Episode 285: Gym Owners' Legal Checklist: Avoiding Costly Mistakes and Planning for Growth

What We Cover In This Episode: The difference between an LLC and an S-Corp, and how that affects liability, taxation and future growth [4:31] What the purpose of a legal entity is, and how it protects your personal assets from business lawsuits [7:04] How to negotiate commercial leases effectively, plus the strategies you can use to protect your wealth [15:45] What makes membership and staff agreements critical for a new gym business and why not having these in place isn't an option [19:33] The significant financial risks of misclassifying staff and how the true costs this type of mistake can have [25:17] What specific lease clauses gym owners should negotiate, and how to get better protection within those contracts [29:32] What you need to keep in mind as you future plan for the sale of your business [35:08]   Quotes:    "The whole purpose of the legal entity is to protect your personal assets. Think about it as we're basically putting a roof over your head so that the lawsuit comes at you, at the legal entity, and it's going to bounce off you personally, and it's going to stick to the legal entity." [Matt, 6:59]  "The lease is a contract and every contract is negotiable. So the landlord will present you with an initial copy of the lease and recommend that you hire somebody to go through and basically say, we like this language. We don't like this language." [Matt, 15:27]  "So it's not really a question of whether or not you think you should have a membership agreement. You have to. By law." [Matt & Nick, 22:26]  "We want to make sure that we are building an asset, this is an investment, this is an asset that is growing and it is nice and packaged up, because it's a nice little LLC and the more you operate in it the more you can remove yourself from the business it is going to increase its evaluation and then ultimately, we are going to try to sell it." [Matt, 36:40]   LINKS:  Gym Lawyers Website  Gym Wealth Strategies Website  Their Gym Ventures & New Gym Owner Services Matt's Previous Episode on fitSpot Guru Learn More About All of Our Partners & Get Exclusive Offers Visit the fitDEGREE Knowledge Base Send Megan Your Playlist or Discuss the Podcast Here!  fitDEGREE's Business Portal https://calendly.com/fitdegree-support  [email protected] https://www.instagram.com/fitdegree/ ​​https://www.instagram.com/fitspot_guru/  https://www.fitdegree.com/blog  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChJ5rK6zWPXjbxtUQx3ys9Q https://www.tiktok.com/@megan_fitdegree