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How to Defuse the Legal Time Bomb in Your Small Business

Unlike a typical time bomb, this one will not be ticking. There won’t be any warning signs. No specially trained dogs will sniff it out. No swat teams will swoop in and prevent its detonation, and as luck would have it, it will probably go off at the worst time.

Fortunately, you can find this time bomb quite easily before it detonates. You can begin your search by checking your filing cabinets, file boxes, desks and drawers for any documents with “agreement” written on it. If they’re still active agreements, slowly pull ‘em out.

Agreements form the foundation of many small business transactions. Transactions between customers, landlords, vendors and government agencies are frequently governed by written agreements. What’s interesting about agreements is that they govern future activities to be performed under known and unknown circumstances – an inherently risky proposition, unless you can predict the future.

So let’s think back to when you first started your small business. How many actual “knowns” did you have? Would you say a lot has changed since you first entered into agreements necessary to get your small business going? If your small business is like most small businesses, a lot of things have changed, good and bad. As a result of these changes, you may be in breach of an agreement without even knowing it. We’re going to take care of this though.

On a nice slow morning or afternoon, grab a hot cup of coffee, tea or booze (if it has been one of those weeks) and take a few hours to flip through those agreements you pulled out to determine if you might be in breach of any of them. Boring? You bet, but it’s one of those necessary boring things, like filing a tax return or waiting in a doctor’s office. So with your agreements in hand, you may use this non-exhaustive list of clauses that might need to be reviewed:

Restrictions on permitted use of leased equipment
Restrictions on who is permitted to use leased equipment
Restrictions on use of leased property
Insurance, license and certificate requirements
Restrictions on items stored on leased property
Written consent requirements
Restrictions on leasehold improvements
Restrictions on modifications of equipment
Lessee obligations
Lessor obligations
Now, if you find something, I don’t expect you to wake that sleeping giant (I probably wouldn’t), BUT you may be able to start putting a plan together to help soften the blow in case the other party starts looking for a reason to terminate the agreement for a more lucrative opportunity. You can start planning a defense, perhaps a worthwhile explanation for your breach, or looking for substitutions, such as new suppliers, a new location or whatever it may be. Once you collect information for Plan B, just keep it on file in case you have to move quickly. You may even want to keep a cash reserve on hand in case the issue might result in litigation. Who knows, but you’ll be following the Boy Scout motto (i.e. Be Prepared), and your small business will thank you.

I appreciate your reading this post, but we both know you’re probably not going to rush to your files at this minute and start going through all your legal documents (unless you know you’re in breach and this post has reminded you of the possible financial time bomb that’s seriously near going off), but I highly recommend you pull out your lease agreement, if you have one, and this can be for equipment or real property, and just flip through some of the pages to see if you’re a beneficiary to a very favorable lease agreement on account of a change relating to the property you’re leasing. (I say favorable lease agreement because that would most likely mean it’s unfavorable to the other party.)

For example, if you entered into a lease for retail space in an underdeveloped community when property values were still low, but because of several revitalization initiatives in the same community, the value of your leasehold has quadrupled over the past few years, you should be especially weary of your landlord looking to replace your leasehold with a higher paying tenant. Handshakes and smiles are great, but at the end of the day, it’s business, and if there’s a lot of demand for your space, and you’ve opened the door with an inadvertent breach, you will want to be ready for a breach of contract claim by your landlord.

All isn’t bad with agreements, however, so don’t fret yet! Agreements can also swing the other way. You may find that the counterparty is in breach of something, or because of a certain event, such as a substantial change in prices, breach by other party or change in control of the other party’s company, you may have an out of a contract that’s not particularly in your favor. So in just reviewing your agreements, you may be able to get out of the unfavorable arrangement and stop a leak of money you weren’t even aware you had.

PLUS, by reviewing your agreements, you may even find you have more wiggle room to do things related to your agreement that you thought were restricted or limited. Perhaps on second look, you have 11 parking spaces instead of 10, or that your landlord is obligated to reimburse you for some of your capital improvements. Instead of a time bomb, a jackpot might be sitting around your office too!

So to just summarize the above, periodically review your agreements. You don’t have to read the all of the boring documents. Most will have headings that make finding relevant clauses really easy. Agreements should be reviewed frequently to ensure your small business is not breaching any existing contracts and to determine which clauses may no longer be applicable, and they’re primed for negotiations with the other party for their removal. Without a thorough and periodic review of its existing contractual obligations, you may be (i) subjecting your small business to additional and unnecessary expenses, (ii) limiting your small business without reason or (iii) unknowingly positioning your small business for a breach of contract claim by the counterparty. So don’t let that time bomb sneak up on you, be proactive and defuse it ahead of time.

A Simple Product Creation and Product Launching Formula

If you tried to think of people involved in product creation, who would come to mind? You may think of Edison, Franklin, or maybe Henry Ford. Would you ever think of yourself as someone who can create a quality product? Product creation is actually relatively easy and product launching is not that tough either! If you follow a few easy to understand steps, you could be starting the product creation and product launching process sooner than you think.

The first step in creating your information product is to know and understand your market. This can be very time-consuming, especially if you are unsure of what to do or where to look to know your market. Studying your niche market and understanding the buzz words and buying patterns can ease the process dramatically. Personally, I would recommend networking with someone who has had success in the niche market you are considering and learn from their results. If they are into product creation and not very business savvy expect some hesitation. If they only sell products and have nothing to do with product launching or product creation you may your first affiliate (sales person)! Something else you can use to find hot trends is with the Google Trends tool.

The second step is the product creation process. Take your niche market and brainstorm ideas and topics relating to it. There are a lot of product launching contests going on recently relating to a newly created internet marketing tool. There are so many aspects to the mentioned niche that literally, and unfortunately, anything can be considered an Internet Marketing tool. The reason that anyone can basically create an Internet Marketing tool is because of something called Private Label Rights products.

What I use private label rights products for, and highly recommend them in this specific manner, is to cure writer’s block especially when it is lingering. Many people base their entire product creation and product launching on a private label rights product. This is where you can start to shine and build a strong brand for yourself. If you set goals for yourself, short-term goals to be exact, you can see your product creation come into being much faster and there is a good chance with less revision needed. If you keep hitting time restraint road blocks; however there is nothing wrong with a slow and steady approach, you can consider outsourcing portions of your project. Outsourcing can be an extremely huge benefit or just as great of a disaster.

You can find someone to outsource work to at a freelance site such as Guru.com or eLance.com. When reviewing proposals it is almost mandatory you perform a background check on them as you are in essence hiring them. Doing a background check on freelancers is as easy as asking for samples of their work and reviewing feedback on the freelance site from previous customers. Depending on the size and requirements of your project this can add up to a decent sized investment, so caution is very important. One tip I always recommend to people looking to hire an individual is to ask them what they can provide you that no one else can. This simple question gives them a chance to “toot their own horn” and acknowledge where they feel most competent as far as their skill set.

The final portion of the product creation and product launching formula is the launch. This can literally make or break the effort, time, and maybe (if you invested) money you put in to your project. There are numerous aspects to product launching and although their relevance is debated in terms to their effect, experts agree all must be followed. The person in your field who you asked for product advice from can help you substantially if you have kept in touch. If not, the first thing you need to do is to create a visually appealing website with flawless design work.

I also mentioned outsourcing before, this is one aspect of product launching I have little strength in and I always outsource this portion. The website does not have to be large however the content (ad copy in Internet Marketing) must be stellar and as perfect as possible. This is where advertising knowledge or experience is beneficial. When the site is set up you now put a lead capture form on your website.

I put two lead capture pages on all products I create on the internet and is one of the best methods of getting a solid start when you are in the product launching stage. When you gain information from a prospect or someone looking to get paid for referring sales you are able to provide them updates or specials. Many people abuse their prospect or affiliate lists by in turn emailing them with a new product daily and I find the recommendations to be totally unrelated to their original need, problem, or interest.

Another stage in the product launching stage is creating a free report or demo version of your product to entice the product to sign up to your email list. Using proper follow up with this can help generate numerous sales for you. One thing you need to ensure is that your free product completely relates to your main product that you are looking to sell.

You are now ready to advertise your product launching to customers as well as the opportunity to sell for affiliates. This is the single aspect that many product creations and launches fail on. It is actually not entirely difficult. One thing you can do is write articles (and a good amount of them) on topics relating to your product. I am a huge advocate of giving a solution in forums. When you join a forum you are normally offered the opportunity to create a signature. In your signature, you should enter the link to your opt-in or lead capture page. When you respond to posts, you are advertising your opportunity.

It is not impossible to create a product and it does not have to take a long time. You need to setup a plan and stick to it. If you get stuck, look at similar and successful products to your own and try and see how they did it. When you sit down and brainstorm you will be surprised with what you can imagine.

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Your Home Based Business Opportunity Needs the Time to Establish Itself

If you listen to many so called business gurus on the internet, you may believe that getting into a home based business opportunity is the easiest way to earn a lot of quick bucks. It is even more disgusting to hear them make hollow promises to make people successful in a matter of just few days. The fact of the matter is that it takes a lot of time and hard work to become successful with any kind of business, be it big or small and especially with a home based business opportunity.This is true even if you work for some company in a conventional job. You will need to sustain your performance for a long period of time, before you get noticed by your bosses. Similarly your home business will also take time before your customers start taking notice of you. In the meanwhile, you will go through many growing phases. How you handle these growth pains will determine your success or failure in your new business.Why they fail?Most people get hyper-excited about starting their home based business and expect to see returns immediately. They think that all they need is to get hooked into a network business opportunity and paychecks will start rolling in. This is not at all how any business works and especially an internet home based business. After they start their business, they soon find out how really tough it is to make their home business survive. More often than not, most new business owners soon get discouraged and give up on their business dreams. Here are some other reasons why it is better to give your home based business opportunity time to grow slowly into a successful business.Your websiteA website has become a must-have tool if you want to improve the scope of your home business. A website, being online 24 hours a day, will reach out to more people and to a wider market than traditional forms of advertising. Once you create your website, it will take some time for search engines to take notice and rank it. You will need to do aggressive marketing to get yourself noticed by the internet spiders like Google and Yahoo. It is quite important for you to understand the algorithms of how search engines work and how search engine optimization (SEO) will affect the success of your online business.Your website will mature as it becomes older and your search engine rankings will continue to increase as long as you practice good SEO strategies. Since there are thousands of other websites that are competing with you, it will naturally take time before people learn about your website business and start trusting you enough to do initial and repeat business.How to speed upUsually, if you try to grow your business to fast, you will end up executing your business plans haphazardly and risk failure of your business. However, there are many strategies which you can use to make people notice your website sooner. Hiring a good SEO Consultant should be at the top of your list if you are rushed to get your online business started. Also the use of a good website designer is also another great way to get off to a fast start.The bottom line is that you need to pursue what ever business strategy that you started out with and stay the course for a long enough period of time to give your business practices time to prove out. You should not change policies and practices just for the sake of change. Make sure that any changes that you make are justified. Making changes in haste is a common problem with new business owners who get frustrated when they are not meeting all of their expenses and pocketing substantial cash in their pockets during the first few weeks or months of opening their business. This realization often reflects negatively on their personality, creditability and self worth and quite often results in failure of their home based business opportunity.

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