How to protect your intellectual property with Nakia Gray

Your Dream Business

English - July 11, 2022 00:00 - 46 minutes - 42.4 MB - ★★★★★ - 34 ratings
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Next Episode: How to get clear on your values and have a heart centred business

Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Nakia Gray where we chat about all things legal.

Nakia is an Intellectual Property Attorney and Business Strategist who helps entrepreneurs build profitable and protected brands.

Armed with her creative legal mind, savvy marketing skills, and extensive education with over 20 years’ experience, she operates Gray Legal PC, a modern and innovative law firm uniquely designed for digital entrepreneurship.

This episode is filled with so much great information and some really important things to think about in terms of how we run our businesses.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST:

Issues to be aware of when using legal templates
Steps you can take to protect your intellectual property
What you should include in your terms and conditions to avoid public negative feedback
Things to consider when collaborating on events or webinars

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE:
You need to be on top of the legal side of your business from the very start!

HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN’T MISS:

Why you should never offer lifetime access
What you need to consider when offering a money back guarantee
The language you use when you offer a Facebook community as part of your service

RESOURCES MENTIONED:
Nakia Gray Instagram

TRANSCRIPT

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. Do you know what I get on every week? And I record these and I just say the numbers. But 250 episodes. Wow. That is loads. That is so many, that is so much content. It's crazy. It blows me away how these numbers just creep up and if I was smart I would work out how many years that has been but I'm not sure I want to because that's a lot a lot a lot. Anyway

This week I have an interview for you which is really really cool. So I have the lovely Nakia Gray on and we're talking all things legal. Now I know if you're anything like me that stuff scares me Like I'm not even kidding you. I do not find that stuff like enjoyable or easy or fun. The same with the finance stuff, these two areas for me are like oh I really have to focus and really have to remind myself to do these things.

But The way she talks about it and some of the stuff she says is so so helpful. And it's really really important as small business owners that we have some kind of cover in some way or other. And one thing that was great to talk about is the fact of like the template thing. And I know you know I've heard people say you know you're not allowed to use or not allowed or you shouldn't use templates. You shouldn't just Google a privacy policy and use that. But you know what not everyone can afford to bring a lawyer in.

Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Nakia Gray where we chat about all things legal.

Nakia is an Intellectual Property Attorney and Business Strategist who helps entrepreneurs build profitable and protected brands.

This episode is filled with so much great information and some really important things to think about in terms of how we run our businesses.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST:

TRANSCRIPT

So I talked to her about it and I said "You know, is that Okay? What do you think?" So yeah that's really helpful We talked around that. We talked about things around intellectual property. Also we talked about where you should never say you've got lifetime value of something which is really interesting cause that's definitely a mistake I've made in the past, years ago but I've definitely said you've got lifetime access to something and she talked about why you shouldn't say that. Um because basically it's not true is it because whose lifetime are you talking about yours or mine or what is a lifetime? Does that mean that I need you to still be serving me. I saw someone do lifetime access for a membership the other day which I think is fascinating because courses I can understand why people would say that like even ones. So I had a course of Jasmine Star, That was a really old course. And she actually said I'm checking this course down but you've got so long to download all the stuff. So technically yeah I have had access to that course for you know as long as I need it for a lifetime if you like. So courses I get but memberships I don't like what if that person decided they don't wanna do that membership anymore. What if I don't know just That just didn't sit right with me.

Anyway I didn't mean to go on a little round about that. But yeah we talk about that and we talk about lots of other good things. So let me tell you who Nakia is. So Nakia is an intellectual Oh God I knew this was gonna happen I hate reading out and I can't speak when I read. She's an intellectual property attorney and business strategists who helps entrepreneurs build profitable and protected brands. Armed with her creative legal mind savvy marketing skills and extensive education with the 20 years’ experience fyi she does not look old enough. She operates great legal PC and modern and in law firm uniquely designed for digital entrepreneurship which I think is really interesting. Because I know there's professionals that I deal with who don't understand the digital online world. So I think the fact that she does really really helps. Uh she has clients but she also has a membership called lockedandlawyered.co and premier online destination for entrepreneurs to make sure their business is legal legit and overflowing with money. That would all have a bit of that.

So okay this is Nakia, she's wonderful I think you're really gonna like her so over to her. Okay It's my pleasure today to welcome to the podcast Nakia Gray. Nakia how are you doing?

Nakia: I am doing lovely. Thank you.

Teresa: Good. Good. Really good. I'm really excited to have you on. I did a request a while ago in a group we are in for people who talk about different subjects that are not subjects I ever talk about because they are definitely not my zone a genius. So I am really really glad to have you on. So, we always get started the same way by you telling my audience what you do and how you got to do what you're doing.

Nakia: Sure. So I am a business and intellectual property strategist and I help entrepreneurs with protecting their brand and also creating protecting and monetizing their intellectual property. So that is my zone of genius. And I have been doing this and I actually am going into my seventh year of in this practice. I've been practicing law for 16 years. I was a litigator before this, Yeah But I kind of moved into I took Marie Forleo's B-School in 2014 and that was like okay I wanna be in the online space. Um and definitely kind of made a shift at that time for personal reasons and some professional reasons. And so I've been at this for a while but just you know in in a different lawyering in a different way but still being a lawyer.

Teresa: Yeah Yeah. So explain to me what you did before this. You did say but I wasn't sure I know what that means.

Nakia: So I was I used to go to court. I was a divorce lawyer.

Teresa: Okay. Oh God I can only imagine. As a divorced woman with a husband who was is also divorced. One was easy, mine was very easy like "Just give me the paper, I'll sign. See you later. Bye." Uh his Ugh Like yeah I can only imagine that job must have like.

Nakia: Oh I did, I had a heavy caseload. So I was doing about 50 contested divorce cases a year with custody issues, property businesses like knocked down, drag out fights. And so it just got to be, I mean you've been through it and I and I understand with yours being easy but for some people it's the worst. I was meeting people at the worst time in their lives. And they were going through so much. They were I was really the only person that they felt comfortable sharing all the stuff that was going on. So people were dumping a lot of their trauma on me. And that just after a while it just literally sucked the life out of me seriously. Like it was just it was just too much It was too much.

Teresa: I can only imagine like the negativity, the heartache the because it's it there's so much to it. You know there's and you see the worst of people I'm sure like where they're behaving really badly especially when there's children involved. I can only imagine that although it must have been very rewarding in lots of senses to come home every day with all that like weight on your shoulders must have been so much.

Nakia: Yeah it was. And it was also just it was it began to be really difficult for me to leave it at work. You know what I mean? Like my husband's phone rings late at night and it's like "Who's that? What's going on? What are you hiding?" You know what I mean It's just like yeah you're listening to people and they've you know it just it was just so much. And then even my kids at the time my youngest was heading into middle school and he said you know he hated that I did this. He and he said mom you know I hate divorce because his friend you know I was looking at it from the adults right. Like all the people that I was representing.

But in his little world he was seeing the effects of it on the kids and how bad kids felt and how they were now not able to come to his birthday party because it was on dad's weekend or you know what I mean. So as a as a middle schooler he had this this conception that you know this perception that divorce is just ugly. It's bad. It rips families apart. It makes my friends sad so why do you do this mom? And so that really was eye opening for me. Like my goodness I'm tearing families apart every day that can't be God's purpose for my life.

Teresa: No. No. So had you had any experience with the online world? Had you seen it? Had you what kind of then made you even discover you know B school and that sort of stuff?

Nakia: Yes. So I went back so my undergraduate degree is in marketing and even law was a second career for me. I was in the fashion industry first right outta law school. For an undergraduate degree in marketing went.

Teresa: Can I just say Nakia you do not look old enough to have had all these careers and the children and everything else. Like you were sat there looking very young.

Nakia: You are my new best friend. Yeah. So my two kids, I have two seniors this year, my youngest is graduating from high school and my oldest is graduating from college this year.

Teresa: Get out of here. They are not. Oh I need like some serious work done. Come on people disheveled And now I feel really annoyed that like I didn't come on my A game honestly.

Nakia: So despite how young and vibrant look I am old and I went to college like before the internet like I went to when I went to college there was no internet. Like it was it So all of that marketing experience started to feel a little outdated. And so I went back to school in 2011 I went to American University. They had a master a weekend master's program on branding and strategic communication and online presence and blogging. And so that was where I kind I went and that was the first time in my life that I went to school for me. Like I really wanna be better Like I was starting to feel outdated and I learned about people that had these online businesses and I'm like "These people are living a great life. Like what! Where I'm in?"

Teresa: This is amazing! Yeah.

Nakia: And I stumbled on Marie I stumbled on Marie's B school. She does like a free video series. And I enrolled in that and I was like oh my God I'm gonna do this. And so I did it and I will tell you uh if full transparency at the time when I enrolled in B school my plan was just to start an online business I didn't know what it was gonna be I was just like whatever they're doing I need to figure it out. And it was in B school like being in the Facebook group and seeing all these people like someone stole my eBook I have a client that's not paying me.

I have these they were having all of these issues and I had my Oprah aha moment like I know what my online business is gonna be I need to be a lawyer for these people who need a lawyer and have no clue what they're doing about the legal issues surround around their content and their trademarks. So that's how I just so all of my first client like I built this to practice in Marie Forleo's B-School and then I enrolled in other online courses and it just took off from there.

Teresa: So so good. So how does your day look now. Like I can imagine how your day looked before. What kind of day do you have now?

Nakia: So now I've grown tremend I mean just astronomical growth since I first started. Also I forgot this little part when I first started my husband and I had agreed that I was gonna come home leave the law firm to homeschool. So I was a homeschool mom so I was part-time. So the online space really worked well for that. So I only worked um two season Thursdays So when my daughter graduated and went to college in in 2017 that's when I became I really ramped up and was like full time. And so now I have I mean I have an entirely virtual staff I have people all over the world. Attorneys, support staff, marketing automation you know I have all of these things. Yeah And so my day looks a lot better than it did back then.

And so I really, you know I spend Tuesdays and Thursdays doing new client consults and Wednesdays are dedicated to current clients. I run a membership now that is really beneficial for people because for a lot of business owners, a lot of my clientele I should say they don't necessarily need like a full time expensive lawyer all the time.

Teresa: Yeah totally get that.

Nakia: They just need to like reach out and touch me if they need to. And so that really so I am busy creating content for them. I have tons of contract templates and things that I'm constantly adding to their that they can use Like we just recently had someone who had a client I'm sure you could may have ever may have had to deal with this that isn't paying. And so it's like well how do we address this? What do we have to say? And so she was able to say to me tell me what to say, and so I wrote that out for her Like this is how we demand payment and you wanna I really wanna empower my clients to enforce these contracts that you have like you've invested in having this solid client contract but you really have to say well they have to do what you say we're going to do here.

And if you don't I'm gonna point you to the paragraph that says um may have to terminate our relationship. And that's not always an easy conversation for people to have. And so I spend my days you know responding to those kinds of things or someone says oh I uh found this really cool coworking space and they've given me a contract. What does it say? Can I sign this? Yeah You know And so they can just send that to me. I love that because every day brings something new. It brings something different. It's fresh which is exciting for me. So that's kind of you know for the most part what I spend on my day doing and then of course team meetings. I have my own staff that I have to meet with and strategize with and plan launches and all of those things.

Teresa: So good I love all that. And actually I love the idea of a membership. It's funny when cause obviously I have a membership. I have helped people launch memberships. I have a lot to do with the membership space. And so and I have met the most unique memberships that you think what is that really a thing? But actually for you because I have had lots of thoughts about I need to tighten up on this side of it but there's two things that I don't like dealing with and legal and finance are the two like they're not for me but they're really important. So like the thought of having cause the other thing is that what scares me is. And this was actually one of my questions was you know what's the difference between picking a template up and is that okay?

Because there are people out there who can't afford that at this point you know they're just getting going, they've not really got any clients or not got many clients. So is having a template better than having nothing but then is having you know when do you decide that you have to flip to paying someone to do it personally for you?

Nakia: I am so glad that you that you brought that up because definitely a template is better than nothing. However a template that's not done properly or that you aren't executing correctly can be very detrimental. And so I recommend that even with the template. So that's why in my membership although people have access to all of my you know hundreds of templates we also include document review. So you could up to 10 pages a month, after you after you customize your template send it to us to say did I do this right? Is this you know?

And so I'll tell you a really crazy story. One of my clients was doing a video shoot a brand shoot and the videographer had sent her a contract and my client who's in the membership sent it to say "Hey is this okay? Can I sign it?" And there was a clause in there that said that After the video was completed that the videographer would own the copyright in all rights to the work. Certainly that's not what the videographer meant. They didn't do that. They didn't intentionally say that. And so when I gave my client the language and I said copy this paste this set it to him. And they were like "Oh my God I just got that off Google I had no idea That's what it said." True story. Totally Not every so they just you know so not everyone is like you know and that was great that my client had me to not to talk her off the ledge and say don't get upset and just say "How dare you think I'm gonna pay you $3,000 for a video and you're gonna own it?" You know what I mean? It's like the videographer clearly just got the got a template. And had no And maybe in for some videographers like some famous person you know if Beyonce is your videographer maybe she does wanna own it. But you know for most people they don't wanna own it. They just wanna be paid for it and they'll give it to you.

And so that's a great example of why not having a template and then sending it to people to say. Cause the way that I...