Your trusted source for Iowa business and franchise law insights.
Your trusted source for Iowa business and franchise law insights.
One of the things I love the most is providing proactive educational workshops to companies and other organizations. Due to the ever-growing interest in the topic, I am pleased to announce that I am now offering a new legal training workshop for businesses, large and small, regarding social media. A custom workshop will be designed for your business to cover the following topics:
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Franchisees generally want an exclusive territory that is protected from encroachment by other franchisees or the franchisor’s company owned stores. Unfortunately franchisees are often under the mistaken belief they have an "exclusive territory" when they really don’t.
You must consider whether the franchisor has reserved rights that could cause encroachment or competition from the franchisor, other…
Steve Sink has a post on IowaBiz entitled Using an appraiser to value the business. It’s a worthwhile read.
Steve brings up a good point that many buy/sell agreements are silent on the qualifications of appraisers. He writes that the qualifications of appraisal firms should be specified based on their size, the scope of their…
I advise business owners to seek the advice of an accountant when they are forming a corporation – particuarly if they have multiple businesses. A recent post from accountant Joe Kristan on IowaBiz shows why as a Michigan couple ended up with a $16 million problem in Tax Court.
As the saying goes, "An ounce…
Yesterday I attended the Des Moines Business Record’s Power Breakfast series featuring an expert panel discussion on whether Central Iowans are too risk averse to start businesses. It was well attended and an excellent discussion on the topic, although the topic probably deserves more time and attention than is available in a breakfast. I applaud the Business Record…
With emerging companies I am often asked about equity and stock options for employees. That process is often complicated and costly. Usually the reason I hear favoring the equity / options approach is that employers want their employees to "feel like they are a part of something." An admirable goal ineed but are equity /options necessary to…
Our new startup company, Notifyworks, Inc. has officially launched its Web site today. You can check it out at www.notifyworks.com. The site also contains a blog which will cover client relations and legal technology issues.
Notifyworks is a software system that allow you to set up proactive notifications to clients that are timed to automatically…
Once a mainstay of this blog, I have not written about employment law for quite some time. Since my franchise law practice has grown over the past few years, I’ve left it to Matt Brick from Brick Gentry to handle employment law issues in the office. On the blogging side there are many great employment law blogs…
This blog post from the Minnesota Business and Real Estate Blog discussing the Fallacy that LLCs require less paperwork is spot on.
Many people come to my office wanting to set up an LLC because it is easier to "manage" than a corporation. But even with an LLC, it is important to follow corporate formalities…
Earlier this week I applied for a charge card for my new business. As a part of the application, I was informed that I would need to personally guarantee charges, not only for my card, but also the cards of any other people under the account. Fortunately, this did not come as a surprise because I had…