Ep 233: How to Legally Protect Your Business Without Hiring a Lawyer with Attorney Shatrasha Butler

“Sometimes it’s not about legal advice—it’s about understanding the process. And that’s something you can learn without going to law school.” – Shatrasha Butler

Shatrasha Butler didn’t just go to law school—she’s on a mission to make legal knowledge actually useful for small business owners. In this episode, we unpack the legal must-knows for getting your business off the ground without drowning in jargon or draining your bank account.

Shatrasha Butler is a licensed attorney with over a decade of experience spanning government counsel, private firm litigation, and corporate contract law. She’s the founder of Label Me Legal, where she empowers solopreneurs to protect and grow their businesses with confidence—no expensive retainers required.

WE ALSO TALKED ABOUT

• The key differences between a lawyer and an attorney—and why that matters
• Why “start simple” is often the best legal advice for new business owners
• What you really need before trademarking your brand
• How to use free resources (like your country’s tax office) to register your business
• The low-cost legal protections you can DIY with AI (and when not to)
• Why a basic loan agreement can protect you—even if you’re just moving money between personal and business accounts
• Which contracts matter early on—and where to find affordable templates
• How to use the Madrid Protocol if you want international trademark protection

Listen in for practical, empowering advice that will help you protect your business and move forward with confidence.

Get regular access to tips, techniques and advice from experts about growing your business
👉 https://onlinebusinessliftoff.com/newsletter/

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• IRS.gov (for EIN in the U.S.)
• U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO): https://www.uspto.gov
• Madrid Protocol info via USPTO: Madrid System
• Label Me Legal: https://labelmelegal.com

My newsletter is for people who need a way to make money from home so they can build a better life for themselves and their families:
👉 https://onlinebusinessliftoff.com/newsletter

_____________

Trudy Rankin is the host of the Online Business Launchpad Podcast, Director of West Island Digital and the founder of the Online Business Lift-Off program.

Affiliate Disclaimer: If you click on links on this page and then make a purchase, I may earn a commission (at no extra cost to you).  I am a proud affiliate of these resources because I use them in my own life and business.

TRANSCRIPT

Episode 233: How to Legally Protect Your Business Without Hiring a Lawyer with Shatrasha Butler

[00:00:00] Trudy Rankin: Starting a business comes with a paradox. You need to legally protect your brand, your name, and your content. But the lawyers who can help you do that often charge fees that your fledgling business simply can’t afford. So how do you build a legally sound business foundation when your bootstrapping every step of the way?

[00:00:35] Trudy Rankin: In this episode, practicing attorney Shatrasha Butler and I dig into the practical legal steps that every small business owner should take without needing to get a law degree. From when and when not to trademark your business name, to protecting your intellectual property, setting up contracts, and knowing what paperwork actually matters at the beginning. [00:01:00] Shatrasha shares actionable advice from both her legal training and her own real world experience of starting a business while working full-time. Shatrasha is the founder of Label Me Legal, a growing business, born from her realization

[00:01:15] Trudy Rankin: that many people don’t need expensive legal services, they simply need straightforward guidance they can trust.

[00:01:23] Trudy Rankin: As someone who’s also still in corporate and building her business from the ground up, she brings a rare combination of expertise and relatability that makes her insights incredibly accessible to anyone starting out.

[00:01:37] Trudy Rankin: Welcome to the Online Business Launchpad podcast. I’m Trudy Rankin and I help people who need a flexible work from home option grow the online side of their business so they can earn more, stress less, and have greater freedom in how they live.

[00:01:53] Trudy Rankin: I have Shatrasha Butler with me today. Shatrasha is an attorney and a [00:02:00] lawyer, and we are going to discuss the difference between those two things in a minute.

[00:02:03] Trudy Rankin: And she’s joining me today to talk about some of the things that you need to know when you’re just getting ready to start out your business, or if you’ve just started your business about the legal side of setting up and organizing a business. And it doesn’t matter whether you live in Australia, the UK, New Zealand, America, there are some fundamental principles that you need to know about or things you need to know about wherever you live that apply to the business that you are starting.

[00:02:33] Trudy Rankin: So Shatrasha, thank you so much for being on the podcast. 

[00:02:37] Shatrasha Butler: Thank you for having me. I really hope I help your listeners. 

[00:02:41] Trudy Rankin: I’m sure you will. It’s been interesting, we’ve been talking back and forth a little bit by email and just today, and it’s been interesting already. I would like to talk start out, if you could maybe just share with the listeners just a little bit about yourself, a little bit about your background and what you are actually doing.

[00:02:59] Trudy Rankin: ’cause you [00:03:00] are starting a business yourself. 

[00:03:02] Shatrasha Butler: Okay, so I started out, I’m from a really small town in Missouri, in the United States, and I didn’t know a lawyer, had never met a lawyer. So I had this notion, from a third grade teacher of going to law school to be a lawyer, what that took and what that process meant.

[00:03:21] Shatrasha Butler: No idea. However, I got there. Learned, we’re not learning anything about how to be a lawyer. We’re learning how to think like a lawyer, which is fine. And then when I got out, I really wanted to do something meaningful and impactful. So I had a lot of friends who did the big law firms and they made tons of money when they got out.

[00:03:41] Shatrasha Butler: I actually applied to work for the government because I knew that the government will give you hands-on experience. So I worked for the city of St. Louis in Missouri as a city counselor. Now a city counselor is basically an in-house counselor, but for a [00:04:00] government entity for that city. So that meant that I did prosecution if they needed me.

[00:04:05] Shatrasha Butler: I did civil trials, jury trials if a police officer got into a car accident and whether they were or not, chasing someone down, I had to defend them. Someone who fell on the sidewalk. So did a little bit of public government entity work, which kind of gives you a lot of experience.

[00:04:23] Shatrasha Butler: And then I went over to a law firm, so that’s private, that’s working for insurance companies, that’s hospitals medical malpractice, some of the shopping centers that we all know globally and shop at to this day were some of my clients. After that fast forward to kind of now for the last three or four years I have been in corporate, I draft contracts for a living.

[00:04:52] Shatrasha Butler: So it was at this point that I had this epiphany because other [00:05:00] people were starting to specialize and I had the experience of knowing… part of wanting to go to law school, my entire law life was knowing people who just needed someone to be a voice for them. They didn’t necessarily need a lawyer, but there were times when

[00:05:26] Shatrasha Butler: unjust things were occurring and they didn’t need someone to go to trial or even write a demand letter. They needed someone to be able to call and say, hi, I am so-and-so’s lawyer. Can you tell me what’s happening? And all of a sudden things got straightened up. So I saw that time and time again. And then my cousin was a black male dating a white female. Was accused of raping her at three in the morning, no forced entry because they were dating. And his guilt or [00:06:00] innocence aside, he received 60 years. And I know people who have been convicted of murder that didn’t receive that, and my whole life I was just like, I gotta do something to help him get out.

[00:06:13] Shatrasha Butler: And so I’ve really been trying to help people this entire time. So fast forward to me thinking, okay, I haven’t specialized in anything. And then it really hit me because up until this point I have been asked you know, Hey, can you walk me through a car accident? Can you help me with this?

[00:06:27] Shatrasha Butler: And I started to realize, I tell them the process and then I say, now, do you want me to give you a referral or do you wanna figure out how you can do this for yourself? And so it hit me that maybe two years ago that I’m not meant to specialize like everyone else that I knew. I’m meant to synthesize.

[00:06:51] Shatrasha Butler: Synthesize the law. Synthesize what I know processes and explain because not everything that involves a lawyer is [00:07:00] the law. Sometimes it’s just a process that only we know about. So I’m here now because with that epiphany, I thought, okay, I gotta start a business. And I never wanted to work for myself, but I started this business and I’ve been on this journey trying to figure out how to balance corporate with working full-time in corporate with starting a business how to go about that. And as a lawyer, I have some of the same questions that your listeners have to this day. Some of the same issues specifically as a lawyer, analysis paralysis.

[00:07:41] Shatrasha Butler: I’m here at this pivotal moment where I now have a little bit more of a grasp on what I need to do, how to balance corporate, how to start a business, and I started officially in 2023 doing the same thing that I had realized I had been doing for free for years. And now [00:08:00] I’m at a moment where I’m trying to figure out how do I get this information out?

[00:08:04] Shatrasha Butler: How do I give this to people without starting out with a platform, I have over 10 years of experience, but I don’t have the listeners’ ears, so I’m here to help basically. 

[00:08:18] Trudy Rankin: And I think, you know, there’s two different sort of threads here or tracks; one is the whole trying to figure out what you have to do to set up a small business.

[00:08:26] Trudy Rankin: How do you become a small business owner? How do you successfully find clients and help them? And then there’s the whole, what are the legal considerations? What are those processes that you have to go through and use, and you’ve gotta make sure you get them right, otherwise, you’re setting yourself up for trouble later, which is not something that you want to do.

[00:08:44] Trudy Rankin: And it also can be quite anxiety inducing for small business owners because they’re worried that maybe they’ve done it wrong. Uh, and it’s not easy. And sometimes when somebody’s got something that they need to do [00:09:00] for their business, that’s kind of got a legal tinge to it, you look at what you get or you look at how much you would have to pay a lawyer or an attorney, and basically you’re kind of going that’s just common sense.

[00:09:14] Trudy Rankin: Why can’t I do it myself? So that sounds to me like the sort of thing that you are helping people with when you are actually going, look, you don’t have to study to become a lawyer. You don’t have to take all the exams to become an attorney. You can do some of this stuff yourself with a little bit of guidance.

[00:09:32] Shatrasha Butler: Yes.

[00:09:33] Trudy Rankin: So I, I’d like to just touch a little bit on that, because. I, you know, in my studies, I took a few law papers, really enjoyed it. And you are right about that whole thing about it teaches you to think like a lawyer. It teaches you to think in a certain way. But you said something to me when we just jumped on and you said, you know, there’s a difference between a lawyer and an attorney.

[00:09:54] Trudy Rankin: Can you just explain that for our listeners? 

[00:09:58] Shatrasha Butler: So [00:10:00] specifically in the states, and you’ll have examples such as a barrister in the UK for example, but in the states, the difference, and I didn’t realize, this is basic for me, right? So there’s a lot of things that I didn’t realize is basic, but it’s everything for a non-legal person. So an attorney is someone who, if you’ve ever seen someone’s name and a comma, ESQ, that’s a person that’s licensed to practice law. That means that they did the years of law school that they were required to do, graduated, and then they went on to take the bar and get licensed in a particular state.

[00:10:46] Shatrasha Butler: A lawyer is someone who… they went to law school, they either didn’t pass the bar or they just didn’t take the bar. And there are several people that I know that didn’t take the bar just because they knew they, [00:11:00] they wanted to do a certain thing that doesn’t require them to practice law, which is fine actually in corporate.

[00:11:06] Shatrasha Butler: You don’t necessarily have to be licensed in the state that you’re in, depending on what you’re doing. You can just be licensed in a state. So the difference is, someone who is licensed to represent you versus someone who simply went to law school and the person who simply went to law school cannot give legal advice, which is why you don’t need to go to law school to know the legal parameters and processes for what you need to know.

[00:11:43] Shatrasha Butler: You need to go to law school to represent others. I’m teaching you to represent yourself. That’s just confidence, self-advocacy and knowledge. 

[00:11:53] Trudy Rankin: Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And I, as we’re speaking, I’m kind of going back to my own [00:12:00] initial days when I was setting up my business.

[00:12:04] Trudy Rankin: And besides the fact that you don’t know what you don’t know, there are some things that are just so the same for everybody, you know? What kind of business should I set up? Should I be a sole trader or a solopreneur? Should I set up a, a company or a corporation? They have different names for them in different countries, so it can get a little bit confusing.

[00:12:27] Trudy Rankin: Um, there’s international law there’s all sorts of things. And you know, when you put up your website, there’s all these kinds of rules in different countries, in the EU, and some parts of the US have it as well. There’s rules around what you say and how you approach people and what you do.

[00:12:44] Trudy Rankin: And then there’s the most basic of all, and that is, what about contracts? Yeah. What about contracts? So can you just walk us through maybe just a sort of an, an overview, if you like, of the sorts of things that someone who’s either [00:13:00] started a business and they’re still in the early days, or they’re thinking about starting a business, should be thinking about from a legal perspective to make sure that their business is built on a solid foundation.

[00:13:11] Shatrasha Butler: So I know that there’s a lot of information out there that, I mean, it even started to bother me. It’s like, get your LLC and uh, you know, you don’t wanna be caught without having a C Corp or whatever it’s called. And it’s like no one is saying, but you need to actually have this much revenue to be a C corp.

[00:13:34] Shatrasha Butler: No one is saying. You have to have a board to be an S-Corp. So start out solo and the best place to look is ironically free information. If you are in the states, the IRS or wherever you are, your tax website, [00:14:00] whatever that tax entity is. Just go there. They have free information and it’s interesting that I found out that here in the States I was working on getting my EIN, which is literally a five minute process, and I learned that people are charging a hundred dollars for that.

[00:14:20] Trudy Rankin: So when you say your EIN, do you wanna just say what that acronym means? 

[00:14:24] Shatrasha Butler: An EIN is an employee identification number. It helps people with, it’s sort of like your business social security number, and a lot of people consider this to be important, especially when they know in the future they may have situations where they need to get a loan.

[00:14:44] Shatrasha Butler: Or even just getting a credit card number. It can help you identify yourself as a more serious business owner. So that identification number is something that you can get [00:15:00] from your tax entity. It is a free process everywhere. So you wanna get that process going and again, start simple. Because quite frankly you either have a holding company or an expensive hobby if you start a business and you’re not making any revenue. So, even though you start, you’re in the process of still trying to figure out how do I make this revenue? So when you start, you have situations where you have to have paperwork that’s, for example, articles of organization who’s going to be in this organization.

[00:15:40] Shatrasha Butler: Myself personally, I had a very basic, operating agreement. It’s just you. So the biggest thing to understand as I’m explaining this is focus on. The marketing, the [00:16:00] revenue, you wanna protect yourself. But some of these things are just simply unnecessary at this stage.

[00:16:10] Shatrasha Butler: One of the things that you do need, I will say is you don’t need it. You don’t have to have it. But I will say, I would encourage someone to get it is a registered agent and that’s. Someone who will answer mail on your behalf. And the reason why is because when you start a business and you go from idea to I wanna start this business, your biggest focus, which you know, all the Instagram videos and everything has probably scared you into now knowing I have to protect myself.

[00:16:47] Shatrasha Butler: And that is true. And a couple of ways you wanna protect yourself is starting that business legally by declaring it with those government [00:17:00] entities. The contracts with yourself, not so much. A bank account. That, and mind you, understanding that at this point, we’re not making any revenue and that’s fine, but having a bank account because it separates, this is my personal account, this is my business account.

[00:17:22] Shatrasha Butler: One thing that I learned regarding taxes is and protecting myself is a very short loan agreement. You can Google this, you can use AI, Chat GPT, and as an attorney sometimes I do use Chat GPT, and I have the eye to be able to look and see if the provisions are right, but it hasn’t been bad, especially for what I’m explaining, a loan agreement.

[00:17:56] Shatrasha Butler: It just says, on this day, let’s say you [00:18:00] get a business card, a business credit card, because you are paying for Canva and Adobe and Business Zoom, and that’s your overhead isn’t high at this point, but those things cost. Who’s paying for those? You are paying for those, but if someone sues you, it’s easier to show that me personally is separate from the business entity, and that’s what most people mean by protect yourself. Because now instead of having your personal account pay for this, you have a business credit card, which is actually fairly easy to get. Whether you have that identifying number or not, because you’re a new business, so most of the time they’re going to use your personal identifying number.

[00:18:49] Shatrasha Butler: So you have the loan agreement that says, on this day, I borrowed, $500 for the month of January, [00:19:00] 2025 to July, 2025 to cover my business credit card. And then you have that transaction showing that your personal account transferred money to your business account and your business account paid for that credit card, things like that.

[00:19:20] Shatrasha Butler: You don’t need a lawyer for that. You don’t need a lawyer to look over an operating agreement or draft up a loan agreement for you. You can do that yourself. You don’t need anyone to do the entity and create that for you. That’s actually a fairly quick process as well, although I know people charge for that.

[00:19:38] Shatrasha Butler: It’s a fairly quick process. And don’t be afraid to use these, these government entities they have, they have YouTubes as well with walkthroughs and videos and things, resources that’ll help you. Now there are some contracts that you were also probably have been scared and to looking at because you need to protect your business if you are [00:20:00] hiring someone that’s doing independent contracting.

[00:20:06] Shatrasha Butler: There are some things you’re going to want to think about, such as works for higher language, which says, even though you work for me, anything that you create or design, belongs to me. You can ask Chat GPT can you create language? That protects my ideas.

[00:20:30] Shatrasha Butler: If I hire an independent contractor, and I promise you, because I’ve tested some of this out for entrepreneurs, Chat GPT comes up with a decent one and you’ll be fine with that. Other items that you are told to have are disclaimers. And I know one of the big things is don’t go to someone else’s website and steal their disclaimer.

[00:20:57] Shatrasha Butler: Okay? If you are [00:21:00] an artist, they tell you when you’re marketing YouTube, Instagram, go to other people’s sites to kind of see aesthetically, how they look. You can do the same with disclaimers. Something is better than nothing and something from another art website is better than giving up $1,500 before you even get started.

[00:21:27] Shatrasha Butler: It will still protect you. An example for those of you who are starting a business that have more education or are in a highly skilled, for example, a physical therapist branching out into their own clinic, your boards, your entity that protects your license, they actually have a lot of free resources for you.

[00:21:53] Shatrasha Butler: My own personal story, I called my Bar association. I’m licensed in multiple states, but [00:22:00] for one state that I was operating in, I called them and asked, what should my disclaimer look like? And they gave me the exact language. There are a lot of those out there, and you don’t always need a lawyer for that.

[00:22:12] Shatrasha Butler: Other contracts are going to be when you’re working with someone else. I have used, for example. We are on this podcast and my likeness is being used on the podcast and videos, but if you have a video or film image protection it’s a paragraph, one paragraph again, Chat GPT, AI.

[00:22:44] Shatrasha Butler: It does a pretty good one. I can go on and on, but. These are basic things that you don’t necessarily need right at this moment while you’re trying to get your website up and figure things out. [00:23:00] You can use Google, you can use other sites.

[00:23:04] Shatrasha Butler: You can cobble that together to protect yourself in terms of contracts, documents, drafts, and things like that. If we’re talking about. Protecting yourself and your ideas. That’s a different story,

[00:23:22] Shatrasha Butler: it’s still the same idea. 

[00:23:25] Trudy Rankin: Yeah. And, and there’s a few things there I’ll just quickly touch on, you know, whatever country you’re in, the area that you live in, the region that you live in, whether it’s a state or a territory or whatever.

[00:23:34] Trudy Rankin: They almost always have websites with information about what’s required of you as a small business. So that’s a really good point. And also the fact that yes, you can actually use AI to help you come up with language and that’s getting better and better and better. I know everybody’s heard the horror stories about lawyers who used chat GPT and then got into massive trouble because they relied on it without checking it.

[00:23:56] Trudy Rankin: You still need to check it. You still need to use your brain. Think about what’s [00:24:00] common sense and stuff, but I think that’s really, really important. One of the things that I know when I started, it was a question for me, and I know that lots of other businesses worry about it as well, and that’s the whole concept.

[00:24:12] Trudy Rankin: And we’ve touched on a little bit, the concept of IP and then the concept of trademark. You know, should you be trademarking your business name, your business logo . Talk a little bit about trademarks, what they actually are, what they do for you, and whether or not as somebody who’s just getting started might actually think they should probably get one.

[00:24:34] Shatrasha Butler: So as a person who is also just starting out, I’m still trying to figure out my tagline, my names, my brand. Those are all things that trademark attorneys will tell you to trademark. Very true. Trademark is you’re protecting things. Let’s pull back and talk about some things that you should trademark.

[00:24:56] Shatrasha Butler: Your business name, your logo, your [00:25:00] community if you have like a school and it’s a certain name content, certain content contest, excuse me. For example, if you do. Promotions the business launch project, annual project. If that’s something that your business is doing, then you want to trademark that.

[00:25:24] Shatrasha Butler: Think about Pepsi Coca-Cola. You don’t look at it and you don’t pay attention to it, but start looking for the things that you see that little TM or the R. Trademark is trademark. You’re trademarking and protecting something. Your mark, that R is that it is registered. It’s still trademark, but registered is on a higher level.

[00:25:48] Shatrasha Butler: It’s a higher protection. A tagline, other events. So if you have an in-person business blowout event, if that’s an event that you have for your business [00:26:00] that’s something that you are going to want to trademark. So here’s the thing about trademark. Trademark attorneys are really expensive, and that’s not because I’m a trademark attorney.

[00:26:11] Shatrasha Butler: That’s because I’ve had discussions with them and. Just, about three months ago, I asked the same question to a friend of mine and she was like, you are not at the point where you want to pay for me. That was my friend. But there are a lot of attorneys at this point that will tell you, oh, you need, that’s your idea.

[00:26:32] Shatrasha Butler: You need to trademark that and here’s the reason why you’re still building it. It’s still changing and formulating again, you can actually do this on your own. Please don’t hate me trademark attorneys, but you can so trademarking something you’re going to want to get established and one of the best markers that I can tell you when you’re coming up with an idea and you’re just starting [00:27:00] out. No .

[00:27:02] Shatrasha Butler: The fear mongering of trademark and protect your ideas. Don’t lose your, and the cases where they show, here’s what happened because this person didn’t trademark. If you really look into those, those are cases where that person was using this and generating revenue from it. So one of the greatest markers that I can give you for determining, okay, when should I trademark?

[00:27:31] Shatrasha Butler: We’ve discussed the what should you trademark. The when is when you’re generating revenue. If you’re for the most part, give or take, a few, couple dollars or a hundred dollars or so, you can pay for one, one class for let’s say $250 versus a $1500 [00:28:00] to $2,500 attorney. And the sweet, sweet thing about trademarking is you can do a basic search, so if you have an idea right now, let’s walk through this process. You can go on the U-S-P-T-O website, United States Patent and Trademark Office. Now, if you’re not in the United States, that’s fine. There’s actually a link to the Madrid protocol on the U-S-P-T-O website, which is really helpful for international trademarks because one application gets you in 120 countries.

[00:28:41] Shatrasha Butler: You can do multiple countries just from that one called the Madrid Protocol. And if you’re curious of the entity. In comparison to U-S-P-T-O, it would be WIPO, and that’s the World Intellectual Patent [00:29:00] Organization. So what you’re going to want to do is search, do a basic search, and once you do a basic search. Let’s say you want to come up with a skincare line. The way you should be thinking about this is, yes, you can trademark your LLC and DBA, but. We’re on a scale where we’re talking about minimal viable product. What is the minimal amount that we can spend to get what we need? We’re just at the need.

[00:29:41] Shatrasha Butler: We’re not at the want right now, so we wanna spend as little as possible just that one, $250, not, three, four, um, different classes. So starting with that. Personally, I would nix the LLC. So [00:30:00] for example, your LLC is called Glow Skin Solutions, LLC or your solo business. And you are doing business as the glow skin, but the product that you’re selling, the bundle, you’ve got, I don’t know, skincare with creams, you’ve got the night care, you’ve got the sunblock, you’ve got something for hyperpigmentation, and you put that in a bundle and you call it the glow up skincare solution. That’s what you want to trademark. And again, if you’re wondering where did you, how did you think of that?

[00:30:42] Shatrasha Butler: That’s what I wanna trademark. Go back to that first thing I said about revenue. What’s being sold. The glow up skincare solution is being sold. That’s the thing that you’re putting out there. And marketing, that’s the thing that you’re putting on the [00:31:00] product or the service, whatever service you have. If it’s talking to people about their skincare and it’s called skincare sessions, that’s the service.

[00:31:12] Shatrasha Butler: That’s generating the revenue. That’s what you want to trademark. And the reason why is because this is globally, they’re going to focus on the revenue. When did you use it? In commerce? That’s US language. In other countries it’s going to be proof of use. And as you think about. Being intentional, being strategic, that comes with documenting.

[00:31:45] Shatrasha Butler: So putting everything you can, everything you think of, if you come up with a cheat sheet on, five skincare items you need every day [00:32:00] that should have your logo, that should have the DBA or the brand, the skin, the Glow Up skincare. That should have that mark so that you can demonstrate, and they’re going to ask you, usually the language that they use is specimen.

[00:32:17] Shatrasha Butler: They’re going to ask you to upload examples of where has this been used in commerce. So that’s an invoice with your logo on it. That’s, uh, the website, the screenshot of the website where you have the amount that you’re charging people. That’s what you’re going to use to show that I am using this to generate revenue.

[00:32:40] Shatrasha Butler: So that’s why you want to focus on revenue. Now, let’s take it back to, before we get to this idea, because I just randomly came up with Glow of Skincare and think about, okay, how do I figure out what to name my idea or what? I’m trademarking. You wanna go with something that’s not [00:33:00] generic. So I hate to use the cliche example, but apple, that’s a food, not a computer.

[00:33:08] Shatrasha Butler: So the further it gets from someone being able to stumble upon calling this thing. The name that it is, the better you are. So when I say the furthest, the furthest you can get is made up language. Give you an example, Spanx. That was not a word. Kodak, Xerox. Those are things that are completely made up words and you associate with them with what they are because it’s not out there.

[00:33:44] Shatrasha Butler: If you come up with the creamy cold ice cream that’s descriptive of what you’re selling, it’s not going to pass muster. So what you can do is go to the website and do a basic search. You have an [00:34:00] idea, glow up skincare, type in glow up skincare, and you will find all of the companies that have either tried to trademark and focus on not.

[00:34:15] Shatrasha Butler: Oh, I see all these companies focus on something that says if it’s active, meaning it’s a current trademark that is active or pending, meaning they filled out the paperwork and submitted it and their status is still pending. Or sometimes it’ll say inactive. The other really cool thing that. You should do as a solo small business owner is, don’t be afraid to get on that site and click around.

[00:34:41] Shatrasha Butler: It is actually your friend, the U-S-P-T-O office is something that you can use no matter where you are because a lot of the terms, for example, use in commerce versus proof of use, those are going to be different, but you can just, like [00:35:00] you said, use common sense and figure those out. But the U-S-P-T-O website has a button for learning and resources, literal how-to videos, walking you through the process.

[00:35:15] Shatrasha Butler: And I’m going to tell you I’m an attorney, but my husband just recently received notice that his trademark was granted and will be published, and he didn’t even ask me any questions. I just found out because he just told me. And he is not a lawyer. He is not someone who reads contracts and you know, technical difficulties.

[00:35:38] Shatrasha Butler: He is someone who like me, started his business two years ago. It was an expensive hobby for two years and this year he is just now generating the ideas and the focus for generating his revenue. He hasn’t even made revenue yet. He was able to trademark without using my [00:36:00] help. So that’s how I know you can do this.

[00:36:02] Shatrasha Butler: So he did what I explained about Xerox. He created a word. Kpt, that is not a word, but he’s in cybersecurity. So again, not someone who is skilled at this because it doesn’t necessarily take a skill. But what he learned is he just, he’s one of those people that just went for it. And if you are a solo entrepreneur and you’re in corporate as well, and you’re going for it, you can identify with one of those people that just go for it and you can do this.

[00:36:41] Shatrasha Butler: So he went through the process and along the way, if he got something wrong, the office attorneys actually contacted him and made changes and said, if you’re good with this, let us know and we’ll move forward with this, or you need to change this, or you need to be more [00:37:00] specific about this.

[00:37:01] Shatrasha Butler: Another cool thing that he did on his journey was, and this is an attorney who is asking. Someone that is not an attorney that just did this process, how did you do this process? And that’s because I haven’t trademarked anything. I haven’t gone through the process and finished and received my notification that I’m published.

[00:37:25] Shatrasha Butler: So if you’re with me, then you know what I’m talking about. I’m right here with you in the walkthroughs and needing to do this. So another thing that I asked him is, you know. When you’re going through this process and you are starting out and trying to figure out what you can do other than search, what did you do?

[00:37:45] Shatrasha Butler: He just Googled who’s in cybersecurity? What companies do I know? Or if you’re like him and you’ve worked for companies and startups, he took those companies and he searched those companies and he found out here’s [00:38:00] the classification they used. Here’s the wording that they used to describe what they’re doing.

[00:38:05] Shatrasha Butler: The biggest thing that you need to know is everything isn’t scary and complex. Like lawyers like to tell you, don’t reinvent the wheel even if you decide to, you bottled up something amazing and you made a great drink out of it. If you have a beverage, then go find a beverage website. Everybody started where you are.

[00:38:31] Shatrasha Butler: Coca-Cola, Pepsi. So go find those trademarks and find out what they listed and start from there. If you don’t have anything else to do that’s one of the biggest things I can say for trademarking that. US small people need to know before we spend hundreds of dollars on an attorney. 

[00:38:57] Trudy Rankin: I think that’s really, really useful uh, [00:39:00] especially if somebody’s been, you know, sort of feeling anxious about what do they need to know, what should they be doing? And it’s some pretty common sense and practical things that they can do to go out there, research, and then apply if necessary.

[00:39:13] Trudy Rankin: So if people were interested in reaching out to you for some help, or if they just like to follow you on the socials or whatever, what’s the best place for them to go to find out more about you? 

[00:39:26] Shatrasha Butler: So I operate under Label Me Legal on Instagram, YouTube. You can message me in dms. Again, I’m starting out like you, so I’m very approachable.

[00:39:37] Shatrasha Butler: You can also go to my website, which is labelmelegal.com. And there are contracts. Some of the things I’ve mentioned about trademark, a checklist that you can use for what I need to do for trademarking and protecting my business. I’ve seen some of these websites that have $500 contracts.

[00:39:55] Shatrasha Butler: That is not what my website has. It has very reasonably priced [00:40:00] contracts. And then you can also just go to my website to contact me to say. I don’t know what I don’t know, and I just need someone to give me 30 minutes to at least give me a, where do I go? Where do I start? What resource is out there? Maybe, you know, maybe I don’t.

[00:40:16] Shatrasha Butler: Sometimes those conversations ends in, yeah, you need a lawyer for that, but at least now you have someone you can, I hope, trust to tell you, I am not after your money. I am after helping because I too don’t have the money to buy a lawyer. And pay for those services for everything that I need. So we are in this DIY process together.

[00:40:40] Trudy Rankin: Shatrashaia, it is been fantastic talking with you. Thank you so much for sharing your journey and the fact that you are at the very beginning of that journey ’cause so many times people want to wait until they’re all the way through and successful before they will share. But being able to share what it’s like when you’re first getting started and just being willing to say, Hey, I don’t have all the answers [00:41:00] yet either myself.

[00:41:01] Trudy Rankin: I think that’s really refreshing. So thank you so much for being here today. 

[00:41:04] Shatrasha Butler: Thank you for having me. I enjoyed it.

[00:41:09] Trudy Rankin: I really appreciated Shatrasha’s grounded, no BS take on legal stuff. So whether it’s using Chat GPT to draft a basic contracts. Or learning the difference between an LLC and an expensive hobby or learning the difference between having a registered business and an expensive hobby. Her advice is tailor made for anyone getting started in business.

[00:41:34] Trudy Rankin: So if you found this episode helpful, subscribe to the show and leave a review. It helps other listeners find the show and decide if it’s for them. And remember, I’ve got a newsletter that’s packed with tools, tips, and resources for people who are growing the online side of the business. You can sign up at onlinebusinessliftoff.com/newsletter.

[00:41:55] Trudy Rankin: That’s [00:42:00] onlinebusinessliftoff.com/newsletter. Thanks for listening and I’ll catch you in the next episode.