Hey, welcome back. Marianne DeNovellis here with the Six Figure Mastermind and we're
going to be putting together your sales contracts. We've got some key things that
you need to remember to include in there so keep watching and stay tuned.
Alright, congratulations. You made the sale but now what do we do? We need a
contract, something to sign seal and deliver and make all the expectations
clear all across the board. I want you to take some really good notes on this one,
pull out a piece of paper, you know, wherever you're sitting, take some notes
on this one cause I'm going to give you several bullet points on what needs to
be included in your contract to not only make it legal and binding but to make a
quality contract. There's a big difference between just saying I will do
this and you will pay me this versus here's what I'm committing to and here's
how I'm going to show up and what's my exit strategy and all of those things
completely thought through. In order to make a contract that is really going to
serve you really well and especially cover you in case anything happens,
you're going to want to have the following. The first thing that you need
in your contract is obviously it needs to be called a contract or a sales
contract, that title needs to be on there. Something that you wouldn't normally
think about, you think it'd be obvious but often times, it gets forgotten so you
need to include in the title of your contract that it is in fact a contract.
The second thing you need in a contract is every party involved needs to be on
the contract, they need to be named in detail. So for example if you're using a
party that has a super long name and the contends it down to an abbreviation, you
need to spell out that name and say hereafter referred to as and put the
abbreviation, all of those parties need to have their names, their phone numbers,
their email addresses and physical mailing addresses all within the
contract. Now that could be in multiple places, it could be in the top
and the address, it could be within the body of the contract, it could be at the
bottom of the contract. I would recommend putting it in more than one place on
your contract so that whenever you need to get a hold of someone, let's say
there's something that you need to discuss about your contract or
fulfillment or payment, that you have multiple ways of getting a hold of them.
Every single manner that we used to communicate, you need to have on your
contract so again, that's full name, full legal name of the company, address,
mailing address if that's different, phone number and email, all of those need
to be on the contract and the correct addresses, you've got to have everything
up to date on your contract the. Third thing that you're going to need in your
contract is description. This is where contracts
tend to get a little bit wordy and we sometimes go into this
legalese thing and the shells and the we hearin twos and all of this fun stuff.
Keep it simple, you're totally allowed to do that but make a full description of
exactly what it is that's going on. If you're offering a product or a service
or program, something that needs your contract, describe in full, A to Z, what
your program is going to do, what value are you providing, what are you
committing to do, how much time are you committing to put into it,
what's your increments of time. For example, if you're in a coaching contract
and you're an entrepreneur who's a coach, you're going to say I'm meeting with you
for example every six weeks from Tuesdays between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m., that
needs to be on your contract. If you don't have a specific time or date or or
schedule, you can say, we will be meeting once a month for at least an hour you
can give yourself as much flexibility in as you want. The funny thing with
contracts is you can put anything in them, as long as it's legal moral and
ethical, you can put whatever you want into a contract. In fact, if you really
wanted to, you could put you have to bring me a Reuben sandwich every Tuesday
at noon, you could put that in your contract and if they sign on it, they'd
have to do that. Don't be crazy, don't be one of those
guys. I'm not saying you should but what I am saying is that whatever you need to
put in your contract, it's legal, moral and ethical, it's totally okay. You can do
whatever you need to do in your contracts, okay. Just be cool about it.
Here's also what you're going to do is any guarantees. The fourth thing that
on your contract is any guarantees on your product or your service. Anything
that you offer is a guarantee and any stipulations if that guarantee is not
met. Sometimes that's referred to as an exit
strategy, you just need to make sure that your bases are covered as far as what
you're promising to do and what happens if that promise does not get fulfilled
on. You also need to include the price for whatever product or service that
you're offering. That price needs to be spelled out not only in the full dollar
amount but also if you're making payments or you have a payment schedule,
you need to make sure that you spell out verbatim, how much the contract
is being paid for on a regular pay and when those payments are due and the
penalty if those payments are not. Again, every contract has an exit strategy for
every part of the contract or a penalty if you will, I don't like to use the word
penalty but really that's what it is. Every contract needs to tell you what
exactly you're agreeing upon and basically what will happen if that
agreement is not kept. So you've got to have your price and you've got to have
your pricing schedule on the contract, it's part of the signature. Again, we
talked about penalties. You need to have penalties for the buyer and the seller.
Oftentimes when there's a contract, there's a duration of time in which the
contract is fulfilled so for example, if you have a home builder and they are a
contractor, no pun intended, and they are contracting to do all of this for
your home, they're putting the paint on the walls and they have the
electrical guy come in and all of that's part of your contract and let's say they
decided to put on the contract that the home would be done six months to the day
from the date the contractor signs, if that home is not built within that six
month timeframe, there's a penalty, there's either a discount on services or there's
a whatever a stipulation you want to put in as a penalty for that not being
fulfilled. Now on the other side, someone is paying this contractor to build their
home and maybe they're making monthly payments, maybe that they're late on one
payment or they miss a payment, there needs to be a stipulation covering the
contractor for whatever the seller or the buyer is not bringing to the table.
So you're both in a contract making an agreement. I commit to do this,
I commit to bring this value and we're going to have a value exchange. If
that value exchange is not according to what the stipulations of the contract
says, you've got to have your bases covered as far as how you're going to
work with that. The last thing you need on your contract is a subjection. The
subjection is, I always included my contract subject to the laws of the
state of and then whatever state I'm doing the contract in. I always put that
in there. Again, that's covering the basis so if you're making a contract in
Tennessee, always include in your contract subject to the laws of the
state of Tennessee. If you're in Virginia, same thing, subject to the laws of the
state of Virginia. I always always always include that line in any of my contracts
so that I am covered as far as the legal
system goes. I want to make sure that all of my contracts and all of my
stipulations are within the realms of what is technically legal
so I'm always saying, subject to the laws that are within the state of Utah for
example. The state of Utah for example has a three-day right of rescission so
if a three-day right of rescission is enforced, that's well within the terms of
the contract because I put that line in there because it's subject to the laws
of the state and then of course at the very end, you need to have signatures. Now
nowadays, e-signing is very very popular, you can use Adobe or e-signature or
anyone of any other electronic signing documents. An e-signature is just as
legal and valid as a physical signature, that's why we can sign for your credit
cards on a signature tablet at the grocery store, essentially every time you
do that, you're signing a contract because you click the box that I say I
accept the terms and condition of using this card. Every time you sign your name
on a purchase, you're essentially signing a contract so your digital signature is
every bit as good as a physical signature. So you basically got it
covered A to Z, you've got all the parties involved, you've got all the
stipulations of the contract penalties, you've got all the details of the value
exchange, you've got your signatures, you've got covered under the state of
whatever state you're in, you've got everyone there present and ready to sign
at the same time and everything is documented digitally and do yourself a
favor, print off a physical copy of your contract so you can store that on hand
for whatever emergency you might need, maybe your computer crashes or maybe
some email gets lost, you've got a physical copy right there in your hands
at all times. Contracts are very simple, they're not as complicated as everyone
thinks, all you need to do is just make sure all your bases are covered and do
yourself another favor of keeping a live living copy and by that, I mean a digital
editable copy right on your hard drive so if you're selling the same product or
service or program over and over and over again, you can go back to that
document that's not signed by anybody it's just your template contract and add
or take away things that you're learning as you go, keep that on hand and you're
bound to be successful. Cool, you got through it, congratulations, that was a
lot of content. If you like what you're seeing, just go
ahead and hit the subscribe button. I'll see you tomorrow.