Your standard terms and conditions (i.e. the legal basis on which you are willing to do business with your customers) should be the first legal document that you put in place when you are starting a business. You should consult a specialist commercial contracts lawyer (like me!) and discuss what your business does, the key processes within your business and your typical customers. The lawyer will then draft you a robust set of standard terms that you will use for each future transaction, with you just stating the points particular to each customer (such as the exact services or goods and price) in the purchase order or in a schedule. You pay one upfront fee and use the terms and conditions again and again, safe in the knowledge that your business is properly protected. They are essential for any business for the following reasons:

1. written terms and conditions help to create certainty as to the agreement

Oral contracts are in theory just as enforceable as written contracts, but the main problems with oral contracts are evidence and certainty. You may forget some of the terms that have been agreed with the passage of time or there may be a dispute as to what was actually agreed.

Similarly, with emails back and forth, it can be difficult to work out what was actually agreed. It is much easier to have your standard terms and conditions to hand that have been drafted by a lawyer and clearly set out the position on all important matters. It will also cost you a lot more in legal fees if you have any dispute if a lawyer has to spend time reading through chains of emails to work out what the contractual position is rather than it already being drafted in plain English.

2. written terms and conditions help to minimise legal disputes and the chances of you being taken to court

If you do have clear written terms covering all of the necessary areas of your provision of goods or services, the chance of a legal dispute is minimised as a lawyer will advise the customer that the terms are clear on the matter and they would have little chance of winning if the matter were to go to court. Accordingly, you are less likely to be taken to court.

3. written terms and conditions help you to cover all of the important matters and not overlook the things that are less obvious

As a non-lawyer, you will probably consider the more business related terms such as price, payment terms and delivery costs, but you may not think about limiting your liability, disclaiming your liability for failure or delay caused by force majeure, protection of your intellectual property rights and the passing of title and risk. A well drafted set of terms and conditions will fully protect your position.

4. written terms and conditions help you to enforce your agreement

If you have clear terms and conditions, it will be clear where a customer has breached the contract. Written contracts are much easier to enforce should you wish to take a customer to court (for example for non payment).

5. written terms and conditions help you to provide good customer service

A clear set of terms and conditions that are applied consistently to all customers can assist you with providing good customer service. With regard to the protections for you, it will not come as a surprise to the customer when you seek to enforce a right specified in the terms. But moreover, in addition to including protections for you as the supplier, you can also include rights for your customers in your terms to provide them with reassurance as to how you will handle the agreement, for example sections on complaints, refunds and insurance.

6. written terms and conditions help to avoid mismatched expectations

Mismatched expectations are not good for your business! For example, if you are supplying products, your customer may expect delivery within 2 days. You might actually require 2 weeks as you are importing the goods from overseas. If you spell this out clearly in your terms and conditions, you will have less disgruntled customers and save time on administration in answering calls from customers wondering where there products are.

If you are a supplier of services, a written contract is almost more important for this reason. If you are a website designer for example, it is always advisable to have as detailed a specification as possible so that there are no mismatched expectations as to timescales, layout, further charges etc.

7. written terms and conditions help you comply with the law

There may be certain regulations that apply to your particular industry that you would be wise to make reference to in your terms and conditions. If you are carrying on e-commerce, the law requires you to provide certain information to your customers in writing prior to conclusion of the contract and this is usually set out in written terms and conditions. The Provisions of Services Regulations that came into force in late 2009 require suppliers of services to provide the customer with certain information and the appropriate place for this is in the terms and conditions.

Email or call us now to discuss your standard terms of business and the protections that you need!

I have heard of many people who have decided to set up their own business, spent ages pondering a name for the business, spent a fortune on a website, logo, business cards and other marketing materials and then for one reason or another discover they can no longer use their business name and have to re-do the website, logo, business cards and other marketing materials etc at great expense. Make sure this doesn’t happen to you by following my top tips for choosing a business name:

1. Check that your proposed name or a very similar name is not already registered at Companies House. You can check online for free here or google “Companies House webcheck”. Although only limited company names and LLP names are registered at Companies House, you may want to register as a limited company, if not at the start of your business at some stage in the future, and you won’t be able to register your business name if there is already a company registered with the same or a similar name.
2. Check that your proposed name or similar is not registered with the Business Names Registry. This register includes the names of businesses which are not necessarily limited companies and LLPs and therefore won’t be found on the Companies House search. It is not mandatory to register so this database doesn’t contain all of the business names out there but it is still worthwhile doing a search. You can search online for free here.
3. If you want to form a limited company or LLP (or there is a chance that you might want to do so in the future), check that the name does not include a sensitive word (such as British, National, International, European, Association, Authority, Chartered, Council, Institute, Society, Charity, Insurance, Register, Trust, Health Centre, Parliament, Government, Royal, Queen, Prince) as you need to obtain the approval of the Secretary of State for these names to be registered and they will only be approved if it is absolutely appropriate for you to use the name.
4. Ensure your proposed name is not the same or very similar to a registered trade mark of a product or service in the same market as you. If it is, you may risk the owner of the trade mark bringing an action against you to stop you using the name or at the least will not be able to register the name as your own trade mark. You can search online for free here.
5. Make sure your name is capable of being trade marked as you may wish to trademark your business name at some stage in the future. See my article on this point.
6. Carry out a domain name search to check that the domain names are still available. It might be worth registering both .com and .co.uk and having a redirection to prevent somebody else from using them. You can search online for free at Nominet – Also do a google search to check that a competing business isn’t using a similar name because if it is, you might run into problems with passing off down the line.
7. And finally, not really a legal point, but if you are hoping to expand internationally, make sure that your name doesn’t have meanings or associations that you would rather it didn’t in those jurisdictions.

I hope that this is helpful but if anyone has any questions, please get in touch!

“Suzanne Dibble, founder of Lawyers4mumpreneurs, is an award winning business lawyer who specialises in business law for entrepreneurial mums. For testimonials from clients who have been delighted with Suzanne’s friendly, cost effective, jargon-free business law advice, please see http://www.lawyers4mumpreneurs.com”

I read with interest the article by Rebecca Jones (Business in Red Shoes – follow her on twitter @RedShoeBizWoman) on whether the term “mumpreneur” was doing business women a disservice. Her article in Business Zone can be read here.  I felt compelled to respond and my response is set out here.

A very interesting article Rebecca. What does being a mumpreneur mean? The dictionary definition was “a mother who combines bringing up children with running a company”. To me, it is more than that – it means you are fitting your business around your children, working from home without childcare. The doctors, dentists and hairdressers that Rebecca mentions presumably don’t have their offspring running around them whilst they are seeing patients or cutting hair. Mums who have childcare and go off to work outside of the home are not, in my view, mumpreneurs – they are indeed simply business women who have children. They don’t have the same needs and requirements as the mums who are literally fitting their work into naptimes, evening and weekends or whilst the children are playing in the kitchen as they work.

The ‘real’ mumpreneurs are a distinct business group with their own set of needs and requirements. And as a response to this, a fantastic community and support group has evolved. Mumpreneur networking groups (such as Mums The Boss) hold events at times avoiding the school run and in venues that offer childcare facilities. New work spaces (such as Third Door) are springing up to provide flexible working facilities with on-site childcare. Mumpreneur conferences (such as the Mumpreneur Conference) are being held to provide advice and support tailored to mumpreneurs.

From a lawyer’s perspective, mumpreneurs have their own requirements and needs in the provision of legal services. For example, mumpreneurs find it easier and less intimidating to deal with a lawyer like me who won’t mind if there is a crying baby in the background rather than deal with a middle aged man in a pinstriped suit in a city office who might not have quite the same empathy if little Harry starts screaming again… Mumpreneurs need to work flexibly around the demands of their children, so they like the fact that I am happy to schedule calls in the evening and at the weekend. Perhaps most importantly, mumpreneur businesses are in the main, small, self funded businesses and mumpreneurs need affordable legal advice with certainty as to the legal fee. I keep my fees affordable and offer fixed fees wherever I can, something that not many lawyers are prepared to do. Finally, because I work almost exclusively with mumpreneur businesses, which do tend to be of a similar nature, I am already very familiar with the legal issues and know exactly what is important to a mumpreneur and what is not.

Female entrepreneurs who don’t like the term (and these are typically the mums who I would refer to as business women who have childcare and work outside of the home and therefore not ‘real‘ mumpreneurs) don’t see why they should be labelled as a subsection of business and think that the term is demeaning to them, making their business seem more ‘hobby like’ and less professional. That might be a perception, but a lot of my mumpreneur clients are building fantastic businesses that any entrepreneur would be proud of. And for many mumpreneurs, success is not about building up their business to a million pound turnover. It is about being successfully balancing spending time with their children whilst still having something for them and keeping them intellectually stimulated and if that means that their business is kept to a small scale and ‘hobby-like’, so be it.

But I think the most important point to make here is that the mumpreneurs I work with don’t refer to themselves as mumpreneurs in their everyday dealings – it is just a useful term when looking for networking groups, conferences etc. They don’t introduce themselves and say “hi, I’m a mumpreneur!”.  I use the word ‘mumpreneur’ in my business name because it attracts the people who I want to help – as a mum who has set up her own business to work around children, I know how hard it is. But other than when I am working with mumpreneurs (where a bit of empathy is beneficial to the working relationship) I don’t advertise the fact that I am working around my baby and I still offer my clients the same top quality service that I did when I was working at global law firm DLA Piper. I’m similarly sure that a mumpreneur going to pitch at John Lewis wouldn’t describe themselves as a mumpreneur or advertise the fact that they work around their children.

And as to whether mumpreneurs take their businesses seriously, well I guess my business wouldn’t be successful if they didn’t (and it is!) as a willingness to spend money on legal fees to ensure that things are done properly is always a good indication as to how seriously people take their businesses…

Today is the day of Harry Moseley’s funeral. Harry is the young boy from Birmingham who was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2007. From when he was diagnosed Harry set about helping others with cancer and raising funds and awareness through his public speaking and making bracelets. You can read more about Harry and his inspirational work here.

I have been incredibly moved by Harry’s story and others like him such as Jack Marshall who sadly passed away last week from a brain tumour and a friend’s 3 year old who has already endured over a year of chemo/radio and is now starting an intensive 6 week course of radiotherapy where the radiation is actually injected into him and he will be so radioactive that his parents can only see him for minutes each day. Childhood cancer seems to be becoming more and more common and it must be the worst thing that any family can suffer.

We must do more to support cancer research to find out why cancer rates are increasing, how we can prevent it and how we can treat it. In my view, the government is not doing enough. I have therefore decided to donate 10% of all of my profits this year to a children’s cancer charity – I am going to research which charities are out there and shall let you know which one I decide to go for. I strongly urge you to do the same for no family should have to suffer seeing their beloved baby, toddler, child or teenager die a slow cruel death at the hands of this awful disease.

This year’s Everywoman Conference is set to be the highlight of the business women’s calendar! The focus this year will be on capitalising on your own personality to stand out from the crowd and set your business apart. There are some amazing speakers lined up, such as Trish Halpin (Editor in Chief, Marie Claire), Maria Kempinska MBE (Founder, Jongleurs) and Nina Grunfeld (Founder, LifeClubs) to name a few.

I will also be there exhibiting this year, so if you’re going along come and say hi! You’ll be able to pick up free factsheets and checklists on trade marks, website compliance, advertising compliance, data protection, e-commerce, terms and conditions and franchising, as well as the chance to win fabulous Fortnum & Mason hamper worth £100.

For more information about the conference and to purchase tickets, have a look at their website. Tickets are £125 + VAT – but you can get two tickets for the price of one courtesy of the wonderful Lara Morgan by using discount code LMD2

Last night at Old Billingsgate in the City was the glitzy Law Society Awards bash for which I had been shortlisted for 2 awards – Solicitor of the Year and the award for Excellence in Client Service.

I arrived an hour late having been stuck in really bad traffic (so late that I had to get changed in the taxi which was a first…) and at the bar was told that the free champagne had ended and I would have to pay for the pleasure… With tickets for the dinner priced at £270 per person, I found this a little on the mean side…

But I was offered a lovely free non alcoholic cocktail which was probably just as well as I had already supped two glasses of champagne at Charles Worthington getting my hair done earlier in the day (not that you would have guessed judging by the photo of me…). The awards started as soon as we went through for dinner. This caused me some consternation as our starters were in front of us and the last I had eaten (apart from a small salmon blini at the hairdressers) was a cheese sarnie at 11.30am. Happily the lovely presenter BBC Broadcaster Mishal Husain announced that we could munch away whilst the awards were being announced. This led to another fear however that I would have remnants of the salmon crostini somewhere about my person when I collected my award…

I need not have worried however as the first award for which I had been shortlisted (the award for Excellence in Client Service) came and went without a mention for yours truly… A bit gutted as my practice is all about excellence of service and I feel that the testimonials that I submitted more than demonstrated this. But at least I could carry on munching my salmon crostini safe in the knowledge that I didn’t have to make an appearance on the somewhat scary stage.

There was a break for the main course – guinea fowl which was actually quite tasty – and I chatted to a lovely lady next to me who was there supporting her husband, a family lawyer who has had great success in securing access rights for grandparents, who was also shortlisted for the Solicitor of the Year Award. Before I knew it, the awards were back on and we were racing towards the ultimate award, Solicitor of the Year. I thought that if I hadn’t won anything in the Excellence in Client Service award, I stood no chance in the main award for Solicitor of the Year. But much to my surprise and delight, the first highly commended was announced and then, drum roll…. next I know I am hearing my background read out, the spotlight is shining on me and the presenter is announcing my name as Highly Commended for Solicitor of the Year (ie runner up!). Well to be honest the first thing I could think to do was to tweet about it… (sad I know!) so after having accepted congratulations from the people on my table, I shared the news with my twitter friends and was quite overwhelmed by the number of lovely messages I received back.

I was given an allocation of 11.35 to have my photo taken but that was past my bedtime so I snuck in earlier and gave my best cheesy smile clutching my certificate. By midnight I was on my train home still clutching my certificate and still wearing a big cheesy grin!

I am delighted to have been shortlisted for Solicitor of the Year and for the Excellence in Client Service award at the Law Society Awards 2011. The winners will be announced at a glitzy bash at Old Billingsgate on Tuesday 18 October 2011 so I will be keeping everything crossed that I win at least one of them!

The award I would prefer to win is the Excellence in Client Service award, as that is what my practice is all about – excellent customer service.

So keep everything crossed for me!!

Encouraging Women into Franchising (EWIF) is a fantastic organisation dedicated to encouraging women into franchising. Whether you are looking to be – or already are – a franchisor or franchisee, their website has loads of great free advice plus a mentoring service where you can benefit from 30 minutes free advice with any one or more of an existing franchisor, an existing franchisee, a specialist franchise lawyer (like me!), an accountant or a franchise consultant.

EWIF also hold an annual Awards Ceremony celebrating the achievements of women in franchising and I was very honoured to be a finalist in the EWIF Franchise Service Provider of the Year category!

If you are interested in joining EWIF, we meet four times a year in Cobham, Surrey and the very low membership fee of £60 a year represents excellent value. See the EWIF website for more details.

What are you doing on 28/29/30 October 2011? I will be at this year’s Millionaire Bootcamp for Women in London…

During ‘closed-door’ sessions, 12 women entrepreneurs are going to reveal everything they currently do in business… what’s working and what’s not.

These entrepreneurs have gone from ‘welfare to millionaire’ in 5 years or less… and can train us how to do the exact same thing.

Get your Earlybird Ticket now by clicking here.

This is billed as a life-changing opportunity like no other… It’s the only time you’ll get so many experts who can help you in the same room.

They’ll be showing us:

• How to make an extra £250K in the next year.
• How to create your own million dollar business in 3 years or less.
• How to use Facebook and Twitter the RIGHT way to promote yourself.
• How to accelerate your business using simple YouTube videos.
• How to make money from your laptop from anywhere in the world… and even while you sleep.
• And much, much more.

Grab your discounted seat now.

Some of these experts are charging thousands of pounds consultancy fees per day… so for the early bird price of £39 this really is a no-brainer.

I’m attending… and I really recommend that you come along too. I look forward to seeing you there.

I’m delighted to tell you that I was recently recognised at the Mumpreneur Awards 2011 by being awarded “Best Business Support”! I feel it’s a tremendous accolade, not least because the high calibre and entrepreneurial judging panel who made the decision included the one and only Duncan Bannatyne, but because the organisation really does stand for everything my clients are and hope to be, approaching business success in the same way as I do.

I’d like to say a big thank you to all of you who have supported me, recommended me and helped me to get here. It has given me fresh inspiration to do even more for the mumpreneur community and in support of my current and future clients!

And finally, if you’re not yet aware of Mumpreneur UK, do pop along to their website – it is a truly fantastic resource for mumpreneurs.