Small Business Growth Community Podcast

My Clone Solution

Join our members and resources that are talking about business topics that each of us has struggled with at one point or another in our entrepreneurship journey.

Each episode will give you tips that you can implement today for big change!

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Episodes

ADA Compliant Websites How to Protect Yourself From ADA Lawsuits As a Small Business Owner with Elliot Garcia of AccessiBe
Dec 15 2023
ADA Compliant Websites How to Protect Yourself From ADA Lawsuits As a Small Business Owner with Elliot Garcia of AccessiBe
Picture this ... As a small business owner, you hired someone to design and build you a beautiful or functional website to showcase your business online. It is perfect... everything looks good. everything works. you are driving traffic and you are even getting conversions from it... then you get a notice in the mail from an attorney that says your website is not ADA compliant and you are being sued for discrimination I am completely on the side of all people not dealing with discrimination but the rules and laws associated with ad compliance say that reasonable accommodation needs to be made for all places of business including your website. As with anything this reasonable accommodation costs us money so most small business owners skip over this step until the day this letter shows up and now it's too late... you have been sued. You have now joined the ranks for Hulu, Burger King, Beyonce, Amazon, and my client a local insurance company based in a little suburb of Tampa, FLSome of these lawsuits may have been warranted but others are money grabs for lawyers and disabled groups and people all over the US. In my client's case, this was one of those ambulance chaser situations with the goal of getting their liability insurance to pony up and settle the lawsuit because settling is easier and cheaper than going to court. So how much did they get? Let's just say the average is between $5k and $50 for a small insurance agency outside of Tampa. The first thing my client did was blame the web designer for not making the site ADA-compliant. The problem here was 99% of web designers don't even take this into consideration we have a hard enough time pleasing the client but what if your website needed to look like the DMV website AND cost hundreds of $$ to check and maintain each month. You wouldn't do it. I had to add a clause to my website contracts that offers ada compliance via an external software that keeps your website compliant for all disabilities according to the standards that need to be maintained. It will cost you but it's minimal when you consider how 1 lawsuit will drive up your insurance costs or potentially make you uninsurable. That's what brings me to have our guest on today... Please welcome Elliott, he is my partner care associate with AccissiBe