BIZLEBOX™ Business & Legal In-a-box for Out-of-the-box Thinkers

3. Breaking Down the Basics of Email Management and Legalities in Joint Ventures

• Tamsen Horton • Season 1 • Episode 3

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Ever wondered how to navigate the tricky world of opt-ins for joint ventures? 

You're in the right place! We're about to dissect the legal and practical aspects of it, and you'll leave with a clear understanding of its significance in creating a profitable and legally secure business. 

  • We'll start by defining what an opt-in is and how it's essential in joint venture list building. 
  • You'll learn how to craft a tight privacy policy that includes a clause for sharing email addresses with third parties, seeing it as an important part of your business that, when done right, can take your venture to new heights.

But wait, there's more! The second half of our conversation further magnifies the importance of opt-ins during collaborations. 

  • We'll guide you through the process of obtaining one, exploring its legal implications along the way. 
  • Hear us discuss the ins and outs of managing opt-ins when working alongside others, and learn why including a privacy policy in your partnership isn't just a nice-to-have—it's a must! 
  • We'll round off by talking about the repercussions of mishandling opt-ins and the critical need for mindfulness in each step you take towards a joint venture. 

So buckle up, and prepare for a fulfilling journey into the world of opt-ins and joint ventures!

Thanks for listening. Take the BIZLEBOX™ QUIZ ➡️ How Legally Prepared Are You

This podcast may be considered attorney advertising and is provided for educational and informational purposes only. This is not legal advice specific to any situations.

Tamsen Horton:

In this episode we are going to break apart some of the legalities and the practicalities involved in handling the opt-ins for a joint venture when email addresses are at play. I'm going to share with you the legal, the clause that is required, the things that you need to have covered from a legal perspective and then also really elaborating and highlighting for you that legal doesn't live in a bubble. Legal is here. It is an active, working employee of your business, designed to support and strengthen the joint venture, and exactly how you are using that in building and running and growing all of the wonderfulness of your business.

Kip Horton:

Welcome to the Bizzlebox podcast, the go-to source for out-of-the-box entrepreneurs. Here you found business and legal in a box, all neatly packaged, how thoughtful, with entertaining stories and unforgettable metaphors from licensed attorney Tampson Horton to design and achieve a profitable and legally secure business that makes an impact and allows you to fully live on your terms. Can you ever have an attorney without a disclaimer? Nope, we're going to happen. Here's one just for you. Bizzlebox provides high quality info on business and legal issues, but to get the best advice for your situation, find an attorney you know like and trust. Tampson is an attorney, but she's not your attorney. She is my mom. Now here's Tampson.

Tamsen Horton:

Alright, today we are going to dive in and break apart a question that one of my Bizzlebox members sent to me, and the question is how do you recommend handling email addresses for those that opt in for joint venture events? Such a good question, so applicable to our everyday life as a business owner, and as an online business owner especially. So let's start by first defining the terms. This is so vitally important. When you are doing anything in business, and especially with legal, you want to define what exactly are we talking about, because using generic words like success or that was good or this isn't working. Those aren't helpful, because ask 10 different people, get 10 different answers. So in this episode, when I'm talking about an opt-in, that is when someone is providing their name, their email address, a phone number, some sort of data that can be used to then send them something. So if you are brand new into the lingo of an online business owner, an opt-in is typically what we refer to, the action that is part of a lead magnet. It is all about list building, which, honestly, is just collecting addresses like a good old fashioned Rolodex for those of us that are old enough to remember such a thing. So opt-in personally identifiable information that allows us to then send something directly to someone. And in terms of joint venture, this could be as part of list building. So opt-ins are at play. This could be in the case of purchases, where offers are at play. Anything that you are doing or would be a part of doing with another business entity. It could be a one-to-one joint venture, slash collaboration, or it could be a one-to-many in the instance of a challenge or a virtual summit and understanding that the purpose of joint ventures is really to complement one another in the best sense of the idea. Now are there a lot of joint ventures that don't go so well, absolutely, but at its core, we're really thinking in complementary terms, where we are enhancing each other, complementing each other, working together for the purposes of a specified goal. So when we're talking about this, we definitely have business at play and we have legal at play. That's why Bizzlebox exists Business and legal in a box. We're gonna tackle the legal first, because I think in many ways that's the easier portion of this. So here I wanna tackle it from both sides of the equation.

Tamsen Horton:

If you are the host of the joint venture, so you are the one whose tech team and I refer to tech, team or team tech. I'll say it both ways all of the tools that we hire in our businesses. For instance, I use Kajabi, I use their email, I use their landing pages. So, for me, if I was the host of a joint venture that was collecting opt-ins, then I am using my technology, I'm collecting the data. It lives within my domain of my business, what I would have access to. If that's the case, if I'm the one collecting it, if you are the one collecting it, then your privacy policy must have a clause in it that covers you sharing email addresses with third parties, typically in a joint venture or a collaboration. Part of the enticement for having others collaborate with you or be a part of something is that they will get access to those email addresses, that it will help them also build their list. So if your joint venture doesn't involve sharing email data, you can pretty much just listen on for fun and keep it in mind for future collaborations. But most of the ones that I encounter, your sharing email addresses, your sharing that opt-in data with third parties.

Tamsen Horton:

Now, if you didn't yet listen to episode two, which was the unexpected employee your business's privacy policy. In that episode, I shared with you how I view all of the legal documents that we use in our businesses, how they serve a similar function to that of employees. So if you didn't yet have a chance to listen to that, that's also a really good episode to anchor in. This document isn't just a silly document that lives in a footer, it is an employee of your business and therefore it is performing and is responsible for certain duties in your business. The fact that the law requires all of us to have privacy policy is our clue that they're important employees and we need to treat them as such.

Tamsen Horton:

Now I want to give you I've said if you're the joint venture person and you're collecting the email, your privacy policy has to have this clause. Now I'm going to give you an example of this clause, of what it shows up, what it sounds like in the paragraph, and then we'll kind of pick it apart. So here is the clause Use to third parties. Personal data is never sold, leased or shared with any third parties. A third party is any company outside of the subscriber company relationship. Insert this paragraph if you are doing joint ventures, collaborations with another business and are list sharing the information, the company may provide the subscriber information to third parties with whom the company is collaborating and working together with. If the company is providing subscriber information, the company will provide that information at the time the subscriber provides the information for an opt-in and or purchase. Legal mumbo jumbo right, totally, totally get it. So, in a broad sense, what this clause does is provide you, as the person collecting the email addresses, the legal permission and solid footing, legally speaking, to stand on should you or your business ever be challenged with a legal action that is, concerning data collection or data privacy.

Tamsen Horton:

So what you are giving yourself? What? This employee, this document that works for you. That's why I call it employee. It is working for you. It is not an independent contractor. It does not show up when it wants to. It shows up every single day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is saying I'm not sharing information, but if I do a joint collaboration, if I'm doing a joint venture, then yes, I may share that information. When you put this in at the inception of your business or before you even encounter a collaboration of any sort, you're covered. It's not something you need to go back and address. You would have there and it would be working for you.

Tamsen Horton:

Now I do know of two instances, and this is where people often say well, does that just really what's going to happen? Like, seriously, nobody cares, somebody, it only takes one person to care. That's the tricky part and often the frustrating part with legal. We're constantly thinking about and planning for the worst case scenario, but the worst case scenario is usually a fraction of a percent of the time. To me, if we take care of that, it just makes everything else much better. So I know of two instances. One I was not involved with at all. One I was involved behind the scenes in the cleanup aspect of life, and they both involved virtual summits. They were not massive virtual summits. They had about, I believe, a dozen not quite two dozen collaborators as part of it. So not a mega virtual summit, but a large virtual summit, and both were due to misuse and mishandling of the emails and the data collection that all persons. The result was that all persons associated with the virtual summit were legally required to delete all the data that was collected from the event.

Tamsen Horton:

Can you imagine Like if you're brand new to the online business realm, you might not have a complete experience yet of how much work really does go into making all those buttons magically click. For those of us that have been around for a long time, we know how much work goes into making all those little buttons magically click, of coordinating the recording or the delivery of all of those different people, all the different resources. It's a big undertaking. Imagine if you did all that and then because of misuse, because of mishandling in really inappropriate ways, all the work that went into that, the easiest resolution was just delete it, like just get rid of all of it. That was the easiest solution that could be achieved. Oh yeah, I mean not fun, not fun at all. And that is going to bring me into the handling of opt-ins and emails when you're working with other people.

Tamsen Horton:

Joint Ventures another good word for it is a group project. I'm almost 50 years old. I've done a lot of group projects in my life. Some are spectacular and I love them, others not so much. Joint venture group project to me that's always a good way to link the terms so that the decisions that I'm making, the choices that I'm making, are going into making this one of the best experiences and Not the not the worst. So we're gonna again Do this on two different sides. One as the host of a joint venture.

Tamsen Horton:

Require, as part of your collaboration, links to each and every person's privacy policy, not optional. You want to apply to be a collaborator name, email address, social media links link to your privacy policy. There is a reason that Facebook ads will not let you run Facebook ads without a link to this, so require it as part of your process now. Ideally, you are using a digital tool like a Google form type form, a job form I'm sure there are many other forms that I'm not even thinking about to collect the information from your collaborators, from your other group project members, and Keeping all that information. Most of those tools. I know Google for sure. It's already built in as part of the Google tool suite. Check a box, move a, toggle over and every submission lands on a spreadsheet. Fabulous, everything is there. All the links are there. It's easy to save. You have covered yourself as a host, now as a collaborator, check the host's privacy policy. If you can't find a privacy policy, that is a good little bell ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Hey, just looking for your privacy policy. Where would that be? When you find it, look for a clause similar to the one that I shared above. Do this before you sign on as a collaborator as part of that group project, because you Just don't want to get roped in to a mess, even if the end result is everything comes out fine, which it does 99% of the time, it really really does.

Tamsen Horton:

I'm just not a gambler like that. I Don't want to gamble with my time, my money, my freedoms, my families. I'm just not. I'm not that kind of a gambler. I Might try a new drink, you know, at Starbucks, or a new flavor of ice cream or something like that, but this is not an area that I personally gamble. You have to make that decision for yourself now, checking making sure that it's there, because it means they're thinking about it and if they're thinking about it, it probably means they're doing steps to protect your data.

Tamsen Horton:

When I have been Invited to things in the past, if I saw to me they're many red flags, I'd be like, hey, I'm looking for this. You know where do you have it. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't. If they didn't, most of them were like, oh, I need this. I'm like, yeah, this would be really handy. Now I'm in the unique position where I could point them in the right direction, just because I am an attorney. This is what I was being asked to come to the summit to be a part of, or the Challenge or whatever the collaboration is.

Tamsen Horton:

But I don't. If they're like, oh, we don't have it or they don't get back to me, I don't make a big deal about it, I just move on. I just don't sign on to do the thing. So you don't need to make a big Ruckus about it. You don't need to like, go into crazy I Don't know crazy mode out over it, just be aware of it. And I personally Wouldn't sign on if I didn't have a link to the privacy policy. I, as a group project member, I would take the additional step and this is truly probably overkill on my part, but I would just Get the URL. I do a quick screen capture of what was at play when I signed on and I would save it in my notes with that Group project so that if anything would happen, I just have it. I don't have to look for it. It's not a big deal, it just covers, covers me, gives me peace of mind and it takes minutes to do.

Tamsen Horton:

Now here is another piece that, when you are looking practically speaking and I think this really, really plays into the business aspect is that, when you are good, when you are someone that other people enjoy, when you are great at your craft and you know what you're doing, you're going to be asked to be a part of a lot of things, and that is fantastic. You're going to find, though, that not everything is right for you when they are asking you to be a part of it, and here is where you really need to know what is your business model exactly. If you cannot draw on a sheet of paper such that my now 12 year old could understand how you are making money, where you are showing up for a read magnet so a YouTube, a blog, a podcast where, specifically, the exact URL where people are providing you their optin information, links to your specific offer, exactly where your business model is, your funnel is drawn on paper, then you don't know if this group project is good or not, and to me, people like to talk in the what I call the cloudy level, like the oh, this will be great, don't you want to be a part of it? And we're going to have this many people and this person's a part of it, and yada, yada, yada, yada, great, I'm going to pull out my current running business models. I have a unique term for it North Pole to New York City. We'll save that for another episode, but I will look at it and say specifically okay, this fits exactly here on this sales funnel. I can plug it in Because, let's say, you get 100, 1000, 10,000 or more emails as part of the joint venture, the collaboration, the group project.

Tamsen Horton:

You need to know exactly what are you doing with those people. Now, if you're the person running the joint venture, you likely have a clue exactly what you are going to do with people, but you would be surprised there are some people that don't. They made it as far as oh, you should run this collaboration or you should run. I'll use virtual summits is just a good example for this. Oh, you should run this, and then they run it and it goes well. And then they're they. Oh, oh. I didn't exactly know what I wanted people to do.

Tamsen Horton:

So what is the next step Immediately following the joint venture for you and your business? You have the equivalent of an opt-in or a lead magnet step. That's now complete. We're talking about email addresses. That means the opt-in is complete. So now what?

Tamsen Horton:

And that really is why you have Bizzlebox business and legal in a box, because legal supports your business. You don't want to operate in such a way that you pigeonhole legal or you shove it in a corner, because Legal is there not just to support you. It is there to be your really fantastic, amazing, couldn't replace employee. It is there to make you money. It's there to save you time. It's there to save you money. All of those pieces are Exactly what legal is designed to do.

Tamsen Horton:

And so when you are exploring joint ventures, you're being asked to be a part of them or you're running them, you're collecting email addresses.

Tamsen Horton:

Yes, you cover the legal aspect. You make sure I have the privacy policy, I have the clause or I've checked that someone else has taken care of those pieces. And Then, most importantly, I know Was this the right collaboration to say yes to at this point in time? And that becomes an easy way of looking at your business model, looking at your sales funnel and saying yes, it fits in this spot. And if it doesn't fit in this spot, then you have a really professional, polite way of saying Thank you so much for inviting me. I am flattered that you asked me to be a part of this, but for right now, this doesn't fit in the business the way that I have laid it out. I have thought, I have strategy, I have all of those things in place because you want to be able to and talking about today specifically, you want to be able to use what you've learned To strengthen and support the incredible impact that you are bringing to the world.

Kip Horton:

Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review and share it with a friend. At Bizzlebox, we love helping entrepreneurs succeed. We offer a variety of reliable, easy to use tools. At Bizzleboxcom, our goal is to help you have a profitable and legally secure business so you can make your impact while living fully on your terms. Until next time, take what you've learned and put it to work for you.