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On today's episode of the podcast, I'm sharing my story of loneliness and entrepreneurship.  You're invited! I'm hosting a free live training on October 1 called Plan Your Best Year. I'll be sharing my planning process and how you can get your business besties involved to achieve your goals with the help of community and collaboration. Sign up for Plan Your Best Year at Bradendrake.com/training  If you've heard the phrase, "You're only as good as the company you keep," I tend to think it's true. And the question is, who is the company you keep in your business? For many of us, it may be Claude, but we also need a human person. And I learned early on in my business that that human person wasn't always going to be someone close to me in my personal life. And that's what leads me to my journey through loneliness. I started my business in 2017 and I was so excited but my husband at the time didn't seem that genuinely interested and I had a lot of insecurities about talking about my business as well because our biggest issue was money and finances and I felt like the conversation would pivot to when is my business going to be able to contribute more. My parents didn't really ask me many questions, they just wanted me to be happy and successful. My husband's friends thought I had "a cute little business" despite being a lawyer. I was losing touch with college and law school friends as we spread across the country. I felt like I was in a vacuum.  I went out and got a WeWork office I could not afford to meet people. I met a few, started a networking group, started listening to podcasts, attending Rising Tide meet-ups and that was my intro to the wedding industry and working with creatives.  Through this I met a woman who ran a $10k mastermind that I joined (note that the year before that I had made $30k for the year and was on track for $70k in revenue that year but with like $30-40k profit, a $10k mastermind was a lot of money). I was finding myself shuffling money around every month when it came time for my payment, but it ended up being one of the best investments I've ever made in myself or my business.  I was put in a group of six and to this day, almost seven years later, we still meet every month (this is usually frowned upon, you would re-enroll in the mastermind, but the woman who led our program didn't host another mastermind). We still text almost daily and they are my core group of friends.  I went on to join Amy Porterfield's program Momentum and was put in a peer pod for a couple years.  I then joined Stu McClaren's mastermind that went for the duration of his course and now I'm in another mastermind that meets monthly. As you can see, I've had a lot of iterations of business and brainstorming groups. At any time I feel like I need at least two places to go and ask questions.  I'll often journal, then talk to my team and my mastermind about my ideas. Over the last seven years with my mastermind group, that's where I came up with the Unf*ck Your Biz name, created the Contract Club, was encouraged to launch my affiliate program, we navigated the launch of my podcast, its retirement, and its relaunch, and navigated a couple rebrands. We've talked each other down from wanting to quit our businesses. Sometimes we just need people in our corner to tell us we're doing alright.  All this to say, if your friends and family don't share your business interests, it's okay and it's time for you to find some business besties beyond just the people who respond to your Instagram stories for surface-level conversations. People you can really talk to.  This is why I'm launching my own mastermind on October 1st and it's wayyyy less than $10,000 (though I don't have beef with a $10k mastermind). Have questions about joining? Sign up to attend my webinar on October 1st or DM me @bradenadamdrake on Instagram

On today's episode of the podcast, I'm sharing how the key performance indicators (KPIs) you track help you achieve your goals .  You're invited! I'm hosting a free live training on October 1 called Plan Your Best Year. I'll be sharing my planning process and how you can get your business besties involved to achieve your goals with the help of community and collaboration. Sign up for Plan Your Best Year at Bradendrake.com/training This episode is kind of a part 2 to last week's so if you missed it, give a listen to 384 - How to Set Goals You Actually Achieve.  On October 1st, I'm launching a mastermind, and the guiding light to that program will be KPIs and what to measure to track how you'll hit your goals.  The ultimate purpose of this is to come up with long term goals and figure out what you need to do in the short term to get them there and know what to measure in order to track progress of longer and shorter term goals.  What's a KPI? A key performance indicator (KPI) is a metric or data point that gives you key information about the health or current state of your business. To me, revenue is the mother of all KPIs.  Your goals will dictate what KPIs to track. For example, if you want to increase your reach and brand awareness, you may keep an eye on your Instagram story views, and let that drive your social media decisions like testing poll stickers on your stories for more engagement or using different CTAs to try and convert more link clicks from your stories.  Another KPI that's helpful to track is lead sources which you can do by asking your clients how they found you. This measurement was why we stopped the podcast, because we found a lot of our sales were made by people who said they never listened.  Focus on priorities in your business so you know what to track, and where to spend your time. The better your tracking gets, the more you'll know where to spend your time.   What types of KPIs should I track? There are three kinds - primary, secondary, and tertiary. The primary KPI is the topline number of the main thing you want to track. Let's take ads for example, If want to run ads to build my email list, the most important metric might be cost per lead because it gives a quick picture if the ad is costing me more than it's making me.  I consider the primary KPI the bottom of the funnel, the end all be all number. It's the most important but also the least because what we really need to know is how we're getting to that number.  If your primary KPI is revenue, you want to track how you're getting that revenue and what's converting. So your secondary KPIs might be the total number of people following you on social media the number of new email opt-ins you get, the number of podcast downloads, certain Facebook ads metrics, etc.  KPIs vary by business, for example one-on-one service-based businesses may focus on inquiries or sales call conversion rates as opposed to products sold or average checkout cart value.  To start tracking these secondary KPIs, it's time to move up the funnel another step to the tertiary KPIs. Let's say you start tracking your number of leads every month, conversions, and average value per client. Once you've started tracking data, you have more to compare it to.  If conversion and leads is a secondary KPI, our tertiary KPIs would be data points that inform monthly leads such as Pinterest saves or TikTok followers.  For example, if most of your traffic comes from SEO, you'll want to take a deeper look into the peaks and valleys of your blog analytics. Our goal here is not to track everything, it's to track what makes sense for your business. You can start tracking your conversion and average value per customer/client based on the lead source. You may find that while leads from one source may be plentiful, they only convert at 10% compared to 40% from another source, but that 10% conversion is taking 50% of your time.  If you free up your time, you can spend it on higher-converting projects to bring in more money.  I'm going to talk more about this on our live training that is going to be on October 1st. I'll try to come up with some new fresh examples for you all. And then I also want to ask you all to give some of your own examples to brainstorm what your main goal is that you're going to focus on in Q4 specifically and what couple KPIs you could be tracking in order to maintain or rack your progress.  See you at the training!

On today's episode of the podcast, we're diving into my goal setting process and how to go about actually achieving the goal you set.  I'm hosting a free live training on October 1 called Plan Your Best Year. I'll be sharing my planning process and how you can get your business besties involved. Sign up for Plan Your Best Year at Bradendrake.com/training It's been a minute since I've heard a good goal setting conversation, and I'm taking a different approach to it on this episode. The reason we're talking about this today is because I'm getting ready to launch my brand new mastermind, which is all about finding your business besties, with the guiding light of the program being the numbers and achieving your profit-driven goals.  "We often overestimate what we can do in one year, but vastly overestimate what we can do in 10" is one of my favorite quotes. When we set our vision and goals, we often bite off more than we can chew but then don't appreciate how much it can compound year over year. Goal setting is like a puzzle. You may be able to do the border and the center image, but those low-opacity background pieces? Not so much. The more you work on your goals (the borders and the image) the more those background pieces (your longterm goals) become clearer where they go.  We start the goal-setting process by where we want to be 10 years from now. Once you have your long-term vision, now you come up with your three year picture to start to get you there. To make this doable, what structural changes do you need ti make? Break your picture down further into an annual goal and quarterly goals. What are reasonable stepping stones to hit those three year targets? What are the specifics of those stepping stones? Most of this goal setting process comes from the Entrepreneur Operating System from the book Traction, by Gino Wickman. Inside the system is the step of setting rocks. Rocks are based on the analogy that you have a jar and if you fill it with sand first, you have no room to add rocks, and rocks are the most important goal. But if you fill it with rocks, then sand, you'll have room for the most important goals, and then the day-to-day work (the sand) Your rocks are your big picture projects like write a book or update your website. Rocks are big projects, but ones you can work on and check off your list. With your goals in mind, set the steps you need to execute to complete these rocks.  Tune into next week's episode where we dive into how to measure the success of the steps you need to take to execute your rocks.

On today's episode of the podcast I'm walking you through how I conduct my monthly profit reports, breaking down my revenue and expenses, and setting my September projections.  This week’s episode is brought to you by the Contract Club®. All the contracts you need, all in one place. Just pay the cover, and you’re in for life.  I've started adding my Profit Reports in-depth to my blog. You can see all the numbers and charts I mention in today's episode here: https://notavglaw.com/blog/profit-report-august-2026 For the step-by-step details on how to run your own Profit Report, check out episode 355 or head to our blog https://notavglaw.com/blog/not-your-average-profit-reports-the-intro

On today's episode of the podcast I chat with my friend, and HR specialist, Kira La Forgia about how to legally protect yourself when having employees on your team.    About Kira Kira is the founder of Paradigm Consulting which serves small business owners and founder-led teams with accessible outsourced HR and growth strategy services.  Kira started Paradigm in 2020 after 11 years working in operations and partnering with a lot of attorneys and accounting firms that couldn’t speak to the laws in all 50 states. In HR, it is the primary expectation to understand the labor laws in all 50 states, so Paradigm offers not only on the compliance side but also on the education side and the strategic way they build out structures of small businesses for efficacy and profitability. The goal is to create systems and foundations for HR compliance that last through the duration of your business with minimal maintenance. So you don't have to have an in-house HR person.   Why the HR/Hiring Topic is Important Even If You Aren’t Ready to Hire It doesn’t matter how much money you’re making, you’re not qualified to do all the things your business needs you to do, you’ll need to bring in support from other people, especially as you grow. And whether that initial hire is a bookkeeper or an assistant or your friend’s son who helps you on the weekend, it’s important to know the laws on how to treat them without going into a category of misclassification or even exploitation. Understanding what you need before you need it is the best way to confidently move forward, which you may need to do at a moment’s notice if your business grows rapidly.    What Major Employment Laws Have Changed Since 2020 We had Trump in office 2016 to 2020. A big tax law passed in 2017 and then Biden got in office after the COVID pandemic had already kind of started. Now Trump is in office again. We're talking about laws, laws are passed by politicians and congress members so it has a great deal to do with who's in office at any particular time. Whoever's in office does influence how things are enforced, even at the granular level. The caveat is that when we're talking about the administration that's in office at a federal level, that still isn't really talking about the individual state laws, which most of our companies are going to be a little bit more focused on on the day-to-day. When it comes to your employees, you have to follow three different sets of rules: the IRS, so the tax stuff that comes into play,, the federal laws, and how those things are kind of enforced and not enforced, and then the state laws which are actually going to govern more a lot of your policies inhouse within your business. HR is based on a federal ruling that came out decades ago, and there is a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) which enforces all the rules from the Labor Relations Act. At a federal level, this is the major piece of legislation that helps us make decisions about what is legal and what isn't along the way. When the NLRB decides that they are going to enforce certain rules or not that's when you start to see uptick in legal cases.  There's another entity that we really want to pay attention to, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Both of these are independent of the federal government, but the EEOC is going to be a little bit more dictated by what the person in charge is deciding what's important. So with when it comes down to the NLRB, they're going to be enforcing this ruling as a standard legal proceeding.  The way it works a lot of the time is the federal law sets the floor and then states have their own. For example, minimum wage. What that looks like in action for small businesses is that some of your handbooks are going to have the federal minimum wage as the requirement that's noted while other handbooks will have amendments based on the states that their people live in. You can't just go by one document. You have to make sure that you're keeping track of what happens in other states and industries, too. The states have enforcement within the state with their own labor boards.    What To Look At If You’re Hiring Worker Misclassification The back-and-forthness of misclassification of 1099s to W2s is one of the biggest risks for small businesses. It is really important to make sure that you're auditing that year-over-year based on the location of where that person lives, how you're functioning within the business with that person, and also what's right when it comes to how people are behaving and how we are making sure we're not exploiting other people or other small business owners. If you get audited and your hire was classified incorrectly, that comes around to bite you in the ass because you’ll owe back taxes, penalties, and interest on it Employment Verification I-9s and employment verification is another area that is being influenced by politics. It's the bare minimum of hiring employees, making sure that you're following the I-9 process, which is basically documenting and checking to make sure that they're a US citizen which is required within 72 hours of your employee’s first day. The lowest risk is classifying them as an employee and making sure you're educated on how to handle the I-9 process because then you're protected to get them started to work. You cannot rely on your payroll company to do this because they will not assume the risk. You are probably not qualified to go through the E-Verify system which is another reason that you need to have an HR partner on your side to run those checks for you.  Your I-9s  need to be stored separately from the rest of the documents that you're storing for your employees. If someone were to come in and audit your employment, it would be a discriminatory tactic to have their immigration information in their file.  Pay Transparency Depending on the state you’re in, you have to show the range that you’re hiring someone for. If you’re hiring for multiple states, you need to make sure it’s posted publicly when you post the job. If there is any kind of role that you're looking to fill that is remote role eligible to anyone in the US then that means it has to follow all the laws of how you post jobs in the US which primarily comes down to pay transparency because you’re required to have a salary range posted in many states. Anyone can file a complaint with the EEOC, not just the people who work for you, so you need to have everything together when you post a job listing.    Bias We have our conscious and unconscious bias. As business owners we’re trained to look for the ideal candidate, but applying your ideal client avatar to your hiring process is a no go. What candidates do with their time and their work outside of working with us is none of our business. What is our business is their level of qualification, how well you hit it off with them, what your priorities are. Paradigm makes rubrics in order to measure and make sure to reduce unconscious bias.   The Stages of Hiring Hiring is a multi-phase process. You first make your business ready-to-hire by building foundation on which people are going to work. Make it a profitable hire. Go through the hiring process. Set the standard and tone for who you’re bringing in with an organized, clear, direct, and legal hiring process. And then onboarding them. How we can avoid disgruntled employee issues starts with how we onboard them because it answers their questions right out the gate without leaving them confused.    Employee Classification Classification varies state by state. Some basics when it comes to the federal law is there are six different factors that go into this but this most common factor to look out for first is that whatever service that your business provides, if this person is delivering on that service, then they need to be an employee. For example, a copywriting agency hiring a copywriter.  These laws are trying to prevent larger businesses from exploiting smaller businesses and individuals. For example, if someone is acting as an employee and controlled by the person that employs them, then they do deserve the benefit of getting unemployment if they get let go. This law is trying to prevent that and create competition between businesses so there are fewer monopolies to avoid large businesses buying everything and then the small businesses have to go work for them.    Legally Protecting Your Business Kira recommends handling your basic legal first before hiring employees. You don’t need to be expanding and scaling your business if you don’t have good contracts or a trademarked business because they are the things that you’re protecting when it comes to your employees too and we talk about your handbook, protecting the assets you create, etc.    Get in Touch with Kira La Forgia Follow Kira on Instagram @theparadigmm Connect with Kira on LinkedInListen to Kira’s podcast, People on Purpose

On today's episode of the podcast I chat with online business owner Dama Jue about her revenue, her offer structure, and why one funnel and offer structure is not for everyone.  About Dama Dama is the owner of DamaJue.com and ThrivecartTemplateShop.com. She got her start as an accountant. After moving to Central America with her husband for a year, she invested in a Pinterest management course, pivoted to Pinterest management, and that transitioned into helping online business owners with their funnels, strategy, and implementation, and got deep into Thrivecart which led to also creating Thrivecart templates.  What to Know About Creating Funnels Dama describes funnels in your business like going to Ikea. You come to your website and it’s less poke and browse and more of a direct route you want people to take to create desire and demand. A funnel is basically a website that has one goal.  Dama built traditional funnels for many clients where you get people to sign up for your webinar to get their emails and promote your course or offer. But it didn’t bring her joy to create them for herself so she moved to an experimentation model for her own business. With a traditional funnel, Dama found that if you didn’t want what was being sold right now, you wouldn’t necessarily see it again once the funnel was over. Dama’s business model is the opposite.  How Dama Runs Her Business Dama has a multi-offer business model that she calls The Snackable Offer Ecosystem. She knew that with her ADHD she was not someone who would watch a multi-module course or sit down for several lessons so she wanted to create offers for other business owners who felt the same. Her offers are succinct to get the results you want, for example her training on Onbrand Fillable Workbooks that help you make your Google Docs look more visually appealing and professional. The training is 54 minutes and something you can implement while you watch.  Dama’s number one channel is email marketing. Her goal if you are on your website is to get on her email list. She has freebies and $9 offers, both of which are ways to get people on her email list. She also has $77+ offers, but doesn’t expect that people will buy those the first time they land on her site. Her best fit customers buy her $9 Google Doc or got on her list through a summit or hearing her on a podcast. Ads haven’t worked well for her. She’s currently trying buying ad sponsorships on other entrepreneurs' email lists.  She also runs a group program called Your Next 100 to help you get the next 100 sales of your digital products. Every four to six weeks she runs a live workshop and sells a corresponding offer. She then connects it to other offers she has and sells it in the background through backlinks, upsells, etc.  She also sells them in an evergreen email funnel that is made up of her best performing sales emails.  The Numbers Behind Dama’s Most Recent Launch Dama recently launched her group program, Your Next 100, which she opens twice a year. She did a webinar about it in April and sent 55 emails about it (which she called an audacious amount, though she gave the option to opt out of the promo emails). She promo-ed for three weeks, had cart open for two weeks, and during this past launch, in the first 48 hours if you joined the $2,000 program she offered a custom-designed Thrivecart sales page for free (which on its own is a $2,000 offer). The launch made over $90k.  Today, Dama’s income breakdown is about ⅓ group program, 40% digital products and 20$ affiliate income. Previously, it was ⅓ affiliate income and ⅔ digital products.  Get in Touch with Dama Jue To get the resources mentioned on today’s episode, head to DamaJue.com/bdufp

We're back! After a nine month hiatus I've decided to bring back the Unf*ck Your Biz with Braden podcast, and I have lots to fill you in on.   This week’s episode is brought to you by the Contract Club®. All the contracts you need, all in one place. Just pay the cover, and you’re in for life.  What's Been Going On Over the Past Year+ I moved out of my home in San Diego into a 500 square foot apartment after my divorce I met a lovely man named Derrick, he's a psychiatrist in the Navy. He was recently stationed to North Carolina and we bought a house in coastal NC and got married! I retired our $750/month retainer service in February. A difficult decision because it brought in about $3k in recurring monthly revenue which was enough to cover my team’s payroll and software expenses. Some of my team went on to focus on their own businesses and the agency model didn’t feel like it was for me either. I decided to move our signature program Unf*ck Your Biz to one singular launch per year in December. We continue to offer trademark services and the Contract Club. Filling a gap in my offer suite, I’m launching something in October that I’ve been wanting to do for a very long time.  Why I Took a Podcast Break I felt like it was getting stale and I was just repeating myself after almost 400 episodes. Every week felt like I was phoning it in and that didn’t feel fun for you or for me.    Why I'm Bringing the Podcast Back There have been a lot of legal updates under our current administration My business has grown a lot and I felt like I had lost the cornerstone of it without my podcast. I wanted direction on what I was going to talk about every week in my business and marketing. I've missed talking to people. I’ve met new business friends and I want to interview them on my podcast. It keeps me accountable. I share my profit reports every month about how much I made, what my expenses were, and what my goals are for the next month.    What to Expect from the Podcast Moving forward, you’ll find interviews with other business owners on legal, tax, and money topics. I’ll be sharing important legal and tax updates as well as my own monthly profit reports. If you’re a business owner who wants to share your own profit report on the podcast, slide into my DMs.    Have a topic you want to hear on the podcast? Send me a DM on Instagram or Threads @bradenadamdrake

On today's episode of the podcast I'm talking about terrible advice I see on the internet and how to avoid it. I'm only sharing 10 of the terrible pieces of advice I often see on the Internet, but I could have made this a multi-part episode.  1. Don't form an LLC until you hit $30,000 in revenue. -  I hear lots of mythical revenue markers but there's no magic number because LLCs provide liability protection at any revenue. The more money you make, the more liability you're likely open to because you're more working with more clients which can lead to more problems. The longer you wait the more hassle it is to form an LLC.  2. Form an S Corp right away. - When you form an S Corp you are legally required to put yourself on payroll, pay yourself a reasonable recurring salary, and have profit leftover in your business which you can't do if you aren't making money when you start right away.  3. Just use LegalZoom. - I'm not a huge fan for many reasons including lack of added benefits. They ask you questions to fill out a form you can fill out for free yourself online. They charge you to get an EIN when you get your EIN for free on the IRS website.  4. Just do it yourself. - If you scroll through social media I frequently see people say "use LegalZoom" or "do it yourself" or "go work with a lawyer."  I suggest somewhere in-between. The problem with doing it yourself is we've seen clients who did it incorrectly. Once you file, you need to maintain your LLC compliance requirements including back franchise taxes. I believe in a well-rounded approach of doing it yourself, with guidance which is why I started creating courses.  5. You don't need trademarks. - This is kind of like telling someone you don't need health insurance. You hope you'll never need to enforce it, but if you need to use it and don't have it, it's a problem.  6. Trademark everything. - It depends on who you are as a business owner and what you're launching.  7. Don't trust templates. - The person who writes the contract template understands your industry, your business, and these templates are typically based on contracts they've custom written for clients.   8. You don't need to do that. - This can refer to a lot of things, but I see it often with things like BOI (Beneficial Information Ownership reports), testimonial requirements, website compliance, etc. Too often people think these laws are for big corporations like Amazon or Target and not small businesses like us, but we see it happen to small businesses all the time.  9. Just write it off. - Not everything is a tax deduction! You need to be using it for business. And writing it off doesn't make it free. Focus on buying things that have a high ROI.  10. You can pay $0 in taxes. - Not every strategy is helpful, even if it's not fraudulent. You may end up owing more in the long run and all tips don't apply to all businesses.

On today's episode I'm sharing whether or not I hit my profit goals for October and what I'm projecting for November.  Conduct your own monthly profit reports with my free template at notavglaw.com/profitreport October was a bit of transition month. It's the start of our 6ish month busy season, but we didn't have any formal launches. We launched Unf*ck Your Biz® in September and will be wrapping up working with those folks this week. October ended up being a big month for trademarks as you can see. We also booked a VIP Day client and some other one-off consultations. Here's a summary of the projections versus actual revenue numbers: • Contract Club: $2,000 → $2,550• Unf*ck Your Biz $0 → $350• Unf*cked: $2,000 → $2,000• Compliance Club $700 → $700• Monthly Clients: $4,500 → $4,600• Trademarks $8,000 → $13,000• Other: $1,000 → $4,800Total: $18,200 → $28,200

On today's episode of the podcast I'm  Download the Contractor Onboarding Toolkit at notavglaw.com/toolkit. Inside you'll find the State by State Contractor Classification Cheat Sheet, the California Contractor Compliance Framework. and the Essential Contract Considerations for Your Contractor Agreement. When going through contractor onboarding, we need to go through a few steps:  1. Determine if someone is a contractor or employee This is the first layer of protection on my Legal Layers of Protection. Layer 1 is protection, and it's basically just "don't break the law." This is why you need to make sure your new hires are classified correctly, because misclassification is illegal and there are interests and penalties when you get audited. These laws are dictated by state. This is where the State by State Contractor Classification Guide in our Toolkit comes in handy. Each state has different classification laws, with about 30 states using the ABC test. California is known for enforcing it the most after they passed the AB5 Law. You can implement this test with our , and you can learn more about that in the California Contractor Compliance Framework Part A - Control - You can't have too much control over your contractors and their work.  Part B - A business owner may not provide services that are within the usual course of the hiring entity's business. For example, a lawyer hiring a lawyer to provide legal services, a photographer hiring a second photographer, these would need to be employees. It's not just this simple, it's anything that's integral to your business that you're doing all the time. This is the part of the test that a lot of people fail.   Part C - Someone can only be a contractor if you're hiring them to provide a service that they already have a business doing. For example, if you're hiring a photographer who has a photography business to come do your brand photos.  2. What type of contractor are they?  If you've determined them to legally be a contractor, ask yourself if they are working in your business or are they a project-based contractor? If you are a project-based contractor, you may consider yourself a service provider offering B2B services. If you are the service provider, you are likely the one to provide the contract versus the person hiring you giving you a contractor agreement. Also consider who's leading the conversation? Be careful to avoid the use of the term "controlling" the situation, as that brings you back to test A on control.  3. Contractor onboarding  If the contractor is the one leading the conversation/process to provide you the service, they should be providing you the contact, sending you the invoices, etc. When hiring a contractor, make sure you get a contractor agreement, ideally a copy of their business license (in some states they need to have their own business in order to be a contractor), and have them provide you a W9 (get this up front so you don't have to chase them down for a 1099 later on).  What should go in the contract?  You want their address, you want to specify the exact services they'll be providing, you want to outline the payment terms and you want provisions in there that this is a work-for-hire agreement. You can find all of these in the Contractor Agreement in the Contract Club (notavglaw.com/club). I also recommend a sophisticated onboarding tool (I use Gusto) to connect the W9, their ID and all the necessary tax information and then Gusto will automate the 1099 come tax time.    It's important to note that before hiring a contractor or employee, you want to have an LLC and just generally have your shit together. If your business is already messy, it can look even messier once you start to bring outside people in. I dive into this more in my book, Unf*ck Your Biz (available at notavglaw.com/book).   Download the Contractor Onboarding Toolkit at notavglaw.com/toolkit. Inside you'll find the State by State Contractor Classification Cheat Sheet, the California Contractor Compliance Framework. and the Essential Contract Considerations for Your Contractor Agreement.

On today's episode of the podcast I'm covering the three main traps I see business owners get stuck in and how to get yourself out if you're trapped.  1. The Carousel of Chaos (of Contradictory Advice) This trap occurs when business owners seek answers to legal and tax questions, but receive conflicting advice and are left confused. There are three stages of awareness on the carousel: Stage 1: Not knowing what you don't know (blissful ignorance). Stage 2: Knowing what you don't know (issue-aware, realizing a problem exists). Stage 3: Basic understanding (acquiring sufficient information to grasp the issue). The solution? Business owners need to develop enough foundational knowledge to understand the nuances of professional advice, weigh conflicting information, and ultimately make informed decisions for their specific situation. This involves being "issue-aware" so you know when to ask the right questions and how to process the answers. 2. The Oh Shit Cycle of Back Taxes This trap is the recurring pattern of business owners not saving to pay quarterly taxes, leading to accumulating tax debt that becomes increasingly difficult to manage. Many self-employed  people don't realize that, unlike W2 employees, taxes are not automatically withheld from their income, leading to unexpected tax bills. The solution? To break the cycle, prioritize saving for current year's taxes. Allocate the exact amount needed for current taxes first, then use any remaining discretionary income to pay off back taxes. This might prolong the repayment of old debt, but it prevents future debt from accumulating. 3. The WTF Happened to My Money Hamster Wheel I often see that the more business owners earn, the more they spend, leaving them feeling financially stuck despite bringing in more money.  The solution? A more disciplined routine. Instead of immediately spending new earnings, set clear savings goals and financial milestones. This helps detach spending habits from earning capacity, ensuring that increased revenue translates into real financial growth and stability.

On today's episode of the podcast I'm talking with Ashley Rose of Systems Over Stress about her report, taking out loans, and how she came out on top after difficult times impacted her business. Consider this episode a sequel to Ashley's episode of The Get Paid Podca$t with Claire Pelletreau, which you can listen to here. Check out that episode to hear more about Ashley's recently difficult time and what led her to where she is now. A look at Ashley's Business Started her business in 2020 after leaving her job pre-COVID to do in-person events Decided to launch a course “Be Your Own COO” in April 2020, made $2,500 Divorced in 2023 Took out a $43,000 Stripe loan, decided to still keep business rolling Sells templates and group coaching offers Year-to-Year 2021: $137,000 2022: $166,000 2023: $268,000 → selling a lot of high ticket and had a lot of high bills 2024: $257,000 (goal was $350,000) Profit & Loss 2025 YTD through beginning of June 2025 Revenue Group Program: $202,000 Templates: $25,000 VIP Days + Consulting: $6,400 Live Workshops: $4,200 Expenses Payroll: $22,000 Distribution: $41,000 Contractors: $30,000 Affiliate payouts: $3,700 Education & Training: $11,000 (includes an $8k mastermind) Legal and Professional: $1,400 Office supplies/software: $3,700 Other/Misc.: $10,000 Total: $83,000 Get in Touch with Our Guest Ashley Rose, owner of Systems over StressLearn more about Ashley at systemsoverstress.coSubscribe to the Systems Over Stress YouTube Channel @systemsoverstress   Interested in sharing your numbers on the Unf*ck Your Biz podcast? Email [email protected]

On today's episode I'm sharing whether or not I hit my profit goals for September, what I'm projecting for October, and what my plans are looking like for 2026.  Conduct your own monthly profit reports with my free template at notavglaw.com/profitreport September Projections vs. Actual • Contract Club: $3,000 → $2,100• Unf*ck Your Biz $2,000 → $2,000• Profit Rx: $7,000 → $6,500• Compliance Club $1,500 → $700• Monthly Clients: $4,500 → $3,350• Trademarks $7,000 → $6,500• Other: $1,000 → $1,700Total: $18,200 → $28,200• 1:1 Services: $2,500 → $5,050• Other: $4,000 → $2,100   Profit  Revenue: $20,500Cost of Goods: $3,500Expenses: $4,600Owner Profit: $12,500Salary: $7,000Business Profit: $5,550 Additional Notes: Savings Goals: $25,000 Currently, almost, to $21,000. Hoping to hit $25,000 by the end of this month. I’ve taken about the whole year. Then, the goal is to pay off my car I just bought earlier this year. Current balance owed is $30,000. I think I can get half way there by the end of the year. And then wrap that up in Q1. After that, I want to build the business savings up to about $50,000 before I start on big personal goals. October Projections Contract Club: $2,000Unf*ck Your Biz: $0Profit Rx: $2,000Compliance Club: $700Monthly Clients: $4,500Trademarks: $8.000Other: $1,000Total: $18,200   The Future of the Business I’m already looking ahead to 2026. We want to finish this year strong and shoot for $400,000 in revenue, but I’m thinking more about the long-term sustainability of the business rather than planning for another big launch or two. It’s all about income consistency. How I want to achieve income consistency • Continue to grow the trademark side of the business with the trademark monitoring service, Trademark Rx• Continue to grow (the new) Profit Rx• UYB and the alumni program•  And continue to use the Contract Club to bring in leads.• Use the Compliance Club as an upsell. 2026 Goal: $15,000 MRR

On today's episode of the podcast I'm breaking down the good, the bad and the ugly of the Big Beautiful Bill and how it impacts small business owners. The “Big Beautiful Bill” passed in July. Trump and the right are calling it a game-changer for small businesses and working families. On the surface, there are a few provisions worth celebrating. But as always, the devil is in the details. Much of the bill’s benefit flows upward, not into the hands of true small business owners, freelancers, or everyday entrepreneurs. Let’s break it down. The “Good” (At First Glance) There are some shiny pieces in the bill that sound great: Bigger Deduction for Pass-ThroughsOwners of LLCs, sole proprietorships, and S-corps now qualify for a 23% deduction on pass-through income (up from 20%). If you’re already making decent money, this can cut your tax bill. If you’re curious how this deduction works, I discuss that towards the end of Chapter 4 in the Unf*ck Your Biz book. No Tax on Tips & Overtime (for a while)Tipped income up to $25,000 and overtime pay up to $12,500 can be excluded from taxes between 2025–2028, as long as you fall under certain income thresholds. That’s a temporary boost for some service workers. This is a tricky provision that will save some folks some minor taxes. Child Tax Credit BumpFamilies get a small, temporary increase in the Child Tax Credit, nudging it upward by $200. However, the bill also introduced stricter eligibility requirements. To claim the credit, both the taxpayer and the qualifying child must have valid Social Security numbers. This change could exclude millions of children from receiving the credit, particularly affecting low-income families Permanent Expensing for Equipment Businesses can now permanently write off the full cost of qualifying equipment in the year they buy it (100% Section 179 expensing). That’s useful if you’re investing in new tools, tech, or machinery. Estate & Gift Tax BreaksFamily-owned businesses and farms get higher exemptions from estate and gift taxes, making it easier to transfer assets to the next generation without a huge IRS bill. This expands, once again, tax breaks for the ultra wealthy as the first $13.61 million was already excluded.  The “Not So Beautiful” Reality While the headlines sound fabulous, here’s what’s lurking beneath: Temporary Gimmicks  The no-tax-on-tips and overtime breaks expire after 2028. Same with the boosted child credit. They’ll feel good for a few years, but unless Congress acts again, they vanish. Skewed Toward the WealthyAccording to the Tax Policy Center, 60% of the tax cuts in the bill would go to the top 20% of households, with more than one-third benefiting those making $460,000 or more. In contrast, the lowest-income 20% would see a tax cut of less than 1%, or about $160 on average, and including the loss of some Affordable Care Act health insurance premium subsidies, their net tax cut would fall to only about $60. Additionally, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the top 10% of earners would see incomes rise by 2.7% by 2034 mainly due to tax cuts, while the lowest 10% would see incomes fall by 3.1% due to cuts to programs such as Medicaid and food aid. These analyses highlight the disproportionate distribution of tax benefits, with higher earners receiving significantly more substantial cuts compared to lower-income households. Cuts Elsewhere to Pay for ItTo offset revenue loss, the bill guts key credits for clean energy and electric vehicles—areas where many small businesses and families were saving money. At the same time, it sets the stage for future cuts to social programs like Medicaid and SNAP that working families actually rely on. Deficit ExplosionThe Congressional Budget Office projects this will blow up the federal deficit. And history tells us that when deficits balloon, lawmakers often come for small business programs or the social safety net next. Complexity Creeps InPoliticians called this “simplification,” but the IRS and tax pros now face a mountain of changes to implement. For many small business owners, that means more time with your accountant and more money out of your pocket just to stay compliant. Health Insurance & Medicaid: The Coverage Cliff If you or your team rely on the ACA marketplace, brace yourself: the enhanced premium tax credits that made health insurance more affordable are set to expire at the end of 2025. That means monthly premiums could skyrocket. A 60-year-old couple earning $85,000 could see their annual premium jump from around $7,000 to over $22,000 (Kaiser Family Foundation). On the Medicaid side, the bill makes deep cuts—hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade. It also reintroduces work-reporting requirements and forces enrollees to reverify eligibility every six months starting in 2027. Millions of people will fall through the cracks, not because they don’t qualify, but because the paperwork is too complex or because they lose hours at work. For small businesses, this means: Higher costs if you cover employees. Less stable coverage for staff and contractors. Communities with more uninsured neighbors, which ultimately hurts local economies. The Bigger Picture The bill is marketed as “beautiful” because it offers short-term tax cuts and shiny perks. But it comes with a long-term price tag: exploding deficits, weakened safety nets, and higher health costs for millions. History shows us what comes next: calls for even deeper cuts to programs small business owners actually rely on, like SBA loans, workforce training, and infrastructure. So yes, you might get a slightly bigger deduction today. But tomorrow? You’re looking at higher health premiums, fewer community supports, and a more fragile economy to build your business in. That’s not so beautiful. My jaded take. Republicans have a tendency to cut programs that make real differences in people’s lives, they phase out health care assistance, cut medicaid, and act in favor of large corporations. But then they will throw us all an extra $200 tax credit, send it with a check with Trump’s signature. Maybe if we’re lucky, we will get a Trump commemorative coin, a hat, or a box of steaks. Wooo. They rely on us remembering the simple things and forgetting about or not understanding the more complex laws they passed that furthers the wealth divide and makes life harder for almost everyone. As always, stay informed, keep your tax pro close, and don’t buy the spin just because it comes with a flashy name.

On today's episode of the podcast we're analyzing our Not AVG Law trademark data, the trademark process, and what it's like to file a trademark when you work with us. Not AVG Law started filing trademarks in early Spring 2023. I have a law school degree and a Master's in Tax Law, but when I started my business I was teaching myself additional areas of law that I hadn't taken courses on in law school because I started out focused on health law. Trademarks was not a specialty when I started my business so around 2019 I started referring clients to a trademark attorney I knew, only to find out she'd started ghosting clients and later had issues with her state's bar association for signing contracts, taking money and not completing the work. I started referring clients to another attorney was wonderful, but I decided I could and should do this on my own. I was leaving revenue on the table and a lot of our clients needed this.  In 2023 I took a $3,000 program on trademarks, got coaching from an experienced trademark attorney, and I started taking on clients. A few months into that I came up with the idea of Trademark Quickies, a search report we run that gives us the info to say "This mark looks worth pursuing," or "This mark looks like it'd be very tough to file."  Book your Trademark Quickie at notavglaw.com/trademarks The Quickie idea stemmed from the fact that I pay for a single day license of a sophisticated attorney software to run trademark search reports for clients and I wanted to offset the cost while also helping people be able to start their trademark search before they pay us for the entire filing service and then have us search. So I'd open the search once a month and fill it from the waitlist I had up on our site that people could add their name to at any time. Today, you can book them at any time without a waitlist.  Since starting in 2023, I've booked 191 Trademark Quickie searches and run 280 (the discrepancy being a BOGO search promo and the searches that are included for our 1-on-1 monthly clients. The Trademark Quickie Search service has proven to be beneficial not just for clients, but at $100 it's a comfortable price point to get started on your trademark without being something that just sounds fun, they're buying from a place of interest in possibly filing a trademark.  Trademark Quickies by the Numbers:Searches Booked: 191Quickie Search Revenue: $15,100 Trademark Filing Revenue generated: $103,760 The Trademark Filing Process: 1. Book a Trademark Quickie Search. You'll receive two reports - one with all the details from the software that pulls any trademarks that could be confusingly similar along with our report summary and determination with a green, yellow, orange or red flag on the likelihood of filing success. Of our 280 searches, 171 have gotten green flags, 87 have gotten yellow, 17 have gotten orange flags and 5 have gotten red flags meaning 92% of these trademarks have been worth pursuing.  2. Apply for a trademark. If your search resulted in anything other than red, you have the option to work with us to file your trademark, and we do offer a discount to our Quickie Searchers who book their filing within a week of their Quickie results. Of the 280 Quickie searches, we've booked 97 trademarks (a 35% conversion rate) 3. Wait. Once your trademark is filed it can an examiner from the USPTO 8-12 months to review your application. If they see any issues, they'll give an office action.  We're still waiting on results for many of those 97 filings, but of the ones we've filed and heard on, we've only had 5 or 6 "denied" meaning the USPTO said there is a confusingly similar trademark and you can pursue an argument if you choose to. Of these 5, only one was a green flag (I was newer to offering this service), 3 yellow flags, and one orange flag. This gives us a 98% filing success rate on green flags and 91% on yellow flags which is where I want it to be so the flag system is working appropriately.  Tracking this data has helped me give better filing odds to our clients.