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Welcome back to another episode of Sam's Sidebar, where I tackle your essential legal
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questions about starting and growing a legally protected online business in ten minutes
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or less. This week, you'll get legal tips all about how to use a disclaimer as a service
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provider.
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And Tish asked, "If I'm a web designer/SEO expert and I sell a course, how would I go
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about the legal disclaimer?" It seems similar to the whole I'm a doctor but not your
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doctor, but for web SEO design stuff.
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Is that the right way to go about it?
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I want to share knowledge, but not be liable if someone doesn't follow instructions or if
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it just doesn't work out for someone's site for whatever reason.
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This is such a good question, Tish.
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first thing I love about your question is that you recognize that disclaimers are not
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just for those in the health and wellness or food industries.
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Everybody who has a business, who offers services, sells programs, or creates content
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needs to be "worried" about disclaimers.
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Worried meaning aware, not losing any sleep.
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disclaimers are something that we have in many different places in our businesses for
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different reasons.
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You should have disclaimer language in your contracts, on your website through a website
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disclaimer, even maybe in your content on a blog post or something, in your terms of use
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like the contract that you would use at checkout for online courses and memberships.
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There are so many different places to use a disclaimer, maybe even in the beginning of a
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webinar or a live training.
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part of the disclaimer language that you seem to be interested in, though, is the part
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that I build into all of my client contract templates and my terms of use - the one that
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you use for courses and memberships - regarding guarantees and warranties.
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That is just one provision of a disclaimer.
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It's really important that your clients, no matter what you do, understand that you're
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not guaranteeing a certain outcome or result through working with you, or through taking
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your course, or buying your program.
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for Tish, that might mean like not guaranteeing that the client's website traffic will
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improve if they use Tish's SEO services.
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We can't control that.
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What if the client doesn't ever post on their site?
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What if they're a bad writer? Or what if they don't follow your directions?
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Or, for you, this might mean you're not guaranteeing any certain body result, a mindset
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achievement, a business result, a career outcome.
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as I always say, we have to be consistent across the board.
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We don't want to make any of those kinds of promises or representations and then just
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sneak in a "but I didn't promise you anything" kind of policy into our contracts.
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So, we have to be cognizant of not making any of those kinds of statements or implying
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any sort of guaranteed outcome or result, even in our marketing, in our copy on our
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websites, and stuff we say on social media, anything like that.
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It can actually trigger some state's consumer protection and fraud laws, too, so it's
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really, really important that we take that pretty seriously.
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this element of your disclaimer and the disclaimer paragraphs that I sprinkled throughout
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your legal templates, like any single contract that you get from me, are just one part of
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what makes a solid disclaimer.
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So, instead of trying to write any of these yourself, how about you shop my DIY legal
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templates, download any of my contracts, or even my mini-disclaimer for your content and
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fill it out in 15 minutes or less.
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It's way easier than writing it yourself.
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each one of my DIY legal templates comes with an editable file of the template itself and
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a how-to video walkthrough, where I actually show you exactly how to fill it out so you
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know how to customize it and make it your own.
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Plus, if you purchase one of the templates that's included in my signature program, the
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Ultimate Bundle, you can receive a credit towards upgrading to the bundle when you're
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ready for the entire program.
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So, you can click the link below down in the show notes to shop all of my DIY legal
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templates or head to samvanderwielen.com/shop.
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you so much for joining me this week on Sam's Sidebar.
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Check out the show notes below for blog posts and resources I got for you.
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Full episodes of On Your Terms air every single Monday.
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And then, my little Q&A sessions are here every single Thursday.
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If you have a question that you want me to answer on a future episode, please do me a
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favor and go ahead and click the link below to submit your legal question for an upcoming
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episode. I would love to answer it.
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you so much for listening. I'll see you next week.
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so much for listening to the On Your Terms Podcast.
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Make sure to follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen to
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podcast. You can also check out all of our podcast episodes, show notes, links, and more
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at samvanderwielen.com/podcast.
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You can learn more about legally protecting your business and take my free legal
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workshop, Five Steps to Legally Protect and Grow Your Online Business, at
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samvanderwilen.com. And to stay connected and follow along, follow me on Instagram,
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@samvanderwielen, and send me a DM to say
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hi.
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remember that although I am a attorney, I am not your attorney and I am not offering you
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legal advice in today's episode.
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This episode and all of my episodes are informational and educational only.
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It is not a substitute for seeking out your own advice from your own lawyer.
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And please keep in mind that I can't offer you legal advice.
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I don't ever offer any legal services.
