How To Legally Protect Your Health Coaching Business
today's guest is a lawyer for health and wellness professionals and her name is sharon vannan i am really excited for you to hear my conversation with sharon because if you're like most of the coaches in my community you have got a lot of concerns and questions about all the legal issues surrounding your business and in today's episode you are going to get answers to many of those questions now sharon is the founder of a niche law practice called thrive legal care and its sister legal template shop the tlc source sharon's own story is fascinating she actually worked in the world of corporate healthcare law and policy for 14 years before deciding to change paths and become a nutritionist however along the way she realized that there was an unmet need for legal support in the health and wellness world so now she leverages her legal and her nutrition backgrounds to provide an insider's perspective to help health and wellness businesses set themselves up for success so i think that you are going to love this conversation let's dive in well hey sharon welcome to the show hi kim thank you so much it's a pleasure to be here yeah i am so looking forward to this conversation because i know that my audience has just a ton of questions about the legal aspects of their business um you know all of those legal ethical things just create so much anxiety so i'm sure that you see that too sharon so i'm really excited for this opportunity to learn from you and and really um you know hear your tips and strategies and all of those things but before we get into everything i would just love for you to tell us a little bit more about you and the work that you do in the world sharon thanks i am a lawyer i've been a lawyer for 15 years and i've always worked in the healthcare system and that was up until about 2019 when i decided i was gonna take a different direction in my life and right at the start of 2020 i went to nutrition school and it was kind of a nice um it's just a nice continuation i have a background in health science and i had been working in the healthcare system for many years and i was really craving a way to connect with people more one-on-one and so nutrition to me felt like the perfect bridge and went to school thinking i was gonna completely leave la behind and then while i was in school my classmates my colleagues found out that i was a lawyer and they started asking me questions because they had some anxieties about starting their business and they just weren't sure where to go and i started answering questions and i realized there's actually a market here and that the wellness world is not well served with legal services especially for canadians so one thing led to another and turns out that i decided okay alongside my nutrition practice i think i'm going to open a law practice because there's there's something here and there's a lot of interest so that's what i do i run a law practice it's called thrive legal care and i'm also launching any day now stay tuned there will be a template shop to accompany that so i've got all the templates that health coaches nutritionists anyone in the wellness world can use to support them in their business oh that is so amazing and i mean you're a hundred percent right i'm sure you saw that immediately that there's just there's a huge need and um and it's such an underserved i mean there's just so many questions so much confusion so it's amazing that you have been able to bridge those two things that you are you know interested and passionate in so very very cool okay so um let's get into today's topic let's start by talking about why wellness business owners why do they need to be aware of the legal side of doing business online can you break that down for us absolutely so what a lot of people don't realize that when you're running a business online it's still subject to laws because some people think you know you're kind of on the on the fringes of the traditional business world which is not the case when it comes to law so you always have to practice by the same rules and in some cases there are different rules that apply if you're online so first and foremost you want to be aware of these things because there's a lot at stake for you you have invested money in your education in building your website and getting all of those parts coming together to have your business be a viable vehicle for you this is your livelihood so you want to protect all of your investment like there's you've just come too far to risk it and the other thing is that you have to think about who's on the other side of your business we are in the people business and we're all doing this kind of work because we really care about people's health and well-being and we want to do work that's in service of that and so if you have some cracks in your legal foundation or you you're blindsided about some of those things you may not be able to show up in the way that your clients need you to whether that's you know inadvertent people i i believe truly want to do the best but sometimes you may be overstepping certain legal boundaries like scope of practice or you may um have just issues that come up in business like somebody wants a refund or you're making claims and somebody has a misunderstanding about what they can expect from you so lots of things lots of moving parts and when you take care of all the legal stuff especially at the beginning it gives you such peace of mind it lets you move forward it lets you focus on the work that you really want to do and bring your best self to your clients and just have have greater impact doing what you love yeah i think that that's just so important that peace of mind piece that you just mentioned because i think it can be such a distraction for people is they if they if you feel like there's kind of these gaps and these spaces things that you really haven't attended to and you're maybe at risk you're exposed like all those kinds of things can be just such a distraction can keep you awake at night and it's like totally independent of the actual work that you're here to do um and we'll slow you down and hold you back from the actual work that you're here to do so yes i i totally agree so peace of mind is is a really important thing obviously i would love to talk about content creation so i think that many people are you know at least aware that they need agreements and waivers and you know those kinds of structures in place when they're working with their clients but what about the content that they're putting out there like what legal issues do wellness business owners need to be aware of when it comes to content creation and this is so important because content creation is such a huge part of what you're doing in your business whether it's blog posts or instagram posts or reels or you're creating digital products your courses all of these things this is all your original creation or it should be you should always be creating your own work unless you have explicit permission from someone else to use it so all of this this is your body of intellectual property and intellectual property is recognized as something that is protected by law whether you're in canada or the us i know you have an international audience but there's two sides to the intellectual property coin so i like to call it respecting and then protecting so respecting is about not infringing anybody else's intellectual property like i just said don't use anything whether it's a photo or an article that you don't have explicit permission from the creator to use because that's copyright infringement or it could be trademark infringement as well so make sure that you are on the right side of the usability of those that intellectual property and then the other side of the coin is protecting so that's where your intellectual property rights come into play so if you have created let's say it's an e-book or a proprietary course and you've put your blood sweat and tears into that you can protect that legally and in most cases you should because you don't want somebody else to swipe that from you to copy from you so that they can then profit off of your hard work that would that would be terrible and something to keep in mind because so many health coaches are online it's very easy to infringe other people's work so i just really want to caution people be proactive about it and make sure you've got the right protection for your stuff yeah i i totally agree i do hear a lot of people being quite concerned about when you know when because it does take a lot of effort and time and energy to put to create content to create things of your own and then you're putting it out there in good faith um and the concern of course is that it's just gonna get uh swiped by people who don't you know obey that first piece of that that you just gave the respect part um so what do we need to do though to like actually protect you know we've we've created something a course or an ebook or even free content like how do we protect that stuff so the simplest and easiest thing that you should always be doing if it's a course or an ebook something where there's like some actual substance to it you always want to put a copyright notice on that you should it should always be conspicuous because you want this to catch people's attention so that you know you've seen the c in the circle and the year and your your name so that's the simplest way you don't actually have to formally register your copyright in canada or the us you can simply put that on and in fact you actually don't even have to put that on it's just that puts people on notice but you automatically get copyright protection just by virtue of creating something so that's one thing you can do another thing if you want to formally register with a copyright office you can it's a small fee and beyond that it comes down to how you are presenting that material so if it's something that you're selling through your website you want to make sure you have really clear terms of use for the purchaser so that they know that when they are buying something from you they are only allowed to use it for their non-commercial use you're not allowing people to buy this so that they can then turn around and sell it so all of that you want to make sure that's captured in a really well drafted terms of use agreement and that is usually the way that you can build in a level of safety for those kinds of products so with the terms of use so i hear you say that like the copyright you're automatically protected anything that you create is automatically protected by copyright you don't have to like let's say you forget to put the little c in the circle notation at the bottom or whatever it's okay you're still protected um but with the terms of views like something that you are selling is that something that somebody has to actually sign and send back to you or is it enough for you just to have it be like a document that comes bundled with the thing that they're purchasing with the product or the course or you know whatever it is yeah that's a great question because most people nowadays they're going to be selling things online and a lot of times this will be done through an automated process and you actually don't interact with your purchaser they're just pressing click and so what you want to do is whatever platform you're using to sell your your intellectual property that platform should have a place for you to have a click and then you can link your terms of use there that's how it's done in digital commerce and um you know most of us we've many times in our life we have clicked agree because that's just how it works so that is actually a legally binding contract yeah it's not as ideal because you don't get any negotiation and you don't get a chance to explain the terms to the purchaser but we've all come to accept this as part of the way we do business online so that's how it works yeah okay that is so good to know okay now in terms of marketing like i feel like there are probably some legal issues that people should be aware of when it just comes to their marketing so could you give us some insight into what are some of the things that wellness business owners should be aware of with their marketing yeah okay so there's a couple there's a few categories one and i'll just kind of like give you the categories then i'll explain a little bit one is how you are presenting yourself the other one is presenting what you do another one is presenting your marketing relationships and then the final category is how you're presenting your testimonials about your clients so the first one is how you're presenting you you always want to be honest and transparent and presenting yourself with the highest integrity because that is so important in building know like and trust with your audience and the way you can do that is um just being really open about who you are what your what your name is i've actually seen some businesses where people are not using their full name always use your full name because that is just a non-starter for building trust with somebody um being honest about your training and what your title is and what your scope is so then that we're going to move on to how to talk about what what you do so something that's really important to keep in mind especially in health and wellness for coaches who are you know they're trying to show the impact and they're trying to show results you want to be really careful that you're never promising you're never guaranteeing that you can achieve any kind of result for anyone because that's not possible it doesn't matter how awesome you are it's just not a guarantee so you want to be very cautious in showcasing the impact that you can have in someone's life without going too far because that's misleading and that's not very honest so it always comes back to that always be honest always be in integrity and then another thing is that you shouldn't be saying that you can do things that are outside of your scope um there is a limit to what a health coach can do so you always want to be careful that you're you're staying within your lane and the third category is um how you talk about your marketing relationships and so this is where you may have an affiliate relationship with another business or you yourself might be an affiliate and what a lot of people don't know is that affiliate relationships are they're governed by law in canada and the us and those laws are taken pretty seriously and they come with some very hefty fines so you definitely don't want to be infringing those laws and they are not um those laws aren't owners they're actually based on just common sense things that are about protecting consumers from misleading claims from dishonesty so again it's just so important you always want to put your best foot forward and that means be honest be in integrity um you're always trying to build trust with your audience and and we work with people so always keep in mind how would you want your business to be received by your audience so those are the first three and then the final three is how you are presenting testimonials so testimonials are amazing it's such a great way to have social proof for your effectiveness as a business and people use testimonials most consumers want to see them so by all means use testimonials but you have to be honest it's actually against the law to use false or misleading testimonials and so what does that mean that means you have to use testimonials by real clients who have actually paid for your services you cannot coerce someone to provide a testimonial for you you can't fluff them up they have to be sincere and they have to be honest and you should also make a disclaimer that your testimonials the results may not be typical and this is really important if you are doing anything in the realm of like weight loss or you might be using before and afters it's just really just be cautious that you're not again trying to over promise that you're it's just an example you're just providing some social proof but you're not guaranteeing that the results can be that be the same for everybody yeah so when it comes to with those testimonials like how so you're displaying you know your clients amazing results and and people want to hear about that you want to share that information all of those things but when it comes to you have to somewhere it needs to say results are not typical or something along those lines i mean i've seen that kind of language in various places i'm sure we all have is it enough to have that like in the footer or something like where what sort of guideline if you if we're talking because most often like on for talking about an online business it's on a sales page right that you would be showcasing um you know your previous clients results so where where are you sticking that on the page like just really practical suggestions yeah and and i mean are we like your website is supposed to be a vehicle to sell what you're offering right and you want to balance that with the need to be honest and transparent so what i advise people to do is to put that in your website terms of use and i always recommend that if you do have a website for your business you have to have terms of use because that is those are your house rules for your website and that's where you can include a you know a clearly worded disclaimer that yes you use testimonials but they are examples only and that takes some of that liability off of you as the business owner from suggesting that those results will be possible for everyone so you can do that there if you are very cautious and very risk-averse you may also want to put a statement on a sales page i don't think that's necessary but some people might want to go that extra step that's that's up to you yeah yes i mean everybody has a different risk tolerance right so it's kind of like whatever you know if you want to take those extra steps because it makes you feel more comfortable protected and helps you sleep at night then that's fine but you're saying that really as long as you've got that as a clause in your terms of use for your website then that that covers that concept you've covered your bases there right and also even before you post your testimonials i highly recommend that people have a good system in place for making sure that they're getting clear consent like you should in candidates against the law to use a testimonial without someone consent it's not against the law in the us but i still recommend that you do it it's just it's best practice right you don't want to like catch someone off guard and they see that they're you know their testimonials online and they didn't approve it so i recommend that as well you just always want to have good communication and it goes back to this is a way of how this is a way to preserve and promote good relationships with people so get their consent before you post anything yeah absolutely that's that's good practice absolutely i want to circle back to something that you said earlier one of those first tips that you'd things about um with your marketing is how you're presenting who you are and also it kind of connects with the the question of or the issue of like your scope of practice because this comes up all the time for me i hear this all the time is if you are a regulated healthcare professional so if you are like you know like me i'm you know an md turned coach but there's many other people who are also similarly in some kind of regulated healthcare profession registered dietitians psychotherapists you know all of that but this is you presenting and marketing yourself as a health coach or a health and wellness coach where's that line and how can you present that clearly because and i hear so much frustration from fellow physicians who are like i have an md i have all of this training but i'm not supposed to use it because that it's going to get misconstrued the relationship gets um you know i'm not supposed to be presenting myself as a doctor but i i'm i'm supposed to hide the fact that i have an md so can you just speak to that a little bit about that because i just get this question coming up a lot yeah it's a it's a tricky area and uh for the most part all of the regulated professions across canada they have very clear guidelines and regulations actually so they have the weight of law behind them on what you can and cannot say and some professions depends on what province you're from and what profession they're quite explicit about exactly the terms you can use exactly where on your website you can say this and what you know a lot of it's very detailed so if you are practice if you're actively practicing and you have uh active membership in a registry like registration with a regulated profession you have to you have to abide by that because it's the law it's the regulation for your profession and you don't want to run afoul of that it gets a bit blurry for those regulated professionals who are operating a business where they might be a health coach and they're not necessarily doing it under the umbrella as a dietitian or as an md but yes you have earned those credentials and no one can take them away from you they are part of your title and so then it becomes how do you present yourself in a way that's ethical that's transparent that's not misleading the public and is not running afoul of your regulatory requirements if you are maintaining active registration there's too many variables for me to say one way or the other without knowing an exact case in front of me but i would say to somebody if you have any qualms about what is required of your regulatory body have a conversation with them and say this is what i'd like to do what do you think about it so some you know some people feel comfortable having that conversation with their regulator and others don't but i would say if you really want to be on the as on the side of certainty knowing that you are not overstepping your professional regulatory obligations get consult with your regular with your regulator yeah that's that's good practice because i mean you like you said they they are quite robust in terms of their like whatever regulatory body we're talking about in terms of their uh requirements and their guidelines and their boundaries and so um if you can't immediately find that information then consulting them directly is a brilliant idea i mean of course that makes perfect sense and then of course getting legal advice too um because i know that all of these it's a case-by-case thing right um because so there's just so many nuances it really is all right okay did we get through all of those like different categories or i feel like did we did we hit them all i think so yeah so there was how you present yourself how you present what you do how you present your marketing relationships and then your testimonials so if there's anything else that uh sort of any unanswered questions happy to happy to feel those yeah i mean i i'm curious if you have encountered like any any like common myths and misconceptions that people have like when you've worked with health and wellness professionals and coaches and you know whatever designation what are some of the things that people kind of get hung up on that we could kind of break down that those myths right now okay so something that um i see often and it's almost across the board it doesn't matter what type of business you're in but i think a lot of people understand that you should have a disclaimer on your website and a disclaimer is simply a statement saying this is who i am this is what i'm qualified to do this is what i can't do for you and what people generally understand is that you should be just claiming that you're not providing medical advice but what most people are not adding to that disclaimer is that you're not providing even the advice that you your business provides so i'm a nutritionist my disclaimer says i don't provide nutrition advice in addition to not providing medical advice because when somebody visits my website they could be anybody from anywhere in the world and they're not a direct client of mine so i don't have a relationship and i want to make it really clear to any random person who's on my website that i can't have a one-to-one relationship with you unless you're my client so that's a missing piece and it's really simple to do just making sure your disclaimer just claims you're not providing medical advice and you're not providing health coach advice or nutrition advice dietitian or whatever whatever your skill set is you're not providing that through your website that is such a good point um because yes you're right like of course there's all kind of like there that is the thing that most people disclaim is like i'm not replacing your doctor i'm not providing medical advice but yeah you're right like if you if you have a website as a coach you're also not coaching them like if they are just visiting their their site at your site so that's important language i would think to have in your uh website disclaimer yeah and even if you are an md you should also be disclaiming that you're not providing medical advice for the same reason because the people who are visiting your website they're not your patients right exactly um you know i'm curious like what sort of like if you're creating um you know more involved content like i know that a lot of people that i work with they have plans or have created you know written books like bigger longer form content um even if you are you know an md i've worked with some mds who have written books um and is it is it a similar kind of approach to when you're putting out website content where you're just you're it's a one directional thing you're putting out content to the world with no connection or personal relationship with whoever it is that's consuming it so is it tell me about like any safety issues around that or like legal things that you need to consider when you are you know putting out information that's sort of long form like detailed advice and you know those kinds of things yes that's a really good question you should also be including a disclaimer in those types of products because again they could be getting into the hands of anyone and you want to be really clear that you're providing advice you're providing information education you're not providing one-to-one care so that's always a good practice having a disclaimer anytime you're anytime you're spreading information whether it's your website or some other format yeah that's that's that's good to know for sure i mean there's a lot of different things to talk about i would be curious to know when do you i mean this is kind of a loaded question but when when does it make sense for people to actually reach out and connect with uh with a lawyer with an attorney to get more like customized and individual individualized advice you know a lot of the stuff that we're talking about are things that people can you know do for themselves to a certain degree but how do you know when you actually need to get a lawyer on your team yeah this is an area where a lot of people um i think this is like this is actually going back to your question about myths there seems to be a myth that um there's like a certain threshold that you have to pass in order to qualify to or when it makes sense to get legal advice and really it doesn't matter if you are it's your first day in practice or it's you're a month away from retirement the law always applies there is no grace period for being new in business unfortunately so uh day one the sooner you can do it the better and you're just um that much more prepared you're setting yourself up for success and you're uh you're just building that solid foundation so you can go out there do your thing and not have to worry about it um and and so with that said you don't have to take all of the steps all at once and if you do get one-on-one legal advice a you know a good lawyer will advise you on you know they'll they'll sort of say like these are the areas where you've got higher risk and here are some things where you can maybe just kind of put that on the back burner like it doesn't have to be all at once you can do it in baby steps but there's always something you know there's always some legal issue that will be in place no matter what stage you're at so the sooner the better yeah that is such solid advice because it's so interesting how you phrased that is like that there's no grace period the law does not say oh it's okay you know you've only been in practice in business for a short time so the law doesn't necess doesn't really apply to you of course it applies so so you're absolutely right this has been so amazing sharon you have shared so much value um you know i know that people are going to really feel a lot more comfortable like it's just so it's just such a scary uncomfortable thing to really not even know what you don't know yet so it's just such a good thing to be able to to bring that guidance and information i would love to know you know where can people go to to connect with you and learn more about your work and all of those things oh thank you you can follow me on instagram i'm at legaltlc and my law practice website is at thrivelegalcare.com and there's a link to the template shop but the template shop has its own website and it's the tlcsource.com and that's coming very soon so stay tuned i love it okay i will put all of those in the show notes too for sure now before i let you go though i would just love to ask you one last question so if you were going to share you know one key takeaway from our conversation or maybe just the very first step that our audience should do right now what would that be well definitely be proactive about protecting your business but don't be daunted i my goal is i want people to feel empowered i don't want people to feel afraid or that they have to be so cautious that it holds them back you are doing work that you love and you you know you're serving purpose and people need you so go out there and uh just with you know a little bit of protection at the right time you will be set up for success i love that that is just the perfect balancing note to end on you know be informed be proactive but don't be daunted don't let it stop you um because there's solutions so i love it thank you so much sharon oh thank you kim it's my pleasure yeah it was a great conversation all right well i hope that you got a ton of value out of that i hope that sharon helped to clear up a lot of the confusion and the worry that legal issues can cause when building your business and growing your presence and showing up online and all of those things i would love to know your thoughts has the legal part of your business cause you anxiety what are the biggest things that you worry about let me know in the comments if you're watching this on video or if you're listening on the podcast then go ahead and find me on instagram and let me know okay that is a wrap for today as always i hope that you enjoyed today's episode have an amazing week and i will see you again very soon you
2022-05-17 00:28
