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Hello and belated Happy New Year! Hope your 2025 is off to a great start. Mine started with the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans on New Year’s Day so it was…chaotic and unexpected. Followed with island hopping in the Caribbean only to hurt my ankle trying to escape a monsoon and having to come back to the U.S. early 🤷🏻♀️ Relishing the idea of staying in one place for awhile and building more in-person business relationships. Hope your year has been more peaceful 😆
Anyway, wanted to outline some recent important updates to laws and regulations so you can ensure your business is legally compliant. I’d recommend booking a Power Hour with me or a similar session with another experienced business lawyer to do a full deep dive audit into your business’s compliance as this is by no means all-inclusive:
Compliance with FTC Requirements
Regardless of whether your business is in the United States, if you are doing business in the U.S. you need to ensure you’re compliant with Federal Trade Commission regulations. I’ve included below both new rules around social media, as well as older FTC Rules you should be aware of and in compliance with.
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- This probably goes without saying and I can’t imagine anyone here is creating fake reviews or fake testimonials, but just in case, the FTC rules prohibit a business posting fake reviews or fake testimonials.
- Similarly, although not mandated by the FTC, but important for your own liability protection, you should have website policies which state that testimonials are the experience of one client only and no guarantee of results, as well as testimonial releases in your contracts giving you the right to use any testimonial you receive from a client for any commercial purpose. Most of our client contract templates have testimonial releases embedded. Email me back if you have questions on this.
- Affiliate Marketing/Sales
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- Do you have affiliate links on your website or in your social media bio? Have you disclosed that they’re affiliate links? The FTC requires disclosures to be clear and conspicuous. This is actually really easy to satisfy. If you have my website policies, you’re prompted in the policies to disclose your affiliate links. If you don’t, make sure wherever you’re displaying your affiliate links that you state not only that the links are affiliate links, but that you will make a commission off any sales generated through the links.
- Sponsored Social Media/Blog Posts
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- FTC Rules require any business paid to promote a product or service to disclose that relationship. Even if you paid for a product or a service but received a discounted price, you need to follow these Rules. Specifically, any sponsored blog post or social media post needs to prominently display the fact that it was sponsored. Prominently display means that “ad,” “brand sponsor,” “brand ambassador,” etc. needs to be front and center on any caption or blog post (or any other sponsored content). Just saying “Thanks X!” where you’re thanking whoever sponsored you does not satisfy the FTC Rules. Neither does abbreviating sponsor, or just using #collab.
- This includes videos! Depending on the length of the video, you should disclose if it was sponsored. If it’s a long live video for example, disclose during the video that it’s sponsored. If it’s a short reel, adding #sponsored or something similar can suffice.
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- I think we’re going to see more cracking down on influencers in 2025 than ever before. If you’re an influencer or you work with influencers as a social media manager or agency, make sure you understand that any endorsements you/they make must be an honest reflection of the influencer’s opinion. This means that the influencer actually has to have personal knowledge of and experience with whatever they’re promoting. The days of influencers blindly promoting any product that will pay them are long over.
Beneficial Ownership Compliance: Corporate Transparency Act
You may have seen posts about registering your business with the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Network (FinCEN) last year. Many like myself viewed the registration requirements as government overreach and an invasion of privacy, and it has been in protracted litigation for over a year which placed the Act on hold. A bill is currently making its way through Congress which would essentially extend that hold until 2026, and litigation is still ongoing. Bottom line for you? If you filed a Beneficial Ownership Information Report, no worries. If you didn’t file a BOI, registration remains voluntary. If you want me to keep you updated, please respond back and I’ll make sure to reach out if compliance becomes mandatory. I am already monitoring for clients I’ve filed LLCs for.
Questions on any of the above? Email me back! Have a great week.
Ready to get legal?
CONTRACT TEMPLATES: fill in the blank templates for everything from client contracts, to hiring, to protecting your website. These are templates, yes, but I’ve made them as comprehensive as I possibly can. Most businesses can use templates, at least in the early days of their business. Businesses that are higher liability risk (e.g. you engage in alternate healing practices, you have a brick and mortar as well as online, you are a licensed professional like a PT or a nurse and want to move into wellness coaching, your work is nuanced and highly specialized…) you need custom contracts. Email me if you’re unsure whether you can use templates.
BACK POCKET LEGAL: I’m going to be expanding and relaunching this relatively soon. Am working through now how I can add the most amount of value for new as well as current members, and possibly bringing back a monthly Q&A. Let me know if you’d like to be updated. Currently, BPL contains every single template I offer. I have members in BPL from when I first launched its predecessor, who have used the templates for everything from their 1:1 offers, to protecting their websites, to launching a paid intensive, to offering a VIP Day, to hosting a retreat and hiring contractors, all with top quality lawyer-drafted templates. I also have modules on DIY trademarking, filing your LLC, what to do when a client won’t pay along with a lawyer-drafted demand letter, and more.
WORKING WITH ME 1:1 IN 2025: Currently, I offer custom contract drafting, contract review (e.g. if you have an old contract you need updated and revised, or if you have a contract from a contractor, or if a prospect comes back with red lines to your contract), and trademarks. I do select other business law work for pre existing clients, though this is limited and will be further scaled back this year. I also offer Power Hours for business audits or business owners who have legal questions.
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