and tell the IRS who is applying for this EIN, either you under your own name or your LLC. Then that is the new number that you will use to set up your merchant processing. So this is what I'm talking about, your Stripe, your PayPal. I mean, those are the most two common ones that I know that you are using for people to pay you and for you to also to be able to pay people from your business funds. And what we want to focus on here is that we are having really clean accounting and that we are keeping our business money and our personal money separate. And it's so much easier to do that and to be realistic about that kind of commitment when we've set up a successful system. You know, all good habits are all about setting yourself up for success, and this is no different. It's a whole lot easier for you to be thoughtful about paying people the right way and not ordering personal stuff. You see a cute dress and you put in your business PayPal if you set up a separate account, you know, use LastPass or whatever you need to do. I know it's hard when you have lots of passwords all over the place flying. I'm in the same boat sometimes. I want to be lazy and take a shortcut, but it makes it so much easier for you to keep track of where your money's going, and certainly easier for you to do your taxes. And certainly that's the case if you are paying somebody, okay? Please do not pay money to have other people fix the problems that you could have prevented if you just had a good system set up. You know, a good, a good accountant is worth their weight in gold, no, no question about that. And listen to the episode about Peter Lang and accounting tips for Creatives, if you know you need some help and direction in that area, if you haven't gotten someone on your team or don't know even where to start, um, with getting a handle on your money and getting a decent accountant, um, I think that's— believe that's episode 31. Regardless, you know that you, um, you need to get a handle on your money, and it's hard for you to decide if you're making a good, uh, if you're having a good month or you're having a bad month. If you have cash on hand, if you know where you want to put your money into your next investments, um, if you're not sure that your money is all being spent from the right accounts, okay? And certainly it doesn't seem to someone else— again, here. Not like we do everything because the IRS is watching, you know, Big Brother, but they are. And certainly, it's hard for them to take your business seriously and for you to say like, no, I am legit, I am running a legit business, if you are paying for things that are not business things with business money or vice versa. Okay, so keep it clean, keep it separate, keep it safe by buying business things, okay, business assets, paying for business expenses with business money, and keeping personal things on the personal side. And that includes finding out a way to pay yourself. It's great if you can set up something that's regular, even if it's only a little bit in the beginning. Know that, you know, set up a transfer in between your bank accounts that every week or every 2 weeks you pay yourself a little paycheck of money that goes from your business account, whatever your main account is that has money in it, that goes to your personal account, and that's your paycheck. Okay, that's how you can do it if you're paying yourself. I know a lot of people, um, when they get down the road and maybe more established, they set up and they, they work with like the Profit First model where they're putting stuff using maybe several different accounts or percentages in terms of what goes in their business, what they pay themselves, what they're putting in their business savings, what they're saving for taxes. So you can get really, you know, a lot more detailed and complicated. And we'll probably address that in later episodes of what you can do with your money and how to flow that. But know that you should be keeping it separate and safe and that you should be paying yourself something. But the bad way to be paying yourself is that, oh, I, you know, I saw something really cute online that came up for sale on my Instagram, or someone recommended I swiped up and I was, you know, immediately asked for my PayPal link. The only one I remember or I'm last logged into was my business one. I'm just going to use that. No, no, no, no. Okay, do you— can do better. You can totally do better. Let's do better. Okay, so that's how payment and merchant setting up your merchandising payment accounts is going to work. Okay, so after— and as an aside, if you haven't, if you're not sure if you've set up an LLC. If you haven't done anything yet, if you have not registered with your state, then you haven't— you are a sole prop. And sometimes I have— get on the phone with clients and they're kind of like, they're a little bragging to me about their, their sole proprietors. They're, you know, I kind of go through my checklist and I, and I totally understand because they're, you know, in that vulnerable position, place, and they don't want to seem like they're dumb and they made mistakes. And I totally understand. So I'm always really conscious of that and that I don't judge. I I never get mad at people. I totally understand where you're at, that this is not what you studied and went to school for because you thought you wanted to go and study and do and share your talents in your way, which is amazing, which is why you do you and I do me, and I'm the one here talking about legal stuff on the microphone. Like, we all have our lanes, people. That's totally fine. Totally get that. However, people get a little braggy about their sole prop. I had to come around with my legal, my long legal fun sucking needle and just like burst their bubble. Because a sole prop, while it's a cute fanciful name, stands for sole proprietorship and is nothing. It's nothing, guys. It's the Times New Roman font. It's what happens if you've done nothing with your business, okay? It doesn't give you any legal protection, okay? Doesn't give your assets any legal protection. And if anything goes wrong with your business, with your products, with your services, with your content, if you get sued for copyright infringement, if an image wanders on your website and gets used in a way that it shouldn't have been and someone gets mad and comes after you, that's your problem now. Now that's your personal problem instead of being a business problem. Okay, so, and I talk, and I expand on this more in episode 6 that I talk about LLCs. But, um, that's just another plea to please, if you're being legit about your business, if you want to be legit, if you want to protect this, It's time, if you haven't done it yet, to set up your LLC. And we can continue to debate and discuss, and you can talk to a lot of people about that and be thinking and ruminating and talking about talking about doing that. You can do all those things. Those are all options. I think those are poor options. I think that's a poor use of your time and your talents. What you should do is decide today that you are going to do this. You're going to set up your LLC. And the next question is really just how are you going to do it yourself? Are you going to hire a local attorney? And I advise having a local attorney in your state do this for you, okay, at different price points, obviously, okay. So that's really the only decision that you need to make, okay. And so there we go, off the table. I'm helping you make decisions and slay, slay that indecision, uh, one way or another, okay. Um, and then the The next kind of thing that I would lump in the same really beginning category is we start to look at your business and wrap our arms around what do we need to do is your business name. And we have to talk about this beginning because I realize that as soon as you get going, before maybe you've even considered any of this other stuff, you probably picked a name for your business. You had to buy a name. You probably had to, you know, get a logo or some sort of branding, even if it was really simple stuff you did on your own. Um, you, you had to say something where people could find you. You had to get social media handles, whatnot. And the thing you need to think about is your business name. Is, is it available? Is it a good choice for what you're doing and for where you want to go? Okay, because the business name, it totally makes sense in terms of what your vision is and what you want to do with your business. If you're— all you want to do is be a local business, and especially like a local in-person business, then you can really pick whatever name you want. As long as it doesn't have like a state trademark, which I would suggest as one of your things in your— of course, do a Google search, okay? That's step 1 here. Do a Google search for your name and slight variations of your name, okay? So if it's spelled with an, you know, CK, spell it with just a K, you know. If it's an S, then put a Z on it just in case. So do some slight variations of your name. Go past the first page, okay? Go a few pages deep and just see what comes up, okay, in your business name space. Okay, so that's step 1. Step 2 is you should really do a trademark search. Okay, and for this, you should go— and I will link it in the show notes— you should go on the trademark database, the Federal Trademark Database, and do a search in the TESS system. That's the electronic trademark engine system. And you should look to see if there are any registered trademarks connected to that. The problem with this, and which is why, you know, it's a good baseline, but why it may not be the, the full the full nine yards of what you need to do is the trademark database is an old school database. And it's done like most old school databases that you have to have an exact match, which means that if you try to search for Starbucks, if you want to start a coffee shop, and you want to call it Starbucks with two S's, you will see— and if you put that in there, it will say zero results as if you are in the clear. Now, I don't think I have to tell you that Starbucks Starbucks is a really poor choice for a coffee shop. Okay, Starbucks has locked that thing down 9 ways to Sunday. And so for you to think, to go on and be like, oh, no results, I'm good to go, is really misleading. Okay. And that's what's hard about the trademark search system is that it's looking for exact matches, where the law behind trademark says that if there is a trademark out there that has a substantial, that has, that there was a likelihood of confusion for the consumer, the consumer saw your thing, A and a trademark thing B, and if those things look like they could be sold by the same people because they look the same, they sound the same, they're in the same space, um, it's normal that someone like here also sells pants who sells dresses, someone who sells housewares would sell pillows, whatever. This goes for goods and for services, which can be really confusing. Then you can get sued for trademark infringement. And it may— it's probably not going to happen at the beginning. No, no, no, that would be too easy for someone to come out and slap your hand at the beginning and say, no, no, no, you need to change. Go and rebrand right now. And you'd be like, oh shucks, okay, I guess I'll have to redo my logo. No, no, no. When it's going to happen is when you are humming along in your business, when you are making bank, okay? When you are selling products and when you have a beautiful website and when you've invested thousands of dollars in your branding, um, and you have a great social media footprint and a digital footprint, that is when you are going to get a cease and desist letter and you're going to call me up or call another attorney up and you're going to say, hey, is this legit? And it's going to have that drop in your stomach. You know what that feeling is like? You were going up the stairs and the last stair wasn't there. That, that thing, that's going to happen to you. And I'm going to have to give you the bad news that you are going to have to change the name of your business. Okay? You're going to have to change, you're going to have to scrap it all and change your name. Okay? And yes, 'You know, it's just a name and people will follow you if they love you and it's totally doable.' And some people, 'Yes, we have to do that.' And so now we, you know, we move forward with strength and courage and, you know, tally-ho, um, whatever. But it sucks, guys. It really sucks. Um, and so to avoid all of that, you got to choose a name that's smart and strategic and that's not— doesn't belong to somebody else who does what you do. Now, if there's a name for somebody and they do a different thing that's a different can of worms, okay? That's why Delta Airlines can have a trademark in their space and Delta faucets can have a trademark in their space, because nobody gets on an airplane to go to Fiji and is like, huh, I thought I was redoing my bathroom. I don't— where's my mix? Where's my nice nickel faucets? Okay, nobody confuses that, obviously, because they are very different services and products that they offer. Okay, but if you sell, you know, kids' organic pajamas under a name and someone else also sells, you know, organic linen baby blankets and has another similar name, well, it's pretty reasonable that a consumer would think that the same people who sell pajamas for babies also sell blankets for babies. Okay, and if they've got a trademark and you don't, they can shut you down. Okay, they can totally shut you down. And, and they can ask for damages. They can say, hey, this has been going on for so long, and we'll show you screenshots of how long it's been doing it, that they've probably been sucking at our sales. Um, and so we're asking for not only for them to stop, but we're asking for damages too, to make it right, because we think that people have been confused. They've been buying their thing when they wanted our thing. Okay, so, you know, I'm sorry, I don't, I don't like having to go, you know, fear, fearmeister for you, but I'm here to reality check you guys and to get you set up for success. And part of that means of letting you know of what can be out in the shadows, okay? That what can be behind the horizon that you might not see but I see, okay? Because I see it when it goes wrong and it lands on my desk, okay? And so I'm trying to give you guys the tools to prevent any of that heartache and that stress and that pressure on your business that is completely avoidable, okay? Like 99% avoidable if we do some good work in the beginning, okay? Especially if you have bold and beautiful plans for your vision for your business. Okay, if you want to go places, if you want to expand your product offerings, your service offerings, if you want to go beyond your local community, if you want to be on the internet and be all over the internet and build an empire and license and get, you know, affiliate networks out there and sell your course or your content or your services, your products, and do joint ventures with other people, all of that great amazing stuff, that's awesome. I love that. I totally support that. You can totally do that. But, but you've got to have a name that can go with you all the way, that can go with you all the way. And you can't do that with a name that you never owned from the beginning, that you shouldn't have used from the beginning. Okay, so, um, so I know if you're thinking now, if you're properly scared, okay Brittany, so what are you telling me? So if you're in that point in your business where you love your name and you would be heartbroken if you had a problem with your name, then I'm pleading with you to please at least do a trademark clearance search. That's the very beginning. I would love for you to see to actually trademark that name and protect it for yourself. And you get to have that beautiful little golden R circle. That's, that's right by your brand name, or your logo. But at least a minimum, do a trademark search. And yes, yes, I know, total, you know, haircut, Barbara telling you that you need a haircut. I do do these for clients. So this is part of what I do in my business. Because I see it as such a natural next step for people as they're growing their business, as they're locking down their brand, especially in today's stage where differentiation and having such a close brand, um, I mean, you know, such, such a close brand and, and building that name and the imagery and the value around that brand name is so important that, um, that I'm doing these all the time. And so that is totally something I do. And so if you're interested in talking with me about that process, what the fees would be like, and how long it would take, which is— sorry, it does take a while— then set up a free 20-minute consult with me to talk about it. Okay, brittanyruttell.com/services, and then we can talk about what it'd be like to work with me and that we can work on getting your stuff locked down and protected. Okay, the other tool that we have that protects your stuff, not necessarily your name but your actual content, like your website, like your digital course, like your illustrations, like your book, like your worksheets, all of that, your templates would be copyright. Okay, and so I'm going to tell you that I have the other episode that you want to look at there that talks all about, um, you know, that talks all about like, you know, copyright and trademark would be episode 10, um, talks about copyright versus trademarks, um, and then episode 30, and then episode 11, which is what to do when people rip you off, or ones that'd probably be really useful for to. So, okay, so I'm going to direct you to there. Okay, um, so that is all I'm gonna attack today. There's obviously a lot more that we need to talk about and cover, so please don't let this be the beginning and end of this conversation. Please come back for my next, um, my, uh, my next version of this. Um, we're going to move on and talk about your website and what your website needs to have on that, because that's another obviously building block that pretty much applies to 99.9% of businesses, is have a website, they have a web and we need to talk about what we need to do to get that protected, locked down, shiny and polished, and ready to serve you and not to hinder you in any way in your business. Okay, then we're also going to be talking about having helpers. Okay, what does that mean in having people who help you in your business? What does that mean when you are working with other people, if that is your business? And then, and then we'll go on to differentiate of people who are working with products and selling products, or people who are selling services and what other stuff, concerns or issues or systems they need to create to be successful in those spaces. Okay, so as we review today, just, you know, I'm going to go through our kind of our checklist really quick that we talked about. Are you a business? If you're making more than $600, the IRS thinks you are, so you need to make sure that you are treating yourself as a business. Okay, that means that you need to have a plan for how your money is coming to you and that you're taking care of it. Okay. Make sure that you have gotten your EIN and gotten that set up, and you use that to set up your payment processors. Okay, that means set up Stripe, set up PayPal, QuickBooks. Um, you know, you can even get paid, I know, through some of the client management software you can set up, and which makes it really nice. You can set up with a FreshBooks or whatever. Those are all great and above board. What's not okay is if you are— this is a business and something that you're charging people and you're having people pay you like on Venmo or on PayPal with like the friends or family way to avoid the fees. Okay, no, not cool, not okay, not— the juice isn't worth the squeeze, guys. Okay, if you're being paid as a business, you want a record that you're being paid there because you need to report that income. You need to, for your— just for your own purposes, you need to make sure that you're knowing what income is coming in, what income is coming out. Are you even turning a profit? Okay, and if you're not keeping track of that stuff, and certainly if you're not keeping track of it separately, then it looks to the IRS or to someone who's trying to pierce and say that you don't have an LLC and you are, you know, you're personally liable for stuff, that you're running just a hoax here. Okay, this is just a sham business for a way for you to try to stash money or for you to try to deduct things. You know, I'm using big air quotes here, that you have a business when you really don't. So you are teaching people, and especially teaching any authorities or regulatory bodies that you are a business by the choices that you're making and the example that you're setting. Okay, so treat yourself legit, okay? Treat yourself like a real business, and people will assume that you're a real business, and they will also give you that treatment in return. So get your EIN, set up your dang LLC already, um, make sure that you have the rights to your business name, and get paid in a legit way. Make sure there's a record of it, you know. And, um, you know, we'll talk about— and I've talked about, um, I have an episode with Peter Lang that was all about getting an accountant and get an accountant, or get some decent accounting software, or, you know, bare bones, keep track on a spreadsheet. I'm not saying that you need to be paying someone right out of the get-go to get an accountant. I am saying that you need to handle this, that you cannot ignore this part of your business. So your options are to take care of it yourself, or to make space and put that in your budget, put that in your rent cost that you need to be paying someone else to take care of that. Because if you don't have a handle on your money, then you are a recipe for disaster because you are not going to be able to know what you can say yes to, what projects you are, where you're at with your funds. You're not going to get a handle of how to know when to switch to an S corp if you don't know how much you're making and just coming in and out every month. It's going to be really hard for you to price if you don't know what the cost of doing business is, okay? It's going to be really difficult for you to make some critical decisions to grow in your business if you don't know what's going on with your money, honey, okay? So if you have hangups about money and asking for money and money being dirty or money being sticky or I'm not good at money, like you need to do some work, the thought work to deal with that, which you completely have control over. Um, and in that regard, I'm going to recommend that if you need some help in terms of, um, working on your money mindset, I'm going to add my few resources I'd recommend are, um, any of Jen Sincero's books on how to be a badass, um, are fantastic. I would also recommend The Life Coach School by Brooke Castillo. I know it's not specifically a money or business podcast, it's a, you know, personal development podcast, but it's an incredible tool for looking at some of your maybe limited beliefs of what you're considering about what you can do, how you can treat other people, how you can treat yourself, and what's in your control. So if you're looking to work on some of that stuff, if you haven't had a chance or or had a brush-in with any of Brooke's content, I highly recommend that. The other one I'd highly recommend is Better Than Happy by Jody Moore, who's also trained at the Life Coach School. So she's kind of a Brooke Castillo protégé. And the other one is Awesome with Allison. So Allison's a client and a friend and has been a business mentor to me for a long time. But she's got some amazing content about the working on your mindset of growing a business, specifically, you know, if you are trying to grow a creative business or in that space about about what are some things that you should be working on so that you can achieve your goals. How can you get unstuck if you are feeling stuck and feeling like you're not in a good place where you just feel overwhelmed or apathetic or lacking motivation? How can you get over some of those blocks? So I highly recommend digging into that and digging into some of that content. So, okay, that's where we're going to leave today, um, and I hope that you tune in for our next episode. And remember the free resources that I mentioned if you want these tips, make sure you're going to brittanyruttell.com/34. And I'll have a free printable there that you can get the notes for this. So you can get those and kind of get started on what are the next steps, it's going to be really simple checklist of things, okay, of do this, go to this, okay, website. And I'll also have the links in the show notes. And also a reminder that I'm running my Instagram Lives on Tuesday nights. So if you're listening to this I try to jump on usually 8:30 Pacific, so it's 9:30 Mountain. Um, I know it's a lot later for you East Coasters. Sorry, I gotta wait until my kids are in bed. Um, but I come on Instagram for 30 minutes and I make myself available to people to answer their questions about running their business. You're being a more confident and more experienced and more savvy business owner, boss babe, femtrepreneur, all the things. If you're listening and you're in taking advantage of teachable moments and you're using the resources that you have, to make the smartest decisions that you have at the time, okay? And recognizing that, um, when we make mistakes and when we learn new things and you're like, geez, I didn't know that and I've been doing this wrong all these years, or I've been doing this, I didn't have a contract, I didn't have my LLC and didn't, you know, was using the Venmo and with my friends and, you know, didn't have all the stuff signed in writing. Yeah, no, we're not going to berate ourselves for any of it, okay? We're only going to look at that What you know today is more than you knew yesterday. Okay, that's it. And now hopefully we know a little bit more tomorrow, and that's it. We're just gonna move onward and upward, okay? And I'm here for you, and you can do it, and I'm gonna be by your side every step of the way. So thanks so much, guys, for working on this, for doing the hard stuff, okay? For tackling the stuff that nobody wants to talk about and nobody wants to deal with. But you can do it. You can totally do it, and we're gonna, we're gonna make it happen, okay? Every step of the way. So thanks for being here, and I'll catch you next week in our next installment. Actually, I'm gonna have an interview with our guest. I think next week is gonna be Ashley's Fresh Fix we have on. It's amazing, and I loved our interview with her, so I'm gonna share that. But the episode after that is gonna be the next in our installment, so make sure that you are— stay— that you are subscribed, that you're listening, that you are staying tuned up to here so you don't miss any of this goodness for your business.