by eclewis | Jan 21, 2015 | Business News
Continuing in honor of January as National Mentoring Month, in this post, we will discuss a relatively new development in mentoring known as “reverse mentoring.” Be sure to take a look at our previous posts about how to be a great mentor, how to be a great mentee, and the importance of mentoring and how to find one.
Reverse mentoring is where someone younger acts as a mentor to someone who is older, and this generally corresponds with less experience for the mentor and more experience for the mentee. Now you may be wondering how exactly this works, but if you think about the rapid pace that technology has been transforming our world, it makes a lot of sense. Millennials and the younger generations have been called “technology natives.” They have grown up with computers and technology everywhere and a part of their everyday lives.
A younger “mentor” can help you learn how to use technology to improve your business and your personal productivity. They could help you learn to better make use of social media, your smartphone, or other new technological trends that are more specifically tailored to your industry. These things can help modernize your business to get more customers and help you get more work done easier.
Consider that those who have been in an industry for less time generally tend to be more energetic and enthusiastic about it and can provide you with a refreshingly positive perspective that can inspire you and your business to grow or be willing to take a leap to something new or even start a new business.
As we discussed in our post about being a great mentee, it is important to remember that newer (or younger) is not always better. There are certainly disadvantages to some aspects of new technology. For example, consider hacking and other security concerns with technology, or the difficulty of keeping information confidential with how quickly and easily it is to post things on the internet and have them exist there for “forever.” At the end of the day, technology is here to stay and it is important to keep up with it so that you and your business do not fall behind.
If you have a young employee or know someone that is younger and may be interested in your area of business, consider reaching out to them about developing a mentoring relationship between the two of you. After all, all mentoring relationships are a two-way street and provide benefits to both parties, regardless of if you are in a traditional or “reversed” mentoring situation. Some mentoring relationships may not even have a clear mentor and mentee and may be more fluid. Either way, mentoring will help you develop and help your business, career, and/or entrepreneurial aspirations.
If you need legal assistance for your business or in starting a business, do not hesitate to reach out to the Law Office of E.C. Lewis, PC, home of your Denver Business Attorney, Elizabeth Lewis, at 720-258-6647 or email her at elizabeth.lewis@eclewis.com.
by eclewis | Jan 14, 2015 | Business News
Continuing our ongoing discussion of mentorship as part of National Mentoring Month, we already looked at how to be a great mentor, and this time we will take a look at the other side of the mentoring relationship and talk about how to be a great mentee. If you are having trouble finding a mentor in your industry, look here for tips.
As a mentee, it is important to remember just how fortunate it is to have a mentor and how valuable their time is. Remember to always be respectful and understanding of your mentor’s time and look for ways to make scheduling easier for both of you. Make sure that you are thoughtful and putting in all the necessary effort to develop this relationship. Look for ways to show your appreciation by writing thank you notes and look for ways to do something for them when you can.
If there is a significant age (or other) difference between you two, remember to appreciate and understand where they are coming from. If it is age, keep in mind that while technology and other aspects of the modern world has changed, most of the fundamentals underlying the way businesses function have not, and there is still much you can learn about them. Understanding how things got to be the way they are and how people used to work in those conditions can provide great insight in today’s world and how to avoid making mistakes of the past. Remember that newer is not always better.
Mentors can be intimidating and it is easy to feel overwhelmed and a little afraid to ask questions. However, asking questions is an essential part of any mentor-mentee relationship, and you should work hard to be confident and not to hesitate to ask thoughtful questions. Neither one of you benefits from a lack of comprehension, so do not be afraid to politely interrupt your mentor, so you can follow along and understand what they are telling you. Nevertheless, this should not be a shortcut to knowledge, and you should be sure that you are putting in your fair share of outside effort to learn so that they are not babying you along the way. Your mentor should let you know if a question is one that they cannot answer or if they need more time to think about it before answering. Candid conversations are important in developing an honest relationship between you and your mentor, so remember to be honest and be prepared to listen to criticism that may be blunt at times.
Think of the mentor-mentee relationship as a two-way street. While sometimes it may be hard to see what you have to contribute, remember that just providing a fresh perspective on something, even if it is a less-experienced one, is still useful in and of itself. Over time, you will learn what your mentor is an expert on and what areas they may have room for growth that you may be able to help facilitate through your own expertise. If you put in the effort, respect, and appreciation, you will be on your way to being a great mentee that will be able to achieve more of your personal and business goals through this rewarding relationship.
If you need legal assistance with your next business goal, do not hesitate to reach out to the Law Office of E.C. Lewis, PC, home of your Denver Business Attorney, Elizabeth Lewis, at 720-258-6647 or email her at elizabeth.lewis@eclewis.com.
by eclewis | Jan 6, 2015 | Business News
Previously, we have discussed how to find a mentor in your industry, but with the start of the new year and beginning of January, which is National Mentoring Month, we are going to take another, more in-depth look at mentoring, starting off with how to be a great mentor.
If you already have a mentor, then you already know about the many benefits. Mentors are someone that you can talk to about your problems, your goals, and your successes. A mentor can lend you their wisdom and insight that they have gained from their experiences, so that you learn from them. Getting knowledgeable and candid feedback from a mentor is a priceless resource for you and your business matters.
One of the most important things about mentorship is that it is almost never too early to begin mentoring someone else, even if you yourself have never had a mentor. The key to being a great mentor is not about there being a big age difference between the mentor and mentee; it really just comes down to having experiences that the mentee does not have. Perhaps you have started a business before and whether or not it was successful, that is a unique experience that many people do not have and you probably learned a lot from it. This alone could make you a great mentor to someone considering being an entrepreneur. You can talk about what went wrong and what went right, discuss what you would have done different now that you have the luxury of hindsight.
In order to be a great mentor, be sure that you make yourself available to your mentee. If you are too difficult to get ahold of or to schedule with, it is going to be hard to develop a good relationship. Make sure you let your mentee know that their questions are welcome and always try to provide thorough feedback that is constructive. Do not be overly negative and remember that while you do want to help your mentee avoid making mistakes and overcoming them, mistakes should not be pointed out all the time and they can even be an important learning tool for your mentee.
There are many benefits to being a mentor too. As many tutors and teachers can attest to, teaching is one of the best ways to learn. By imparting your knowledge on someone else, you are giving yourself an opportunity to think through something again from a new perspective of being a mentor/teacher. This is greater understanding is tested and ultimately strengthened by the questions and fresh perspective that will come from your mentee. Your mentee may be able to teach you a thing or two about something they have more knowledge or experience in, giving you a chance to grow. Perhaps even by virtue of their youth, they may be well-versed in the newest aspects of your field or how technology can be used in it, giving you some new skills.
Overall, mentorship is a powerful tool for mutual personal development that you should consider sooner rather than later to improve yourself and in turn improve your ability to reach your business goals.
If you need legal assistance with your next business goal, do not hesitate to reach out to the Law Office of E.C. Lewis, PC, home of your Denver Business Attorney, Elizabeth Lewis, at 720-258-6647 or email her at elizabeth.lewis@eclewis.com.
by eclewis | Dec 22, 2014 | Business News
A recent audit of Denver’s program, the Minority/Women Business Enterprise (M/WBE) has shown that it has not been meeting its goals. You can take a look at the complete audit here. The program is operated by the Division of Small Business Opportunity, part of the Office of Economic Development, and it is designed to help get minority and women owned businesses a share of the large number of city and county construction jobs and related work like landscaping, trucking and engineering.
In order to be certified for the M/WBE, at least 51% of the business must be owned by women and minorities. However, the audit brought to light concerns that businesses that should not be eligible to participate in the program are finding ways to game the system and are nevertheless getting certified and receiving work.
The audit found that of the 720 businesses that are certified and part of the M/WBE, only about 70% of them have actually received work from the city, and only 31% are getting repeat work from the city. Additionally, over the course of the program’s 8 year life, only 9 firms have graduated from the program, meaning they are now too large or are making too much money to continue being eligible. In short, Dennis Gallagher, the Denver City & County Auditor, called the program “broken.” The audit found an array of other issues with the program including not only ineffective or inaccurate reporting by the Division, but also a lack of required reporting. For example, the ordinance creating the program requires issuance of quarterly reports, which are not being produced currently. The audit was not all bad news though, as it did find that some certified sub-contractors were not being counted toward the program’s goals.
The Division defended itself in saying that the program has no control over whether the city awards contracts to a participating business or not. Further, the Division is planning to consider the audit’s recommendations to try and improve the program, but this is not the first time the program has been under fire. In 2011, the program was audited criticized. That audit generated 16 recommendations of which only 6 were later implemented. So we will have to wait and see if the program will adopt more recommendations to try and improve itself this time around.
If you have questions about applying to become a minority/women-owned business, contact the Law Office of E.C. Lewis, P.C., home of your Denver Business Lawyer, Elizabeth Lewis, 720-258-6647 or email her at Elizabeth.Lewis@eclewis.com.
by eclewis | Sep 29, 2014 | Business News
If you are thinking about starting a new business, or just thought of an idea for a business, many people think someone out there is already doing it and that they should not bother. Instead of stopping there, why not spend just a few moments putting this idea to the test? By taking some simple steps, you can get a basic answer to the question of whether or not someone is doing the idea that you thought of. Be sure and also take a look at How to Research Your Business Name.
Step one is easy enough, run a few searches online, with your preferred search engine, of your business idea, to see if there is someone out there using it already. If you do find something similar or related to what you had in mind, it is important to take note of just how alike these findings are to your idea. Also look at whether or not they are actively using the idea and what areas of the country they are located in. If you do not find anything using broad terms or find too many results to manage, consider narrowing your search with more specific terms or with geographical terms, to give you more precise results.
Step two is a little more tedious, but it can give you some of the most important information of all. Visit the U.S. Patent Office website to search trademarks and patents, to see if anyone has any federal protections on ideas for slogans, symbols, inventions, and others.
To search through the trademark database, go to http://tmsearch.uspto.gov and run some Basic Word Mark searches. If you find something similar to your idea, follow this up with a normal online search to see if they are still an active company. You want to look and see whether or not they are actually selling or doing whatever it is they claimed is associated with the trademark. This is only the federal registry, so you will also want to take a look at your state’s registry too. Colorado’s can be found at http://www.sos.state.co.us/biz/BusinessEntityCriteriaExt.do, and this will search business names and trademarks. Remember that when it comes to trademarks, there are federal, state, and common law protections available to be considered.
To search the federal patent register, go to http://appft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/ and click on Quick Search under Patents. Now try running different terms based on your business idea to see if someone has already patented what you had in mind. Remember that in order to be patentable, the idea must be an invention or improvement to an existing invention that is useful, novel, non-obvious, adequately described or enabled, and claimed by the inventor in clear and definite terms.
Copyrighted works can also be useful things to search through if your business idea involves any creative works. You can visit http://copyright.gov/eco/ and search their database. This database will only search the national registry, meaning someone must have registered their copyright for it to be here (which is not required), so it is important to note that this search is not exhaustive. However, this is still an important place to check regardless.
If you do not turn up any results that are similar using the various search engines and techniques described here, this is good news, but keep in mind that these are basic searches and it is recommended that you speak with an attorney to discuss if more thorough searching is necessary. Nevertheless, the information you obtained will still be helpful in determining what your next step should be.
On the other hand, if you did find someone is already doing what you had in mind, do not give up! Start thinking about a different approach to whatever the existing business is selling or doing, so you can continue refining your entrepreneurial ideas. Keep in mind that you can always consider sitting down with an attorney to explore the level of differences necessary to move forward with your business and protect you against related businesses already operating.
If you have any questions about your findings or you are ready to take the next step in starting your business or protecting your business idea, contact the Law Office of E.C. Lewis PC, home of your Denver Business Lawyer, Elizabeth Lewis, 720-258-6647 or email her at Elizabeth.Lewis@eclewis.com.
by eclewis | Sep 23, 2014 | Business News
Last year, Colorado, with the passage of HB 13-1138, the “Public Benefit Corporation Act of Colorado,” joined a growing minority of states that have passed legislation enabling the incorporation of “benefit corporations.” Benefit corporations are a corporation that can be structured as a C-corporation or S-corporation but are specifically committed to benefitting the public, in addition to making profits. Directors of benefit corporations are charged with balancing the interests of shareholders with the interests associated with supporting public benefits. This legislation allows both new and existing corporations to become benefit corporations.
These public benefits can include educational, environmental, charitable, religious, cultural, scientific, and other types of publicly beneficial causes. However, benefit corporations are able to state more than one cause that they wish to support. This can allow for some flexibility within the company in the kinds of goals they will support.
Some well-known examples of benefit corporations include Patagonia, Etsy, and Warby Parker. Here in Colorado, GoLite, a Boulder-based outdoor apparel and equipment company, New Belgium, the Fort Collins-based brewery, and others have decided to become benefit corporations.
While many corporations feel that charitable giving is part of their social responsibility and choose to give to such causes without being a benefit corporation, shareholders of benefit corporations are given the unique power to take legal action against the management of the benefit corporation if they are not producing public benefits. Conversely, it is rare, if not impossible, for shareholders of regular corporations to be able to take such legal action over charitable or public benefits foregone by a regular corporation.
Some see the development of benefit corporations as an exciting new era that demonstrates a commitment to corporate social responsibility. Others view them as potentially tying the hands of corporate management, especially if the company hits hard times, since regular corporations can still choose to give charitably. As a result, it will be interesting to see how these benefit corporations change the corporate world and how it will effect how companies try to generate both profits and public benefits.
If you have questions about setting up a corporation of any kind, be sure to contact the Law Office of E.C. Lewis P.C., home of your Denver Business Lawyer, Elizabeth Lewis, 720-258-6647 or email her at Elizabeth.Lewis@eclewis.com.
