Buy Yorkshire Conference 2015 – converting Yorkshire business to hands-on legal advice
Posted by Rachel Flower / April 29th, 2015 / No responsesWe had lots of fun at the Buy Yorkshire Conference held in Leeds this week. It’s the biggest B2B event north of London and the organisers (Yorkshire Mafia) did a fab job. It was an ideal opportunity to meet and connect with hundreds of small businesses in the Yorkshire region. There was a very diverse set of exhibitors as well as speakers, panels, sponsors and partners in attendance.
At Serenwood, our mission is to provide jargon-free, affordable legal advice to small businesses – at a fraction of the price of a traditional law firm. So the Buy Yorkshire conference gave us the chance to meet with a whole load of our ideal clients in one room. Fabulous (especially as we love to talk).
In particular we were on the look-out for those entrepreneurial, growing businesses who are currently avoiding getting legal advice because it’s too expensive, too complicated and too time consuming.
We know you’re out there! And here’s how we recognised you…
“Really?! – you don’t look like a lawyer!” (quickly followed by…) “Sorry, I don’t mean to be offensive but you just look really fun and interesting…!”
“I do have a law firm that I use, but to be honest – we do most of our legal stuff ourselves…”
“We don’t really need any legal advice – we’re quite small and our risks are low….”
“Last year we got into a big dispute with a supplier and it cost us a lot of money in legal fees, so we try to only spend money on legals now when we really need to…”
“Most of our contracts are provided by our customers, and we can’t negotiate them so we don’t need any legal help….”
And we had great fun talking to these new anti-lawyer friends about why legal advice is so important to SMEs, why it pays to invest in it, and how it can make the difference between success and failure as a business expands and grows.
A report for the Legal Services Board (2010) provides a great summary of the current situation in the UK between small businesses and legal providers. Namely that legal advice is avoided by SMEs because it is perceived as too expensive and a last resort for serious issues. UK businesses try to do the legal stuff themselves or they turn to other businesses for advice – or they just ignore the legal stuff and hope it goes away.
The report also goes on to say that this attitude is a key contributor to the failure of small businesses – in particular because it results in bad contract deals, problems with cash flow due to ineffective payment clauses and businesses blindly accepting inappropriate commercial risks.
So here at Serenwood we are very proud to offer Yorkshire with the modern-day alternative to traditional law. We aim to dispel the myths around boring, grey-suited lawyers and provide small businesses with a cost-effective way to get hands-on legal advice directly appropriate to your business. At a reasonable price and where you feel you are getting tangible value.
We have spent time asking small businesses why they avoid legal advice, and what we would need to do differently in order to convert them to using us. Here’s what you told us:
Small businesses need:
- swift responses – because your time is precious and waiting for legal advice kills deals;
- a balanced attitude to risk – to help you mitigate risks rather than try and avoid them completely;
- factual information, free from legalese – so you can make informed decisions quickly and with confidence;
- fixed-cost and reasonable rates – because you respect subject matter expertise but you need to be able to budget for it;
- hands-on and honest approach – above all, you want to deal with a friendly face, someone you can trust and who takes the time to genuinely understand your business.
So in response to what you have asked for, here’s some examples of the practical legal help that we give small businesses in Yorkshire:
- Creation or review of your commercial contracts, making sure they are written in plain english and giving you a jargon-free summary of the risks and obligations you are getting into when you sign.
- Robust Ts and Cs for your business to make sure your every day trading is safe and efficient.
- Mediation support to resolve simmering disputes with your suppliers and customers – keeping you out of the courts.
- Education and training for your team so they get commercially savvy and have the confidence to do their own deals.
- Protection of the intellectual property in your business to make sure you maintain its value and exploit it properly
- All the everyday legal tasks around business structure, ownership and formation – boring but essential.
- Employment contracts, property leases, bids and tenders…expert help available ad-hoc as and when you need it.
So are you ready for a fresh approach to legal advice?
We offered a free contract review to all the new SME friends we made at Buy Yorkshire this week. Because we’re determined to get small businesses converted to the benefits of seeking the legal support they need in order to strengthen contracting relationships across the region.
So if you are based in Yorkshire, drop us a line before 5th May 2015 quoting “BY2015” and we’ll do a free contract review for you too. Remember – strong roots lead to sustainable business growth.
