Legal Help for Your Business

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (38.5MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | Email | RSS | More

Carolyn Jahnke – Athena Legal Solutions LLC

Podcast Overview:

Podcast Transcription:

Carolyn Jahnke [00:00:00]:
Like you don’t have to form an LLC, right? Like that’s not.

James [00:00:03]:
You do not. That is true.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:00:04]:
You do not, right? So you could choose to leave all your business and personal assets intermingled. But now you’re putting your personal assets at risk if something happens in your business and vice versa.

James [00:00:17]:
So Yeah. Is that

Carolyn Jahnke [00:00:18]:
a risk you On take?

James [00:00:21]:
You have found Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggles, stories, and triumphs and successes of business owners across the land. Downloadable audio episodes can be found in the podcast link found at draw in customers dot com. We are locally underwritten by the Bank of Sun Prairie, and today, we’re welcoming slash preparing to learn from Carolyn Jahnke, the founding attorney of Athena Legal Solutions. So Carolyn, how is it going today?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:00:46]:
Good. How are you?

James [00:00:47]:
I am excited. We’re talking business law.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:00:50]:
Always exciting.

James [00:00:51]:
So right? What could be more exciting than that?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:00:53]:
They’re like, oh, the lawyers.

James [00:00:54]:
Yeah. So let’s just start with what is Athena Legal Solutions?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:00:59]:
Sure. So we are a virtual law firm. So we don’t have an office. Oh. And but we have attorneys in Wisconsin and Illinois. And so not having one of those big fancy offices allows us to have a lower rate. And we primarily focus on serving women entrepreneurs. So helping them protect, grow, and then harvest the value from their business.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:01:18]:
So, and you know, doing a business is hard. So having somebody who can be an advocate and a cheerleader in your corner is Yeah. Kinda what we’re there for.

James [00:01:26]:
Alright. And tell me, how long have you had this?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:01:28]:
This is 5 years.

James [00:01:30]:
Oh, nice. The big hurt. The big hurdle. Yep.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:01:33]:
Made it made it to 5.

James [00:01:35]:
Nice. So what made you decide I gotta start this law firm?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:01:39]:
I have a passel of kids.

James [00:01:41]:
Okay.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:01:41]:
I have 4.

James [00:01:42]:
A pass

Carolyn Jahnke [00:01:43]:
what did you say? A passel?

James [00:01:44]:
What is a passel?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:01:45]:
A whole bunch. Okay. A whole bunch of kids. Whenever I say 4 Legal, like, oh, 4 kids.

James [00:01:49]:
Yeah. I come from a family of 5. So I know So

Carolyn Jahnke [00:01:52]:
it’s not that big.

James [00:01:53]:
That’s not, it’s a lot.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:01:56]:
Yeah. Yeah. So I have 4 kids, and I was working corporate and working, you know, 80 hours a week. And I was like, my oldest is gonna graduate in 5 years, and I am gonna have missed it all.

James [00:02:09]:
Oh, okay.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:02:10]:
I’m never gonna see him or them and be part of that experience. And so I had a chance to kinda go out on my own and Yeah.

James [00:02:19]:
I was

Carolyn Jahnke [00:02:19]:
like, well, I wanna do something on my own, but I don’t know what. And then this kind of fell into my lap because people started calling me. They were like, hey, we heard you’re not doing anything right now. Could you help us with this contract?

James [00:02:30]:
That’s funny. Could you, We heard you’re bored.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:02:34]:
Yeah. With 4 kids. Alright. So I was like, oh, sure. Like, I can help with that. And I yeah. I can help you start a nonprofit. And then Call of a sudden, I was like, this is a business.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:02:46]:
Alright.

James [00:02:46]:
This isn’t the business I was gonna

Carolyn Jahnke [00:02:48]:
go into, but this is great. And it helped me kinda refine my love of the law, helping small businesses. Because, I mean, these are people putting it on the line every day and really getting a chance to, like, dig in and help them. So which is different than, you know, a corporate.

James [00:03:04]:
So corporate, what type of law were you doing with corporate?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:03:07]:
So Business, what I do now.

James [00:03:09]:
Okay. Just on a larger scale?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:03:11]:
Just much larger scale.

James [00:03:12]:
Okay. So when you would work on something Mhmm. At the corporate side, would it be you and 50 other attorneys or something like that? Or

Carolyn Jahnke [00:03:20]:
Yeah. Like, if there was a big acquisition, there was all the people who had different specialties who would work on it. But the last part of my career, I was in a start up within a large corporation.

James [00:03:28]:
Oh.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:03:29]:
So I was, like, managing the legal. And so I coordinated with all the other lawyers to say, here’s our risks. I need to pull you in because you’re an expert here, maybe On employment law or you’re an expert in, you know, IT or something. And so

James [00:03:43]:
Alright. Yeah. So what type of law do you focus on now with Athena?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:03:47]:
Business. Business. So business. So thinking about how you form your entity, thinking about contracts of every single kind, bringing on employees, trademarks, copyrights, and then we also do estate planning now.

James [00:04:01]:
Oh, you do?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:04:01]:
Okay. To kinda do the full circle because we kinda felt like we were leaving clients. You know, we’d be like, oh, we can help you all the way to here, and then they had to go off. And so

James [00:04:11]:
now I can tell you when I was chatting with my attorney, I don’t know, a year or 2 ago, something like that, we’re talking about this stuff and that stuff, forming LLCs, taxes, s corporation. And he kept saying you gotta talk to your accountant about that. Yep. Gotta talk to this other attorney about that. Gotta talk to this person about that. Like, what do you do? Ordinate. Yeah. General On, very expensive general contractor.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:04:38]:
Yeah.

James [00:04:38]:
And so I appreciate those that can do it all under the same umbrella.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:04:43]:
We don’t do it all. I will say

James [00:04:44]:
that. We don’t do it all. We don’t do it all. We don’t do it all. We don’t say exclusively all. But a lot or enough where we can say when we’re targeting I remember talking to my attorney specifically, trying to think about there’s different businesses that I have going on. I’m trying to figure out how do I arrange those Oh. Under which LLCs, and then which ones are taxed as whatever.

James [00:05:05]:
And And just figuring out the best way set there’s we’re talking about privacy.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:05:09]:
Oh, yeah.

James [00:05:10]:
And then what happens if I get hit by a bus? Mhmm. What happens if podcast explodes and we get 10,000,000 viewers in On episode? Like, certain Business. And he was like, what I got from him, and I’m not saying he’s wrong, because he’s probably not. But I was getting a lot of the answers that were it depends. It depends. And I’m like, I get that, but you know all that we have going On. So let’s just focus on what we’re talking about here instead of telling me it depends because I can be I can say it depends and not have to charge someone 100 of dollars an hour. I could just as easily say I have no idea.

James [00:05:47]:
Right. And it’s I mean, saying it depends is kinda like the same thing in my world. But

Carolyn Jahnke [00:05:51]:
It is. But, I mean, for lawyers, it’s because the fact pattern matters. Right?

James [00:05:55]:
Right. The fact pattern.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:05:57]:
I like it. Okay. Yeah. That’s that’s probably the most legal thing you’ll hear me say. The fact

James [00:06:01]:
that On, yeah. It’s pretty cool.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:06:03]:
It’s worth it. Alright. Because that’s what’s gonna drive it. The other thing I would say that drives it is

James [00:06:09]:
your risk tolerance. Okay. Tell

Carolyn Jahnke [00:06:10]:
me about that. So here’s an example. Everybody calls us and says, what do I do? This happened. And I said, well, it depends because No. I don’t know what you what how what your risk tolerance is. Right?

James [00:06:22]:
So what hold on. Speed limits.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:06:23]:
Let me give you this. This speed limit. Yeah. Everybody knows what the speed limit is. Yep. But there’s the people who go exactly the speed limit. And then there’s people who Most

James [00:06:31]:
people are in the way. Yeah.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:06:32]:
Right. And then there’s the people who go 5 over, because 5 over, no one’s gonna pull me over. Then there’s, like, 10 I feel good about, and then there’s, like, 7 because I’m in between 5 to 10. And then the people who follow the fastest car on the highway, because they’re like, they’re gonna get caught. Well, you know the law is 55.

James [00:06:48]:
Mhmm.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:06:49]:
But you’ve chosen to manage how you behave Okay. Based on your risk tolerance.

James [00:06:54]:
Okay.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:06:55]:
So your lawyer needs to understand how much risk you wanna take. What I might tell you in a given situation might be different from a different person because they’re super conservative. I’m guessing you’re not since you said the people going the speed limit are

James [00:07:08]:
Safe bet.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:07:09]:
In the way.

James [00:07:10]:
Safe bet.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:07:12]:
So so that that’s why it often depends is because it’s not just about what the law says. It’s about how much risk do you On take.

James [00:07:20]:
Okay. So when I think of something like speeding as an example, most people, if the world is moving correctly in my world, are speeding Mhmm. Because we have to keep commerce going

Carolyn Jahnke [00:07:33]:
Yeah.

James [00:07:33]:
To make the money, to pay the taxes kind of thing.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:07:36]:
Mhmm.

James [00:07:37]:
So there’s other things where I feel like, if you get caught doing that, you’re going to go to jail for a 100 years or something like that. Where I’m like, if you get caught speeding, you’re not going to jail for a 100 years. But I bet if you did, if they change this, so when you go to cut speeding, you go to jail for a 100 years. I’d probably drive slower

Carolyn Jahnke [00:07:54]:
Right.

James [00:07:55]:
Or at least without a license plate. Something like that.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:07:57]:
Yeah. Someone’s gonna wear the orange jumpsuit.

James [00:07:59]:
Yeah. That’s how we talk about it. So On the business side, I think, like, if I form this LLC or I do this other thing, like, what are the risks? We’re speeding, you know, like, hey. You get pulled over. You get a ticket. Insurance goes up. You have to talk to people. Your wife is gonna complain.

James [00:08:17]:
So Blah blah blah.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:08:17]:
Here’s like, you don’t have to form an LLC. Right? Like, that’s not

James [00:08:21]:
You do not. That is true.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:08:23]:
You do not. Right? So you could choose to leave all your business and personal assets intermingled.

James [00:08:28]:
Mhmm.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:08:29]:
But now you’re putting your personal assets at risk if something happens

James [00:08:32]:
in your business and vice versa.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:08:32]:
So Yeah. Is something happens in your business Business versa. So Yeah.

James [00:08:35]:
Is that a risk you wanna take? So that

Carolyn Jahnke [00:08:36]:
you know, it’s so interesting

James [00:08:38]:
you say that. Right? So my sister had a yoga Pilates studio in a loft above her garage.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:08:47]:
Mhmm.

James [00:08:47]:
And she had it there, I don’t know, let’s call it 10 years. I don’t know how long it was. But she lives in a cul de sac, and neighbors started complaining because there’s so many people Perfect. Coming and going. Mhmm. Even though I think she said there’s 6 people in a class. So there’s 6 cars coming and going for every class, 3 classes a day. So 18, 20 cars, whatever.

James [00:09:07]:
And some nosy neighbors like, quiet neighborhood. What are you doing with all these cars? Anyways, so the city comes along and says, hey, funny story, you can’t have your business anymore. Here, you gotta go commercial, whatever. So she reaches out to me and she’s like, hey, James, what would you recommend? Like, do we close-up shop or do we stick our neck out and turn this kinda hobby into real business? I asked her about LLC, and she’s like, l l what? And I’m like, wait wait a second, though. But you have people coming To your on your property. You live in Wisconsin, so there’s ice and snow. There’s stairs involved.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:09:45]:
Oh.

James [00:09:46]:
And then it’s a physical activity. Right? Yoga, Pilates, whatever.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:09:49]:
Waivers, things like that.

James [00:09:50]:
All these things. Now it’s like, woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. You gotta get some of that stuff in place before you go further into the risk pool.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:10:00]:
Right.

James [00:10:00]:
And so it’s interesting from that, I end up making a checklist

Carolyn Jahnke [00:10:04]:
Mhmm.

James [00:10:04]:
For every small Business, certainly not everything, but a good start. Having an LLC and all that kind of stuff. But, yeah, I didn’t I don’t even know how I learned about LLCs, but I was like, wait. You don’t have an LLC?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:10:17]:
Yeah. Well, I often hear Legal, people tell me I should do this or people tell me I should do that. There’s a lot of online lawyering that happens.

James [00:10:25]:
Oh my gosh.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:10:25]:
Yes. Different Facebook groups and things like that. Like, everybody says I have to do an s corp. Different Facebook groups and things like that. Like, everybody says I have to do an s corp. Oh. Okay. Don’t do an s corp.

James [00:10:30]:
Right away. File is an LLC.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:10:32]:
It’s a taxation status. Mhmm. Don’t be a corporation unless you need to.

James [00:10:37]:
Like and

Carolyn Jahnke [00:10:37]:
that’s a discussion you have with your accountant because everybody’s financial picture is different. Right? You know, I have a husband with a W2, so how we file our taxes is On be very different than someone who might be a single family. Right? Or you have multiple w two jobs. Right? Mhmm. All of that needs to be taken into consideration before you decide how you wanna be taxed. And that is not something that just somebody on the Internet can tell you.

James [00:11:05]:
No. It’s interesting how we rely on the Internet for information, and it’s almost becoming exclusive.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:11:12]:
Oh, well, yeah. Because if you have to talk to somebody, it’s

James [00:11:15]:
Oh, yeah. It’s my fault. Right?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:11:17]:
No one wants to talk to anybody.

James [00:11:19]:
No. We trust reviews from people we’ve never met before before we actually trust the person that has a business in this industry that’s been referred to us by someone. Yes. Oh, you’re not the Internet. So when you you deal with business, let’s talk about contracts. Sure. Shift gears into that. Yeah.

James [00:11:34]:
You’re talking leases. Oh, yeah. You’re talking waivers

Carolyn Jahnke [00:11:37]:
Oh, yeah.

James [00:11:37]:
That you mentioned. Mhmm. Tell me what are the contracts.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:11:40]:
Vendor On, like, as you bring on independent contractors for your business or if you’re just hiring vendors. If you’re in manufacturing, you’d have On, you’d have to or terms and conditions and different things. Your client On, if you’re a service provider.

James [00:11:55]:
Tell me, terms and conditions is a great thing.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:11:57]:
Alright.

James [00:11:58]:
Because so we with Calls on call Mhmm. We have terms and conditions on our website. Mhmm. Mhmm. Including stuff that’s essentially saying, like, as an example, we have one thing that says we’ll return your stuff.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:12:10]:
Okay.

James [00:12:10]:
So if you gave us documentation or paperwork or something like that that we need Mhmm. To do our job for you, when you leave, we give it back to you.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:12:18]:
Okay.

James [00:12:18]:
So it’s just illustrating ownership. Yep. For some reason, we felt compelled to put that On the terms.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:12:24]:
Makes sense.

James [00:12:25]:
But we also have, if you leave us, these are the steps to leave us.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:12:29]:
Mhmm.

James [00:12:29]:
So we have had clients that have said, hey, I stopped forwarding my phones to you yesterday. And just flipped the switch and went to Guam or wherever whatever they did. Alright. And I’m like, wait a second, but we have terms.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:12:48]:
We have On agreement.

James [00:12:48]:
Yeah. So, and we have that agreement as well saying that we can’t just shut them On. Right?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:12:53]:
Even if

James [00:12:53]:
we hate them. Rarely, but every once in a while, right? Clients can be clients. There’s

Carolyn Jahnke [00:12:57]:
always a bad client.

James [00:12:58]:
Yeah. We have it set up that says that we’ll give them 30 days notice. Mhmm. If we gotta let them go as a client. Right. So I’m like, we have this in the terms. These are the rules of the game. And sometimes I feel like we’re playing with kids, a 5 year old playing Monopoly.

James [00:13:11]:
They try to make up their own rules, like, I win. Yes. So tell me about the the power of terms and conditions. Is it just worth the light on the screen and nothing more?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:13:23]:
No. So I tend to operate from the perspective that most people are good. That’s not how a lot of lawyers operate. You know, it’s my job to think of all the bad scenarios, but in general, if you tell somebody this is how it’s gonna be, they’re more inclined to follow that. So with terms and conditions, at least you have a place where you can have a lawyer send a letter and say, listen, you signed this agreement, you agreed to this, they expect you to uphold it, you have this much time to respond. Sometimes a letter from a lawyer is just On scare them.

James [00:13:57]:
Yeah.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:13:57]:
And they’ll be like, okay, yep. I’ll pay that last month and then we’ll walk away and we’ll be fine. Other times, it is also a way for you to then open the door to negotiation, right? Because part of being a small business owner is it’s not always black and white.

James [00:14:14]:
Right? Very true.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:14:14]:
Like, you understand a scenario your client might be in, and you’re like, I wanna be helpful, but you gotta help me. And so it’s like, hey. Maybe if you pay this, we’ll just walk away and,

James [00:14:25]:
you

Carolyn Jahnke [00:14:25]:
know, we’re gonna we’re gonna both say nobody did anything wrong. We can’t come back on each other. We’ll release each other from liability. And then you go from there. And so that it opens the door for that as well. It is worth something because if you have to go to court or even small claims court, you have it. Without it, you have nothing.

James [00:14:44]:
Right. We just have what we felt we should have had.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:14:46]:
Yeah. Right. So but the thing is is that most small business owners don’t On take somebody to court unless they’re selling pretty high ticket items where it’s worth it. And even then, you’re probably gonna end up in small claims court. And so you have to go through that process. It’s more of that at least you have a leg to stand on if you choose to go down that path. And when you remind people, oh, you signed this, you have an obligation, they’re more likely to do what they’re supposed to.

James [00:15:13]:
Gotcha. We had you remind me of the story. We had a IT company as a client, and they ended up taking On of our receptionists.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:15:21]:
Oh.

James [00:15:22]:
Yeah. And we have this little we had this little blurb in the term saying, hey, you can’t do that. You can’t

Carolyn Jahnke [00:15:28]:
Non solicitation.

James [00:15:29]:
Yeah. Non solicitation. And he’s like, oh, James, that is a great thing that you have in the terms. However, we’re not gonna follow that. But this is where it gets funny. We actually have that for our end, for our IT Legal, because they were an outsourced IT firm.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:15:46]:
Okay.

James [00:15:47]:
So our lawyer had this thing, and he forward it to me, and he’s like, you’re welcome to use that as well. And it was way more in-depth. And I was like, I don’t even know what to do with this.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:15:58]:
Was it basically that I don’t have to follow your non solicitation? Or

James [00:16:02]:
that’s basically what it was. But what he had, to your point, was we didn’t have I don’t know if punishment or a consequence is the right nomenclature there.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:16:11]:
Oh, like, they they there’s a fee or something you have to know.

James [00:16:14]:
We didn’t have that in there.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:16:15]:
Okay.

James [00:16:15]:
Yeah. It just said don’t. But it didn’t say if you do, this is what it was. Right. So in his, it said if you do, you owe us essentially a finder’s fee Yep. Which was equal to a year’s pay or something like that. Yeah. They’re usually in cents.

James [00:16:25]:
Yeah. And I was like, oh, that’s smart. Incense. Yeah. And I was like, On, that’s smart. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that mine is no good. Correct. But we didn’t have a punishment or a consequence or something like that.

James [00:16:33]:
So I wondered like, oh, maybe he’s right.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:16:41]:
No. I mean, it’s you have it. So it’s in the contract. So you can get them for breach of On, but the question is, how much is that worth to you? Yeah. Because getting into litigation is gonna take time. And Right. Now you’re talking 5 figures, and is that worth it for whatever it is?

James [00:16:57]:
Not worth it. Yeah. And I don’t I don’t know. It’s just bad juju.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:17:00]:
And by having the fee, it’s easy to just go, hey. Just write me the check. Yeah. Go ahead. Mhmm. Write me the check.

James [00:17:06]:
Yeah. We did have interestingly enough, we had another company, a tree company, steal On of our agents Mhmm. After we had this thing with the 1 year thing. And the owner of that tree company was like, yeah, I’m not gonna pay that. And it was one of those, like, what what are we doing here?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:17:24]:
Right.

James [00:17:24]:
What are we doing? Well, I mean, that that those are the

Carolyn Jahnke [00:17:27]:
things you learn though through entrepreneurship. Right? Is that you find the bad people. Right? Yeah. The people who are like, don’t you like, we’re in the same boat. We’re both just trying to make it work. And why are like, this would hurt you. It would hurt me. So let’s find a way to to make it to make it to find some sort of compromise.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:17:46]:
And compromise.

James [00:17:47]:
And just feel like I hope there’s karma because I know for sure you’ll get hit by a very large bus.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:17:52]:
Yes. Or someone’s you’re gonna take Call gonna take

James [00:17:55]:
out that tree and someone’s not gonna pay for it. Alright. They wait. Wait. Yeah. Bye bye. Tell me about, skip to a different chunk of law.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:18:04]:
Sure.

James [00:18:04]:
Somebody comes to you and they wanna start a business. Yep. How where do you start with them? Because there’s probably so much stuff that they don’t know. And in a given industry, whatever it is, let’s just say food, for example. Oh, yeah. I wouldn’t know. There’s probably 50,000,000 things or certifications they need. Where do you start?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:18:21]:
So you’d be surprised. I mean, more entrepreneurs know more than they realize, particularly in the food industry. They tend to have grown up in the food industry, so they have a pretty good idea. It’s rare that people just suddenly decide to be in the food industry, because there are so many regulations and things like that. But typically, it’s a conversation about what they’re trying to achieve. You know, what is your goal? Are you doing this with multiple people? What does that look like? Talk about control, how decisions get made, things like that. Typically for a single member LLC, it’s pretty easy. LLC is the easiest form.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:18:59]:
It’s the cheapest form. It gives you lots of flexibility. Mhmm. You know, because you can become taxed as a corporation later. So we almost always start there. And typically, we’re working with business owners who, you know, they just want a solid foundation and they don’t know what they know. And so if you’re like a service based business, not food because that’s unique, but like your coach or you know, your consultant, your client contract is like the next riskiest thing

James [00:19:28]:
that you have.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:19:29]:
And so that’s where we would talk. We would talk about what’s your next riskiest type of activity that you’re gonna be doing as a business owner. And then like, are are you trying to branch out? Like if you were a product Business, right, do you need a trademark? Do you need to think about that? So depending on what their business is, we’d talk about where the biggest risk lies and then thinking about what they could afford to do to you know, as they started to bite them off.

James [00:19:55]:
Nice. Yeah. Tell me let’s perfect segue here to copyrights and trademarks.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:19:59]:
Yeah.

James [00:19:59]:
I remember going down the road when I was looking to sell my first business. I thought it’d be super sweet if I had trademarks and copyrights and all this kind of stuff On logo and just stuff. Mhmm. And I started to go down that road, and it got very I wasn’t over my head. I spent a little bit on attorneys.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:20:20]:
Mhmm.

James [00:20:21]:
By little I think it was a couple grand, whatever, and I didn’t get anything out of it. Mhmm. Because the the treat I think it was

Carolyn Jahnke [00:20:27]:
The trademark wasn’t available?

James [00:20:29]:
No. They kept coming back saying, hey, you need to do this. I need I forget oh, my gosh. Was years ago. I it was logo that I was trying to register the trademark, and I needed I think they wanted a description of what the logo represented. Mhmm. And I gave them that description, and it came back as, like, not clear enough or something like that. You it’s one of those, like, you got so much stuff going on with your business.

James [00:20:52]:
You’re like, what am I doing? Is there value in this? So just tell me a story about that.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:20:57]:
Yeah. So it it depends.

James [00:20:59]:
Oh, no. I hear you. I hear it.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:21:03]:
I would say there’s a difference between a design mark, which is your logo, and your word mark. Right? So if you get your word mark, and this is what we always tell people, if you only have money for 1, start with the word mark.

James [00:21:13]:
So word mark, in the case of this podcast, would be Authentic Business Adventures. Yes. Yeah. Got it. Okay.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:21:18]:
Versus like the little picture.

James [00:21:20]:
Right? Yeah.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:21:20]:
Yeah. That would be your logo. Alright. So if you protect the word, anytime you use the word in relation to the services you provide that you’ve filed, it’s protected. It doesn’t matter what it looks like.

James [00:21:33]:
Oh, so you’re kinda covering the logo as Call.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:21:35]:
Yes.

James [00:21:36]:
Presuming the logo has words.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:21:37]:
It’s not

James [00:21:37]:
it’s not the swoosh or whatever.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:21:39]:
Right. Now say, like, you know, your Facebook or somebody, right, where you you care or your x, you know, where you care that it has to be that specific looking x, your icon, things like that, then you wanna you wanna trademark that because you literally don’t want anybody else to use that exact design. Or, like, Tiffany’s Robin egg x blue. Like, that’s a trademark. Alright. Nobody in jewelry can use that color. Really?

James [00:22:03]:
You can trademark a color?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:22:04]:
Yes. The Al Johnson’s, the restaurant in Door County

James [00:22:08]:
Mhmm.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:22:08]:
That has the goats on the roof, that is a trademark. So it’s called trade dress? Yes. So having a restaurant with goats on the roof is something that they have ownership over.

James [00:22:19]:
Wow. Alright. So let’s take that as an example. Yeah. Because holy cow. So goats on the roof was a is that Scandinavian thing or something like that?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:22:28]:
It sounds Swedish. Yeah. Scandinavian.

James [00:22:30]:
So somebody were to start a restaurant, let’s say, in California

Carolyn Jahnke [00:22:33]:
Mhmm.

James [00:22:33]:
And they have goats on the roof. Mhmm. This place out of Door County could send a cease and desist letter

Carolyn Jahnke [00:22:39]:
Absolutely. For

James [00:22:39]:
something that vague? Yeah.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:22:41]:
As long as they were a On, like, whatever it’s tied to in the goods and services Yeah. If it’s the same. Yeah. On fact, they have an obligation to do that, or they could lose their trademark.

James [00:22:52]:
Oh, so if they don’t send the cease and desist, then they’re essentially allowing it.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:22:57]:
Yeah. So say it turns out there’s 20 of those restaurants out there, and one of them wants to file for the same trademark.

James [00:23:02]:
Yeah.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:23:04]:
If it can get proved that Al Johnson wasn’t, you know, defending their trademark, they could actually lose it and then that other company could file and get one.

James [00:23:14]:
Interesting. So tell me about the limitations here. I didn’t know you could do colors. I certainly didn’t know you could trademark goats on the road. So tell me what are what are the limitations for what people can trademark?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:23:26]:
So it depend like, you can’t trademark, like, the name of a book. Okay. Like, that’s that’s more of a copyright because it’s a point in time. It’s a thing. Right? But anything that kinda symbolizes the source of a goods or a service. So, you know, you can trademark related to clothing. You can trademark, the jingle, the little, like, nationwide is on your side, that little the jingle that I’m not going to Yeah. That is trademarked.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:23:57]:
Really? Yeah. Okay. So anything that when you hear it or see it, it symbolizes this company because you’ve done enough work for that. Yeah. You can get a trademark.

James [00:24:09]:
Interesting. Okay.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:24:11]:
As long as somebody else that doesn’t have a trademark in it.

James [00:24:13]:
And how big of a deal is it to get a trademark on something?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:24:16]:
So the it’s not it’s a very big deal because, basically, it means you have use of it over the entire country.

James [00:24:23]:
Okay. When I say big deal, I guess, how big of a deal is it to achieve that to get to it?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:24:28]:
It takes a long time.

James [00:24:29]:
Okay.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:24:29]:
So ever since Call it used to be On 3 months, you’d get feedback, and you could have it in under a year. Now it’s, like, 12 to 18 months to get a trademark. Wow. Because it they don’t even look at it for 6 months. So, basically, it comes into the queue, and it takes 6 months before an attorney at the USPTO will even look at it.

James [00:24:50]:
And is that because they’re down people? They’re just lazy? Or they

Carolyn Jahnke [00:24:54]:
I’m guessing it has to do with downsizing since a lot of it had to do with COVID, and there was probably a significant uptick in registrations as people stayed home and were like, I should file for these things.

James [00:25:04]:
Oh, interesting. I got nothing but time.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:25:07]:
Alright. Yeah. So so it takes about that long. There’s actually they’re increasing their fees starting next year. And so they’re adding a whole bunch of extra fees.

James [00:25:19]:
Naturally. Yeah. And I

Carolyn Jahnke [00:25:20]:
would have actually said that they were already a place that kind of nickeled and dime you every time you wanna make a change.

James [00:25:24]:
I agree.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:25:25]:
And now they’re going to do that even more.

James [00:25:27]:
Oh, okay.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:25:28]:
They’ve created all sorts of new fees for every time you wanna make a change.

James [00:25:32]:
Interesting.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:25:33]:
Yeah. So I would say it’s gotten even more expensive to try and do by yourself than it used to be because it was okay to make a mistake because you just kinda had to sub you know, here, I’ll change it, and now there’s gonna be fees associated with everything.

James [00:25:46]:
Yeah. I’m trying to Jahnke. When I did it, I started off on my own, and then the first response I got, I’m like, nope.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:25:53]:
Which is really long and scary.

James [00:25:55]:
Like, I don’t know what language this is, but I feel like it’s borderline English. Not no. Yeah. And then, yeah.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:26:04]:
Yeah. We’ll have people come who’ve tried to do it themselves, and oftentimes, we have to completely start over

James [00:26:09]:
Okay.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:26:10]:
Because the cost of doing all the amendments to, like, make it work Yeah. Isn’t worth it. Like, you’re just better off starting from scratch.

James [00:26:17]:
It’s funny. I felt like I was talking to a 5 year old and trying to explain to them a calculator. We’re just like, where their brain is, they don’t quite understand it.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:26:28]:
It’s a very unique language.

James [00:26:30]:
And so when they would come back with a response and they say, like, for you to respond back, whatever, I forget what the price was, but I’m like, you came at me with with some red marks here that make no sense at all. Yep. And yeah. So I was just And it’s Out of my element.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:26:47]:
It’s so subjective too because every like, what one, you know, examiner will say, it might not be what the other examiner would say. And so it’s just kind of the luck of the draw of who you get. Some of them have very specific ways. They They like things written. And so then you’re like, oh, I thought that’s what I said, but okay, we’ll change it to your words if that makes you happy and it’s gonna go through.

James [00:27:09]:
Tell me about copyright then.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:27:11]:
Copyright. Copyright is more of a point in time thing. Oftentimes, people call and they’re like, I think I need a trademark. I’m like, you’re talking about a copyright or vice versa. So copyright is when you you get the rights related to something specifically how it looks. So say you have a model of how you do something and you have a picture, a diagram that shows it. Right? If you ever made a change on that, it’s doesn’t have the copyright registration anymore if you’ve formally gotten a registration. So unless it’s something that’s not gonna change very often, like a book, it’s not usually worth getting the copyright registration because anytime you tweak it, especially when you’re starting a business where you’re constantly kinda tweaking your stuff, you’d be filing nonstop because you’d On tweaking your stuff, you’d be filing nonstop because you’d have to file every time you changed it.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:27:57]:
Okay. In just in the course of, like,

James [00:27:59]:
anytime you create

Carolyn Jahnke [00:28:00]:
something, you you create a copyright. It’s just not a formal registered copyright. And when you get a formal registered copyright, you get statutory damages and extra things that that you can enforce it, things like that. And so there’s benefits, but you really wanna be selective in how you go about it.

James [00:28:24]:
Gotcha. Okay. So I wrote a book. Yep. So that’s just copyrighted just because I wrote it.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:28:29]:
Just because you wrote it.

James [00:28:30]:
Anybody writes a book, it’s copyrighted. I actually went through the formal process of copywriting it, which is just

Carolyn Jahnke [00:28:35]:
the new system. Yep.

James [00:28:37]:
Yeah. Okay. And that that doesn’t have to go through much of an approval process.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:28:41]:
No. You just they they tend to get approved unless they find something really out of whack or

James [00:28:46]:
Crazy plagiarism or something

Carolyn Jahnke [00:28:48]:
like that. Yeah. Which now is getting trickier with AI and things like that.

James [00:28:52]:
I was just gonna ask you that because that’s that’s getting to be, what I would consider to be a very large gray area.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:29:00]:
Right. Yes. So if people ask me that all the time, they’re like, well, is there even any point to copywriting if, you know, if any AI tool could just come in and plagiarize me and things like that?

James [00:29:12]:
Fair question.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:29:12]:
Or if I wrote it. And I would say, if there’s a business value to it because this is an asset that you On be able to protect, take to court, then yes. If you’re using it to create it, again, this is like, are you, you know, the good part everybody’s gonna do the right thing. Did you literally just take the word straight out of chat gpt, just plop it on a paper, and now you’re trying to file it? Like, come on.

James [00:29:39]:
Alright.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:29:39]:
That’s that’s not the copyright office didn’t know for that. Now you maybe got a thread of an idea, and now you’ve completely changed it around to, like, what you think and how it applies to you. Well, that’s different. Now that’s that’s more your work than the computer’s work.

James [00:29:55]:
Got

Carolyn Jahnke [00:29:55]:
it. And so I think that’s a a decision until we have more legal rulings on it that kinda every person has to make for themselves.

James [00:30:03]:
Yeah. You know, it’s interesting you mentioned the legal rulings on that because it’s the wild west.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:30:08]:
Right? It is right now. There’s there’s they’re slowly but surely coming out with things, but there’s gonna need to be a lot more lawsuits before.

James [00:30:15]:
I was even I think I was talking to a website SEO guy Mhmm. About the robot’s text file.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:30:21]:
Mhmm.

James [00:30:22]:
And he said I forget what AI person said that basically they are programming their AI to ignore the robot’s text file. The whole point of a robot’s text file is to govern the bots. That’s our website. Mhmm. And he basically said we’re programming it to ignore that file, and we’ll take whatever we want on your website.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:30:44]:
Wow.

James [00:30:45]:
And I’m like, that is pretty ballsy to just come right out and say it and essentially threaten anybody to challenge them.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:30:52]:
Well, especially because if if it’s a good website that has terms of service, they they have a leg to stand on because typically those terms of service say, you can’t use robots to scrape our website and do all those different things.

James [00:31:04]:
Mhmm. But the bots don’t Carolyn? Well, I

Carolyn Jahnke [00:31:07]:
mean, the bots don’t care. Right?

James [00:31:08]:
Yeah.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:31:08]:
It’s gonna be when the person who whose stuff is getting stolen or seen monetized somewhere else because they’ve scraped it for data.

James [00:31:17]:
Right. Yeah. But I look at even my book as an example.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:31:20]:
Mhmm.

James [00:31:21]:
I my book is out there. Mhmm. And the day that I published it, it became available used. The day that I published it.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:31:31]:
Really?

James [00:31:32]:
Before I sold the copy, it was available used.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:31:36]:
And Someone was fake selling it?

James [00:31:39]:
It was right on Amazon. Really? True story. It was immediate. You know how they have the used things and stuff like that? And I was like, wait a second here. So it was bizarre, and I thought, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna take them to court? Are you gonna like, how far down the road are you gonna go? And you’re like, this is as far as I’m gonna go. Right. Well,

Carolyn Jahnke [00:31:59]:
it’s interesting because there’s a couple of ways you could have gone that with that. Right? Like, maybe that person’s selling air. Right? They’re gonna wait until your book comes out and they’re gonna buy it somewhere and then that person will get what they purchased.

James [00:32:12]:
Yeah. Maybe. Maybe.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:32:14]:
Or yeah. So I mean yeah. That’s kinda crazy.

James [00:32:18]:
It was surreal. Surreal.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:32:19]:
Yeah.

James [00:32:20]:
But anyways You’ve made

Carolyn Jahnke [00:32:21]:
it now. They were they were faking you. Like It was not even Instantly. Yeah.

James [00:32:27]:
I wanna say instantly. Yeah. Because it was I remember you go on the web page, the Amazon web page, and you’re looking like, wait. Because you get the price Yep. And then it says, also available used. I’m like, that’s pretty cool because I don’t sold any books for it to be available in use. It would be super awesome to say that I’m the author that published so many books that we also have the shelf with all the used ones. Right? But that’s not the case.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:32:52]:
Yeah.

James [00:32:52]:
I would love that to be the case. Not the case.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:32:54]:
No.

James [00:32:55]:
But I can imagine if I was a person where that was my livelihood

Carolyn Jahnke [00:32:59]:
Oh, yeah.

James [00:33:00]:
I’m making a living as an author, and I can see the shady stuff going on. I’m like, that’s you’re stealing.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:33:05]:
Right. Oh, absolutely. And that’s when it’s you have to decide, is it worth the money to

James [00:33:09]:
go get a living? Pennies. You’re stealing

Carolyn Jahnke [00:33:12]:
Dollars. Yeah.

James [00:33:12]:
$90. Yeah. So for me, I’m like, hey, you’re stealing pennies, and it’s not worth

Carolyn Jahnke [00:33:17]:
Right.

James [00:33:18]:
Whatever. The book is out there to help you. If you really need it for free, rock and roll, man. But Yeah. If I was making a living, whew. Showing that thing Call, I a different game.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:33:29]:
Yeah. And, you know, and people who are making a living from that are working with a lot of lawyers. Right? Mhmm. And they’re literally agents to make sure. And there’s people who are monitoring that and things like that.

James [00:33:38]:
Yeah. It’s surreal.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:33:39]:
And there’s some of the dangers of self publishing and doing different things that Yeah.

James [00:33:45]:
I could see with AI if I had so I don’t write fiction, but if I did, and I had this 3 part series or 5 part series Mhmm. And then someone’s like, hey, AI, come up with part 6. And it bumps out of part 6. And then the author doesn’t get compensated even though the AI had to grab that stuff from the first five. It just seems weird.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:34:08]:
I’m sure there will be lawsuits about that. But there’s also I mean, there’s a 1,000,000 fan fic sites. You know, you think about with books where people are, you know, writing books that are based off of

James [00:34:19]:
True.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:34:19]:
A million books that they’ve read or, you know, the Star Wars trilogy or, you know, Star Wars 9.

James [00:34:25]:
Yeah. Whatever it is.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:34:26]:
A lot of Athena. Universe.

James [00:34:27]:
Since Disney bought them, it’s the 50 of Athena, whatever. Yeah. So Yeah. It’s interesting because that’s a very interesting point. Right? Because everything that we write is based on our experience with other people’s writing and stuff like that. So maybe there’s gotta be a patient 0 somewhere. Right. This all started.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:34:47]:
Right. There’s always a fine line. Right? And it has to be worth your trouble.

James [00:34:50]:
Mhmm. You know? Yeah. Very true. Very true. Tell me about marketing. You got a law firm that can help businesses. Yeah. How do you get the word out there to other businesses so that they know that you exist? Business awesome podcast.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:35:03]:
Beside awesome podcast, which was clearly gonna be my number one way of saying.

James [00:35:07]:
Right. Here we are. Referral

Carolyn Jahnke [00:35:10]:
is actually my number one source.

James [00:35:12]:
Really? Okay.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:35:13]:
Yeah. Of of clients. And Google is number 2. Alright. Interestingly. Yeah. I I think like accountants and things like that, doctors, people want someone that has been personally referred to them by somebody. It’s you’re more likely to trust them, feel confident in them.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:35:29]:
And so a lot of it is just doing that network networking, getting out there, meeting people. You know, we were talking, it’s just Athena Madison area is a small community. Like, once you kinda get known and after 5 years, I’ve made a lot of connections. And so

James [00:35:44]:
Yeah. That town, this town gets very small when you look at that pool of people that are in business looking to grow, meet other people in that realm.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:35:54]:
Mhmm.

James [00:35:54]:
Yeah. I suppose it’s just like any other niche in any other town, but Yeah. It’s, yeah.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:35:59]:
Yeah. And so so I would say that’s the big way that I’ve I’ve gone about it since day 1. It’s always been through referral and then learned about Google’s. And I have an SEO person who Alright. Helps to make sure that I’m out there and doing the Google Legal ads. That’s a

James [00:36:16]:
that’s Oh, no. Okay.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:36:17]:
Us, that’s a big deal because you can get, what are they Call, verified through Google Mhmm. Which not all businesses can. And so that helps add a little more Oh, nice. Expertise.

James [00:36:29]:
So you’re doing some paid search?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:36:31]:
A little bit.

James [00:36:32]:
A little bit.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:36:32]:
Okay. Not as much anymore.

James [00:36:33]:
Okay.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:36:34]:
Because referral has gotten to be just Nice. The main source

James [00:36:38]:
Okay.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:36:38]:
Of how we do it. But we have a few other like, there’s websites for where people Call, let’s say, I have this legal issue. Can you help me? And it gets sent out, and so we get some of those.

James [00:36:48]:
Oh, that’s cool. Yeah. Alright. Tell me about do you have employees?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:36:52]:
I do. I do. I have an attorney in Appleton, and I have an attorney in Illinois. Okay. And then I have an admin from Sun Prairie.

James [00:36:58]:
Nice. How do you find an attorney to work with you as an employee?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:37:05]:
Mostly, it’s searching for someone who so I have in house experience. And so that is has framed my entire way of how I look at the law. When you’re in house, the job is not to say no. The job is to say yes, and here’s how you can do it that will reduce the risk for

James [00:37:23]:
the

Carolyn Jahnke [00:37:23]:
corporation. Because nobody likes it when legal says no. Right. And you’re always trying to help, you know, the business achieve its goals. So that’s how I’ve always lawyered is from that perspective of this is what you’re telling me you wanna achieve. Now I’ll tell you the risks associated with that and the safest way to do it based on your tolerance. So I’m always looking for people who have that kind of lens because I think it really resonates with small business owners and entrepreneurs. The other piece is I’m a mom.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:37:55]:
This this is not I’m not here to work 80 hours a week. So I look for lawyers who are smart and are self motivating. And, you know, if they have kids and this isn’t gonna be their be all end all, that’s perfect. Alright. So Nice. That they’re they’re available as I need them, and they can have flexibility. They can respect my flexibility as, you know, going off and traveling or doing things with kids or, you know Oh, sure. I just can’t work today because this is going on.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:38:27]:
Yeah. So for me, it’s they gotta be self motivated. They gotta be interested in the clientele and the vision that we’re looking for.

James [00:38:34]:
Okay. Has it been tough to find them?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:38:37]:
Yes and no. I’m finding that it resonates a lot more with more experienced lawyers than it does with younger lawyers. It takes the right young lawyer. We had a wonderful young lawyer for a while, but she was ready to move on and, you know, start a family and do things like that. And so

James [00:38:54]:
Gotcha. Fair. Yeah. Fair. You mentioned FinCEN. Oh, yeah. Let’s shift gears into that exciting thing.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:39:02]:
I don’t know if it’s exciting. But I

James [00:39:04]:
was trying to be nice, but, let’s shift gears into that Crazy law. Mundane, unnecessary thing. I don’t know.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:39:12]:
Sure. So FinCEN well, that’s the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is what FinCEN stands for.

James [00:39:18]:
So is it is that a new thing?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:39:20]:
No. It’s been around forever. So it’s On a government agency that’s been around.

James [00:39:24]:
What do they do?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:39:24]:
So they have to they have a lot to do with security

James [00:39:28]:
laws. Okay. So typically, stocks and stuff like that. Okay.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:39:30]:
Yeah. But they’re for financial crime enforcement.

James [00:39:33]:
Gotcha. So different than the SEC?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:39:35]:
Different than the SEC. Okay. Different than FINRA. But associate Who’s FINRA? Now I’m not even thinking

James [00:39:41]:
you’re gonna bring out my all my acronyms.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:39:45]:
FINRA also has to do with trading and securities.

James [00:39:49]:
Okay. Alright. And FinCEN is the FIN

Carolyn Jahnke [00:39:53]:
part Financial? Yes. Financial.

James [00:39:55]:
And Authentic e n is? Crimes Enforcement Network. Okay. Okay.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:40:00]:
We got all the acronyms. And so they passed a law called the Corporate Transparency Act or CTA.

James [00:40:09]:
Okay. That’s how

Carolyn Jahnke [00:40:09]:
a lot of people refer to it.

James [00:40:10]:
Okay.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:40:11]:
And the idea was they wanted it they felt like there was all these businesses out there that nobody really knew who owned them.

James [00:40:18]:
Solutions of them. Right?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:40:19]:
Millions of them. And that that was where money laundering must happen because, of course, their concern is financial crimes.

James [00:40:25]:
Okay.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:40:26]:
So they decided that everybody would have to register who the owners were and, like, prove ownership. So you have to submit a copy of your passport or your driver’s license so that you’re real they know that you’re who you say you are. And that way, they know. And anytime ownership of your business changes, you have to update them and let them know and that this will help crack down on money laundering. So they created Okay. Another acronym for you.

James [00:40:52]:
Oh, no.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:40:52]:
The beneficial owner information report, which is the BOI.

James [00:40:57]:
Okay.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:40:59]:
And so that’s the report that you have to file. And now Call almost all businesses, LLCs for sure, if you have less than 20 employees, you have to file this report and you have to do it before the end of the year. Now new entities starting this year, you have 90 days to file from when you formed.

James [00:41:18]:
Okay.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:41:19]:
Or they have fines of $500 a day up to $10,000 and potential criminal penalties.

James [00:41:26]:
So I have heard of this.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:41:28]:
Okay.

James [00:41:29]:
I’ve heard of it through people like you.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:41:31]:
Mhmm.

James [00:41:31]:
The smart people that are in the world. I have not heard it from anyone government y. Nope. No letter, no public service announcement, no email. No. No thing on my text thing that said, hey, by the way, this is also something you need to know. No, like, 0 official channels. Yeah.

James [00:41:53]:
So is that just the way it is, or am I just under a rock and for some reason, they haven’t been able to find me?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:42:00]:
There was actually a lot more talk about it when they introduced the law several years ago because this took a long time to actually even get passed and then put into action because they weren’t sure how they were gonna do it. And so there was a lot of talk back then. And then once it happened, it was kinda like, I mean, there’s been a few lawsuits, related to why they why LLC should have to do it.

James [00:42:27]:
Oh, trying to defend this crazy woman?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:42:29]:
No. No. To get it knocked down. Okay. They haven’t really gone anywhere, or they’ve only been effective for, like, a very small like, the plaintiffs in that situation. So it hasn’t

James [00:42:41]:
I had heard something about Arizona. I don’t know if it was a place in Arizona or Texas. Okay.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:42:47]:
I feel like maybe it was Arkansas.

James [00:42:49]:
That that’s on hold or something like that?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:42:51]:
Just for those plaintiffs.

James [00:42:53]:
Yeah. Okay.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:42:54]:
So yeah. So other than I mean, it’s a filing you need to do. It’s a free filing. Everybody’s charging for it because obviously it takes our time if we’re Sure. Doing it for you. But you can just do it for free online.

James [00:43:07]:
And I’ve done a couple.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:43:08]:
And I’ve encouraged everyone to do it because the last thing you want is to January 1 end up with, you know, $500 in penalties every day.

James [00:43:18]:
Yeah. The form, to me, it was one of the most archaic websites I’ve ever seen.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:43:23]:
Yes.

James [00:43:24]:
The PDF, I’m like, did a 10th grader put this together? What is this? This is garbage. Yes. It was one of those where you fill up the form, and it’s like, not accepted. And I’m like, great. What did I do wrong? Mhmm. And then it doesn’t tell you. I’m like, what is this?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:43:37]:
Well, even better, you can’t even see if you’ve done the filing. So people we’ve talked to people On they’re like, can you check to see if I did? I’m like, no.

James [00:43:45]:
I wanted to know. Yes.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:43:46]:
There’s no repository.

James [00:43:47]:
Yes. Yesterday, I went to look to see because I don’t remember. I got a few LLCs. I knew I did it for some, but I didn’t remember which ones. Yeah. This is come on.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:43:57]:
Right. And so the best way you can find out is to refile and they’ll tell you that it’s a duplicate. And so then you know you’re safe. But yeah. I mean, it’s crazy. I hope that come January, they’ll just be like, there’s we’re not gonna do any punishments, but, I mean, this could kill a lot of small Business.

James [00:44:16]:
Yeah. I can’t I’m trying to think, like, what’s the goal? Is the goal really to to catch money launderers or something like that? If you need bad guys to say, hey, I’m a bad guy, for On to view your channel. We’re not going to. We just want to know if you’re a bank robber. Just fill out this form.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:44:34]:
Fill it out. And let us know. Give us your ID. Tell us where you live.

James [00:44:38]:
Oh my God. That’s

Carolyn Jahnke [00:44:41]:
Yeah. So yeah, and if you even dissolved your LLC because I know a lot of people dissolved the LLCs this year so that they wouldn’t have to file. Okay. If it was in existence even for a day in 2024, you have to file even if you’ve shut it down.

James [00:44:57]:
What?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:44:58]:
Mhmm. Really? Mhmm.

James [00:44:59]:
Well, that’s bizarre.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:45:01]:
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I just learned that recently because I was, like, I was telling people, go ahead and shut them down. And they came out with some clarifications. And

James [00:45:12]:
So I don’t know how many small businesses or how many LLCs are in the US, but if we were to speculate, are we talking 100,000,000? Easily. 50,000,000, something like this?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:45:22]:
I mean, there’s a few 100,000 just in Wisconsin.

James [00:45:25]:
Oh, wow. Okay. So 1,000,000. Yeah. So is there some person sitting at a desk with a stamp that’s just like, open this PDF?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:45:34]:
Yeah. I don’t I don’t know how they’re gonna figure out unless they do something through, like, Calls. Like, when you submit your taxes that they’re gonna check that way. And let’s be On, if you were money laundering, you weren’t filling out your taxes anyways.

James [00:45:47]:
Like, I don’t the whole money laundering thing to me is like, wait. What? Because when I fill out this form, you essentially say name, address, phone number, all that stuff, but that’s really all you’re giving. For me, it seemed like information that they should already have.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:46:01]:
But you also have to give the name of your business. Yeah. And it creates an ID on your business, which they already have through EIN.

James [00:46:08]:
We created the ID with the state and the EIN. Yeah. They already have that.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:46:12]:
Yeah. But you have to do it for every single entity you own.

James [00:46:16]:
Right. But it’s not like I just called my grandma up and said, hey, grandma, I need an LLC. I gotta go through an official govern thing. Yeah. That’s so bizarre.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:46:27]:
It makes no sense to me. But

James [00:46:28]:
Alright. I’m glad I’m not alone. It because

Carolyn Jahnke [00:46:31]:
everybody I know has talked about how it doesn’t make any sense. But in the reign of, like, I wanna make sure that we’re keep taking care of small business owners. Like, you need to know this, and you need to do it.

James [00:46:45]:
Yeah. I get there’s rules of the game. Follow the rules of the game. Get it. But sometimes you’re just like, what?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:46:50]:
Right. Oh, yeah. And I guess you could take that approach with this if, you know, you’re following the fastest car in the highway. But

James [00:46:58]:
Well, this particular thing, you look at the volume of fines, Athena I’m like, if you’re let’s just say, conservatively, I believe Mhmm. 25% of LLCs don’t do this.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:47:08]:
Oh, easily.

James [00:47:09]:
And you’re really gonna pump out all these fines? Like, that’s gonna be more than GDP. Right? Like, that’s not even realistic.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:47:18]:
And it’s money that they don’t have.

James [00:47:19]:
It’s like what does Russia find somebody or some company, like, 50 gazillion dollars or something like that recently? I forget what it was, but it was something like, you owe a $75,000,000,000,000, $1,000,000,000. It’s like, I’ll write you a check. Right? It’s just a Rather

Carolyn Jahnke [00:47:35]:
owe it to you than cheat you out of

James [00:47:36]:
it. Yeah. Oh, that’s perfect. I love that. That is awesome. It just seems like one of those weird, like, you owe us all this stuff. Like, do I?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:47:49]:
Yeah. Yeah. No. It’s it’s one of those weird things.

James [00:47:51]:
Alright. Alright. Bizarre. Well, Carolyn, how can people find you?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:47:56]:
You can find us online at athenalegalsolutionsllc.com. We’re on Facebook. We’re on LinkedIn. We’re on Instagram.

James [00:48:05]:
Nice. Tell me really quick, Athena. Yeah. Where’d the name come from?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:48:09]:
So my last name is Jahnke.

James [00:48:11]:
Okay.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:48:12]:
Which is not a great last name. I mean

James [00:48:14]:
I mean, it’s it’s a name. Sure. But it’s

Carolyn Jahnke [00:48:16]:
a challenge. It’s a mouthful. Right. And I didn’t really want it to be about me when I started my firm because most law firms are like, Alaska. Yeah.

James [00:48:23]:
Line, Google, Budweiser and

Carolyn Jahnke [00:48:24]:
Yeah.

James [00:48:24]:
Exactly. But I

Carolyn Jahnke [00:48:25]:
I was like, I don’t want that. My son was really into Greek gods and going through the Percy Jackson stage of everything. And I was like, well, Athena, she’s the goddess of wood wisdom.

James [00:48:36]:
Wisdom. I knew she was goddess Yeah. But I could not think of what? Okay. Wisdom. And so I

Carolyn Jahnke [00:48:40]:
was like, well, that’s what we’re here to do is to help provide, you know, some advice and wisdom to women business owners.

James [00:48:47]:
Nice. I love it. That is super cool. Yeah. If you were to give some advice really quick to someone considering starting a business, what would you tell them?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:48:55]:
Don’t do it alone. Oh. It is you know?

James [00:48:59]:
Oh, yeah.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:48:59]:
It’s it’s hard. This is not something you can do by yourself. And I think this is the difference between corporate and entrepreneurial. The entrepreneurial world is On corporate, there’s one seat. So everybody’s fighting for the same seat. In the business world, in the entrepreneurial world, we all know that there’s plenty of room at the table for all of us. And so we’re happy to share all the horrible mistakes we made doing it, and so that you don’t go through those pain. And so ask the stupid questions because everybody’s happy to help give a leg up, versus in the corporate world where I think it’s a little bit more doggy On dog, right? Jahnke.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:49:38]:
No, like, no no business owner is gonna go to you, what do you mean you didn’t know that? They’re gonna be like, if I could tell you the amount of things I didn’t know when I started my business.

James [00:49:48]:
And you’re an attorney. Right? Right.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:49:50]:
But I mean, that’s what every single entrepreneur says. Right?

James [00:49:53]:
Totally.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:49:53]:
The list is long. Totally. And so if I can help you avoid some of those mistakes, like

James [00:49:59]:
Fair.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:49:59]:
Yeah. Yeah. I

James [00:50:00]:
always tell entrepreneurs people come to me looking to start a business. I’m like, figure out what you wanna do, and then find a business owner that’s doing it successfully, what you believe is successful. Mhmm. And then take them off for lunch or coffee or something like that. If they say no, they’re probably not as successful as you would like them to believe because they’re afraid to that you’d find the truth.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:50:19]:
This is true. And I would say that’s one of the things I did is I went out with some small law firm owners and talked to them. But the other thing I would say is that people often appear more successful than they are.

James [00:50:32]:
Oh, yeah.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:50:33]:
And that you shouldn’t be intimidated by that. I think it’s something that we don’t talk a lot about is all of the struggles it takes to get to the point where you’re actually comfortable because we do a lot of things to make ends meet, to try and get to the point where it’s comfortable.

James [00:50:48]:
Yeah. You play the game. I was watching a video, yesterday on YouTube trying to learn about something. And this girl has, whatever, 100 of videos, tens of thousands of subscribers. And one of her videos was like, how I built a successful 6 figure business. And I realized after listening to it, it was 6 figures in revenue. And I was like, oh, yeah. That’s that’s not that hard.

James [00:51:14]:
The revenue part. Profit. Different game. But revenue? I don’t know if you’re the master that you’re trying to portray yourself.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:51:21]:
It’s it’s true. Right? I mean, it’s I’ve I’ve learned this myself. Right? Yeah. It’s very easy to get revenue. It now, how you manage your expenses and compare yourself what you want. Right. That’s that can be challenge. That’s true.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:51:37]:
You grow your team and you’re Call. Like

James [00:51:41]:
Yeah.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:51:41]:
There’s a lot of bootstrapping.

James [00:51:42]:
Very true. Very true. Yeah. I’m reading, my my my Shoe Dog, the Phil Knight book.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:51:48]:
Oh.

James [00:51:48]:
The founder of Nike. Yeah. It’s actually a great book.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:51:50]:
Really?

James [00:51:51]:
Great book. Yeah. It’s very good story. And he’s talking about they’re bringing revenue in the Solutions. Mhmm. And they’re still not profitable.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:51:59]:
Right.

James [00:52:00]:
Still struggling trying to figure out, like, banks are dropping them, stuff like that. Oh, yeah. It’s great. Still a great book. Yeah.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:52:05]:
How you make payday?

James [00:52:06]:
Yeah. Sometimes? Yeah. Yeah. And I’m like, you’re making I think it was at the point I forget exactly. It was, like, $50,000,000 in revenue. Mhmm. And the banks dropped them because they didn’t have the cash flow to justify that kind of volume.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:52:20]:
Yeah. Like, woah. It that’s the dirty secret that nobody talks about Yeah. In small businesses. And I think a lot of people get intimidated by that Fair. And feel like, oh, I must be doing something wrong. And it’s like, no. It’s just no one wants to look like they’re not an expert or that they’re not successful.

James [00:52:38]:
Right? Yeah. A couple tweaks, and they can maybe in that case, it would be more than a couple, but some tweaks. Right? But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I understand what you’re saying. Yeah. Everybody wants to portray that they got it all figured out.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:52:50]:
Mhmm.

James [00:52:50]:
And I suppose it’s like a duck on the river. Right? They’re all peaceful on top, but the bottom On their feet are going crazy.

Carolyn Jahnke [00:52:59]:
Solutions. Absolutely.

James [00:53:00]:
I love it. This has been Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and training for the successes of business owners across the land. We are locally underwritten by the banks of Sun Prairie. Calls On Call, offering call answering and receptionist services for service businesses across the country On the web at CallsOnCall.com. And of course, The Bold Business Book, a book of the entrepreneur in all of us, available wherever fine books are sold. If you’re listening or watching this on the web, if you could do us a huge favor, give us a big old thumbs up, subscribe, and of course, share it with your entrepreneurial friends, especially those that may be starting a business or just need some legal help, which sooner or later On Business, you’re probably going to. Love it or hate it? We’d like to thank you, our wonderful listeners, as well as our guest, Carolyn Janke. Did I say that right?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:53:48]:
No. Jahnke. Yahnke. See? See, this is why

James [00:53:51]:
I didn’t

Carolyn Jahnke [00:53:51]:
get my firm.

James [00:53:52]:
Carolyn Jahnke. That’s Jahnke with a j. Yeah. Founding attorney of Athena Legal Solutions. Carolyn, how can they find you again?

Carolyn Jahnke [00:54:00]:
Www.athenalegalsolutionsllc.com.

James [00:54:06]:
Awesome. Past episodes can be found morning, noon, and night at the podcast link found at drawincustomers.com. Thank you for joining us. We will see you next week. I want you to stay awesome. And if you do nothing else, enjoy your business.