AP 0656: My Niche Involves the Use of Dangerous Equipment. How Do I Protect My Business Legally?

AskPat 656 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: What up, everybody. Pat Flynn, and welcome to Episode 656 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions five days a week.

We have a great question today from Serena, but before we get to Serena's question I do want to thank today's sponsor, which is DesignCrowd.com. DesignCrowd.com helps entrepreneurs and small businesses outsource or crowdsource custom graphics, logos and web design from designers all around the world. DesignCrowd has more than a half million designers from over a hundred different countries ready to help you with any creative and design projects you might have. If you want to check them out and actually get a VIP offer just for the listeners of this show, head on over to designcrowd.com/askpat. Again, that's designcrowd.com/askpat, and get your VIP offer there. Thanks so much, and here's today's question from Serena.

Serena: Hey Pat, Serena here from thriftdiving.com, which is a do-it-yourself blog that inspires readers to decorate, improve, and maintain their home on a budget. Here's the question that I have for you today. What do we do as do-it-yourself crafty bloggers who … We put out a lot of tutorials. A lot of instructions using power tools, using other kinds of chemicals. What do we do if one of our readers injures themselves? So, they've tried a project, they've used a power tool, they hurt themselves. Maybe they tried to paint a piece of furniture that was an antique and they ruined it because of something that we said or something that they saw on our site. How do we protect ourselves from that?

Is it that we put a disclaimer on every post? Do we put a disclaimer in a menu tab? What do we do to protect ourselves? Or do we get insurance? I would love to hear your response on this because it's plaguing me and I feel like I need to protect myself. Thank you so much and I love your podcast. I love everything that you do for entrepreneurs online. Have a great day!

Pat Flynn: Hey, Serena. Thanks so much. I appreciate the question, all support, and I think it's really cool what you're doing. I think DIY stuff is awesome, it's addicting, it's fun, and I completely agree that this is something you should worry about. Anybody can sue anybody over anything, right? If somebody gets hurt, or like you said, ruins something that they were doing because of something that you instructed them to. It doesn't take much for a person to say, “Hey you know what, I want my money back for this, I'm going to take Serena out.” Or whatever. That's the way the world works, and we have to protect ourselves for sure.

Now obviously, and this is a disclaimer, I am not a lawyer myself. I have my own attorney and in many cases, we have to consider similar things. Now, I'm not telling people to use power tools or anything like that, but I'm sharing how to build online businesses and certain things may or may not happen. Definitely have to protect myself, and the best thing I can share with you is the fact that I finally got smart and hired my own attorney to help me through all this stuff. There's a lot that goes into it. This is the person who writes all the disclaimers on the site, all the terms of service, all those affiliate agreements and checks everything for me just to make sure I'm covered legally on everything.

I also will say that I do have insurance and I think it's something that would be smart to have. Although, I've only needed it once, which I mean, that makes it all worth it, of course. That was when my site got hacked, not for anything that I made somebody do or told somebody to do. I got to recoup some of the costs of what I lost. Anyway, that's a whole other story. Insurance is smart too and I think there's, obviously, a ton of options out there.

What I would say is start with your existing network of DIY bloggers and see if they have any attorneys that they work with to help protect themselves too, but it is something that you should definitely protect yourself. It may just be as simple as, and again I'm just speaking based on my own experience of what I've seen, maybe a disclaimer, maybe something that people have to click before they end up entering your site depending on where you live. There's a lot of things that go … that are involved with this. Again, find an attorney who knows this stuff and start with your network because that would be likely somebody who … somebody could recommend somebody who actually is doing a good job for them and you'd be able to use them too. It's not going to be a couple dollars to do that, of course, but when you think of the cost that you might save when you actually do cover yourself for certain things or you cover your butt for anything that might happen. Yeah, it's totally worth it and it's just something that needs to be done once typically in terms of figuring out what to say and where to put those legal terms and whatnot.

It's kind of crazy, but I think you're very smart by asking this question, and I would hope everybody has their bases covered too. Especially for something like that where, like you said, power tools, somebody could lose a limb. Or just … chemicals … I think it's really smart, Serena. Find an attorney, have them help you out. You'll have peace of mind, which is worth a lot, of course.

Serena, thank you so much for the question, and I want to send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show. Thanks you so much. For those of you who have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show, thank you so much and please continue to ask your questions at askpat.com. That's where you go. There's a big red button. Hit the record button. Boom! Your question's in the bank, and I may choose it and you might win a t-shirt.

Thanks so much, everybody who has spent time with me today and in any episode of AskPat. I appreciate your time, and as always, we finish off with a quote. Today's quote is from John Paul Aguilar. He says, “Nothing big will happen in your life until you build off the many small things.” One step at a time, people, one step at a time. Thanks so much, take care, and I'll see you the next episode of AskPat. Bye.