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.

There are some shiny pieces in the bill that sound great:

Bigger Deduction for Pass-Throughs
Owners 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 Bump
Families 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 Breaks
Family-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. 

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 Wealthy
According 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 It
To 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 Explosion
The 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 In
Politicians 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.

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:

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: 191
Quickie 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. 

On today's episode of the podcast I'm chatting with Bombae about her income, revenue and profit as a drag queen and former contestant on Canada's Drag Race. 

Bombae was on Season 3 of Canada's Drag Race. The audition process for Canada's Drag Race takes about three months, and it requires money. You submit a 20 minute video which includes multiple looks, a runway with several outfits, and a Q&A. The cost of this is also dependent on where you are, your current looks, and your skillsets. For example, do you need to rent a studio space to film, do you need to get your wigs redone, do you need to hire a video editor, etc. Bombae negotiated a free studio space, edited the video herself, and ended up spending about $500 to $800 on the video. 

Once you're selected, producers reach out and you get an NDA and other legal documents to sign. You don't get a list just yet of the runways for the season, they want to make sure everyone starts prepping for the show at the same time for fairness. 

When Bombae signed on for Season 3, Canada's Drag Race gave contestants $4,000 for the year. You weren't paid per episode, just the $4,000 to cover a certain date through when the NDA ends which covers the show, any press events, media appearances for the show, etc. 

For Bombae, this money went as soon as it came. She even called her bank to ask when it was coming, only to be told it had already been spent, it's not a lot of money for doing the show. Especially when you need looks for runways and mini challenges each episode. And these are all looks that need to be signed off on by the show's production team ahead of time to avoid copyright issues (unless you want to paid for licensing rights), meaning rushed production time for the looks once the mock-ups have been approved. 

Bombae had one look that cost about $8 or 9,000CAD but she didn't pay for it because the designers that made it offered to do it for free since it would be on Drag Race. Bombae's most expensive look she paid for was about $1200 to $1500CAD. A lot of it comes down to designer connections, where you buy from, what needs to be rushed, etc.

Fashion Expenses:

In total, Bombae estimates she spent $22 - 24000 CAD on looks for her season of Drag Race (compared to some queens who spent $45 to 55,000, and some who haven't even paid it all back yet). To break it down, it looks like:

Heels: $2,000
Wigs: $2,500
Nails: $1,000
Jewelry: $1,000
Outfits: ~$16-18,000

Contestants were allowed to bring five bags with them to the show, they Bombae did try to get in a sixth, back-up bag that was denied. 

When it comes to Drag Race, we also need to consider opportunity cost. Bombae had a full time job at Shopify that she had to resign from because the show requires seven weeks of filming. Even now, Bombae shares that in-person drag has never paid her bills. But, she says that the money you spend on Drag Race you often make back within the year from sponsorships, shows, etc. but that isn't the case for everyone. 

Additional expenses:

$2-3000 for going back to the studio to shoot the runway looks since you need a photographer and videographer
Rent - Bombae noted that she needed to pre-set money aside to cover the two months of rent for her apartment while she was gone since she no longer had her full-time job income. 
Once at the show, food and housing is covered. 

ROI
With brand sponsorships alone post-season, Bombae made $25,000 from viewing party appearances, merch, increases to booking fees and brand partnerships for social media with companies like Neutrogena, Absolut, and Trojan. Her booking fee for in-person events was $200 pre-Drag Race for a show with 2 to 3 numbers. After Drag Race, for corporate producers it would be $2,000 to $3,000. Now, 2-3 years after the season, Bombae is making that money with social media posts at a minimum, which out-pays any gig. 

Bombae was making a margin of $1-2 per merch item in her Shopify store, totaling about $4-5,000 over the last 3 years.  Viewing parties came with lower ticket prices than usual because she wanted attendees to have more money for tips. And for appearances, ~$100 of the $700 would go to her management. 

Bombae also had a booth at Drag Con and shared that there are very few queens who break even. It costs about $8-9,000 to fly there from Canada, pay $500 - $700 for the booth, plus assistants to fly with you, hotels for multiple nights, merch to come in, booth to be decorated, plus food and everything that goes on during the event. She even said some queens had minimum spends on meet and greets/merch. 

To hear more from Bombae, including the lightning round of questions we mentioned in the episode, check out the episode I did with her on the Business of Drag podcast. 

Get in Touch with Our Guest

Bombae 

Follow Bombae on Instagram: @bom.bae
Follow Bombae on TikTok: @bom.bae

On today's episode of the podcast I chat with my book coach, Jodi Brandon, about the process of writing a book for your business. From concept to completion, Jodi works with business owners who want to write a book to help market their business. Jodi is my book coach, friend, and we have been in a business mastermind together for over five years now. 

The doors to my signature program, Unf*ck Your Biz, are currently open. We're capping it at 10 members this go around so if you've been thinking you need to get yout business and tax shit legit, head to notavglaw.com/uyb

I chat with Jodi about the process of writing my book, Unf*ck Your Biz, which stemmed from the curriculum of my signature program of the same name. 

Jodi shares that the key for business owners writing a book is to know how to use it in a way that works for their business. For me, it started as wanting it to be my lead gen offer. I wanted reading the book to make people want to sign up for the program. We still use it like this, but I now aso use it as the textbook for the Unf*ck Your Biz program. 

When I first came out with the book, against Jodi's advice, I left out some of the juicy info so it  because I was worried that people wouldn't join my program if they got everything they needed. But this was not the case, people still needed to implement the work we cover in the book, so I added all the info back in and now it doubles as the course reference book. 

I'm currently on the third edition of my book. There was a year between editions one and two and then two years later we came out with edition three and added in four chapters I currently want to add two more chapters on trademarks and update some of my personal anecdotes, but the content itself is evergreen. 

The book has also been a great tool for in-person conferences. People love a tangible item at tradeshows and events so it's been a great lead gen in that way.  You can also buy the book on its own on my website for $30. 

Jodi has played a role in over 900 books getting published. She sees that small business owners are really dialing in now and paying less attention to what the bigger, traditionally-published authors are doing. There's also been a shift from needing to have your book on Amazon to it being icing on the cake but that the real ROI is coming from direct sales whether of the book individually or in a bundle. 

Jodi has written her own book on the process of writing a book for your business, titled Write. Publish. Market. From Idea to Published Book: The Entrepreneur's Blueprint. The goal for her book is to make the process of writing a book less intimidating for business owners and to know they can hide Jodi if they don't want to DIY the process themselves. It's a top of funnel lead generator for her business along with a credibility/authority boost. 

Get in Touch with Our Guest
Jodi Brandon 
Learn more about Jodi at www.jodibrandoneditorial.com
Get Jodi's book, Write. Publish. Market. at https://www.jodibrandoneditorial.com/book

We're back! After a n

To follow along and run your own monthly profit report, visit notavglaw.com/profitreport

A little bit of a rewind:

Shut down Facebook Group and podcast in January and phased out some offers

It's been quiet but almost too quiet

Decided to bring back the pod

Format moving forward

A recap of Year to Date numbers: 

January - $27,000 - $31,500

February - $33,000 - $41,000

March - $39,000 - $32,000

April - $30,000 - $25,000

May - $26,000 - $26,000

June - $20,000 - $17,000

July - $37,000 - $36,000

On today's episode of the podcast, we're talking about big business changes that are coming based on what has and has not worked for us this year. 

One question I ask myself and continue to ask yourself is, "What can I do less of next year in order to spend more of time on what's working best? What's making the most impact and how can we do more of that?"

Between multiple memberships, courses, social media channels, blog posts, podcasts, guest speaking, summits, bundles, stage speaking, I've been pulled in a lot of directions, especially as our business keeps growing which is fantastic, but comes with push pull. When you say yes to one thing, you say no to something else. 

I've seen areas of growth, I've seen areas of decline, and I'm sharing today how that's impacting what we're doing in 2025. 

What's working for us: 
1. The Contract Club 
2. Speaking 
3. Affiliates

What's Kind of Working
1. Threads (Great for business connections, not as much for sales)
2. Our quiz funnel (People are going through it, need to look more into conversion data)
3. Our blogs (They're a resource, the SEO could be better, I'm not putting more resources into this)

What's not working
1. Instagram, especially stories 
2. Facebook group, engagement is down
3.Too many offers, too much we're trying to do

What I'm not sure about
1. This podcast 

Our 2025 Core Offer Suite
1. Contract Club
2. Compliance Club
3. Unf*ck Your Biz
4.Alumni offers for Unf*ck Your Biz students 

What we're doubling down on in 2025
1. Affiliates (if you aren't already an affiliate, you can become one at notavglaw.com/affiliate)
2. Strategic partnerships/guest speaking in programs
3.Core offer suite
4 Stage speaking/podcast guesting 
5. Threads and Instagram
6. Quiz funnel

What's getting the cut
1. New offers, instead focusing on different launch strategies
2. Growing my business TikTok audience
3. Reddit
4. Our Facebook group - I started this in 2018/2019. I started it as a list builder and as a way to cross promote my offers in the group. The group is now mainly people who are/have been students or bought a program and has mainly turned to a place where they are getting support for the programs they've purchased. Providing this community can be done within our offers in Kajabi. And most of the questions I get on Facebook already are not community-answer questions, they're questions for me and my team. 
5. This podcast - I feel uncomfortable talking about this because I really don't know if it's doing much for us from a business perspective in relation to the effort and with the time saved not planning and recording podcasts, I can nurture other areas of our business, like our offers, so that people naturally want to share them and affiliate market. 

I've found that the podcast is very cyclical, people come for what they need to get answers for where they are in business. Do I talk about the same topics year after year so do I re-record that same episode about LLCs or direct you to a pre-recorded one? 

I'm not ready to make a decision on the podcast right now and have decided the best thing to do is to take a 3-ish week hiatus to spend time with family for the holidays and think about the future of the podcast. I'll be back in January with an announcement of what will be coming next. 

Thank you so much for tuning in! I appreciate you all more than you know. 

I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a DM on Instagram @notavglaw

On today's episode of the podcast I'm sharing 

Are you ready to unf*ck your biz? The doors are now open to our signature program, Unf*ck Your Biz, where we go through our six-part framework to get your legal and tax shit legit through our video course with group coaching support through weekly calls and a group Slack channel. You get access to our bookkeeping spreadsheet, quarterly tax estimator, contractor classification guides by state, our state-by-state business blueprints and so much more. The doors close on Monday, December 16th. Learn more at unfuckyourbiz.com

November was an exciting month, we experimented with new strategies to lead up to the launch so we'll dive into the report but before we do, you can grab your free copy of How to Conduct a Profit Report for Your Business at www.notavglaw.com/355  to follow along with my step-by-step process and run your own profit report.

November Projections vs. Actual

• Monthly Clients: $8,500 → $8,900
• UYB: $0  → $0 (Doors were not open in November)
• Compliance Club: $13,000 → $21,000 
• Contract Club: $7,500 → $13,850  (We did a promotion before we increased the price and it closed December 2nd and we had over $15k those last two days so more will be reflected in our December report)
• Trademarks: $2,500 → $6,750
• Other: $2.500 → $1,500

Total revenue: $33,500 → $52,000 (A record revenue month for me)

Profit

Total revenue: $52,000
Cost of Goods: $227 (printing my books)
Expenses: $22,678
Profit: $29,000
Owner's salary: $5,300 

Total business profit: $23,708

Notable Expenses

• Employee wages: $8,500 (Pretty high, but I had two team members with me at Wedding MBA clocking extra hours at our booth)
• Contractors: $4,000 
This brings my team expenses to $12,500 
• Monthly tools: $1,900 (Higher than usual, but I have an annual payment of $1,500 for Kajabi)
• Affiliate payments: $380 
• Marketing: $800
• Hotels: $1,600
• Trademark client fees: $1,900

How am I feeling about the numbers? 

Prior to November I was not feeling great, we had a pretty bad spring and summer. But November slingshot us over our adjusted goal of $270,000 good goal. We got to $280,000 and with our UYB launch in December, I know we'll be able to hit my adjusted best goal of $300,000 for 2024. 

This was a big profit month, but we know I love transparency, so a lot of this is actually going to loan repayments. In October I took out a $15,000 Stripe loan to help get out of the hole of the summer and run payroll and make investments into our November launch. We went from our Compliance Club launch to Contract Club launch to Unf*ck Your Biz launch. We did our workshops to launch UYB as a paid workshop because there was more content in it than past years but anyone who had the Compliance Club, Contract Club or came by my booth at Wedding MBA had the opportunity to register for free so we had about 700 registrants between our two workshops. 

Compliance Club Debrief

We offered a few price points - $10/month or $180 for lifetime membership to this monthly compliance newsletter, private podcast and additional compliance resources. I started the lifetime membership at $250 and offered it first to the 19 people on our Compliance Club waitlist but even as warm, interested leads, 8 people opted into monthly instead of the lifetime deal. I lowered the price to $180 as I found that interest in a lifetime deals is best when the price of lifetime is just under the cost of 2 years so people would price anchor that at $240 and psychologically under $200 is more attractive. Once I lowered the price, 70 of the next 92 people who joined were lifetime. I capped lifetime at 100 members and we had 101, one person snuck in as I was toggling it off. I then changed lifetime to annual and made it $90. The Compliance Club is not currently open, but you can get on the waitlist at notavglaw.com/compliance. The Compliance Club is also a temporary upsell on paid offers like the Contract Club. 

Total revenue: $20,800
• Lifetime: 101 sales
• Annual: 22 sales
• Monthly: ~80 sales

Our launch goal was 50 monthly sales and 50 lifetime with a stretch goal of 100 lifetime sales. We surpassed those goals. 
 

 Wedding MBA Debrief

• 40 book sales
• 35 Compliance Club lifetime memberships
• ~40 Contract Club sales

Current Project Plans

• Wrap up Unf*ck Your Biz launch
• Move into our Quiet Weeks 
• Run our clubs and programs to a higher level in 2025 
• Doing less to do more in our business in 2025 (I'll dive into this on next week's episode) 

Key Performance Indicators

• Bumps across the board on everything as a result of promotions
• Instagram: +80 new followers
• Facebook group: +50 new members 
• TikTok: -4 followers 
• Website: 40,000 unique visitors (about quadruple what we see in a normal month)
• Quiz starts: 107 starts, 68 finishes 
• Email subscribers: Went up a bit despite higher unsubscribes due to promotion
• Podcast downloads : down

December Projections

• Monthly Clients: $8,500
• Contract Club: $22,200 (we did $18k in sales at the end of our Contract Club promo that fell on December 1st and 2nd) 
• UYB: $35,625 (15 full pay, 25 on monthly payments) I think we'll be a bit below this goal of 40 students based on current data, but we will see) 
• Trademarks: $5,000
• Other: $2,000

Total: $70,875

YTD Revenue

• On track to finish around $330k which would be very exciting considering, especially how the first half of the year went after my mom was put on hospice and passed away.  

If you're dealing with anything in your personal life that's going to make this holiday season or next year rough, remember that you can always circle back to your business goals and take a break for your mental health or to spend time with family. I've been there and many of us have all been there. Keep that in mind as you do your own goal planning and figure out how you're going to make it through. Business is a roller coaster and we can do our best to make it look like a kiddie roller coaster, but there are always hills and valleys and we are here to support your legal and tax goals. 

If you enjoyed today's episode, share it with your biz besties and tag us on Instagram and Threads @notAVGlaw

On this bonus episode of the podcast, I'm inviting you to my open house on December 12th and sharing all the details about how to join Unf*ck Your Biz before the doors close.

If you've been wanting to get your legal and tax shit legit to start 2025 off feeling secure in your business protection, now's the time to join! The doors are now open for our signature program, Unf*ck Your Biz. Learn more at notavglaw.com/uyb Doors close on Monday, December 16th.

Have legal and tax questions? Considering joining Unf*ck Your Biz but aren't sure if it's a good fit? Stop by our open house on Thursday, December 12th at 10:00am PST/1:00pm EST and we can chat, get your questions answered, and go through a run-through of the program. Sign up at notavglaw.com/openhouse

To learn more about the Unf*ck Your Biz program, check out today's episode or visit the website where we cover what's included and the framework of our 10-week, high-touch group program. Get all the details at notavglaw.com/uyb

The Unf*ck Your Biz Framework

1. Account - Update your books, learn how to create and analyze a profit and loss statement. 
2. Tax -Learn how taxes work, what you need to pay, how to calculate your quarterly tax percentage and how to save. 
3. Unf*ck - Complete any back tax strategy, fix any business entity errors, and determine worker classifications.
4. Layer - Update contracts and business insurance and obtain trademark searches. 
5. Form - Learn how business entities work and form or update your LLC, S Corp or Corp. 
6. Flow - Learn how to pay yourself and complete your cash flow policy. 

We'll go through the framework, with implementation weeks built in so you can get the unf*ckening done with the help of the course, weekly group coaching calls and a group Slack channel. 

On today's episode of the podcast we're talking about the importance of leaning into the CEO role of your business. 

The doors are officially open to Unf*ck Your Biz: Your step-by-step framework to get your legal and tax shit legit. The program will help you get your 2024 taxes and bookkeeping wrapped up, make sure your business entity is properly formed going into 2025, getting your legal protections in order including contracts and trademarks and more. It's our signature program that's only available a few times a year and you can join now until December 16th at notavglaw.com/uyb. 

To announce the launch of Unf*ck Your Biz, I hosted two workshops today to help you at your stage of business. If you missed our workshops, check them out at notavglaw.com/masterclass

When you run a business, it's important to have an understanding of everything that goes on in your business. CEO may stand for Chief Executive Officer, but I often say it also stands for Chief Everything Officer, which is very accurate as a small business owner, especially before we hire anyone. As CEO, we need to know all the core aspects of business. Would a CEO ever get handed a P&L statement from the accounting team and not know how to read it? They have to have basic knowledge because they can't make business decisions if they don't know the numbers. 

As CEO, it's important to consider that you're building a business as an asset that's ideally going to provide you, family members, team members, etc. a livable income. You may also decide you want to sell your business one day, even if that doesn't seem possible or of interest right now. What legal structures do you need in order for this to happen? You need layers of legal protection to protect your business. These are the foundations we grow our business on. 

Even if you hire other professionals to manage things bookkeeping or tax strategy, you need to know enough to have savvy conversations with them. When do you go to your lawyer and ask for a new trademark? When do you need to tell your accountant about changes to your business or your personal life that may impact your taxes? No one is keeping track of your business 24/7, you need to proactively be talking to your professionals in order for them to be able to help you. 

 If you want to put on your CEO hat, check out Unf*ck Your Biz at notavglaw.com/uyb

On today's episode of the podcast I'm talking about terrible advice I see on the internet and how to avoid it. 

Next Thursday, December 5th, I'm hosting two workshops - "Legally Launched" and "6-Figure Tax Blueprint," tailored to your needs as a business owner. You'll leave with the core takeaways you need to take action after the workshop. Learn more about which one is right for you and register for the workshop(s) at notavglaw.com/masterclass

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. We'll dive into this deeper on the 6-Figure Tax Blueprint workshop. 

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. 

Register for our December 5th workshop(s) at notavglaw.com/masterclass