Is your business legally legit? So many of us start our businesses with no real knowledge of what we’re supposed to do when it comes to setting up the legal side of things. That’s why I’m so excited to chat today with Paige Griffith of The Legal Paige – she is going to be your legal bestie with all of the resources you could need, no matter what stage your business is in. 

On Quianna Marie Weekly, we’re chatting about business growing pains, finding genuine connections, and celebrating wins of all sizes through the lens of a photographer at heart. Sprinkled throughout stories and interviews with past clients, photographers and other business owners this podcast is designed to help you step into your purpose and to truly create a life you’re proud of, a life worth photographing and sharing.

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Review the Show Notes:

Making Sure Your Business Is Legit (2:46)

Setting Your Business Up For Longevity (7:54)

Creating Contracts To Benefit Both You And Your Client (11:24)

How To Navigate Contract Modifications With Your Client (15:33)

COVID Policies And Clauses (22:07)

Handling Cancellations And Reschedules (30:12)

Embracing Change and Pivots (33:00)

Stay Connected With Paige (40:03)

Connect with Paige:

Website thelegalpaige.com 
Youtube The Legal Paige
TikTok @thelegalpaige
Instagram: @thelegalpaige
The Legal Paige Facebook Community

Review the Transcript:

Quianna Marie
Hello Cutie and welcome back for another fun episode with one of my dear friends Paige. Paige Griffith is an incredible entrepreneur, lawyer, photographer, Mama living in Montana, and truly an inspiration that is going to help you feel legit. I know a lot of us start our businesses with a passion and we have this incredible talent that we kind of pick up and turn that into a hobby, and then turn that into a business. And Paige is going to be your legal bestie to make sure that you are too legit to quit. All right, so, Paige and I met years ago, and had an instant connection and friendship on a personal level. She is so fun and encouraging. But she also knows her stuff. So I am so incredibly excited to welcome page to the podcast. Let’s give her a warm welcome and get this party started.

Welcome to Quianna Marie weekly, a podcast for creatives who love to celebrate wins, big or small by dancing in the kitchen photographers who are excited to serve their clients and friends who are ready to chase really, really big dreams. You can find all of the resources mentioned in this episode at quianna marie.com/podcast. Join me as I share weekly motivation, chat about growing pains, finding genuine connections and celebrating your wins through the lens of a photographer at heart. Come join me for a dance party. Ready? Loves though. All right, all right. Welcome to the party Paige. I am so so grateful. You’re here with us today.

Paige Griffith
Thanks for having me. It’s so fun to be here with a good good old friend.

Quianna Marie
Oh my gosh, you are so inspiring. And I love seeing just honestly seeing your business blow up and like become so legit. Like this has just been so fun to witness.

Paige Griffith
Oh my gosh, you are so sweet. Well, not a play on words legit and legally legit is like our motto. But legit, like the crazy sense of where you and I were at a few years ago just like sitting by the pool and talking about business. And yeah, I cannot believe it. Either. The legal pages just continuing to grow and grow. And I’m so blessed and thankful and excited. And I just can’t wait to see what’s next.

Quianna Marie
Yes, well, you have tons of education, tons of resources. And I just, I love that you are such a giver, like you want people to succeed, and you want people to really just kind of like cover their butts, right? Like, this is why I am just so grateful to have you in my friendship circle. So let’s just get started. Let’s just start drilling out some questions. Let’s do it. So how can we page how can we make sure that our business is legit?

Paige Griffith
Yeah. So I always tell people that it depends on kind of the stage of business that you’re in. If you’re kind of a newer beginner business owner, you know your zero to one years into business, you need to do a few key things, you need to get a client contract in place, or a master service agreement is oftentimes what it’s called, before you take any money from somebody for providing services to them, you need to make sure you have a very, very solid contract that protects your business. And then, of course, also kind of protects the clients as well, I truly believe in two sided contracts. But again, it’s probably more heavily cited towards you as a business owner, because it’s your contract that you’re giving to your clients. That is always step one.

And then I just say kind of step two Kwazii three for newer business owners, and I just don’t want newer business owners to get overwhelmed, it’s not worth it. At that stage. In business, you have so many other things going on, you’re trying to promote and market your business and do all the funds shiny things. And so I always tell people, like make sure you choose a business name that can last forever, because I think people get wrapped up in wanting to register their LLC right away and become get a business bank account. And that’s fine. But if you don’t choose the business name correctly from the get go, you’re going to be hurting later down the road if you have to redo everything. If something you know there’s some weird trademark infringement with you know, Sally sunshine down the street.

There’s there’s lots of things that can go wrong if you don’t choose the right business name. So just be very, very careful about choosing a good business name. And then you can do a couple of things here. You can register your trade name, assumed name or fictitious name, it really depends key depending on like where you’re at in the United States.

So different states call it different things but all you need to know is you’re kind of like registering a DBA doing business as which means you’re just kind of operating a business This as a side hustle, it’s not fully registered yet, but you’re just like putting it out there into the world, you’ve got a client contract in place. And now you’re putting this business name everywhere. So I never tell beginner business owners to register their business.

There’s always a caveat, because I am a lawyer, it depends gray area. But I just I want to be really clear here, I don’t think that the majority of service providers in the beginning stages of their business need to go that far. Unless you have a lot of liability in risk involved in what you do, such as, like an adventure elopement photographer, you’re hiking 10 miles, and you’re on cliffs. Like there’s a potential for danger and injury, like literally every step you take. So in that situation, I would say you’re immediately bumped into kind of the, you know, solopreneur, working really, really, really hard, you have been in business for at least a year. And at that point, I always tell people, you really need to look into kind of getting your business registered, you already have your contract in place. And you probably need to get a business bank account. So you’re fully separating your business from your personal assets. And again, most people aren’t in that, you know, like just starting out phase, unless you have liability and risk involved, that’s pretty heavy, then you’re immediately bumped into that second category that I talked about. And then I’ll just say, you know, in there, there’s a lot of different things involved in getting legit. It’s not just like an easy one size fits all.

If I were going to answer that question to you, there’s things that are going to pop up clients situations, you’re going to need a denims and amendments and different things along those lines, you’re probably looking at building on a website, terms and conditions, a privacy policy, there’s a lot of different things involved in kind of that I call him like, you know, solopreneurs that are like I’m doing this, I’m running a business, and I’m going to make this business flourish for the next few years or for as long as I can. And then the very last category that I tell people is the businesses that have been in business for a very long time, like three, five plus years. Maybe they’re growing, they’re scaling, they’re looking to become an you know, S corp, and kind of save some money on taxes, there’s a lot of different things that start kind of compounding at that stage of business, maybe you need to look into filing a trademark, maybe you need to start really filing copyrights with the US Copyright Office. So that was a long winded answer. But I think it’s easy for me to explain it if I’m kind of putting things into categories for your listeners. So they can kind of be like, Oh, where do I fit in? What makes the most sense to me. That’s incredible.

Quianna Marie
And that is, like you said so much information. But I love like one of the couple things that I picked up was how you mentioned the longevity of your business. And if you hit me, I know you know me very well. But I am all about building those strong roots, and creating a business that is going to potentially last for generations. So I love how you mentioned like you don’t need to run down, you don’t have to make all these big, big legitness factor things right away, like kind of settle into the business. And, and this is even like, you know, just on a side note, why I ended up going with Quianna Marie photography, instead of using my last name because I wanted and Marie rhymes with photography, let’s be honest. But I wanted that that longevity of my business, I don’t have to worry about changing it 1020 30 years from now. So I love that. I love how you mentioned that.

Paige Griffith
Yeah, and that’s a really good way to put it. I don’t think that there is like this massive checklist that you can check off at the beginning of running a business. That’s like, Okay, I’m fully legit, I’m good to go. Like you’re always always inching towards like 95 100% legally legit. But honestly, there’s no business out there, like that exists in the entire world that is 100% Legit, it does not exist. And so if you can kind of know that your business is this ever evolving thing. You’re going to grow, your contracts are going to grow your bank accounts, your taxes, your liabilities and risks are going to grow, the more clientele you have, the more services you offer. So with that, you’re just going to need to make sure that you’re kind of doing these you know, legal audits on your business and be like where am I at? What do I need? The one thing I can tell people is just don’t stay complacent. Don’t think that like what you did at the beginning, in two years is going to be suitable for two years down the road.

Quianna Marie
Oh, that is so helpful and honestly really encouraging. Because I know I mean even though you’re my friend, sometimes it can be very intense. emanating with some of the stuff that you’re, I mean, even the things that you talk about all of your content and you know, you’re killing it in the reels and, and tick tock game like, it’s just so fun to see some of these things and think, oh my gosh, like Paige told me to do this, I need to update this or I need to make sure that I’m covered. But But honestly, just speaking with, you know, it does kind of give me that grace or that reassurance that it’s okay to take baby steps. I mean, even these huge corporations like Walmart and Target like they’re, they’re dealing with things every day, every day. Like, that’s insane.

Paige Griffith
Yeah. Again, just don’t, don’t be freaked out to everyone listening. And don’t be freaked out that like someone down, you know that that told you down the line is like you’re not doing this right? Maybe it actually is right for your business right now. In the present day with what you are doing, and what you’re offering and kind of everything that you have online. All of that is involved in your unique business. And again, it like contracts are really important kind of insurance is important. I did forget to mention that. Depending on your business, though, like some people don’t even have negligence insurance, because it doesn’t make sense for their business. But lots of people do. And then again, it’s kind of the registration side of things that becomes your next step.

Quianna Marie
Now, I know one thing, I have a little reminder here that you did mention talking about creating contracts, and creating contracts, obviously heavily with your best interests in mind, but also your clients. So can you share just like some quick key tips or some things that would be beneficial for both you as a business owner? And the client? Like, are there may be some things that are obvious to you as a lawyer, but to small businesses? Maybe we’re not in tune with?

Paige Griffith
Yeah, okay, great question. The first thing I would tell people is, what the what if scenarios that pop up, you need to have if you have something happen as the business owner, and then if your clients have something happened to them as the business owner. So if you just take a step back and think about, okay, what could happen to my clients that would want to change, alter or cancel the contract? And what could happen in my neck of the woods to change, alter, or cancel a contract? And if, if those things happen, how do I spell that out? So a lot of times, people think I just need like one cancellation clause or one rescheduling clause in my contract. But you need a cancellation and rescheduling clause by client, or clients. If you have two clients sign a contract.

Those clauses are more for your clients to understand like, what are your policies, and I decided to reschedule their camp services. And this is particular to service providers, this is who I’m talking to right now. And then of course, it’s different, it’s a little bit different if you decide to cancel or reschedule because you’re the one that said yes to them. And if some usually it’s like family emergencies, or big things that would happen in your life where you would not be able to perform services. And so you need that type of clause, one that protects you, and then one that also kind of explains the rights roles and responsibilities for your clients. And then I always just tell people, the easiest way I can explain contracts to everyone out there is you know that contracts have legal language in them. But contracts nowadays are supposed to be written in plain language.

That means you need to understand every sentence in your contract every clause in your contract and taken as a whole does the contract makes sense, I can guarantee if you don’t understand your contract as the business owner, your clients are not going to understand it. So just you know, if I could give you any piece of advice here for all business owners alike, read your contract and just see if it makes sense. If there’s confusing parts, you probably need to clean those up. And know that there are a lot of clauses related just specific to your services.

Then there’s those boilerplate language clauses. And organization wise, I always tell people, the most important clauses, fees, retainer or deposit all at the top and then your specific service clauses need to be near the top of the contract, because your clients are going to look at that first. They’re going to take an extra peek at those and then they’re going to start scrolling.

We’re all very used to scrolling contracts. And you’re gonna get to the bottom and the bottom is where those general provisions and kind of boilerplate language boilerplate is a legal term, but those are just those like legal heavy clauses that you see in lots of different contracts. Those are going to be near the bottom. So hopefully It answered your question I could probably go on and on. But I think I will stop there. And that’s generally what is recommended for all business owners in terms of making sure that your contract protects you, but also has some things that protect your clients in it as well.

Quianna Marie
Amazing. Uh, yeah, I feel like I’m just soaking all this up. And if this does sound like a little overwhelming, this is why we have Paige our new bestie. So you can check out her product shop. You know, we have tons of contracts on there, and all the great resources and, and honestly, as you’re, we’re sharing this page, I haven’t experienced that I’m totally dating myself. But back in the day when I first started shooting weddings, and I literally would print out contracts on my printer paper, like I would print two copies, I would shove one in a mailer like in a manila folder, and send it off to my couples for them to sign.

Then I would actually, because this is me, being a responsible business owner, I would put like a return envelope on there with the correct postage stamps on there. So they came back to me, that’s how old school I was, okay, like this was what 2005 2006 Like, this is way back then. Okay. Now, I want to share this because I did have one couple who sent back that printed contract that had a whole bunch of like red lines all over it, and like updates. And like basically, this couple had had the Father, we were the bride or groom’s father, I forget, but went through it and made these corrections. So my question to you is, even though thank goodness, we have HoneyBook, and we have updated CRMs to deliver these contracts, what is your advice for someone that is questioning your contracts? or would like to make any what is the word amendments or something like updates for like, how does that work? Yeah,

Paige Griffith
so amendments and addendums are actually after you sign the contract. So it’s more just I call them modifications to an unsigned contract. I could not have been happier that you asked this question, because it is coming up a lot lately. The easiest way to explain this to everyone is because clients understand that they have negotiating power. Also, there’s this silver lining to what has happened the past couple of years, where clients are like, Oh, my contracts are important with whom I sign them with, I need to take an extra look at them and make sure that I agree to their business policies before signing on the bottom dotted line before the pandemic, we all kind of just like didn’t care, like nothing was gonna happen, it’s fine.

We’re just gonna sign these contracts. And so my lawyer heart is happy because I feel that clients are actually looking at contracts now. So I would tell business owners if you ever have a client like pianos, or somebody that’s just reviewing like a HoneyBook, or dubsado contract, and then they asked you questions about clauses, or they ask for modifications, don’t freak out, like, please don’t freak out, take a deep breath. It is not an emotional thing.

It is it is literally this happens in business every day. And I want you to switch your train of thought there. And instead of thinking it’s a bad thing, think of it as a good thing. Like your clients care about what your contract says, and they’re actually reading it up, you’re probably not going to have issues down the road if you solve them now with your clients. So they’re obviously counted, I could go on and on. But there are obviously some clauses that you should never change in your contract. But there are some clauses that you could modify to your clients liking or reach a mutual understanding so that both parties are in agreement, before they actually assign the bottom dotted line. I’m gonna stop there because that could be a whole nother episode. But you guys if you go to the legal page.com I have tons of free resources on this blogs, podcasts, YouTube video, you choose how you like to learn, and you can figure out what I would suggest are the clauses that you don’t ever change in some of the clauses that are totally fine to kind of, you know, be malleable with your clients wishes.

Quianna Marie
I love that and you know, and once again, I love that you were kind of giving us this this grace or this breath of fresh air that if someone is reaching out and saying hey, I have your questioning your your contract. I love your attitude and your responses. Oh my gosh, thank God you’re actually reading this and oh my goodness, this can be resolved now. Right? So you I feel like sometimes especially as artists, and as you know, being a photographer too, like you know, we take things so personally and so if you can remove yourself from that and remind yourself that yes, a lot of us always put people first right? But this is about protecting your profits and protecting your business and And so if we can kind of have these tough conversations now, oh my goodness, like your whole entire wedding experience or your just, you know, experience offering, your services that you’re providing are going to be so much smoother, and it’s just so much better.

Paige Griffith
Yeah. And just to kind of have one last final thing that I need to say here regarding that. Not everything is going to be able to be modified. There are some business policies of yours that you have in your contract that if someone asked to change them, I call those red flags. And I see it in like my facebook group all the time, we have 1000s of business owners in our TLP community on Facebook, you guys can join if you want, but people will respond in comments like red flag, red flag, red flag, and some of the time it is a red flag where Yeah, I would never suggest you change that clause.

Your clients are kind of just trying to strong arm you. Or like Kiana said you have some lawyer grandfather who’s like sit, sat down and just feels the need to like cross a bunch of things out and have some power over this situation. Like that’s not how it works. Sorry, we’re not going to negotiate that clause that is important to my business and protects my business for XYZ reasons. And usually, when you just respond back that way, and you say, No, this is a non negotiable clause for this reason, they’re gonna be like, Cool. Sounds good.

I’m glad you can enforce your contract in that light. Those are red flags, situations, but the ones I’m talking about are more yellow, orange flags, situations where like, okay, yeah, I see your point there. And like your specific like circumstance surrounding the services, I’ll be performing for your, you know, event or, you know, your your needs online, then maybe you can make some exceptions there. Anyway, I just wanted to say there’s difference between, like the massive red flags. And I just think people jump to that conclusion too easily. And then there’s, of course, just those yellow and orange that you need to look out for, but it doesn’t necessarily immediately mean they’re red flag clients, and you need to like peace out.

Quianna Marie
Yes. This is so helpful. Thank you so much, Paige. Yeah. Okay, so I really want to, like totally address this, like, elephant in the room like this, like buzzword and this like, I like this just juicy, like hot topic of pandemia and COVID. And all these things. Like, what is your advice? Like? It’s, I wouldn’t want to say it’s not over. But like, we need to be so proactive and protect our businesses moving forward. So, you know, in your best lawyer voice and you know, with your, with your advice, like how do we navigate this moving forward? Like, how is this is this no longer a clause? Now this is in our contract? What does this look like?

Paige Griffith
Yes. Okay. COVID is kind of this weird buzzword that clients continually say to you, like, what is your COVID policy surrounding X? No longer are we in early 2020 stage where like, the world is shut down and like services can’t be performed, things aren’t open, it is now a part of everyday life, variants will continue to happen, it’s becoming an endemic, it’s very much so going to be the world moving forward. With that being said, events are happening, services are going down without a hitch. And we are having, you know, like businesses open.

So unless something crazy happens, which is never, I don’t foresee it in the future, at least with this particular virus. It will never reach like pandemic stage again, because obviously, it’s getting under control. But I would suggest for the near future, at least the next year or two, potentially even more, your clients are going to want to see a COVID clause still in your contract, especially if you’re performing services that are like, way far out there. It’s they’re just so unsure of what’s going to happen, that they want to know what your policy is, if Gosh forbid something really bad would happen with COVID, even though we all kind of know it’s not going to. Thus, I really suggest you still have a COVID clause in your contract. But if you have any type of COVID clause that you’ve put in your contract for the past couple of years, that’s like allowing kind of a complimentary reschedule, I would take that out. Those are a thing of the past. They really helped us through 2020 and 2021. And they were great. It was this pressure release valve for your clients. They were like awesome, they’re in this with me. But now you mean business and like you’re saying no to people for that date, or that you know, amount of time to like perform their web design services or what have you like, this is a normal thing of life. And so if your clients decide to reschedule or decide to cancel due to you You know, being in close contact or actually contracting COVID, like, everybody’s assuming this risk right now in the world. So change it to what I call an acknowledgment of COVID. And no rescheduling class, whereby you don’t get a complimentary reschedule and your clients are literally initialing that clause and saying, I acknowledged that COVID is a thing.

And I’m moving forward with, you know, booking you for your services, with the, you know, COVID 19 virus still as an active thing. And then the other thing I just wanted to mention here is people used to use waivers. waivers were kind of this thing in 2020, where you felt like you needed to just get that extra like acknowledgement from people or you didn’t have a COVID clause in your contract. So you needed them to sign something additional, because they there wasn’t anything in there to limit your liability surrounding COVID.

Those are basically done now, waivers are kind of a thing of the past. And unless you’re like a hair and makeup artist, and you’re still in very close contact with people, some of them are still keeping waivers. But for the most part, you only need that acknowledgement of COVID clause in your contract. And other than that, for the most part, I just tell people like just the industry as a whole, the wedding and event industry as a whole and service provider online world as a whole really needs to stop allowing complimentary way schedules. So you get back to a rescheduling fee. And that’s commonplace in the industry, and everybody is in for enforcing that. And invoking and rescheduling fee. That’s my best tip moving forward.

Quianna Marie
Thank you. Thank you so much for saying that. And I just have to kind of pause and just kind of like, who take a deep breath because honestly, that is what’s killing me. Like the the complimentary thing. So like so for example, it’s so crazy, because during the year of 2020, I was fine, like payments were still coming in, even though things were getting canceled left and right. And things were rescheduled. Everything was rescheduled, but I was still getting those payments, right. So 2020 was good 2021 was even Okay, right? Because it was like I was still able to kind of book I call them like prohibition weddings.

So I was still doing very tiny weddings, being as safe as possible. And, and then rolling into 2022. Or we are now like, I mean, I lost over $100,000 from COVID just like not working one year like this just so insane. And some of our brides had up to three wedding dates. So for me as a seasoned photographer, I mean, that’s $15,000 profit, easy out the door. Like that’s not even including albums and all that stuff. Like, I’m just rounding up a 5k wedding.

Okay, so like, that is just what’s so scary. And I just, I just love you so much for reminding all of us to kind of level that playing field and say, hey, look like this is this is where we’re at, like, we’re not in it, you know, we’re not catering to everybody, we’re doing what’s best for our business. And together united we can stand because at the end of the day, like this is not just a hobby, like this is our business. This is our livelihood. So thank you for mentioning that page.

Paige Griffith
Yeah, we’re all in this together. And the only way forward is for everyone to stop letting clients walk all over us. It they they somewhat meanwhile, depends on the situation. Like we love our clients, but at a certain point, the ones who are trying to take advantage of you, they are trying to take advantage of you. Like you can only be kind and nice for so long. And you can still be kind of nice while enforcing your policies and your contract. So that’s where we all need to be headed at the end here of 2022. Moving into 2023, we need to get back to where we were in like 2018, where we were enforcing contracts right and left. If your clients were rescheduling to a new date you tacked on a rescheduling fee. And if they cancelled, you were keeping your non refundable retainer, that’s just how it went.

I really hope that everyone is you know, listening, I’m not trying to be forceful, I’m just saying there is a time and place and facts and circumstances whereby you do have to give your clients a little bit of grace but we have continually been giving grace to clients and everybody for so long. In return in return it’s hurting our business and is going to continue to hurt our business until we take the next step forward. So just know that like I mean this in a business like mentor place as well as like a lawyer suggestion to you all

Quianna Marie
absolutely and I am I’m embracing this like this is I’m taking all this love with open arms like you guys we have to protect our business. We have to protect our passions because if we don’t have Like, we’re just gonna crumble like this is I mean, like, as an industry not just popping off and you know, kind of dropping like flies individually. But like, as a growing industry, we need to remain united. I love that.

Paige Griffith
Yeah, in clients right now it’s so weird, I don’t really know what’s happening at the end of 2022. But I’m seeing cancellations right and left, and they just think that they can do it because they, it’s they it’s second nature to them, they think they can because we have allowed it for so long. And they think, Well, if you’re not going to do it, then the other person that I asked is going to like allow me to reschedule or you know, whatever, they’re gonna give it to my, you know, wishes. And we just can’t do that anymore. These unending cancellations and rescheduling that are hurting our business, they really need to stop. So yeah, I think clients need to know that we’re not going to allow it anymore.

Quianna Marie
Yes. And this is why full circle where I keep redirecting everyone that’s listening back to your contract shot like this is why they need to invest in in you and in your contracts. And, most importantly, invest in yourself, like invest in your business, because that’s what’s going to keep your business legit and to stay protected.

Paige Griffith
The last thing I want to say on that as well is you guys just make sure that you’re documenting those cancellations and rescheduling things, we really did it in 2020. And then I feel like people just started doing like emails back and forth. And it’s going to save you down the line because clients are getting more and more litigious. And they’re thinking that they can come back or like post all these bad reviews and do all these different things. And if you get them to sign a rescheduling contract or a cancellation contract, it’s more or less a settlement agreement.

I agree that you don’t have to pay the rest of your contract fee. But you can’t go and blast me online. And you can’t sue me six months down the road. Like that is what needs to be in a cancellation agreement if your clients are wanting to cancel right now. And a rescheduling agreement needs to explain that you will allow the one time reschedule for this fee. And if they try to reschedule again, the contract is void and over and they have to start from the beginning, booking a whole new retainer with you. It’s not transferable anymore. So those are the type of legal documents that I think people forget about once they get their main client contract, like these additional ones that you have to document with your clients along your client relationship journey. The main client service agreement is important at the beginning, but sometimes you’re going to have to change that down the line with whatever may come.

Quianna Marie
Yes. Oh my gosh, thank you so much page like this. This is why like I need you like this is why you’re my friend, I have to have you in my corner. being so supportive with all these big words. And like you said, like all this lawyer talk can be really intimidating. But I want to kind of like kind of end up and like round up the conversation here. And I’d love for you to share. And, you know, just kind of like shine light on your pivot. Because I know a lot of my listeners are creatives, entrepreneurs, small business dreamers, a lot of them are photographers. And we’re all experiencing a lot of growing pains, whether we are starting families bringing babies into the world or new puppies or creating new offers going into education, like there’s just so much room for growth and pivots. And I love how you from my experience, I’ve seen it online and seeing you go from a wedding photographer to this this like lawyer CEO, huge like resource shop owner course provider, like all the things I’d love for you to kind of share how you embrace that change, and how that kind of journey kind of unfolded?

Paige Griffith
Yes, I’ll try to be brief.

Paige Griffith
A long story. But yeah, I I knew that a change was happening kind of right after law school where I needed to decide like was I going to use my legal degree I was really into photography in law school, my business kind of ballooned in law school, I started realizing my love for entrepreneurship and law school, all the while getting a law degree. And I was like, Okay, well how do I meld these two? Luckily, I found a way to like, you know, put them into one here and be able to help entrepreneurs through the legal page into free legal education platform online. And then of course, we sell contract templates as well for any business owner. I mean, we have over 300 products now. So no matter what you do, or what you need, we probably have it if not, we’re creating it and it’s on deck.

I just honestly Quianna I knew that a shift was happening at that point in my life. I I wanted to kind of step into that CEO role I wanted to try to build and scale a business. I knew building and scaling a photography business wasn’t the route for me, that it you know, a lot of my business was built on me as a person. And it was, I was hard pressed to even build out an associate photography team. I did one I had one associate, but kind of scaling that in the region that I’m in in Montana, it just wasn’t really feasible to scale it to the point that I wanted to. And I started realizing that I was kind of done trading my time for money. And it would be really nice to implement some passive income in my life, where I could go away on the weekends and not be like strapped down to being in western Montana, because I had to drive an hour for a wedding on a Saturday, and then I was dead for two days after. Honestly, I think if you’re a wedding photographer, you know what I’m talking about, like, at a certain point, you’re not going to you might burn out fully, or you’re just kind of exhausted. With that way of life. It was beautiful.

And it was amazing for that period of time for you. And I learned so much, there’s so many things I could not do with the legal page, if I wouldn’t have had that grassroots entrepreneurship background, with building page marine photography, and I love it. And there is a way to transition what you actually are passionate about and love into a new business. And so if you’re ever thinking to yourself, I want to do something else I want to grow, guess what, you’re an entrepreneur, that’s what you are. And I’m excited for you. And you’re probably not going to do one thing for the rest of your life. Not very many people do. Even if they’re not an entrepreneur, they are probably going from job to job.

You know, like, I mean, maybe if it’s every five to 10 years, maybe it’s every couple years, maybe it’s every six months, like this is not the time in place to like be truly unhappy with what you’re doing. Or to feel like there’s more out there for you, if you have those feelings, like lean into them, because you’re going to come out on the other side happier, and probably more profitable to be honest with you, because that’s all going to culminate together.

And I just leaned into it, to be honest with you. Also, there’s something to be said about being at the right place at the right time with the right resources, I was online, my whole business was online and the world shut down. And then you know, 10s of hundreds of 1000s of business owners needed legal help all at the same time. And I just like, was there and worked 16 hours a day, and you know, it all paid off. And I have a heart for giving and teaching and you know, trying to just explain legal stuff to people as easy as possible, so that business owners kind of can wear that clo hat. And then I’ve just continued to do that. And just lean into my passions. And over time, I had lots of people be like,

Okay, it’s time to fully step away from page Marie photography. And I did finally take that step. And I do it now as a hobby. And just for fun. I don’t, it’s not a business, I don’t charge. It’s really nice, I can do it on my own time. So I still like feed that creativity that I need for myself. But I also get to run a business and have employees and like continue to grow and scale and like, it’s cool. Like I have a business where I can reach for the next step.

And I will end here by saying to everyone listening, it doesn’t mean I’m not thinking of what’s next. You know, like, I’m not someone that’s like, Oh, I’m gonna be Paige Griffith have the legal page for the next 25 years. Like I’m not I’m an entrepreneur too. I’m like, Okay, what, what’s the next business I can run? Or how many different like passive income revenue streams can I you know, get going for my family. So if you’re any of that, if any of that sounded like you, I applaud you. You’re an entrepreneur, and I can’t wait to see what you do. And what you do now doesn’t define who you are. Don’t let it because you’re, you’re so many different things, and you have so many things to offer the world.

Quianna Marie
Oh, my goodness, Paige, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I’m like giving you like a round of applause over here because I like love all those all those mic talk moments that you shared. I mean, I feel like a lot of us listening needed to hear that needed to feel that love. And I keep saying grace, but it’s true, like just that grace to know about like, we’re all growing and we are expanding and we’re stretching and it’s totally normal to try new things. And most importantly, it’s important to have those contracts to take care of yourself, right. Yeah,

Paige Griffith
if you start running new businesses, you’re going to have to get legal with those new businesses and the sooner you know You start the bigger your business can become. So yeah,

Quianna Marie
I love that. So Paige, how can we find you I know all of my all my friends and family that are listening now. Like they just want to be your bestie. So how can we follow along, learn from you and check out more in your shop?

Paige Griffith
Yeah, so the legal page.com pa IGE is where you can find everything, from blogs, to podcasts, to all of our contract templates, short forms, clauses, you name it. I’m also on YouTube, the legal page channel. So if you prefer kind of viewing and watching videos to learn, then that’s the place for you. And then of course, I’m on social media. I’d like to hang out quite a bit on tick tock, and Instagram. So if you want to kind of get a little bit more inside scoop into who I am as a person, and kind of the behind the scenes. That’s where you would find me.

Quianna Marie
I love it. Well, thank you so much for sharing your time and wisdom and all your fun facts and oh my gosh, I just love you so much. Thank you so much, Paige. Yeah.

Paige Griffith
Thanks for having me. And thanks, everyone for listening in.

Quianna Marie
Thank you. That’s a wrap on another episode of quianna marie weekly. Thank you so much for your listenership and support. You can find the resources and show notes for this episode and more at quianna marie.com/podcast. I’d be honored if you’d show your support by leaving a review and rating on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, keep on dancing.