Zero To A Hundred – Episode 39: Legal Strategies To Future-Proof Your Business With Travis Weaver

Accelerators! 🚀

Legal planning isn’t just for big corporations—it’s essential for every business owner. This week, we’re joined by Travis Weaver, co-founder of Weaver Firm Attorneys, to break down business law, estate planning, and asset protection in a way that actually makes sense. Whether you’re structuring your business for tax efficiency, preparing for a smooth succession, or protecting your assets, this episode is packed with game-changing insights.

What’s on the Menu:

💼 What to ask your business attorney—and what to expect.

🔍 The difference between short-term and long-term legal planning.

🏦 How to structure your business for maximum tax efficiency and protection.

Why Tune In?

Travis shares expert strategies to future-proof your business and personal assets while avoiding common legal pitfalls. If you want to run your business smarter, minimize risk, and create a solid legal foundation, don’t miss this one!

💬 Gem from Travis:

“Your business isn’t just a company—it’s a legacy. Protect it accordingly.”

Get in Touch with Travis:

📧 Visit WeaverLegal.net for legal insights and transparent pricing.

Don’t miss out—hit that subscribe button and let’s take your business from zero to a hundred! 💥

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Watch the episode here

Listen to the podcast here

Legal Strategies To Future-Proof Your Business With Travis Weaver

I’m very excited to introduce our guest for this episode, Travis Weaver. Travis is a Cofounder and Partner in Weaver Firm Attorneys. He has an extensive background in dealing with real estate, elder law, trusts and estates, and business. He does everything under the sun that you need to get your legal stuff in order personally and for your business. He has a JD-MBA from Texas Tech. The guy is brilliant and super charismatic. He is also named the Texas Monthly Rising Star Attorney, which is a big deal. He’s a hot shot. We’ve got him here, and we’re going to talk about some great topics.

It’s things like, first and foremost, what you should expect from your business attorney and, frankly, what to ask them. Sometimes, you sit down in front of your attorney and you don’t even know what to ask. Also, short-term versus long-term planning, the business structures that are going to be the best for your business, depending on where it is, and also for tax efficiency. Looking at insurance and bifurcating the difference between personal and business insurance, and making sure everything is in order. There aren’t issues when you have to tap into that insurance.

For those of you who do not know me, I am the Founder of BoxFi. We are the nation’s leading payment consultant, providing business growth solutions through payment processing. I’m very excited to share the network that I built over my entrepreneurial journey to help you grow your business and become more profitable. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s accelerate together.

Travis Weaver, it is great to have you on the show.

It’s great to be here. I appreciate it.

We’re going to have our first legal conversation of 2025. What we’re going to cover in this conversation is business law and estate planning, and how the two should marry together for success. This is something that our audience is going to get a lot out of. Thank you for joining us. Travis, give us a little background on you, how you got into the business, and your passion for what you do every day before we jump into the nitty-gritty.

I was born into the business you would say. My dad is an attorney and he’s been practicing for many years. When I went to law school, I had no idea, like most people, what I wanted to do. I was able to work with a few families through a clerkship program and help them with some estate planning and guardianship needs. I figured out this was the area that I wanted to pursue. It was a coincidence that my dad happened to do the same thing because I had never wanted to go down that avenue but it’s been fun. I like working with individual families on their unique problems. That’s the majority of what we do.

What are some of the things that the estate and business planning attorneys miss when they’re going in? What are the gaps that need to be filled for a lot of the business owners and families who bring a legal team on?

The Importance Of A Balanced Legal Plan

For the most part, you get a lot of people who have hundreds of pages of documents that they don’t understand. On the other side, you get people with no type of planning. What I tell people is we’re trying to meet in the middle. I want you to have a plan that is legal and that makes sense. It’s something that you can go back, review, and understand. If it’s 400 pages of legalese, you don’t know what’s going on.

If I ever leave the picture, you go to a different state or something else, you’re not sure what you have and what you don’t have. It’s the same way if you have nothing and something happens. You’re at the mercy of whatever the state laws at that point say. That’s not something you want to do because then you get involved in the court. I want people to have a concise plan but it doesn’t have to be this huge, elaborate plan. It’s something that you can understand. Hopefully, you can pass that on to whoever your successors are. That’s what we want.

Let’s paint a picture of what the avatar looks like for our audience. They’ve been in business for five-plus years. They’re doing $2 million to $5 million in top-line revenue. They’re the breadwinner of the family. The family depends on the business that they operate. They have a couple of kids. They’re probably in their early plus 40s and starting to look at what the next 10 or 20 years of their life are going to look like. They don’t necessarily have these elements in place. What is the foundation of starting to plan successfully for your business and family?

Short-Term Vs. Long-Term Business Planning

I would say at least two different things to think about. You’re going to want a short-term plan of succession that’s there for an emergency. You’re going to want something to say who takes over in case something happens to you. Where does your business go? Is that to business partners? Is that to your family? What happens there? Do you have insurance to cover expenses? Do you know what will happen day-to-day? That’s short-term. Even 5 to 10 years, you have a plan there.

That’s only for an emergency. We understand that emergencies happen but that’s unlikely that we’re going to need that. You’ve got something there in writing in place that says, “Who’s in charge? Where does my business go? Does it keep going? Do I sell it? What’s the price?” It’s that type of thing. That’s pretty straightforward. You can sleep a little bit better at night. The second part is the long-term planning. In most cases, if you’ve gotten to the point where your clients are, you’re not going to go backwards.

You’re going to keep growing the business and that’s what we want. As you grow the business, how can we prepare for that growth and have a plan in place, whether it’s adding partners or allowing for growth in our documents? We want there to be some type of plan for that growth so that we have that plan set. You don’t have to meet with a lawyer every single year unless you want to. You feel comfortable as that growth comes. You’re prepared and you can add on to that business.

When you bring that legal team and you’re creating that preparation, what question should you be asking? What should you expect out of your legal team? A lot of times, when people go in to work with an attorney, they might work with an attorney to do contracts or on a real estate transaction but they don’t know the basis of what they should be asking and expecting when working with someone as a business or an estate attorney.

That’s how we see a lot of people who come in. They tell me something like, “I don’t even know the questions to ask. I don’t know the right or wrong questions to ask.” That’s totally okay. My job is to hopefully present you with a questionnaire or some things upfront so that you can start thinking about, “What would happen if something were to happen to me in a year? What do I want to happen in the next 20 to 30 years?”

That way, the person can come in and tell me a little bit about business dynamics and family dynamics. Do we get along with our family? Is this something we want to pass on to the family? Is this something that we’re going to get bought out in the future? We have a plan there for what we want to do. I would ask the attorney about costs. Is this something where we’re taking me on as a retainer for your business? Are you paying a flat fee? Is it hourly? Do you understand the costs?

If you don’t understand the costs or the attorney can’t explain the costs upfront, that might be something that shifts you somewhere else because you want to know how much you’re going to spend on this. It can’t be something that’s open. You want to think about, “Is this an ongoing relationship with the attorney? Do I call you when I need things? What is your timeframe for getting the documents back to me? Are you busy? If I need a contract reviewed in 48 hours, can you do that? Is that something that I need to go to a different type of firm to do?”

Those are good questions to ask because that’s what you’re looking for. You have something emergent come in. You’re talking to the attorney, “I need this done in 24 to 48 hours.” If that person can do that and you know what they’re charging, then you feel comfortable handing that off to the attorney so that you can focus on your business.

You said something interesting, but this isn’t something we typically dive into. Let’s say you’ve got that business that fits that avatar, that $2 to $5 million business. You’re starting your planning. Is this an expensive $10,000, $50,000, or $100,000? Is there a range in which you should be considering when you’re putting together, let’s call a comprehensive plan, to make sure you have short-term and long-term built in there? Is there a range?

I would say yes. Attorneys are like medical providers where the costs are sometimes hard to get at. Sometimes, the range can be huge, but it is a reasonable range for starting a relationship with initial documents like that initial planning. You should be under $10,000 in terms of what you’re paying for. As you grow your business, if you’re doing advanced tax planning or trying to add people into some type of big employee plan or something like that, you may be above and beyond that.

For $10,000, that should get you started with the right documents with a couple of meetings. It’s probably going to take us more than one. That’s what I would look at. I would look at the initial total flat fee costs. We should be able to tell you after what you’ve told us about your business and then how much they are going to charge per hour. Is that one attorney charging one rate, and then maybe other people are charging lower rates? Is everything billed at a certain rate?

That way, you know if I’m calling you and talking to you for 15 to 30 minutes, it’s going to cost me X amount of money. Maybe I will gather all my questions together. If you’ve paid them a certain amount and that gives you a certain amount of meetings, you can expand more on your questions. Knowing what those costs should be and how the relationship is going to work is important.

A word to the wise when you’re talking to your attorney. To your point, have your questions ready to go. Those are billable fifteen-minute increments. Don’t talk about the kids and what you did over the weekend. Dive into it and get done what you need to get done. When you’re doing something casual or having dinner, you can have that conversation. I’ve learned the hard way over the years. Let’s say we bring in a business attorney. Let’s set it outside of the estate planning or planning side from an operational standpoint for the business. What should we be considering and expecting from that attorney to help us with improving the operations internally for our business?

A few things. If you’ve got people working for you, like that attorney who can review your contracts or your policy for terminating people and adding people, make sure that everything there is laid out in ironclad. If you’re bringing in people to work for you, it’s like, “How can I hire and fire them?” Compensation. What state are the laws based on that type of thing? We want to look at what you are doing on a daily basis that might require some type of legal paperwork.

Do you have a lease for real estate or some type of thing where you’re getting contracts, or do you have to negotiate with people? That attorney should be able to review your documents and make sure that everything looks good. If we can beef up the language, that’s great. If we can simplify it, that might save you some time down the road. They should be able to do an overview of your operations. 1) Make sure you’re complying with the law, which is important. Some people aren’t. 2) There may be loopholes or things that can improve your business or make it easier on you. They should be able to tell you that.

I love that you gave all of those examples because this is what’s key to our audience: understanding how to activate the information and going to the right business attorney to help with all of these aspects as your business grows. When you’re $2 million, $3 million, or $5 million-plus in revenue, that’s a real business. You have employees, responsibilities, and also assets so protect them. Sometimes, it’s your intellectual property. Sometimes, it is people. Hiring and firing are two important things that you need to make sure you have the right procedures in place.

I was caught up in this years ago, and it was not a fun experience. It’s something that I also had to learn as a very hard lesson. You have to protect yourself within your business. That’s why we share this information. Thank you for that. It’s very important. Let’s talk about if we have a business owner who wants to start looking at succession planning. Is there a time when it is too early? Is there a time in which it’s too late? What is the secret sauce? You know you’re growing your business that you should start planning for what happens next.

The Right Time To Start Succession Planning

The number one thing that I see mistakes being made when I have people come in is they haven’t thought about it long-term. They’ve probably thought about an emergency situation but they haven’t thought about what they want to do down the road. Let me give you an example of someone I’ve worked with before. We work with people who operate farms. These are not mom-and-pop farms but these are large farms with maybe 1,000 plus acres and they’re making some good profit.

Maybe they’ve inherited it from the family, but they’ve got one family member who works for them on the farm. This person’s making a good income. They’re adding value to the business, but their entire livelihood is tied to this farm. They have another person, child, niece, nephew, or that type of thing, who isn’t involved in the farm but probably would be involved in their succession plan.

You’ve got to think short-term, “Can this farm continue to operate with my family member who’s working with me?” It’s probably going to continue to make money and this person is going to need to benefit from that but how are we going to split short-term profits with both family members or multiple partners there if one’s more involved and one’s not involved or less involved?

Long-term, how do we want this to pass to our potential beneficiaries? There are tax planning things to think about. How can we lower our tax burden? They’re also the in and outs of a family relationship. If you’re leaving the majority of a farm and operating business to someone and they’re having to do the work but they’re going to benefit from that operation, how is the other person going to feel? Even though they necessarily don’t provide as much to the farm, they’re still going to feel that as a slight and then that can open the door for litigation down the road.

Having something in place like an emergency but long-term thinking about who gets what, what percentage, and then where our profits go. Is this something that’s viable for my business? Is it going to take more than 1 or 2 people to operate? That’s what I would focus on and that would avoid fights and lawsuits down the road.

Structuring A Strong Business Partnership

It’s interesting that you brought this up from the context of that example with the farm, the different family members, and the roles that they play. Talk to me about how to structure a good partnership when you have 2, 3, or 4 people who start a business together. One of my mentors told me at one point in time that no partnership is ever truly equal. Make sure the compensation structure highlights that so nobody gets upset at the end of the day. It works, but sometimes I’ve seen it go in the opposite direction, where it doesn’t work. How do you create that perfect partnership where everyone is protected and gets what they feel they deserve?

I’m going to borrow a page from Warren Buffett. He came out with his annual letter. One of the things he talked about was communicating well with your family members about what’s happening in terms of inheritance or succession plans in a business, talking to them. That’s where I would start. If you have someone who’s running a business and they’re bringing on partners or family members as partners or some mix, they’re communicating.

“This is how much work we’re doing. This is the value that you’re creating. If something were to happen to me, a certain percent would go to this person and a certain percent would go to this person because of what you’re doing.” Explain why. Usually, the person who’s working for the business is crucial to that business continuing on. Hopefully, they have the same vision that you have. They know they can take the business and continue to run with it but we’re going to take some of those profits and direct those to our other family members.

Letting the person who’s working for you know, “This is going to happen because I need to take care of my other family member. The lion’s share still goes to you because you’re doing the work but this is how we’re going to split things up percentage-wise. We think that that’s fair. That’s as best as we can do.” Talking to them before something happens instead of having a documented place afterwards helps get through to them what your wishes are. Warren Buffett’s telling us to do that, so it’s probably a good idea.

Have you ever seen this go completely awry with a family where they end up in litigation?

Avoiding Legal Pitfalls In Succession Planning

Yes. Unfortunately, I have. I’ve seen it in two situations. One situation is where we have a meeting and I give people my thoughts and opinion. I’ll produce some type of letter or something with actions to take and then they never get around to taking those actions. We have a handshake deal on a business that’s worth upwards of $5 million. You can imagine how that goes because the handshake deal and the handwritten contract from 1985 don’t hold up great at court.

That leads you down a road of a lot of lawyer fees, a lot of heartache and strife between family members. The other way it can go wrong is if you have documents in place but they’re not necessarily ironclad. You haven’t had someone look at them in a while or we throw together documents. When I say we, it’s the business owner and maybe some family members right before a person passes away. If a person gets sick, you’re throwing together documents, signing contracts, and trying to allocate a business between multiple people.

We’re not sure that the person understands exactly what they’re doing. You still have paperwork but the paperwork is not necessarily where we want it to be. Those are the two situations that end up in litigation. Anyone who works with litigators can tell you. In most cases, the lawyers are going to end up making the money and the people are going to be frustrated. I would agree with that.

This is important for our audience of business owners. You’re building something. Most I know are building something because they want to leave a legacy. Leaving a legacy, whether it’s your family, community, or whatever it is, you have to have a plan. It’s not just about building a product or service or raking in as much revenue as you possibly can. When something happens, you have to have that plan in place where everyone knows exactly what is going to happen next and that is key.

I want to get back to talking about structure and entities in the business and how those are impacted by succession planning, which we’ll come back to. You’re a business owner. Let’s say you’re in an LLC. You continue to grow. Should you stay in an LLC? Should you consider becoming a C corp or an S corp? Walk us through what each one of those structures means. At what point in your business should you be considering one over the other?

Choosing The Right Business Structure For Growth

That’s one of the more common questions I get. What I tell people is to think of the LLC. Its sole purpose is liability protection. If you have an LLC and you’re doing some type of shipping operation where you have people on the road or people going from place to place, then an LLC there provides liability protection against someone getting in an accident, something getting lost, or someone getting hurt.

If you own real estate or any type of land associated with your business, LLCs protect against accidents on the property you own. The LLC is a bubble that protects the business assets but it also separates those assets from your personal assets. Your house and bank accounts, those two things are separated. An LLC is good for that. You can choose to tax an LLC as a corporation and that may give you some ability to deduct expenses better.

If you’re starting to get some revenue in and you’re thinking, “We’re paying a lot in taxes but we have expenses on vehicles or depreciation of land. We’re doing expensing that. Usually, I would pay for myself but we’re paying for it through the business,” there are going to be ways that you can deduct those expenses in a legal way, being taxed as a corporation, even though your entity is an LLC. Thinking about how you want to be taxed is important.

On the other side, you may set up your business as some type of corporation, S corporation or C corporation. Those deal with how those entities are taxed with the IRS. Depending on what you’re doing and how many people you have for your company, one may be better than the other. That’s where an attorney and a CPA can step in and give you good advice based on what you’re doing with your business. Also, think about the next 5 to 10 years in that succession plan if we are going to add employees, maybe that C corporation would be better or an S corporation.

Is the difference between a C and an S the number of employees?

It’s part of the difference. The main difference between the two is how they’re created and taxed by the IRS.

Can you give us a brief on the difference between the taxation of the two?

Keep in mind that all of this is subject to change and some things have changed in January of 2025. The main thing that you’re looking at from an S corporation is it has special tax status with the IRS. There are certain things you can do. For example, you can pass your profits through an S corporation. If you have money that’s going into the business and then you want it to go out to your partners, you can allow those profits to pass through to your partners and avoid being taxed on your business and personally.

That’s one of those things that an S corporation can do. You fill out the correct paperwork with the IRS and then you’re in good shape. A C corporation pays its own taxes. There are some benefits there, depending on the type of business you’re running but you keep all the profits in the C corporation. You may have larger deductions but that’s the difference. S corp passes through. C corp pays its own taxes.

This may be too general of a question. You have to understand each business but is there one of the LLC, S corp or C corp, that is more tax efficient than the other?

I would say it depends there. That’s my favorite lawyer answer. In the S corporation, you can have 100 shareholders and that’s the limit. If you want more than that, you need to then switch to a C corporation. As your business grows, initially, the S corporation is going to be more tax-efficient for small businesses. When I say small, it’s anything under 100 people or 100 shareholders with your members.

For a C corporation, you have above that. Maybe you have 250, 300, or a very large business. A C corporation is going to give you more advantages. At that point, you can issue multiple types of stock. With an S corporation, you’re limited to one type of stock but you may think about common or preferred stock. You may know what those are. That’s a C corporation where you can divide types of stock as your business starts to take off. Those are the differences there when you want to consider one versus the other.

Keeping Business Documents Updated

Thank you for that baseline information because that’s super helpful. You can see from your explanation what the progression could be in your company as it grows and expands. Staying up to date on business structures is tantamount to success, but what’s important is making sure that your documents are up to date. I know there are probably documents I haven’t looked at in quite some time. I have updated some of them with my team and am going through everything as the company continues to grow. How would you suggest business owners look at documents that they’re working off of and when they should be or the frequency in which they should be updated?

We give two rules of thumb there. I would look at everything in April or May of each year. The reason behind that is if you have a corporation or, in most cases, an LLC being taxed as a corporation, that tax return is due in April unless you were to extend. A lot of people will handle it in April. As you’re coming around to that March and April time, if you have to file your business tax return, I would take a look at what did the last year look like.

Has anything changed? Have people come and gone? Do we need to update documents? Have we grown? Have we added a property or something like that? I would think about how the last year affected your business and whether or not your current documents reflect that growth or what’s happening.

Other than that, every two years, I would at least sit down with an attorney for a meeting and tell them how the business is going, have them look at your documents, look at everything that’s been filed with the state to make sure that things have been filed correctly, and talk a little bit about your situation in your life to make sure that something hasn’t changed there that needs a change in your documents.

We’re still on the topic of changes. For 2025, are there tax code changes that small and midsize business owners should be aware of that could negatively or positively impact them?

I would say yes. The real thing to look at over the next year is going to be whether or not there is an estate tax that is extended or reduced. This has nothing to do with either political party but the current laws for the estate tax, and this includes your business, is they are scheduled to sunset or go away at the end of this year. Your total taxable estate, if it’s $13.99 million or less, you don’t pay any federal estate tax on that, which is good news for a lot of people.

If Congress does nothing to change those laws at the end of the year, that $13.99 million gets cut less than half. You’re looking at between $6 and $7 million per person that you can leave tax-free to your family members. A lot of the businesses that you’re working with and a lot of the people we see are probably somewhere in that range of whether they’re $4 to $6 million or $6 to $8 million if something changes. If you were to pass away, you could be looking at a 40% tax bill next year if you don’t take any action or you don’t at least have the option to take action this year.

We’ll probably know something closer to October and November. We can give guidance there but if you’re thinking about doing some type of planning or you’ve seen that growth where you’re in that $5 to $6 million or $4 to $6 million range in terms of business valuation, you need to consider what your tax situation is going to look like so you’re not stuck with that bill down the road. That planning is pretty straightforward.

AI’s Role In The Legal Industry

What I love about these types of interviews is they’re educational for me, too. I get to learn a lot and this is incredibly helpful. This will be a question, first and foremost, about your business, and then we’ll talk about how it might be impacting our audience’s businesses. Talk to me about the legal industry and AI. Are you incorporating it? Do you think it’s going to impact the industry? What are the expectations on the horizon for artificial intelligence and the law industry?

AI is going to be a tool more than a replacement for the legal industry but I do think that as lawyers step into this realm, we need to think about how we can use AI to simplify things for us. It will make our businesses more efficient for our clients. We need to avoid using AI as a crutch or something that can do the work for us. You’ve probably heard examples of people who use AI to draft their entire argument with the court. The citations are wrong or the argument doesn’t make sense.

Even in 2024, the top 100 law firms are using some of the large search engines for legal matters to incorporate AI into drafting memos and doing research for them that should speed up their process. Instead of going to a library or even spending hours online searching for cases, you can have an AI companion summarize the top 5 to 10 cases on that subject.

That will help you be a better attorney but it will also help you be more efficient for your client. If you’re not using AI, at least to some extent, to aid you in your workflow, you’re going to fall behind in the future. Other people are going to be able to put in the face-to-face time with their client, but they’re going to have that information readily available and quicker.

What are your thoughts on consumers using AI to review or write legal documents? What are the pitfalls?

To be completely honest, I have used some of the more popular AI apps, and we can call them, to draft things like a contract or a will because I want to see what comes out. I will tell you, most of the big AI applications will tell you something like, “We are not a lawyer. You need to seek legal advice but here is a business formation document we think looks good.” In most cases, they’re about 90% accurate for what I would recommend.

Sometimes, the law is a little bit outdated. Sometimes, some things are left out but for the most part, they’re okay. If you’re getting advice from AI, go to several different places. If that advice looks like it’s the same through 3 or 4 different applications, then you’re probably on the right track. A lawyer can confirm that but that can narrow down your question. I would be very careful seeking legal advice directly from AI and then taking that and either giving it to someone else or using that in my own practice.

That is sage wisdom. I love AI but the output is only as good as the input. If you don’t know how to talk to AI, you have to be very careful. A platform like ChatGPT is going to automatically be complimentary of whatever you do. It’s trying to give you an outcome that they perceive to be a positive outcome. They’re not necessarily using critical thinking, which could be very troublesome when dealing with legal documents. That’s one thing that’s going to be important.

We’re getting close to wrapping up the episode. I do want to talk about something that is important that some business owners look over. It’s having the proper insurance structures in place. This is something that you do deal with. If you’re dealing with that business owner who, let’s say, owns their business, creates widgets within the physical space that they own, is doing $5 million a year in top-line revenue, and has 15 employees, what should that business owner make sure that they have in place from an insurance standpoint from the top down to make sure that all their liability is covered?

I’ve got two parts. I want to answer the question first and then see if you have a follow-up. I have a caveat I want to say at the end. What I tell most people is you’re looking at what you’re doing revenue-wise. Your expenses and what you expect, I would say, for the next 2 to 5 years, you need an insurance policy that will cover that, at least to some extent, based on what you and your partners think you’ll need for the next 2 to 5 years to operate the business, take care of expenses, and that type of thing.

If I have $1 million revenue in my business and I’m thinking, “I want a $2 to $5 million policy for my business so that if something happened to me, I’m unable to work, and I pass away, that money is there to help in the future or help my partner. Some of it could be paid out to my family.” You’re thinking 2 to 5 years. If growth is included, you might even want to go up 20% to 30% at some point to account for that growth.

The caveat that I will say is a little bit in the weeds but it’s important to know. Whatever that insurance policy is, previously, that insurance policy was not considered part of your taxable estate. If you had a $5 million insurance policy on a business, if you die, that policy does not get calculated in whatever you owe the federal government for your taxes but some people were using that as a workaround for some tax laws and they would create a big policy for a company.

If they died, half of that policy would go out to pay for their family to continue to work for the business. The IRS caught wind of that. If you have an insurance policy relating to your business, it’s there for operation-wise purposes that can be considered part of your taxable estate as well. If you haven’t looked at that, you have something in place, or you’re thinking about getting something in place, it could be considered part of your taxable estate. You need to set it up correctly. I still would recommend insurance for any business, but you want to make sure that you’re not playing with the numbers too much, which can be a burden instead of a benefit.

Is there a world in which you should have a separate business policy and a separate personal policy?

I would say yes. You need a couple of things. Most people want some type of umbrella insurance policy that’s personal that will protect them. In case the business can’t cover a lawsuit, that umbrella policy protects your personal assets. In most cases, you want a business policy that covers your business or maybe pays out some to your family. The personal policy that may pay out to your family, your children, or a charity if you want, could be separate. You want to think about the assets you have in the business versus your needs. Hopefully, as the business grows, that need may decrease as you continue to accumulate assets.

If there’s anything left over in that policy, that’s the business policy, who does that go to? Does that go to the shareholders of the business or does that revert to the family?

That is a question that causes many lawsuits every single day. Hopefully, your business agreement says where that money goes. It’s either directed to the business and then the business would divide that between the shareholders or if there are partners of the business, that would go in equal shares but you want to be careful that your company agreement says if a partner dies or is unable to work and that insurance policy pays out. 60% goes to the business, 40% to the family, or whatever percent you have. You want that clearly set out in your company agreement.

One last question is insurance-based. Thank you for that because that gives a lot of clarity. It is so important in all these legal documents that you are as clear as you possibly can be about everything. Let’s talk about that. You’re operating a business. You are the key man. How important is key man insurance for a business operator?

The Importance Of Key Man Insurance

It is very important. Depending on how many people you have counting on you in that business, you can imagine the amount that could harm multiple families if you don’t have that insurance. For people who don’t necessarily know what a key man is real quick, a key man is where you’ve got someone who’s important to a business. They are the person who drives the business. If something were to happen to them, the business would either shrink drastically or maybe go away altogether.

That insurance policy is set up to provide for employees and pay off expenses but hopefully, it will keep the business going until you can wind that business up. You’re not putting your employees out on the street right away. Anyone who’s operating a business, whether they’re a professional or they’ve created a business where they’re the engine driving the business, and that’s a lot of you, you need to have something in place where you know, “I can pay for a certain amount of expenses.”

You need to let your employees know, “If something were to happen to me, there is a 6-month plan, a 10-month plan,” or whatever that is so that they understand what their future looks like as well. Those policies aren’t ridiculously expensive but they’ll avoid heartache. If something unexpected happens to you, you want to think about your employees and their families. That way, they have some time to look into what they need to do and figure out how to move forward.

Rapid-Fire Section

This was incredibly informative. We’re going to do the fun part, the rapid-fire section. Coffee or tea?

Coffee.

If there is a zombie apocalypse and you have to get out of your home and protect your family, what is your weapon of choice?

A machete.

What is your favorite quote or phrase in business?

This is cliché but I love Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky. It’s been parodied a lot. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” If you’re running a business and you have someone you’re reaching out for coffee with or you’re embarrassed to talk to someone and share your business plan, the worst that can happen is they say they’re not interested. Go talk to people. Talk to people you’re not necessarily interested in long-term, but if they show any interest in you, you never know what that door is going to open.

I love that. Is there a book that you would recommend our audience read on business?

It’s any Warren Buffett book. He’s written a couple of biographies and a couple of books. I like his ideas. I love what he does every year in terms of his letters to people. The intelligent investor is where I would start but I would follow Warren Buffett to a T.

I agree. Always meaty, good, petty stuff that he writes about. What is the number one thing in 2025 that could kill a business?

Not following up with your customers, not getting responses, not getting them to write reviews, and not following up on what the people like or don’t like about your business. It’s so easy to get feedback from people that I think you’re putting yourself behind the eight ball if you’re not asking people what they like or dislike about your business. That’s an easy way to change things, turn things off, and turn things up. You’ve got to do that and automate that.

The last question that I have for you is, what is the biggest obstacle that you had to overcome in your business to build the success that you have?

I had been practicing for years and we were with a large firm. That firm, within about a month, decided not only to disband but stop operating altogether. I had the choice at that point to go to another large firm and get right back in the swing of things like we had been, big office, dress code, and all of that, or to start my own business. I took a risk there. I had a great dad and a great law partner who we were able to take that risk. I was terrified at the time but I’m glad that I did.

Take that risk and understand that if it doesn’t work out, you can always pivot in 1 year, 6 months, or 2 years, whatever you need to do. Go take that risk short-term, especially if you’ve got time to work or build because you’re going to be happier that you took the risk. Even if it doesn’t work out, it may show you what you want to do down the road. Instead of getting right back in the rat race and doing something that you’re comfortable with, get outside that comfort zone and take that risk at least short-term.

Amazing advice. Travis, please tell our audience where they can reach you if they’d like to do so.

I have a website. It is WeaverLegal.net. It’s how you can contact our office but honestly, it’s got a lot of information about what we do, what I would recommend, and things you can do to research your situation. I explain different documents and why they could be important to you or why they couldn’t be. We put all of our prices up there, flat fee. There’s transparency in terms of what we charge and what you can expect. I’d love for you to do your research and get a bunch of questions. Come in and ask me because I like talking about this and I like working with people.

Travis Weaver, thank you for joining us on the show.

Thank you for having me.

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About Travis Weaver

TRAVIS WEAVER, ATTORNEY
EXPERTISE

Wills, Trusts, & Probate | Elder Law | Business & Real Estate
Medicaid-paid Nursing Home Care
Travis Weaver provides you and your family with deep legal knowledge and strong personal commitment to meeting your individual needs.

EXPERIENCE
• Trusts, wills, guardianships, financial or medical directives, powers-of-attorney, and other legal options to meet the lifelong needs of disabled children, provide for an aging spouse, care for parents in declining health, and more.
• Estate planning to minimize taxes and simplify generational transfer of assets.
• Probate of wills to allow for sale or ownership of inherited property, land, homes, cash, and other valuables.
• Asset allocation to help obtain Medicaid-paid nursing home benefits for a husband, wife, or parent. Many qualify for this benefit, including approval for the healthier husband or wife to stay in the family home, keep the family car, and continue with their current lifestyle.
• Business transactions including real estate sales and closings, business start-up documents, and contract review to reduce costs, avoid costly mistakes, and maximize profits.

EDUCATION
Texas Tech University School of Law – Juris Doctor (JD)
Texas Tech University – Master of Business Administration (MBA)
Texas A&M University – Bachelor of Arts – Double Major: History & Economics

ADMISSIONS
State Bar of Texas

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS & MEMBERSHIPS
Denton County Bar Association
Denton County Bar Association – REPTL

AWARDS

Rising Star Attorneys Top-Rated Attorney List – Texas Monthly 2022, 2023, 2024