Episode 9: What A Lawyer Told A Pet Sitter About Her ICs

Beth Green from Paws Pet Care in Louisville KY shares with us her lawyers interpretation of her pet sitting business with Independent Contractors. Listen in as she shares with Bella about the flow of the money, the suggested guidelines, the question about which is the right way to go. This episode is great for those pet sitters who have Independent Contractors. Beth is an incredible role model who demonstrates all the proper care and thought that it takes to run the business the correct way. I applaud her self reflection to constantly be checking if her business lines up to her personal needs and desires. I admire the way Beth doesn't just follow the masses and really investigates the law, the risk, and the control in which she desires in her business. In June, the Feds came out that they are putting more money in the budget to audits. Beth wanted to get confirmation from her lawyer that she was still doing everything right. What I loved about what she did was that she sent her lawyer EVERYTHING she had. She paid a retainer. Beth's lawyer took 4 weeks to review Beth’s info and research the industry! This is such a huge point because she didn't run in for a "free consultation" and tried to jam everything into 30 or 60 minutes. Link to the audits. https://jumpconsulting.net/2014/05/12/recap-learned-pet-sitting-audit-case-studies/ Your decision to have IC’s will depend on your comfort level of risk. How much risk do you want to take? Beth's lawyer wrote this in her three page recap she got in return of her research. We talk about operations. How the assignments are accepted flows. Contractors decide when they work. A very good point here is showing that those who like to TELL people when to work, shouldn’t have ICs. Beth talks about the GPS feature and if she uses it or not. We discussed what supplies supplies she could supply. We talked about how she uses her CMS, Leashtime, to assists in ICs "Do not buy your contracts online” -Beth We talk about one thing that businesses shouldn't have on their ICs contracts There is just so much great information in this podcast and well worth your listen. If you listen to this and decide that it is time to switch from ICs to Employees, check out the industries largest resource on employees. Learn about the pricing structure, employee manuals, interviewing, hiring, and becoming a manger. Employee's are the easier way to go. -Beth The very last major point that we talked about was workmans compensation. Her lawyer says workmans compensation would be great to have for her ICs. It was because of our industry and bites happen. So then she went to her insurance broker and he told her NO. He suggested she goes to the State and check with the NCCI to get the document for them to exempt themselves. It can't be copied, etc. It was a really important point. Here is the answer that I mentioned that my insurance broker wrote about businesses having workmans compensation on independent contractors. All in all, I think they biggest take away from this interview is that a business owner MUST do their homework. They MUST have a team of professionals around them that they can have open and honest discussions. I would like to thank Beth for being so open and honest with us as she didn't have to. I just respect her so much. Also, I think it is worthy to mention that Beth's heart and care for her community is so big that she has created My Dog Eats First. I HIGHLY suggest taking a look into this organization. Transcript: Bella: Do you feel like your business is going around on a merry-go-round? Well, I've got news for you. This episode is sponsored by my incredible webinar series called Jump in Scale. It gets you off that merry-go-round and up to the next level in your business. It's called Jump in Scale and it's free for you right now. Just go ahead and sign up at jumpconsulting.net forward slash scale. You will learn how to grow your business, increase your staff, and not be held hostage to business. So go ahead, sign up for free. That's jumpconsulting.net forward slash scale. I'll see you inside. Welcome to Bella in Your Business, where Bella will discuss anything and everything about your pet sitting business to help you land on target. So get ready, Bella's got your chute. Let's jump. Welcome everybody, this is Bella Vasta from Jump Consulting, and I'm here with a great friend and someone I really admire, Beth Green. I'm sorry, Bethany Buster Green. Beth Green, what do you want to be called? Because you have an identity crisis like I do. Beth: I know right. Beth is completely fine. My mom calls me Bethany when she's mad, so still at 40. So Beth is fine. Bella: Beth is an awesome pet sitter in Kentucky. She owns Paws Pet Care. And I want you all to know that this podcast kind of started because we were on the phone chatting away about Bethany's business, and Bethany's been following closely the whole IC employee debate, and she is one of the most informed pet sitters I've ever met. She's constantly questioning, constantly scrutinizing, constantly making sure that the decisions she's making are still the ones that match up with her needs and wants and risk evaluation when it comes down to it. So without further ado, Bethany had gotten a meeting with her attorney. And Beth, what I love about what you did here is you didn't just go and sit and talk for an hour and that was it. I mean, I saw the three-page rebuttal that you kind of got from her in writing re-explaining what her conclusions were in her professional opinion. Of course, not ever taking away from my litigation. It's just clearly her opinion, which that's what it all sounds in the end. But I love how in-depth it went. And today I want to talk with you about operations supply, how the sitters are assigned work, the control over sitters, the skill set they have, the length of employment, methods of payment, and relationship of you and your staff member, your IC. So for all those who are listening, that's kind of where we're gonna go. We definitely could talk for hours and hours and hours, but we're gonna actually try to keep this kind of short and sweet. We want you all to know that first of all, I'm not against independent contractors. I just don't think that it's a risk that many people are willing to take. Therefore, I feel that employees are really the safest way to go. A lot of people I see using independent contractors are using them as employees and calling them independent contractors. Beth is not one of those people, which is why I think her and I have been able to have this awesome mutual respect for one another. I mean, we're at polar opposite ends, but we can have an honest discussion about it because we're both coming from a factual basis. I love that we're doing this today because there's so many people out there that are helping pet sitters and saying that they can have independent contractors and here's how you do it. But they themselves are breaking the rules blatantly on their website. And I've tried to ask them to go toe to toe with me with a mutually respectful discussion like we are. And for the love of God, you're the only one that'll talk to me. Beth: Well, it's been a journey to the truth, and it's a never-ending journey because things are constantly changing. To be a responsible business owner, you've got to keep investigating and researching and making sure that you're always doing what you're supposed to be doing. Bella: Exactly. So why don't you tell us how this journey began? What happened when you first started? What prompted you to actually call a lawyer and then how'd that meeting go? Beth: As you know, Bella, because I'm in your networking group and in your coaching group, there's a lot going on in small businesses right now across the United States with contractors versus employees and not just small businesses, large businesses too. I believe for several reasons, and I'm not a politician by any stretch of the imagination, but I believe for several reasons that the IRS is really cracking down on making sure that people have their employees or contractors categorized right. Bella: Compliance, right? Beth: Yes, that they're compliant. We could kind of guess as to why, but one thing that my lawyer did say is that maybe because of the free healthcare thing, I mean, the country needs more tax money and they need more income coming in. So what better way to go after that than to start dinging people for taxes and penalties and stuff if they're not classifying their workers properly. Bella: I think what it was is that in June they came out and said that they're putting more money towards small business audits than ever before to make sure specifically that workers are being classified the right thing. And to go off of your point, you said healthcare. The reason why that's important is because their argument, in my understanding, is that if you have a worker that gets hurt on the job and they're an independent contractor, then they're going to end up on the government system and the government's going to be helping them pay for those or they could be helping pay for those injuries and things. So if they're properly classified and they're properly taken care of, it decreases the liability for the government. Beth: That's one of the many, many arguments. So we can see where this is happening with corporations like Uber. They recently have been investigated and they have to make some changes. And this is a worldwide business that just took off and grew very quickly. So with our conversations with these things that I'm seeing in the news and the things that I'm reading and studying online and best business practices, I want to make sure that my business is running the way that it's supposed to be and that my people are classified properly. Bella: And you know, I needed to know 100% for sure if they were, if they weren't,