- If you're a creative who's working
with clients on projects, then you absolutely need
to have a contract.
In this video, I'm gonna tell you the three reasons why
and also give you some advice for putting one in place.
(bouncy music)
Let's start with the most obvious reason, shall we?
Having a contract will help you get paid on time.
When you issue a contract, it'll include details
of the exact amount they're going to pay you,
when that payment is due, and also the products
or services that you're gonna be providing to them
in exchange for the payment.
When you've got a contract laid out like this,
there's no room for miscommunications
or misunderstandings about due dates or payment amounts,
it's all there in black and white
and you've both signed it.
In a good contract, everything will be clear
and nothing will be left up to chance.
In my contract that I use with my clients,
I have a clause that says that I won't hand over
the final assets until they've made that final payment.
And it also means that the deadline for handing over
those final assets is extended by how many days
the client is late paying it.
So, I can't be the one who's late on the deadline
if the client hasn't paid yet.
Having this in the contract spells it out
and the client knows the consequences
for not meeting the payment deadline
and also I'm not left wondering what to do
when the client doesn't pay on time.
The second reason why you should absolutely use a contract
is professionalism.
If you want to be seen as a professional in your industry,
you've got to act like one.
A contract isn't just there to protect you as the designer,
it's also there for the benefit of the client.
It's an agreement between two professionals
about how you're gonna work together on this project.
So a contract should detail the exact work services
that you are going to provide to the client
in exchange for their fee and that way,
they know exactly what to expect from you
and it's all there in writing.
Part of being a professional is dealing with copyright
and the legalities of, you know, licensing your work
or transferring your ownership to your client.
And a contract is a great way to handle this.
In my contract, for example, I detail
that the client doesn't own the assets
until they've paid the final amount.
So, until they're paid up in full,
the work isn't theirs and it still belongs to me.
And this benefits the client too,
because after the work is complete,
they'll have a legal document that says
what their rights for using the work are,
whether that's licensing rights we've agreed
that they can use it for a set number of years
or for a set purpose or uses,
or whether they own the work outright.
Overall, having a contract in place
will show the client that you're a professional,
that you take your work seriously,
and that you're gonna take their project seriously.
The third big reason for why you should
use a contract is process.
Do you like how this is three Ps fitting together
quite nicely?
A contract isn't just for the start
and the end of a project.
It's also detailing what happens along the way.
Here's a scenario for you:
you've got a deadline to meet with the work
that the client set.
This is when they need to launch the project
so that's when you need to have the work completed by.
You send them a piece for feedback
and you know you're gonna have
probably a week's amount of work to do
after they come back with their feedback
on refining things and you're exporting the final assets.
If the client doesn't reply to you for several days,
do you then have to cram that week's worth of work
into the few days before the deadline?
Or does the deadline get pushed out?
Your contract should detail this.
In my contract, I have a clause about client feedback
that details that I need to receive feedback
within 48 or 72 hours, depending on the length
of the project and if the client doesn't respond
in that time with their feedback,
then the deadline will be extended by the number of days
that they're late.
Putting this in as part of the contract
makes the whole process smoother
because everyone knows what's expected of them
at each point in time.
Hopefully you're now on board
and believe that you do need a contract.
So, how are you gonna go about it?
Writing a contract from scratch is really difficult.
I'm not sure of the legalities involved in that.
That is definitely not something I can advise on.
What I've done throughout my freelance career
is use templates.
Using a template means that someone else
has done the hard work for you
and you can adapt little pieces here and there
to suit your needs and, you know,
your timeframes and things like that.
In the past, I've used a contract template
that I got as part of the Shawnwes Learn Lettering course,
but recently I've discovered a really cool site
that offers a bunch of different contract templates
for pretty much every type of creative work
you can imagine.
It's call The Contract Shop and I personally have downloaded
the graphic design one to use
because that's what my freelance work tends to be.
These templates come with instructions on how to use them
and the site owners are wonderful as well.
They've been super-responsive to my questions
and, yeah, they'll help you out figuring out
which contract is gonna be best for you.
Personally, I think that a contract template
is worth investing in because it's an essential part
of doing your business.
And it's not like you have to buy a new one
for every single project.
You can reuse the contract template
and you know, update it with the correct details
for whichever project you're working on
and it'll be useful for many years to come.
So once you've got your contract template in place,
you need to send it out for every single project
that you do.
Even if it's only, like, a hundred dollar project,
even if it's only gonna take you a few days,
it's worth the time to send out a contract
because of those three reasons that I mentioned before.
You might feel just a tiny case
or maybe even quite a big case of imposter syndrome
when sending out your contract to a client.
The first few times it can feel like,
I don't know, you're saying that you're a much bigger deal
than you are or you don't trust the client or something.
That's just absolutely not what the client is gonna think,
I promise you.
Having a contract, like I said, is just a professional part
of doing business.
Remember, a contract is there to benefit you both
and it's kind of like insurance,
in that you've got it and you hope
you're never gonna have to use it,
but if the moment arises, you're really glad
that it's there.
When you do send the contract through to the client,
first of all, it's really good to use a system
like Hello Sign, Docusign,
so that they can sign it digitally.
But when you do send it through,
don't just send it with no explanation.
I find it's really good to detail a few points
in the email so that they've got the gist of it.
So I basically send it through saying,
"Here's the contract.
"It details that you're gonna do this,
"I'm gonna do this.
"This is how much it's gonna cost.
"This is when it's due."
Like, put those main points in as some bullets.
Tell them to read over it and sign it if they're happy.
So I hope now you feel a little bit more confident
and know where to start with putting a contract in place.
I know it can seem like a big scary business thing to do
when you're just getting started,
but if any money is changing hands,
you absolutely need a contract.
I'll leave a link in the description to The Contract Shop
so you can go and check that out
and see if there's a template that fits your needs.
Like I said, I think it's worth investing in
and I also think it's definitely worth investing the time
in setting one up as part of your creative process.
Okay, thanks for watching.
Give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it
and I will see you in the next one.
Bye.
(bouncy music)