Small Business Owners vs. the GDPR | Small Business Marketing | POSH PR®

Let's tackle the GDPR and what this means for your small business...

Dolls, as a business owner, I know firsthand you are expected to be a wearer of many, many hats. Some of them you totally expect, right?  Hats like managing employees, budgeting and accounting, product and project management, those all come with the spoken territory. Sometimes, however, a hat you never even knew existed appears, and though it may not be something you ever thought you would wear, there it is, sitting on top of your head. This hat is called the GDPR.

A couple months ago I remember seeing mentioning of something called the GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation. I saw it was a policy for the EU, and concluded it was not something I needed to worry about! But fast-forward to May, and suddenly my inbox is bombarded with e-mails asking me to comply with their business’ new privacy policies, I was alarmed! 

Like you, I spent hours reading one article to the next, trying to decipher what the GDPR implied for my small business. (Read: translate what seemed to me to be an entirely other language.) After much research, I found Jenna Kutcher’s blog to be the most helpful and wanted to share with you!

In her blog, “5 Ways to Determine if the GDPR Affects You (and What to do About It),” Jenna breaks down 1. What the GDPR is 2. 5 Ways to Determine if it affects you and 3. What to do if you do NOT comply and 4. How to comply. 

Below is an excerpt from her blog explaining if the GDPR affects you:

1. A reasonable amount of people who are on your email list or who visit your site are based in the EU (which includes the UK); or

2. You use EU-based languages to market your goods and services; or

3. Your domain name ends with an abbreviation that’s EU-based (e.g., .co.uk for the United Kingdom, .es for Spain); or

4. You accept payment in Euros; or

5. You target European countries for sales, including the United Kingdom.

So, yes dolls. If your subscribers and clientele exist entirely within the US, the GDPR does NOT affect you. But, how can we actually control if someone in the EU goes to your website or not?! Hey, I rather have a worldwide brand rather than limit myself within the borders of the US, wouldn’t you?!

I did a little research in my analytics and discovered that 3% of the POSH PR® audience IS in the UK. So what were my next steps? Finding someone who knows what they are talking about. I went straight to one of my attorneys who helped me draft a GDPR compliant privacy policy and am SO relieved to be able to direct you to POSH PR’s new privacy statement here!

The most important lesson I learned, dolls, is to always go to someone who has worn the hat before, and knows how to wear it! 

Disclaimer: This post was written by me and is not intended as legal advice!

XoC