Protecting Your Practice, Strong Foundations for Safe and Sustainable Care with Michelle Whitehead

A client complaint can hit like a shockwave, but the truth is most legal trouble starts long before that with tiny “it’ll be fine” decisions that slowly blur your boundaries. I’m joined by lawyer and mentor Michelle Whitehead from Carefree Counsel to talk about the real legal risks that show up in everyday clinical practice, especially for health and wellness practitioners who were never taught how to protect their business, their energy, or their intellectual property.

We break down Michelle’s three-pillar best-practice framework: competence, capacity and connection. You’ll hear how staying within scope of practice protects your duty of care, why capacity is about systems as much as time, and how client fit and clear expectations prevent conflict. We also dig into “contracts that care”, including how to use plain English without losing legal strength, and how to create practitioner contracts and clinic policies you will actually enforce.

Refunds and disputes are a big stress point, so we cover the essentials of Australian Consumer Law: consumer guarantees, what “no refunds” really means, and how to build a structured complaints process that keeps you calm and professional. We then move into intellectual property basics for practitioners who create courses, programs, handouts or content, including copyright, trademarks, business name registration, and protecting trade secrets. If you want practical next steps, we finish with a clear checklist: privacy policy, website terms and conditions, IP awareness, SOPs for “zombie days”, succession planning, and even a refund buffer.

Subscribe, share this with a practitioner mate, and leave a review if it helps. What policy or boundary would make your practice feel safer this week?

Shownotes and references are available on the Designs for Health website


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DISCLAIMER: The Information provided in the Wellness by Designs podcast is for educational purposes only; the information presented is not intended to be used as medical advice; please seek the advice of a qualified healthcare professional if what you have heard here today raises questions or concerns relating to your health

Transcript

Why Legal Risk Feels Invisible

SPEAKER_00 0:12

This is Wellness by Designs and I'm your host Amy Skilton. And joining us today is Michelle Whitehead from Carefree Council, who is both a lawyer and mentor, and quite frankly, a legal fairy godmother for us all. And today we're speaking about the legal risks that practitioners face in their day-to-day work. Probably a subject that makes us all want to just bury our head in the sand and pretend that everything's going to be okay. And look, with Michelle Whitehead on your team, it absolutely is. So, Michelle, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much, Amy. It's lovely to be here. So good to be here. Now, Michelle has is gracing us with her presence today because we have coming up three webinars with her where she's very generously taking us through some really important areas with clinical practice where we want to make sure we've intentionally and mindfully put together policies and contracts in place to make sure everything goes as well as it can be from both a practitioner and patient point of view. But we are going to have a little chat today really about the fact that as practitioners, we train at college, university, we go, we do ongoing education in our area of profession, and yet there's a real gap for us, not just in business studies, but in particular how to protect our business, our intellectual property, and really set up professional boundaries that have been done very consciously to make sure that our practice is protected but also enjoyable and sustainable and really designed to work for all parties involved. And this can cover anything from you know scope creep to unclear policies around refunds and intellectual property and educational content. And what we're going to be chatting today about is really just a very small snippet of what's going to be covered in these uh webinars themselves, but how really to create clear systems around contracts, informed consent boundaries, and intellectual property that actually give us more freedom and more confidence in practice, which gives really us as practitioners permission to grow without fear of legal exposure or burnout, which I think is actually a very underestimated side effect of not having these types of things in practice. So, Michelle, I mean, we're gonna struggle to keep this to a listenable time, I'm sure, because there's so much to cover. But I think where we might start is many practitioners just assume legal risk is something that only arises in really extreme circumstances. We often think about, you know, major reactions or treating really risky conditions or um doing something that's maybe larger than one-on-one work, which might be, you know, group or public speaking or things like that. But the truth is legal risk can arise in really benign, otherwise benign everyday, you know, practice.

The Small Habits That Create Risk

SPEAKER_00 3:35

I would love to hear, like just as a bit of a high-level view, where you most commonly see practitioners unintentionally exposing themselves to legal risk. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

So you're right, most legal issues don't come from those big dramatic moments. They come from those small repeated gaps in your clarity, your boundaries, and your communication. And risk in this concept isn't that, you know, lawsuits, someone threatening to sue you. It's those tiny misalignments that compound and then roll into anxiety and uncertainty, which then wears away at your working relationships. So the problem is that it shows up through normal, well-meaning behavior. Um, it's driven by care, not negligence. So those blurred boundaries don't come from like any bad intent or um intention or mistakes, even. It comes from things like overpromising outcomes, especially unintentionally in your marketing or your consults. It comes from not documenting the scope or not managing client expectations. It comes from sharing client information too casually, even in what feels like a safe space. It comes from things like recording sessions without clear consent and clear understanding of how they're going to be used and who they can be shared with. It comes from letting clients drift outside those agreed boundaries. So, you know, giving them the extra support and then the DMs and the voice notes at midnight when you're exhausted start to creep in and creep in. It's almost never one big mistake. It's that pattern of small, oh, that'll be fine, kind of decisions that then become habits.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Interesting. So we're looking for the big, bad monster over there, but it's these little gremlins in the background that ultimately are eroding, you know, the integrity of just and confidence and in the integrity of your business, yeah. Yes. So it's not even just about having policies in place, although there are some that are essential, which we will touch on today, and others that are really highly recommended to have. But it's about making sure those policies address things like managing people's expectations, scope of care, informed consent. And also you were really alluding to, and this is quite a common thing that we do see in our profession is that really overgiving nature of practitioners that can then drain pleasing results in much more risk than negligence. Yes. Yes, I can see that. So practitioners not prioritizing their own needs over expectations, which you know, you said to me in a previous chat is really a recipe for burnout. And so if we redirect our attention from this, you know, extreme potential experience over here and realize actually it's more of our day-to-day practice and the way in which we do that and the way in which we set up, you know, um, how we want to we want to work with people, that actually is the opportunity for protection and reducing risk of things going wrong, far more so than some, you know, unlikely outside anomaly, by the sounds of it. Yes. So interesting. Because I I do think when people think of legal action and they they do think of those extreme events, things we might have seen in the paper where something went horribly wrong, you know, which is such a rare thing to have happen. So I guess if we were to then hone in on the three pillars of what you would consider to be best practice, I want to go a little bit deeper here and look at, you know, what is covered by competence, which I'm sure is scope of work also, capacity and ultimately connection, which is something that is really important to us as practitioners as well. How can

Competence Capacity And Connection

SPEAKER_00 7:55

practitioners utilize good quality contracts and policies within this framework of these three pillars to make sure that they're operating safely and sustainably in their work?

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Yeah, so even before you start even thinking about contracts and your legal stuff, the this commitment to best practice costs you nothing. It's a self-check tool, not a compliance framework. But from my experience, when something does go wrong in someone's practice, it almost always traces back to one of these three things. So your first and most important level of protection is that commitment to best practice. But like best practice, what does that mean? And so that's why I've narrowed it down to competence, capacity, and connection. So working within the scope of your competence means your skills, your qualifications, your experience, yes. And being very, very clear about what you're prepared to take responsibility for and what's not inside your duty of care. Making sure that clients know that and explaining what they need to know to take appropriate care for their own health, safety, and well-being. Not drifting into adjacent advice, which we all know, but is still easy to do, like legal advice, medical, psychological kind of areas. Um, being a lifelong learner, keeping your skills current, but also being cautious whenever you're expanding into new modalities or a new niche where you might not have that um lived experience of decades of practice. Um when you take on someone outside your competence, that's when professional negligence happens. And I'm not talking about suddenly claiming you can cure cancer, it's way more subtle than that. It could be someone you've worked with for years who suddenly begs you to give her something to help her baby sleep because she's desperate and she trusts you. It could be someone with mental health issues who breaks your heart with their story, so you jump in to help them, and suddenly you're way out of your depth. The key here is establishing for yourself a nurture, a nurturing, a connected collaborative community of other practitioners that you trust. Because we're all people pleasers, we're all rescuers. When someone says, I need you, we have say yes, even when it's like, oh, I'm not sure that's a good idea. You know, that's not the core of my scope. So instead of saying, no, go away, I'm I can't help you, which we don't want to do, we can eat more much more easy to say, I'm not the best person to help you with this. How about I give you some contact details for people who are a much better fit for you? And then that way you are helping them, but you're also being true to yourself and staying within the scope of your competence. And the other thing to note is that competence can be as much emotional as it is practical. So I, using myself as an example, I am 100% qualified to represent people in court and write those nasty solicitor letters of demand. But I'm not very good at it, right? I'm I'm too naive, I'm too caring, I expect everyone to do the best. I get railroaded in court. So I have people I refer to if they're in a very adversarial situation. So even though my professional qualifications allow me to do something, that doesn't mean it's within the scope of my competence. You need to have, there's an element of self-awareness there when determining what your scope and your competence looks like and being very clear on that. Then we've got capacity. So capacity is obviously managing your energy, but it's your time, your mental, your financial, your emotional, and your physical energy. Do I have the space and structure, not just to deliver this, but to deliver it well? Um when you don't, you know, that you get into overbooking and burnout from taking on too much. You get into systems where you've got not enough, you don't have the admin systems in place. So follow-ups and documentation slip through the cracks. You get into emotional bandwidth stretch so thin. And the more you stretch yourself thin, the more likely you are to make mistakes. And that then becomes a cause of unsafety in your business. And then there's connection. So connection's the weird one. Connection's what a normal lawyer would not put into best practice, but I definitely do because it's probably the biggest cause of problems. So connection is ensuring that expectations and boundaries and communication are clear, but it's also working with people who are in excellent fit. Because the ones who aren't, they're conflict waiting to happen. And the thing here is to trust your gut. 99% of the time, people who come to me about a problem with a client will say, I knew they were going to be a problem from the start. I knew they were going to be a nightmare. But for whatever reason, I took them on and said yes, and now I'm so regretting it. Cut them loose as soon as you possibly can. Find someone else who's a better fit for them, or just say no. And be upfront and honest about signaling what it's like to work with you. So that's where my fairyland backdrop came from. You know, um, when I first started this online business, I kept getting people who would come in and they they were looking for a lawyer in a suit in a big city office. And it was a real mismatch. Like that style of corporate um legality is just not me. So the more I brought rainbows and dragons and unicorns into my branding and my the way I talk about everything, the more people, clients came into my my Zoom room and they're like, You're what I've been looking for. Like you are the person I need. Where have you been? I needed you. And that's those are the ones who are great to work with because connected clients are going to be cooperative and collaborative about problem solving when issues inevitably arise. There are going to be mistakes, there are going to be things that slip through the cap cracks. There are going to be moments when you choose to stretch your competence or you must work outside your capacity, no matter how hard you're trying to manage it. If your clients are connected, those things can all be solved. And the other bonus is that connected clients are more likely to refer you to other like-minded people. So then your marketing doesn't have to work so hard and your business starts to support yourself. So working within the scope of your competence keeps your practice safe. Working within the scope of your capacity keeps you sane. And working within the scope of your connection makes sure that your work is sustainable. And safe, sane, and sustainable is what every business deserves to be.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Absolutely. That's a mic drop, right there, Michelle. And I love that you're talking about the connection piece too, because I think when we sort of put the legalese hat on and we think about policies and clauses and, you know, contracts and things like that, first of all, it can feel very overwhelming and intimidating, and which is, you know, no doubt one of many reasons why you're such a breath of fresh air for clients who aren't looking for that stuffed suit in a corporate office where you know everything feels so foreign and unapproachable. But also one of the really unique things that makes you so special is the compassion and the heart that you bring to your work. And you just really illustrated that nicely there around connection being such a pivotal piece to having a sustainable business. And I think that's probably something a lot of practitioners learn the hard way and maybe a bit late in the game. And I can put my hand up and say that too, you know, it there you can really feel the difference when you're an aligned choice for somebody, and it's really fun, and it's like there's a there's a layer of joy that comes with working with someone who there's an affinity with. She we were able to work together. Like I was a resource for her to lean on. It was very, there was openness, there was trust, there was no, was this something you did, or I think it's something you did do, and now we need to look at like why you did what you did. And it just allowed for so many of those other pieces of perhaps self-defense, fear, worry, you know, um disharmony, if you like, to cloud the reality of what was going on. Um, and just like any other practitioner who's been around a while a while, I've absolutely spoken with clients before and I'm like, this is a knot in my tummy here, like this there's something here that doesn't feel good, but you know, I have a particular specialty in environmental medicine and and toxic mold. And so I have absolutely taken on clients who are dealing with that because it's quite a niche, and I'm like, well, I feel like I'm one of only a few, so I feel obligated. Yes, yes, I know. Classic, isn't it? I'm sure you've seen it many times, and you know, it hasn't always worked out badly, but I have absolutely seen sometimes when it hasn't ended well satisfactorily when you do take on a client where that sense of connection is thin, that's when you need to absolutely ramp up the other elements and be very, very careful, stringent about your competence and what what you're doing there.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

And you know, really only do their work when you are at full capacity. Like know that they're and you know, the consult with them is coming up, so fill your cup in advance so you are at your best, so that the chances of being in a situation

Client Fit And Trust Your Gut

SPEAKER_01 18:40

where things are going to go wrong with them is minimized as much as you can. And of course, then have your contracts that really clearly holding space for that kind of relationship, and have your insurance there as the backup safety net to catch you if any if everything else fails.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Yes, yes. I think that's a really good mindset to have because taking the all-or-nothing approach and saying no every time might not necessarily feel good either. No, and in in different seasons of of practice, especially when you're starting out and you're trying to get as much experience as possible. You know, you might say yes to people that you think this isn't a hundred percent aligned fit, but I can still be supportive here and leaning on those things can really just help you make sure that it goes well and making it a conscious choice.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Yes, yes, not just an automatic yes, it's a conscious choice where you have the self-awareness that you are stepping into a relationship where the connection may not be 100%. And so you consciously choose to other boundaries in place, make sure you're very, very clear in managing expectations, you're very, very clear in managing your duty of care.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

That's I think that's really, really clever. And I think one of the things you have talked about around contracts, and this is again something that's really unique with your approach, is contracts that care. And I remember when I first was introduced to your work, which is probably about five years ago now, maybe longer, but at least that long ago, it was like a full-body exhale. Like there was this like sigh of relief that it wasn't just this stuffy, legal, harsh, heavy approach to policies and contracts. And at the time, the way it landed for me was we can inject our own heart and our own softness into these. And I want to talk about that in just a moment. But in our pre-interview chat, you also talked about ensuring those contracts care for you as the practitioner, also. And that just about made me well up when you said that, because that's another permission slip again to know, you know, I'm sure all of us type A's will be feeling the same when we we think about the kind of standards we set for ourselves and and you know, pleasing other people, um, as well as you know, that healing part. Often we don't get accounted for in the preparation of these documents and in the structuring of our businesses. And I think some practitioners don't realize that actually, A, yes, you're allowed to, and B, you should, and C, you actually deserve to be just as cared for when it comes to this as the client. So I'd love to talk about both those parts. So, in terms of personalizing the contracts and making them more your language or the way you'd speak to a client, I might just say, you know, as a practitioner who'd never heard of that concept before, I felt very nervous at the thought of altering a legal document in that way. Now, obviously, terminology must be respected. In the law, but tell us about where that's possible in terms of personalizing it and making it less heavy.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Yeah. So there's no magic in legal jargon. A contract does its best work when it's easy to read, easy to understand, and when it communicates the things that are important to you and to your client. You know, um, it's and and a client's like a contract can't do its job unless it it gets read and gets understood. So it really is a shift of how you think about contracts. Contracts need to come from stop thinking of them as kind of a barbed wire fence off in the distance that's there to protect you in the event that your clients turn into raving zombies and all come rushing towards you at once, trying to get you into contracts being a sacred container that's holding the space for you to do your best work and communicating your expectations, your boundaries. And and I always go back to Breno Brown, clear is kind. The more clear your contracts are, the more effective they are at communicating how to get the most out of working with you, how to respect you, and how you will respect your clients and what you will give them, what you what promises you're making to them, and what your expectations of them are, the more you're educating them to be your ideal client, the better your contract is work. Because what's the the primary goal of a contract? If the primary goal of the contract is to um you know to keep you out of trouble, then a contract that does such a good job of managing the relationship that the kinds of conflicts that end up in court never happen, it's doing its job. So if your contract speaks in the same language you use for your marketing, if it's if it's got that same loving, nurturing, beautiful feel to it, then your clients are more likely to engage with it to create and it enhances that trust and connection, which then, as we've already discussed, prevents conflict. So, you know, if you can make a client laugh while they're reading your contract, yay! You know, if you can if you can make them feel that you have their best interests in heart, then they're more likely to have your best interests at heart as well. You know, it becomes a mutual agreement, a mutual working relationship, and that's what we want. Um, and and yeah, there's

Contracts As A Sacred Container

SPEAKER_01 24:50

like contracts. A good example is the the contracts for um in South Africa for fruit pickers are cartoons. And there's a number of um modern banks who are developing their terms and conditions as a you know sort of a cartoony format. There's there's no set this it must be done this way. There are things you need to be careful about how you say them, but within that, there's still a lot of space for you to be um kind and caring and simple in your communication.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Yes, that's such a lovely insight into like at what it could be like as far as creating something that would otherwise feel a little bit, you know, formal and and maybe semi-threatening in a way. Um, but I'd love to hear a little bit more about what you meant by when you said contracts are also meant to care for you as the practitioner and what that looks like in terms of crafting something that actually works for you. I think that the essence of it is making sure that your business model and and the way you set things up is actually what's best for you too. But can you elaborate that or give us any examples?

SPEAKER_01 26:13

And that's that's one of the reasons why it's really important that you are involved in the drafting of the contract and you're not sort of patchworking together pieces of other people's contracts or borrowing something from someone else that doesn't actually fit how you work. Because if a contract's communicating your boundaries, you need to believe in those boundaries before you'll enforce them. And if your contract's full of boundaries you don't believe in, then it's effectively meaningless. You know, if it's talking about how someone else works, then what's it doing for you? So things like a take a take your refund policy, for example. If you've got, if your co if your contract says strictly no refund for change of mind, or says no refunds under any circumstances, which under Australian consumer law you can't legally say. So we'll say strictly no refunds for change of mind. But you're the kind of person who as soon as someone says, I'm not happy, you're gonna say, Oh, oh, I'm sorry, here's here's your money back, and would you like a free session? And can't do you want the kitchen sink as well, right? If you're that kind of person, then having the the strictly no refunds policy is not gonna work for you. So you've got to try and work back from there to find something that feels fair to you and fear fair to them. So that might be like with my DIY packs. I'm like, okay, I'm the sort of I know I'm the sort of person who wants someone to be happy with what they've bought, but at the same time, I know people often sit on a DIY pack, a contract DIY pack for months. I've had people come back after 18 months and say, hey, I'm finally getting around to using my DIY pack. So I don't want them to sit on it for for two years and then say, hey, I want my money back. So I'm like, okay, seven days. You have seven days from the purchase of your DIY pack to ask for your money back if it doesn't suit you. So that gives you time to look at it, decide if it's right fit, take action. If you've sat on it for seven days and haven't done anything, then that's your problem. You know, I get to keep the money. Yes. Whereas if otherwise, if you've looked at it, you've made a decision, a conscious decision, it doesn't work, fine. Uh, another good one is appointment policies. So someone who has little kids and they've booked childcare or they've got mum coming over and sitting with the kids during their client-facing hours, they're going to need to know in advance if you can't make an appointment so that they can fit someone else into that slot because those client-facing hours are precious to them.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

Someone like me, where my kids are all growing up and they're off doing their own thing, if you reschedule on me at the last minute, I'm like, yep, free time. I get to play with one of my projects, right? It doesn't mean there's much to me. But making setting that appointment policy so it supports you with what you need, is the difference between having a contract that you actually love giving to your clients because you know it's it's got purpose, it's protecting you, and it's protecting them, compared to, you know, uh, look, here's this thing that's it's kind of alien, and I've got it because I'm supposed to have it, but uh look, just take it, sign it, and then we'll forget about that and we'll go on with doing what we want to do. Which is how contracts kind of traditionally tend to practitioners tend to feel about their contracts. And we don't want that. No.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

No, we don't. So, well, I think this might be a good time to remind everybody that you are going to be doing not one, not two, but three webinars for Designs for Health. And in the first one, you're actually going to be covering protecting your practice, and in there, you're going to be looking at, you know, scope create, blurry boundaries, hybrid practices, so where you've got online advice and messaging support. Um, you're going to be looking at service agreements, informed consent disclaimers, and even where insurance might not line up very well if you've got some more esoteric parts to your business. So absolutely tune in for all of that. But I want to specifically just ask you about the refunds and complaints, because this is probably an area that I think most practitioners are most stressed about or causes the most stress. I'd love to know what Australian consumer law actually requires because you mentioned that before, no refunds is unacceptable under Australian consumer law. But with conditions that are specific to what you're offering, and around that they might be. Can you share a little bit more about what's actually required legally when it comes to refunds and client disputes?

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Yeah. So refund policies is something, yes, you can't set it in isolation. You need to understand what the law already says around what you can and can't do. Because if a service fails to meet the automatic consumer guarantees, then there are remedies that apply regardless of what you've said to the client or what your contracts say. So the core Australian consumer law principles are that a service must be provided with due care and skill, it must be fit for purpose, and it must be delivered within a reasonable time. And you can't contract out of those rights. So therefore, the the no refunds policies are can be very misleading if they're not carefully reframed because you can not all dissatisfaction from a client entitles them to a refund. You can say no refunds for change of mind, but that's a policy. And I generally

Policies That Also Protect You

SPEAKER_01 31:55

say, well, what's your justification for it? Is it because they've had access to your intellectual property? Is it because um you've set aside time for them in a busy calendar? You know, there's always a justification, a reason why saying no refunds if you change your mind and you actually don't want to work with me anymore is um is justified. Um if there's a minor problem with your service, you don't have to give them a reason a refund, you have to fix the problem. If it can be fixed within a reasonable time, then fix it. That's you've got an obligation to do so. And if it's a major problem, then that's where the whole repla repair, replace, refund remedies come in.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

Yeah, gotcha. That makes sense. And I think you'll be going more into that in the webinar too, which is going to be yeah, really helpful. And I think that you know, that alone is going to give practitioners a more appropriate way of approaching how to protect themselves without finding out the hard way that their terms and conditions actually get superseded by Australian consumer law and they don't get the outcome that they were necessarily hoping for.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

And then just to finish off on that, because you did ask about dispute resolution processes.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

Um, as part of that, being really clear about communicating those boundaries up front so people come into working with you knowing what to expect is a big help. Being careful in your language around what they can expect from you is also a good help. But then having a complaints process that is calm and structured and human that allows you to be responsive rather than reactive is also essential. So a good policy doesn't stop complaints, but it gives you a way to handle them without panic.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

Oh, that sounds like something every practitioner could do with. That's for sure. Well, just changing gears a little bit, in the second webinar, you are going to be presenting for us as about protecting content and growth, which is more around commercial expansion, um, things which cover IP like copyright, trademarks, trade secrets. And I think this applies not just to one-on-one practice, but especially if you're creating things like courses, programs, mentorships, um, and other things. And of course, when you start to bring other people into your business or include other people within your business, whether it's designers, contractors, or collaborators, and you're looking at other ways of leveraging, there's a lot to really look at there as well. And so clearly we can't cover that in one question and answer right here. But what do you think are the most important systems and safeguards that practitioners should really look at having in place from the beginning, as far as you know, standard practice policies, but also IP policies and things like that as well?

SPEAKER_01 34:56

Yeah. So the easiest way to discuss that is to break it down into the three types of intellectual property. So the moment you start teaching what you do or creating resources for your clients to use, you're not just a practitioner, you're a creator. And that intellectual property you're creating can be a very valuable asset of your business. So the first type of intellectual property is copyright. And that exists automatically in Australia, but it must be recorded. It only exists in things that have been written down or made physical in some way. So your course content, your videos, your social media posts, your handouts, your written frameworks, so long as they're unique, original, and yours, then they're protected by copyright. So the key there is to make it new, make it yours, make it clearly something that reflects you. And I'll talk about that a minute in more in a minute in relation to trade secrets. Now there's no copyright in names or ideas. Names are protected as trademarks, whether they're registered or unregistered. They are the hook on which your business reputation hangs, they are how your business is identified. So that's why when choosing your business name, it's really, really important to avoid being generic and descriptive, which is probably the biggest issue I come up with. Like, even if you want to say you're doing a specific thing for SEO purposes, the name it make that the tagline and make the actual business name something that stands out. Because you want to be the unicorn in the field of ponies. You want to be the lighthouse, not the needle in a haystack. You know, having that name that is instantly recognizable is one of the biggest elements in building a business that's capable of growth and expansion. And then the other thing to remember in relation to names is that if you are trading under any name other than your legal name or the legal name of your company, you have to register it as a business name. That is mandatory. And you

Refunds Complaints And Consumer Law

SPEAKER_01 37:10

register it by linking it to your ABN. And that's for consumer protection. It doesn't give you any ownership rights. It's completely separate from registering a trademark. Registering a business name allows someone to know that there is a real person or a real entity in the case of companies behind that business name. So you can't just change your business name tomorrow and disappear and you know, not deliver all the things you've said you were going to deliver and then pop up again tomorrow with a new business name. You because your ABN stays the same and any business name has to be registered against your ABN. It's cheap and it's easy and it's important to do. And I'll be talking about that in the webinar for sure and showing you exactly the steps to do it. And then ideas. Ideas are your trade secrets. And where copyright and trademarks are protected under the legislation, ideas can only be protected under contracts. So you have to protect that recipe for your secret source, the thing that makes you unique and original, the the content, the frameworks, the methodologies that you have created that know that show how you do things in a way that no one else does it. Because one day that could be the foundation of your licensing empire. And the the key there is to make it unique. And don't be afraid to make it so you that anyone trying to copy will be a pale imitation and will just look ridiculous. Like any other lawyer who starts talking about risk by mentioning castles and dragons is just going to look, they're going to feel like a the dumb, whereas I do it every day. And I it's it's 100% my element. So that that trade secret, how risk connects to dragons and castles, that's part of my trade secrets, the actual underlying framework of how it works. So you can give away the the it's it's important to be really clear about which elements you can give away and share freely and which are the things that need to be protected under your um under your contracts. And the final thing there is when you're creating your trade secrets, you can take inspiration from everywhere because as I said, there's no copyright in ideas, but always, always, always put your own spin on it and don't release it until you've made it completely your own.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

That makes perfect sense, Michelle. Thank you. My gosh, we're in for such a treat when these webinars come out. I wish they were coming out tomorrow because I can't wait to hear more of your wisdom. Um, but I guess that the final thing I want to just wrap up our conversation with a pretty little bow with is at this point, practitioners are probably thinking, oh my goodness, I I don't have any of these things, or I've got a couple of these things, but I feel like there's other things I don't know. I don't know what I need to know. Is there just a bit of a checklist and maybe a triaged order of things that let's say a new graduate sort of ready to set up their business, they've got an ABN, they've registered their business name, and they've got their insurance. Let's just say they've ticked those boxes already. They have an association membership. Okay. Training wheels are on.

unknown 40:33

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 40:34

What are the first couple of things that are like you've got to get these done? And then what comes after that?

SPEAKER_01 40:41

Sure. So pretty much the first thing I tell, I ask, the first question I ask people when they come to me and say, I don't know what I need, I don't know what I don't know, is I ask if have you got your privacy policy? Because a privacy policy is required under the Australian privacy principles for any business that's dealing with people's health and well-being. Now, a privacy policy, uh, because when you're dealing with people's health and well-being, you're collecting both their personal information and their sensitive information. Personal information is information that can be used to identify them. And sensitive information is information they wouldn't normally share with someone outside of a relationship of trust. So it might be their medical information, it might be information about their lifestyle and their habits, it might be information about their relationships. All of those things are it might be information about their poop, whatever, you know, it's all sensitive information. Um, so your privacy policy tells them what information you collect, why you collect it, how you store it, and who you share it with, including AI. Um, second, I ask them have they got their website T's and TNCs? Terms and conditions. So any business under Australian consumer law, any business that's advertising any kind of product or service through a website needs to have website terms and conditions. Now, I'm not the kind of lawyer who says a nuclear business is going to go off, a nuclear weapon is going to go off in your business if you don't have this box ticked. But when you're starting to think, okay, I've I've I'm I'm here, I'm doing this thing, what do I need next? Website TNCs. Because they communicate your basic boundaries, they reduce anxiety and create trust. They show people what it's like to work with you so they can make an informed decision. So that's the even once you've got your website terms and additions, you can sort of break out of them a mini um terms of service that you can then put on your intake form. So you're starting to communicate it in ways that people can tick a box and understand what boundaries of yours they need to respect.

Copyright Trademarks And Trade Secrets

SPEAKER_01 42:55

Um okay, you've got your privacy policy, you've got your terms and conditions. The next thing is to really understand the basics of IP so that you're choosing that unique business name before you invest in your branding, so you don't have to pivot. And so that you're not using images you found on Google. Because I have had people come back and they've been asked to pay for an image on a blog post that they wrote 10 years ago where they just happened to have found an image of it, it was a tractor. They pulled this image of a tractor off Google, and 10 years later they're being met with a letter of demand saying you've got to pass licensing for this image. Ignorance is no excuse when it comes to consumer law and intellectual property infringements. So understanding your IP and then also understanding the consumer law obligations and having a dispute resolution policy that fits you so you don't run screaming that the sky is falling if someone says they're not happy with your work. You can be responsive, not reactive. And then finally, Putting in place the systems that hold space for you to do your best work safely. And you can start collecting those right from the very start. So if you find yourself writing the same email to clients over and over and over again, set yourself up an SOP, a standard operating procedure, a document where you've or a an assigner board or whatever, which is a communication template, assigner board or similar, where you've got you copy all those snippets. So you can just copy and paste and save your sanity. Because then when you're ready in the future to outsource so that you can focus on the work you love doing because there's that much demand for your work, you can really easily bring someone else in to start doing you. But also it allows you to ensure your managing your commitment to best practice and communication and everything else, even on zombie days. So I have what I call zombie lists. So, for example, for my finances, I've got a zombie to-do list which breaks everything down into its teeny tiniest baby steps, you know, open this program, go to this page, open this bank account, do this step, you know, because even on days when I am completely brain dead and dysfunctional, I can still show up and say it's Monday, I'm supposed to do my finances, open that, okay, what's the first step? And I don't have to carry all of that in my head. And then the the flip side to that is also having a plan for what needs to happen if you can't be present in your business for whatever reason. And succession planning. So in my my side hustle as a real-world lawyer, I I work with um probate and estates. Um, and the the mess that occurs when someone hasn't put some thought into how their business will operate without them can be horrific. So even if it's just letting your husband know where to find your passwords, or you know, having a VA who knows the background of your business andor a trusted friend who's also a practitioner who can step in and take over your clients. And it may not be like it may not be because you've been hit by a bus. It may be because you've got, you know, a massive case of the flu or you know, whatever else, and you need someone who can be your backup and and knows, like, or you've got a document so that someone knows, okay, I go into this calendar and I'll be able to see what her appointments are for the next or their appointments are for the next week, and there's a template for rescheduling, and I can just copy and paste that into each of those email addresses and I've butter time.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

You know, it's yeah, that would be my that would that would be my must-haves. I mean, they all sound important really, and they all serve a particular purpose, but also it's actually quite clear the order in which you laid them out is the way in which to acquire them and set them up.

SPEAKER_01 47:17

And you don't have to have a magic, you don't, there's no, you don't wave a magic wand and have them all in your business right now. They're just little, they're they're little building blocks that you put in place to to lay that groundwork of the foundation. So I often say, you know, you've when you start up, you you build your castle in the air. And then you start bringing people into this castle in the air, and it's it's wonderful. But the more people you begin, the less bring in, the less safe it begins to feel. And that's when you need to ground it down onto those solid foundations so that it feels safe. And once it feels safe and grounded on and you've got those foundations and systems in place, then you can start expanding to the next level. But um, but yeah, you don't, you know, Rome wasn't built in a day, neither are your business foundations, brick by brick, step by step, baby step by baby step.

SPEAKER_00 48:09

I love that because this is an area I think that could easily overwhelm many of us when we think about what needs to be done. And thankfully, you've made it very easy and as approachable as possible to do this. I know you mentioned you've got DIY packs that practitioners can just purchase. I know there's an option there to upgrade and actually have your eyes on it to make sure that any adjustments made still make sure that document is serving the purpose that it was intended to. And certainly if if anyone wants to reach out to Michelle, we'll put her Facebook and Instagram links um in the show notes. But her website is carefreecounsel.com. And Michelle, as we our time comes to an end, sadly, I would love to know. And you may not have an example that's suitable to share on this platform, but I'm sure you've seen many cases where either something went wrong in someone's business that could have been prevented with a good policy or contract, or you might have actually seen something potentially nasty flare up, but the contract and policy in place prevented it from escalating into anything further. Do you have any real life examples there or any other sage wisdom that you can share with us before we let you go?

SPEAKER_01 49:36

Yeah, it's it's a tricky one for a couple of reasons. First, I don't um, I'm very, very careful about sharing

The Practical Checklist And Systems

SPEAKER_01 49:45

things that people have come to me about because um a, I don't want to risk infringing their confidentiality. I want them to feel like I've been talking about them if if someone recognises their um their story. And two, I I don't like horror scenarios. I I'm very much against worst-case scenarios. Um, and then thirdly, um, I, as I said, I try to do such a good job of helping people manage relationships that um horror stories don't happen, and if they do, I tend to refer them to someone whose core work is in that area. However, um, one of the ones that comes to mind might be um an invitation to think outside the box when conflict happens. So the first thing is to manage your own, to allow yourself to feel all the feelings. Um so when you get a client complaint or someone demanding a refund in this particular instance, um someone had said that it was a program, and she'd said, you you can have a refund if you've done all the steps, but um, you still haven't achieved this result. And she was very, very confident that if someone did all the steps, they would achieve that result. You know, it was it was clear from her experience that this is I'm happy to do that guarantee. And someone came to her and said, I did all the steps, I didn't reach, I didn't achieve the results, I want my refund. And yet the practitioner was pretty darn sure that she hadn't done all the steps and that it it hadn't that that she was just lazy or whatever, life had gotten in the way, and she she wanted her money back. And the practitioner felt that my client felt that this was unfair. So the first thing we did was we worked through all of those triggers, like allowed her to feel angry, allowed her to feel upset, and you know, how dare she? And all of those sorts of things, and then start working through okay, what's what's practical? And in the end, we decided that she would give her the money back because she just wanted to get this client out of her life. So it was one of those here, here's your money back, go away. And then the question is, what how can we use that lesson? How can we take this to the next level and grow from it? And that's one of the biggest things is that every time something like that happens, there's a lesson for you and a way to improve your practice that stops it happening again. So they're really, really fun lessons because it's like, okay, well, what what else is possible? You know, what can we do? If if what if there is no problem? What if this has been sent to me at this time so that I can put in place something that up levels me? And in this particular case, what we did was we designed a framework so that her clients were motivated to report to her every time they achieved one of the three steps, every time they completed it. So we ran a little competition in her internal Facebook group with little mini prizes that cost her nothing, but like they were just resources she'd already previously created, and they were just sitting there not being used because she'd moved on from those. So we just gave them a little blow up, and then you know, someone said, I've completed stage one, great, here's your resource. I've completed stage two, here's your research, I've completed stage three, here's your research. So then she knew because the clients had self-managed their reporting, that they had they were motivated to say, I've done the three steps, and that way she automated that rather than so the with the original one was how do we prove? How do we prove she didn't do them? Like we've got no way of knowing. But now, if they haven't claimed their three prizes, then we know they haven't done the three steps. Gosh, what a powerful We don't have to chase and race around trying to prove it because they're self-reporting now.

SPEAKER_00 53:55

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 53:56

Oh wow, you really know if someone yeah, if someone didn't achieve the result, but they've claimed their three prizes, then okay, that's fair.

SPEAKER_00 54:05

Fair enough. Yeah, fair enough. I think that's just such an incredible story to finish on because not only are you highlighting the fact that if you hit a a road bump in the road, which we are all going to from time to time. Absolutely, 100%. It's gonna happen. Part of the course. Like if you want nothing to go wrong ever, don't be in business. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that just comes with the territory, but not only is it an opportunity to revisit your structure, your systems, your policies, and it is actually an opportunity to enhance your offering in a way that's a win-win for yourself and everyone who engages with your work. And I just think this is why you're the legal fairy godmother, Michelle. Because you just transform everything and make it better. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 54:58

So that situation could have could have easily devolved into a massive argument of a of a,

A Refund Dispute Turned Into Growth

SPEAKER_01 55:05

you know, I said you said, but and and then, you know, I want my money back. It was a significant investment. It was a big program, it was a really significant amount of money.

SPEAKER_00 55:17

So yes, yes. I can imagine that is very difficult to weather as a practitioner, especially when you, you know, if you know someone's done the full work and they're going to get the result, if they don't get the result, you'll be like, please have your money back, because that should absolutely shouldn't have worked. And now this particular person can relax knowing that they are already reporting along the way they're doing it, and any issues will be genuine. And like you said, that connection to it's more fun, you're gamifying it.

SPEAKER_01 55:46

And with that connection, it also advertises to others because people see some people getting their prizes, and then they're more motivated to actually do the steps as well. Yes, it's and then the the flip side to that too is to have a buffer account where you set aside, you know, a certain amount of money and save it up and then just leave it sit there, which is your refund buffer. So that if someone genuinely does deserve a refund, it's easy for you to give it to them without panicking, without, oh, I need to pay the electricity bill on the car this week. Because you've got your refund buffer sitting there safely.

SPEAKER_00 56:25

Yes. Oh my gosh, you're an oracle of wisdom, Michelle. And look, I can only imagine anyone listening to this is going to go immediately to listen to your webinars or register if they haven't already happened by the time they hear this. But I just want to say thank you so much for sharing your gift with gifts with us today, not just in our conversation, but in the upcoming webinars. Um, you're certainly making this part of business so much clearer and so much more enjoyable. If law could be enjoyable, you've made it so. So we appreciate you and your time so much, Michelle. Thank you. My absolute pleasure. Oh, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Remember, you can find all the show notes and the links to connect with Michelle and other podcasts on the Australian Designs for Health website. I'm Amy Skillton, and this is Wellness by Designs.