My core machinery sales business has been operating for ten years now and my co-owner and I have weathered ups and downs along the way. 

Mostly ups, and a few downs to keep it challenging.

Before making the jump to my own business, I spent twelve years working in a tight “inner circle” with the owner of a $25 million business.  While I was there, I got to experience firsthand the viciousness and outright incompetence of our legal system.

I was deeply involved in a patent lawsuit where a competitor sued us for infringement, and since I was an engineer involved deeply in the product, I spent five full days in depositions.  These were awful affairs, where we were interrogated about all sorts of tangents that were often totally unrelated to the patent case.

The lawyers were “digging for dirt”… Any dirt would do, and they did their level best to find some… (unsuccessfully).

Once I got through that torture chamber, preparation for the actual trial began in earnest.  I was chosen as the person to represent our company on the attorney team, and I spent the better part of six months working ten to twelve hour a day writing legal pleadings and answers to various legal mumbo-jumbo.

It was a roller coaster of excitement followed by terrible drudgery, and it was endless.  When we got to the last six weeks before trial, the nights shortened to about four or five hours.  I would get home to my family late at night, and they would wake up for five minutes to kiss me goodnight, and then I would get up a few hours later to do it all again.

If I had been paying those lawyers at the same time, I might have lost my mind, but the owner of the company was footing that bill.  Now that I run my own corporation, I am very careful to avoid any situations that might bring me into the legal system.

Luckily, while I was involved in this trial, we had other people back at the office who I could direct to hold down the fort on my “day job” as Sales and Marketing Manager.  If I faced a similar situation in my own small business, it would be devastating.

The day of the trial arrived.

We got a nasty surprise right out of the block.  We got a History professor as our judge and he was clueless.  After thirteen days of trial, we lost the initial lawsuit to the tune of $3.5 million in damages.  We appealed taking two more years and then the judgment against us was overturned on appeal and we ended up winning the case. 

But we really didn’t win.  The only people that won were the lawyers on both sides.  And that is the way it usually goes in such things…  I don’t ever want to be involved in this again, knock on wood.

(Boy do I wish I could get those two years of my life back).

Fast forward ten years, and I have my own corporation now.  After a lot of research, I discovered the steps to take to launch a business, and I incorporated myself. 

I was on top of the world.  And our business grew each year and we added new clients and sales to our satisfied customer base.  We thought we were doing everything right, and I was very careful to always do the tax returns and other required filings on time to avoid legal trouble.

And then I met George on a flight back to Atlanta, and he told me how he was about to enter into the quagmire of the legal system in the fight of his life.

As we prepared for takeoff, we were talking about business and George asked me if I had good corporate records.  I said that I was very careful about all the tax filings and licenses and George told me that I was missing vital records and told me his story.

George was a very successful businessman, and that put a target on his back.  Someone wanted what George had earned, and they had sued him.  He was asked for his corporate records and he didn’t have any.   So, they were in the process of dissolving his corporation as though it had never existed and trying to take his family’s personal assets to pay the judgment against the corporation. 

George was flying to Charleston, SC to sell his condo to pay the lawyers and he told me to learn from his example and get my corporate records ship-shape “Now, before it is too late”.

And you know what?

I found out that it wasn’t that easy, because no one had written a step-by-step guide for small guys about how to keep these records properly.  Since I couldn’t find the information in a simple guide, I wrote it myself… (It wasn’t that easy to dig through all this legal stuff, but it had to be done).

I wrote this system from the perspective of a business owner because I think that small business owners deserve this information…

And it shouldn’t be hard to locate and decipher.

You see…

In my book, small business owners are heroes. They’re what makes the economy work, and what keep this country moving forward. And my mission is to keep them moving forward—despite all the confusing laws and regulations.

In the face of alphabet agencies pulling nickel and dime scams.

Even against gold-digging lawsuits.

 
Please consider this a Wake Up Call and get your own fresh copy of my system– Corporate Veil Pro—today.  You’ll protect your family and you’ll sleep better because this is taken care of.

Here’s the link to learn more:  www.corporateveilpro.com

I wish you and your business great success!

Best Regards

Rob Northrup, Fellow Business Owner
Author, CorporateVeil Pro