Transcript:
Claudia: Welcome back, bold move besties to another episode of She Built Success. I’m Claudia, let’s get into it. So today I am joined with Yasmin. She is an intellectual property lawyer, the founder of Coaches and Company and podcast host two, the business of doing Business. Yasmin, welcome!
Yasmine: Thanks, Claudia. Excited to be here.
Claudia: I’m excited to have you. So y’all, I gotta tell you how Yasmine and I first met. Of course, social media is a thing, right? So I saw Yasmine first on social media and I said, yep, I need to get my brand all the way together. And at that time it was a completely different brand ’cause now *laughing*
Yasmine: we were living in a different world, first of all.
Claudia: Touché, you are absolutely, you’re absolutely correct. Yeah. This was pre-pandemic way. Pre, well, a few years. Pre-pandemic.
Yasmine: Maybe 2017, 2018.
Claudia: Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. Yes. And so, um, Yasmine definitely came in and it was a pleasure, obviously to work with you. I, I want you to talk about, and we could trademarks, IP, what that looks like in business, but also mom life, right? Because yeah, we know business and momming is a thing for real.
Yasmine: We’re doing that.
Claudia: Yeah. So what, what made you get into intellectual property and what have you found? The, uh, I’ll say hangups when you work with small business clients or clients in general. ’cause I know it’s not just small business.
Yasmine: Yeah.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: So how did I get into intellectual property?
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: Well, first let me say mm-hmm. It’s also been a pleasure to work with you over the years.
Claudia: Thank you
Yasmine: Yes. Like I, You’ve been a client of my firm. I’ve been a client of your firm.
Claudia: Yes.
Yasmine: And you are one of the most brilliant and talented people I know.
Claudia: Thank you.
Yasmine: So thank you for inviting me.
Claudia: Thank you.
Yasmine: To join you.
Claudia: Oh, thank you.
Yasmine: And yeah, for all your business over the years.
Claudia: Thank you.
Yasmine: You’re welcome. Thank you. Uh, so yeah, so how did I get into intellectual property? So I was working at a firm when I was in law school. And I was taking some IP classes, some business law related classes, and I remember when I was working at this firm, I was also a consumer on social media. I mean, I wasn’t using, I wasn’t building a brand online. This was like. 2014.
Claudia: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yasmine: So 10 years ago, a little over 10 years ago now. I know, and I wanna say I was one of the first people on Instagram. I was definitely an early adopter, you know, in like 2011 or so.
Claudia: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Yasmine: And so I remember being on there as a consumer and seeing all of these people creating intellectual property.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Yasmine: They were creating content, they were building brands. Some people had set up e-commerce stores and were selling products on a website.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: And I remember bringing that to my supervising attorney’s attention and saying like. Yo, you should see what people are doing on the internet.
Claudia: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yasmine: You know, it’s really cool what they’re doing and they thought it was interesting. But we had a full caseload. We served a lot of traditional clients. Clients who, you know, we had construction company clients, salon and spa restaurant.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Yasmine: Accounting firms, et cetera. Oh, so they weren’t really interested in what was going on.
Claudia: On social.
Yasmine: Yeah, on social, on the internet. It was kind of off the radar. So, you know, I focused on my work while I was there, but I knew that. There was so much potential.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: I could see the direction things were going. It was really cool the way people were creating, you know, written works, audio works, visual works. People are launching podcasts and online shows and, you know, live streaming and publishing content on the internet that adds value to people’s lives, to businesses. And so, yeah, after I was licensed, I left the firm and launched my own firm. Claudia: Congratulations.
Yasmine: Um, thank you. And it’s been really fun. I mean, that was in 2016. And so it’s been a journey and a lot has changed in the past eight years.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: Um, but you know, the common theme throughout has been, it’s just so much fun.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: To work with entrepreneurs. Everybody has a unique story. Everybody is selling something, you know, different than the next. And there are just so many opportunities digitally today. I’m really excited about that and the way, the direction things are going. And so I think you asked about the hangups. Just like what are
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: Some of, what are the challenges?
Claudia: Mm-hmm. Like whether it’s social presence, brand like that you just in your work over the years.
Yasmine: Yeah.
Claudia: What do they, what do you find clients get hung up on or,
Yasmine: yeah.
Claudia: Or, or maybe it’s too late, I don’t know.
Yasmine: Yeah.
Claudia: You know.
Yasmine: Well, you know, and I just said this yesterday in a live training with entrepreneurs. I did wanna here in Dallas, in, in downtown. And I said, you know, this, the saying, or the phrase that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. But the second best time is today.
Claudia: Right.
Yasmine: You know, so a lot of people think, oh my gosh, I’ve put off the legal stuff for so long.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Yasmine: I didn’t register my trademark, I didn’t form my entity. My contracts are duct taped together.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Yasmine: With like random templates I found on the internet.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Yasmine: It’s too late for me, but it’s really never too late. Um, until of course you face a legal issue, which it comes with the territory.
Claudia: Right.
Yasmine: You know, it’s the nature of doing business. It, it’s a part of engaging in commerce, selling a product, selling a service, working with clients, entering into these professional relationships.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: A part of that is, and, and a significant aspect of it is the legal stuff, so,
Claudia: Right.
Yasmine: I feel like the first obstacle or the hump that people have to overcome is, you can do this.
Claudia: Can do it. Yeah.
Yasmine: You know, you’re, you’re capable of approaching this and, and tackling this, and. You know, it doesn’t require, and it shouldn’t have to require hiring a, you know, big city law firm. Yeah.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Yasmine: Having thousands of dollars on retainer and…
Claudia: mm-hmm.
Yasmine: You know, that was a big part of my mission with my law firm, was to create accessibility in legal services and legal protection.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine:My marketing strategies have always been rooted in education, so I’ve always come from a place of, let me educate my audience, let me educate my prospective clients and provide them with the information that they need to make a decision that makes the most sense for them in their circumstances because every business is different too.
Claudia: Right.
Yasmine: So not, there’s no such thing as a cookie cutter, legal, you know. Solution overall for your entire business.
Claudia: Right.
Yasmine: Um, it really requires the business owner to have a foundational understanding of, you know, these concepts in terms of what a business entity does for you and how you can protect yourself personally.
Claudia: Right.
Yasmine: What written contracts you need to have with all your relationships, whether it’s with a business partner or an investor, or a client, or a customer, team members, contractors, et cetera. Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: Yes. Yeah. Um, and then protecting your brand and protecting the content that you’re working so hard to create.
Claudia: Right.
Yasmine: You know, that’s the name of the game today.
Claudia: Right, exactly. Intellectual property. It’s interesting ’cause what I’ve seen, because I’ve seen it both ways. I’ve seen it where somebody will. Online or brand, they’ll have a moniker. Like a, a signature program or something.
Yasmine: Yeah.
Claudia: And they’ll put the TM in it.
Yasmine: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Claudia: And before I started working with you, I didn’t know what the, I was like, okay. I mean, I, I knew trademark, but like, I didn’t know the difference.
Yasmine: You’re not alone
Claudia: And
Yasmine:Noy alone.
Claudia: So go ahead. I, the question is like, what are you finding? Is it, is it okay to do that? Is it not okay to do that?
Yasmine: Yeah.
Claudia: Or should you be seeking legal advice before that?
Yasmine: Yeah.
Claudia: Like where, where in the process would you come into play?
Yasmine: So specifically you’re talking about the symbols?
Claudia: The symbol.
Yasmine: Like the tm?
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Yasmine: Okay. So I’m happy to break it down ’cause I do see it misused often.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Yasmine: You know, some people will have the name of their brand and then they’ll have a circled C. And that’s an incorrect use. So what we look at, I think I’ll back up a little bit.
Claudia: Sure, sure. Please, please.
Yasmine: And let me share what these types of intellectual property entail.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Yasmine: So two types of intellectual property that you’ll really wanna get familiar with as an entrepreneur. And that includes trademarks and copyright. So I like to visualize a box, a package. Um, and this box has something inside. I know it has something inside. I don’t know what it is, but on the outside, all I can see are these source identifiers. The name of the brand, the name of the company, maybe a slogan or a tagline. A logo. Color scheme. Right? These are trademarks. These are what identify the source of the product or service that you’re selling.
Claudia: Okay.
Yasmine: And as a business owner, you are investing over time in your brand awareness and the recognition of your brand, and you wanna make sure it’s distinct in the market. Not everybody’s using the same name as you
Claudia: Right
Yasmine: Now everybody’s using the same logo as you.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Yasmine: If somebody’s searching for your company name online, there aren’t 30 other people using that same name. You want it to be distinct. Right?
claudia: Right.
Yasmine: So those are those labels on the outside of the package.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Yasmine: On the inside. You open it up and you see the contents of the box, and that’s literally the content that you’re creating.
Claudia: Okay.
Yasmine: Those are your copyright assets. The original works. So that includes. Written works, audio works, visual works, photography, videography, podcast recordings like this one?
Claudia: Yes.
Yasmine: Um, written works. Maybe it’s a book, maybe it’s a blog post.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Yasmine: These are your intellectual property assets
Claudia: Okay.
Yasmine: That you wanna get familiar with. So trademarks are your source identifiers. Think like if your business sold a physical product, what would the tag say?
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Yasmine: You know that’s gonna have your company name?
Claudia: Yes.
Yasmine: Your, your logo, your slogan, your tagline.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Yasmine: Um, your colors.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Yasmine: Your content that you’re publishing, that’s also intellectual property and you wanna protect that too. So that’s the copyright we’re talking about your trademarks and how to protect those.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Yasmine: And, and what are the symbols? So. We have the small tm, we have the Circle R.
Claudia: Yes.
Yasmine: Those are for your trademarks.
Claudia: Yes.
Yasmine: You use the Circle R only if it’s registered. If you have a registration, I know you’ve got those trade registered, so use the Circle R and through those that are not registered yet. If the application is pending, you can use the small tm and even if you don’t have an application pending, you can use a small tm.
Claudia: Okay.
Yasmine: So if you decide I’m gonna launch this new brand haven’t applied for my trademark yet, but we’re gonna use the, the name
Claudia: Uhhuh, um,
Yasmine: Use a small tm.
Claudia: Okay.
Yasmine: However, before you start using a name. And this is one of the biggest mess ups I see people make. Is they’ll, they’ll decide on a name.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: They’ll fall in love with it. They’re like, oh my God, this is genius. It’s perfect. And they go and maybe they search on Instagram. Right. And they find that the handle’s available. Great.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: Then they’ll go do a domain search, see if the website, you know, brandname.com.
Claudia: Yes.
Yasmine: It’s available.
Claudia: Yes.
Yasmine: Wonderful. I’m gonna buy it. Well, I must be in the clear, you know, I must be just fine. And that’s not the reality. You wanna do a trademark clearance search and you wanna do a very thorough search online and with the USPTO database, so uspto.gov. Go to the trademark search and do a search for the trademark you’re considering and a few variations if there are alternative spellings.
Claudia: Sure.
Yasmine: Because you wanna see if somebody’s already using it or has a registration. Or this trademark in connection with a related product or service. So,..
Claudia: Okay.
Yasmine: If there’s already a trademark registered or somebody’s using the nambBut it’s in connection with something totally unrelated to yours.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: It might not be a big deal.
Claudia: Okay.
Yasmine: Not guaranteed, but it might not, it’s less likely. It’s not a red flag.
Claudia: Right.
Yasmine: If you’re selling, you know, bottled water and they’re selling plungers.
Claudia: Right.
Yasmine: Or something, you know.
Claudia: Right.
Yasmine: Totally unrelated.
Claudia: Right.
Yasmine: Um, kind of like how we have Delta Airlines and Delta faucets. It’s the exact same trademark.
Claudia: It’s a good one. Yeah.
Yasmine: Totally different products and services. There’s no likelihood of confusion, which is that legal standard. So. Do a trademark clear search.
Claudia: Can they do it themselves?
Yasmine: You can do it yourself. After. And I encourage you to do it yourself before you hire an attorney, before you hire someone to build your brand or build your website, um, before you make a public announcement, before you begin to really invest in that brand name, I encourage you to do it yourself.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: And then it is a good idea to hire an attorney to do a more thorough one.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Yasmine: Especially if you find something that might be questionable.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Yasmine: Get a second opinion or get a professional opinion.
Claudia: Right.
Yasmine: You know, and have them do a legal analysis and let you know what their thoughts are in terms of, will you be stepping on anybody’s toes? Are you at risk of committing trademark infringement? By using this name, will you be able to claim exclusive rights to it? Do you have a chance of registering this as a trademark? Because if you don’t, and maybe it’s diluted in that. You know, hundreds of people are already using it.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: Or maybe it’s too generic that the U-S-P-T-O will never grant ownership of this because other people need to use these words to describe their products or services.
Claudia: Okay.
Yasmine: So if you have a name that you’re using and you’re wondering, is this generic or descriptive? A quick, you know, informal test you can do is ask yourself. Do my competitors need to use this word or phrase to just describe their products?
Claudia: Product. Okay.
Yasmine: And if they do, then it might be on the generic and descriptive side, but if they don’t, then you know, it might be more distinct and that is where Protectability really comes in. So, yeah, so I’ve veered off a little bit
Claudia: No no no
Yasmine: Talking about the clearance search, but that’s definitely one that I feel like before. You register for, apply for registration of a trademark before you begin building the brand, do a clearance search just to make sure you’re not gonna be infringing on anybody else.
Claudia: Right.
Yasmine: Because what ends up happening is people will, you know, like I said, grab the handle, grab the domain.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Yasmine: Think it all looks good. Start building this beautiful brand. They order the business cards, they have the website, everything’s looking great. They make the public announcement, and then they get hit with that cease and desist. And somebody’s telling them, sometimes it’s a large company. Which you’re not trying to come up against those large companies. If you can avoid it.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: Um, and that company comes and says, you know, you need to stop using our trademark, and then you have to go through a forest rebranding, and that costs money and time. Can get to be really stressful. So yeah, I would say that’s one of those things that I wish all, I mean, I’ve been shouting from the rooftops for years, so it’s not new.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: But you know, that’s one of those things that I wish all entrepreneurs knew. And you know, just to circle back to your initial question is you can begin using that small tm even if you’re like, okay. I’m not fully committed to this name. I did a clearance search. It all looks good. I wanna start using it. Maybe you’re still trying to, you know, um, test it out or, uh, develop a, a viable offer. You know, you’re testing the market, whatever that might look like. Everybody’s situation’s different.
Claudia: Right. Right.
Yasmine: Um, you can start using that small TM and a and that lets others know and put some on notice that. This is not a generic term that anybody in my industry can start using. I’m claiming exclusive rights to the use of this commercially. Um, and you can expect for this to transform into a circled R sometimes soon.
Claudia: Right. And you get Yasmine.
Yasmine: Yes, exactly.
Claudia: No, I, I, I, um, it’s very, I know when we went through the process for a few of our, our registered now trademarks.
Yasmine: Yeah. Um, congrats again.
Claudia: Thank you. Thank you. Listen, y’all, you did your thing. I just, you, I provided some of the input that had to go into it, but…
Yasmine: It’s all you.
Claudia: I, I found that that process even in, I mean obviously I’m hearing it now again, but hearing it and hearing it now is just a reminder. ’cause even since then, things have evolved and it’s like, okay, let me go back and check and make sure that, you know, some of the things that we have and projects we have going on are still, you know, ticking and tying those boxes for future. So I think it’s imperative to understand not only the difference of how to use it, but what are some of the implications if you’re improperly using it. So
Yasmine: For sure.
Claudia: Thank you. Thank you for that. Enlightening.
Yasmine: Yeah, absolutely.
Claudia: What about mommy life? Because I know we, I know I’m kind of, I’m like, I, I tell the listeners I go from like A to Z back into D, so this is, we’re just gonna roll with it. But no, mommy life’s in business because of course, you know, my girls are teens, but
Yasmine: Yes.
Claudia: You know, you have,
Yasmine: I have a 5-year-old.
Claudia: Your son? Yes. Your son.
Yasmine: My son is five?
Claudia: Yes.
Yasmine: Yes. He just turned five this summer. He just finished pre-K. Oh. So we had our first year of school. Which was like a new era for me. Because before that, what, when he was born, it was He was about six months when the pandemic started. Wow. Which feels so weird to talk about this.
Claudia: Listen, I was like I’ve been thinking… *laughing*
Yasmine: What is this world? You know, back in my day.
[Laughter]
Yasmine: Y’all know what we literally, but I was like six months postpartum. My son was six months old and so, you know, daycare, I don’t even know that we wanted to put him in daycare.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: You know, we didn’t really even have a chance to like consider that as an option, honestly. We kept him at home that first six months. Um, and then that happened and I was like, okay, well I’m still working, my husband is still working. He’s at home. It’s fine.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: We were able to, we’re, I’m really grateful that we were able to, um, receive some in-home support.
Claudia: That’s good.
Yasmine: Like for childcare, so that I could have some, because. When you’re working with clients, it really is challenging to
Claudia: yeah.
Yasmine: Have a young child, an infant, a toddler at home.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: So I needed to have like some dedicated time to, I know I could take calls.
Claudia: Right.
Yasmine: I know I can have focus, work focus.
Claudia: Yeah. Yeah.
Yasmine: But yeah, he, he just started school, so he was home. He didn’t do daycare prior to that, so that was interesting, challenging, interesting, rewarding all the things.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: And then, yeah, he started pre-K last year, so that was a new era for me.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Yasmine: It felt like, okay, my schedule is opening up.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Yasmine: What projects do I wanna focus my time on? Where do I want, what am I interested in? What am I drawn to? What, you know, there’s so many different things happening in the market and in technology, and so. It’s been, and I mean, it’s only been a year since then, so I’ve definitely started, yeah. I started, you know, some new projects in that time.
Claudia: Mm-hmm.
Yasmine: I entered my, my content creation era.
Claudia: Yes. So following your lead.
[Laughter]
Yasmine: And, and that’s because I did have more capacity for that, you know, and, and like I said, my marketing strategy has always been rooted in education.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: So. Content creation from an educational standpoint feels really good.
Claudia: Yeah. Um, and it’s helpful. Yeah. I, I can attest exactly. I can definitely attest to it.
Yasmine: Yeah. Yeah. It’s, I mean, I think that it’s one of, like I said, it’s, it’s one of the most effective ways to support entrepreneurs, in my opinion, is right. Provide them with the information that’s relevant. And give them the opportunity to, you know, decide, what do I need at this stage of my business? What do I need in order to protect the different things that I’m working on or the different things that I’m building. And so yeah, kind of coming back to that in a new way.
Claudia: Yeah. No, but that’s good. I mean, even to the point of, I know contracts with coachesandcompany.com. Yes. You guys go check it out.
Yasmine: Yes.
Claudia: Just how to, your education point, like even when you’re explaining it’s very, it’s not a bunch of, uh, it’s almost like, oh, I think it’s Charlie Brown. Would he be like…., yeah, yeah,
Yasmine: Exactly.
Claudia: It doesn’t,…
Yasmine: The legal mumbo jumbo.
Claudia: Right? No, you make it very clear. It’s understandable.
Yasmine: Thank you.
Claudia: It resonates. I can. You know, not feel like I’m reading through a, a text brick wall of text. Like,
Yasmine: Thank you. And I try really hard.
Claudia: You do,
Yasmine: Because listen, I get it. I know it’s not the sexiest part of business. It’s not the most exciting. Like I think marketing and sales definitely takes the gate to write that one. So, but we’re still inboarding you know, so it’s, I’ve definitely, I mean. It’s been years of working on how can I communicate this information in a way that’s digestible
Claudia: Yes.
Yasmine: In a way that makes sense given the context. Um, that’s relevant. That, you know, you shouldn’t have to go to law school to be able to understand this stuff.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: You shouldn’t have to, you know, pay thousands of dollars to an attorney for them to explain it to you.
Claudia: Right.
Yasmine: So, yeah, a big part of my mission has been creating that accessibility and there’s been this information gap between the business world and the legal world historically, I mean, we already know like that even for women and people of color.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: We haven’t been able to access business and marketing channels and Right. Legal protections and resources and so it’s a different world, Girl.
Claudia: Listen, post pandemic, everything’s just flipped upside down, so it is. What do you, what has been your, I guess to you, biggest accomplishment? To date.
Yasmine: Oh my gosh. What kinda question is that? I dunno.
Claudia: I don’t like, I don’t wanna frame it. So it’s like you have to pick this kind of thing.
Yasmine: You’re fair? Yeah. Yeah. I hear you.
Claudia: Just like, what do you feel? And it’s obviously this is today, it’s not like nobody’s like, you know.
Yasmine: No, I hear you. I appreciate that.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: My biggest accomplishment. I mean, when you ask that immediately, what comes to mind is like, my biggest accomplishment is the life and career I’ve designed for myself. Um, because it allows for me to, I have of course, family responsibilities, you know? I have my son, I have. My husband, our household.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: I have, you know, parents and, and loved ones.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: And so I really care about them. I love them, I wanna prioritize them. And I recognize I have a duty to them as well.
Claudia: Yes.
Yasmine: Um, and so I also have a duty to myself and to take care of myself. Yes. And so that was a big change for me after becoming a mom was, was I realized that okay, things have to change.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: Sometimes I think back to before I was a mom, like, what was I all time.
Claudia: we all do
Yasmine: What was I doing all that time? I really don’t know. I really dunno, but I’m really proud of the way that I, and it was not easy. I’m not saying like out the gate, I was like, Hmm, this is how I’m gonna do everything. And it’s just been smooth sailing.
Claudia: Right.
Yasmine: It’s been a lot of figuring it out. It’s been a lot of trial and error. It’s also been, I’m really proud of myself for, um, accepting support from others because
Claudia: That’s important.
Yasmine: I had not such, I didn’t have a great, you know, approach to asking for help accepting help. I actually remember when I had a turning point realization when I was pregnant. I think I was like eight months pregnant. And I physically could not, I physically could not do the things I needed to do.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: So I had to ask for help.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: And I, it was just this clarity of like, alignment and the parallel of, okay, this needs to happen in my business too. Mm. I can’t keep it. I, I did have, you know, I had a small team.
Claudia: Yes.
Yasmine: I definitely outsourced a lot at that point, but it became really clear then. Okay. I cannot continue the way I have been doing things.
Claudia: Yes, yes.
Yasmine: And yeah, I’m, I’m really proud of, you know, the way I’ve designed my career to support my life and my life to support my career and also create space for myself to take care of myself and to prioritize my personal relationships.
Claudia: Yes.
Yasmine: Um, and I love my work. Yeah. I’m really grateful for that.
Claudia: Oh, yeah. I thought it’s all, it’s just glowing. Literally.
Yasmine: I’m really grateful for the opportunities that I have in, in my work and the opportunity to show up for people and, and contribute in a way that. You know, it’s pretty unique the, the way I support my clients and my community and audience and so yeah.
Claudia: Now you found, you definitely found your niche. I mean, you kind of touched on it in the beginning when you were saying you went from corporate and then, you know, they were kinda like, eh, social media, but then you were like, no, there is something here, and you just went all the way in.
Yasmine: Yeah.
Claudia: But you went all the way in. You’re filling that gap. Bridging that gap even. And making it, like you said, more accessible.
Yasmine: Yes. Yeah. Oh, and that was a huge part of it too, was not even just the the type of client that they were serving, the model of which, I mean the legal model altogether is pretty outdated. The way it’s always been done, the billable hour, the monthly retainer. You know, provide us with a $5,000 retainer. We charge 350 an hour every hour of work we do, we bill towards it.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: And for a new entrepreneur that’s not realistic.
Claudia: Right, right, right.
Yasmine: And my clients I knew wanted predictability.
Claudia: Right.
Yasmine: So right out the gate, we offered flat fees for our services. We, you know, somewhat productized our services where it was, you know, sort of a la carte, I guess you could say. And it was really easy to, okay, we would do an audit of this department. Let’s figure out what it is that is needed here. And then depending on their budget, depending on their capacity. Depending on their needs, of course.
Claudia: Right, right.
Yasmine: We are able to determine and then arrive at a flat fee, and that way we offer them that predictability and they know.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: And they know. Instead of, okay, it’s 350 an hour. Okay, well how many hours is it gonna take? Right?
Claudia: Right.
Yasmine: There’s a difference between 5 and 15, you know what I mean?
Claudia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No,
Yasmine: I didn’t mean to rhyme, but
Claudia: No, no. Hey, listen, we’re gonna call that out. What the, they’ll be like, ah, you’re such, this is a mom jokes and things like that. Like, it’s okay. We’re gonna claim it.
Yasmine: I’m fully embodied in my mom and her right now. Okay. No shame in my, no shame in the game.
Claudia: Nothing wrong with it. Uhuh, what about new projects? Anything coming up on the horizon or Um, that you’re excited about or thinking about?
Yasmine: Yeah, so this year we launched the business of doing business, which is, yeah.
Claudia: Congratulations, y’all. Go ahead and give that a listen.
Yasmine: Thank you. Yes, the business of doing business on YouTube. Um, and on all podcast players, so if you like to listen to audio, we got you there. And then if, if you’re a YouTube person, which I was never really a YouTube person, but YouTube is awesome.
Claudia: Listen. Yeah.
Yasmine: Oh my God.
Claudia: University too.
Yasmine: Yes. Oh, trust me. I’ve always been a student of that. But you know, I’ve never been the kind of person that had, um, you know, channels I subscribe to and keep up with. But I love YouTube. Yeah, I think it’s great. I know I’m late to the game.
Claudia: It’s okay. S
Yasmine: ister’s like my younger sister’s, like I’ve been about YouTube, she’s got YouTube premium and I’m like, I don’t, yeah, you’re no. See about that. But yeah, so the business of doing business has been really fun. Um, it’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. I’ve wanted to launch a YouTube channel for a while and launch a podcast. So decided to sort of mes the two together. Yeah. And, And create that content for YouTube and that way it’s, you know, in a searchable platform.
Claudia: Yes.
Yasmine: We’re answering a lot of frequently asked questions. Um, so it’s been really fun to create this like database of knowledge
Claudia: Yes.
Yasmine: And questions that people really have. Yes. And they’re looking for that information again, so that they can. Make decisions in their business confidently from an educated place. Um, and so that’s been really cool. And we were chatting a little bit before that. I’m working on my first book.
Claudia: I’m excited.
Yasmine: Which I’m really excited for. Yeah. Excited too.
Claudia: I’m so excited.
Yasmine: It’s gonna be really good. Yeah. So it’s gonna be a legal, a legal focus book for entrepreneurs. Um, but we’re gonna make it fun. We’re making it interesting. Easy to read, easy to understand. I find that there are just so many legal business lessons that people are learning the hard way, and I’m like, you should have to learn this the hard way.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: There are ways that you can be proactive. Instead of waiting to be reactive. Because what I’ve found with hundreds of clients at this point in my career is that waiting to be reactive, it’s always more expensive. It’s always more time consuming.
Claudia: Yes.
Yasmine: It’s always more stressful, so it’s like. How can we avoid those situations? It’s all about being proactive, doing your due diligence, um, you know, learning from the mistakes of others. And so in this book, I’m looking forward to, to sharing with everyone different stories of, you know, how I’ve seen this, these situations play out how you can avoid them, steps that you can take that don’t require you to. You know, hire the big city law firm and spend thousands and thousands of dollars.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: The goal is actually that you don’t have to spend lawyer spend a lot of money with lawyers. Yeah. That’s the goal.
Claudia: Yeah. Yeah.
Yasmine: And I say that as an attorney, like, and I’ve had to hire attorneys in my time, and I’m like, I’m not trying to pay lawyers either, so I get it. I get it. It’s never fun to pay somebody to clean up a mess, you know?
Claudia: Yeah, no, agreed. Agreed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I think it will be a re a much needed resource. Um. That even if their content, I mean, I don’t know all the contents. I’ll say that now. I do not know all the content. But I do know Yasmine and how she, how she presents content and the fact that I know for sure it’ll be digestible, it’ll be something that is understandable and something that hopefully they can take action on.
Yasmine: Yes.
Claudia: Um, it’s just exciting for…
Yasmine: I’m gonna send you a copy for sure.
Claudia: I can’t wait. I can’t wait. I can’t wait.
Yasmine: Thank you.
Claudia: Um, what about, so one thing I like to ask all guests is their definition of success, and you can take that however you want, but what is your definition of success?
Yasmine: My definition of success sort of ties to what I mentioned as my biggest accomplishment.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: And it sounds a little cheesy, but it really is, you know, the feeling of inner peace. And experiencing peace of. Okay. I am doing right by myself. I’m doing right by my family. I’m doing right by my children. I’m doing right by my clients and the, the community that I’ve built and that I’m supporting and that I’m showing up for. So when I feel that, and I feel that often, thankfully, and there are days that I don’t feel that for sure. And those are days that I’m like, okay, something needs to be tweaked, something needs to change. Or maybe this is just one of those weeks where things are a little bit imbalanced. But next week I can pour into the other areas of my life or pour into myself.
Claudia: Yeah.
Yasmine: In a way. But yeah, that feeling is my idea of success. I know that I feel, I know I feel successful when I feel that, you know, when I feel like I’m, I’m doing right by myself and by everybody that I’ve made, you know, commitments to and. And it’s a good feeling.
Claudia: No, I like that. I mean, it’s, it’s interesting. We’ve been talking just in the other episodes and talking about, you know, just grounding and mind body, soul and inner peace is what rung out the most. Even, even when you were talking about your biggest accomplishment.
Yasmine: Yeah.
Claudia: I could tell that that was like, that is it. And, and you light up when you say it and it’s like, yeah. You’re, you’re, you’re in your zone.
Yasmine: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it’s a process.
Claudia: Absolutely.
Yasmine: And different seasons bring different challenges and we’re all living in the same world, and we recognize that, you know, it’s one of the, the guarantees of this life is change is guaranteed. Things are always gonna change. You can wake up tomorrow and things are different. And so, yes. You know, it’s giving yourself that grace, leaving room for flexibility to adapt to new circumstances. Yes. So, yeah. You know, that’s a skill in and of itself. I think we’re all working to well over time.
Claudia: Yes. Every day.
Yasmine: The sooner you accept it. Yeah. I definitely know some folks that are very resistant to change.
Claudia: Yeah. Yeah.
Yasmine: You know, and, and. It’s a meltdown if something changes, you know? Yeah. And, um, that’s a really challenging way to live.
Claudia: Agreed.
Yasmine: It’s a painful way to live.
Claudia: It’s stressful.
Yasmine: Yeah, it is. I wanna all to extra instead of embrace it, lean into it.
Claudia: Right.
Yasmine: Recognize it as a, a constant of life and. You know, do what you gotta do.
Claudia: Hopefully, hopefully they will come around and see, you know, that change even in a micro movement has to happen.
Yasmine: For sure.
Claudia: No, anything else you wanna leave for parting words? Yasmine?
Yasmine: Oh my gosh, this been so fun. I want to interview you. I wanna hear your answers. I wanna hear more about what you got going on. We’re gonna have to chat so fast.
Claudia: Yes, yes. Oh, we totally will.
Yasmine: Yeah.
Claudia: We may have to do like a part two.
Yasmine: We will.
Claudia: We’ll flip, we’ll flip script.
Yasmine: We willl, I love it. Thank you so much for having me, Claudia. This is so fun. Thank you. Always a pleasure.
Claudia: So you all, if you are not already subscribed here on YouTube, we drop episodes every Wednesday. Go ahead and hit the subscribe bell. I would love, love, love for you to go on over to coachesandcompany.com and check out the Doing Business Podcast. The Business of Doing Business Podcast.
Yasmine: Nailed it.
Claudia: Nailed it. Yes. Uh, and then also on Fridays we launch audio for those of you who like to listen on podcast platform of choice. As always, bold, move besties. Make sure you take care of yourself. I catch you on the next episode.
Claudia: If you’re done with the fluff and ready to execute on the how, then visit shebuiltsuccess.com for the tools you need. It’s time to push, go, and dive into real strategies. Genuine understanding and concrete steps to create both more in business and life.
Head on over to she built success.com for access to exclusive downloads, resources, and bonuses, because moving boldly forward is not just a destination. It’s a multilayer journey. Let’s grow and build your success together.
