In a modern world like today, you need to know how to stay safe within your business.
Whether that’s with legal obligations, physical harm or making deals, you need to know safety about it.
Today, we will be focusing on staying safe with business deals, as sometimes corrupted people try to make deals that could destroy your business and even your personal life. You need to know how to spot and avoid these sketchy deals and warn others about the same thing. Here are 5 tips for being safer with your business deals:
Record Everything
Firstly, you need to know that everything should be recorded. Whether that is emails, documents, phone calls, meetings; everything must be recorded in some way. With emails and documents, it is helpful to have everything written/printed and stored in files, just in case you need to use them in any situation the future may hold. An example of a time you may need this is when someone goes to court over you about something they say you didn’t do that you were supposed to etc. you have physical evidence to show about that thing. With phone calls, many don’t know how to record them, however they are simpler than you’d think. Call recording for business couldn’t be easier thanks to modern day technology that many websites and companies could provide. No hassle with setting up, and a single press of a button records and stores your call in a safe place. Meetings are even easier to record, with cameras, microphones etc being used, or even someone to write down everything said to have a physical script of what was said.
Always Read the Small Print
This point cannot be stressed enough, yet it is a common pitfall of many business owners. Always read the small print. It is that simple. Usually companies will make the small print unnecessarily long to hide secret payments and other things under a thick layer of boredom. It is excruciatingly boring to read through the small print, they make it that way purposely. However, you need to do it for your own safety. If you really don’t have the time to do that, there is also the option of having a lawyer or solicitor going through it for you to make sure everything is as it should be.
Do Your Own Research
If you do choose to hire lawyers to do this side of the work for you, don’t completely leave it to them. Sometimes, even the best of lawyers could miss something or make a huge mistake without realising. For this reason, it is very much helpful that you also do your own reading and research about your deals too. If you eventually learn enough, you won’t even need lawyers, saving you a lot of money to invest into other things.
Handshake Deals
This one seems ridiculous; however, you would be surprised at the number of people that fall for these handshake deals. They aren’t always a handshake; it is just a figure of speech for any deal that isn’t recorded or legally made. From it not being recorded, it technically never exists, meaning the deal never happened and either party could just drop and leave at any time. It would be terrible if the other party just left you at a random point, leaving you with tons upon tons of work to do. An example of a handshake deal would be if you wanted to rent an apartment, however, you never sign any lease or paperwork about the apartment as the landlord doesn’t give you any. This means that he could kick you out at any time, without a word of warning. He could tell you to be out of the apartment in a day, forcing you to have nowhere to go and possibly become homeless. It would be worst-case scenario, however completely possible, and there would be nothing you could do about it.
Physical Safety Involving ‘The Dealer’
When at any point you decide to meet the person, you are making the deal with, you need to make sure you are physically safe. You never know what people are like behind closed doors and could actually be criminals. When you meet them, make sure you meet at a safe, neutral location, for example a restaurant. It seems unlikely that they would physically harm you if you met at their offices etc, but it is safer not to risk it, plus the fact they can twist your mind without your lawyers there.
In conclusion, when making deals safely, all you need is your common sense. Never let any part go unread and just use common sense. If something is there that shouldn’t be, complain to them about it. If they refuse to change it, walk away. Remember to use these 5 steps when making a deal, and stay safe.
