 Let's get in clients to sign on the dotted line. Oh, we started. All right, yes, so I'm Jill Anderson. I design and develop custom WordPress sites for creative professionals. And I've been doing this full-time for about 12 years now. Yeah, so this talk actually came from an idea talking to Sue about, you know, around some processes and things that I do with my clients to make sure we have a good relationship and get the project started in a good way. So I just want to share that experience with all of you. So yeah, so if you have a client, or maybe they're not your client yet, but they're interested in working with you and they want to talk to you and learn more, what do you do? Do you like start firing off ideas and jump into the project and think about money and time and all that later? Or, you know, do you want to step back a little and do some pre-work to make sure that everything goes smoothly? And I just want to say this process I'm going to share is my way. It's not the only way and you might differ in your approach and that's perfectly fine. So, you know, just take everything I say with a grain of salt and some of it I hope will work for your business and, you know, if there's other stuff then don't worry about it. All right, so yeah, so today we're going to talk about these four things. We're going to talk about contracts, vetting the prospect, we're going to talk about money, and preparing for a strong project kickoff. So the first thing is the contract and probably the most important, I think, of all of them. So is there anybody who does not use a contract right now? There's something in proposive mind but I don't know if that is actually a contract of legal... We'll figure that out. Yeah, so I say everybody needs a contract. I think if you're going to be successful as a business person and providing these services to your clients, you need to be on the same page with them. And that's really what a contract does. So whether it's a bunch of legalese or it's, you know, written in plain English and is super simple, either way a contract saying, here's what I'm going to do for you, here's what I can expect from you in return, we'll make a project much more successful. So do you need a lawyer? I don't think you necessarily need a lawyer to write out a contract to share it with your client, to have them sign it and to start the work. I think it can be a good idea to have an attorney review a contract just to make sure it's on the up and up and, you know, everything you're doing is good and in your best interest should you need, you know, should there be a dispute or a problem later on that your client or your contract will hold up. So having a lawyer review it would be awesome but you don't necessarily need a lawyer to start using contracts. And then what if they don't sign it? I've never had this problem in 12 years. I've never had a client say, all right, I'm ready but your contract, no, I just don't want to have anything to do with that because if they did say that I'd probably be like, oh, that's a giant red flag, like why not? So I'd say if the contract shouldn't be like a deterrent for people working with you. If anything, I think a contract should make people feel more comfortable about working with you because you value yourself as a business professional and you have your client's best interests in mind so having that and showing that at the beginning of the relationship I think just can only make things better. So what to include in your contract and then Sue you asked about what is it, are these things in that agreement or contract that you're working on? So there's usually a terms and conditions section. This can be a bunch of legalese. It's basically defining what you're going to talk about in the contract like I'm the designer, you're the client, you might have designer tools, you might have deliverables. So words that you'll see throughout the contract, they'll be defined in this like terms and conditions section. Effective dates. You don't want your prices to be effective forever, right? Like if somebody comes back three years after you send them an estimate, is that estimate the cost or is that what you're supposed to charge them three years later? So you should have some language in there about how long this estimate is valid for and if in your effective dates, this could be a section where you talk about if any applicable fees, if things go on longer than they should. That kind of stuff. So also fees and charges. You should define for your clients, okay, here's what I'm going to expect in terms of payment timeframe. I usually break my projects into thirds, but session this morning, like maybe I should do that like over months, like over six months or something. So however you do that, you want to define that for your clients so they know what to expect. And also what happens if payments are late? Are you going to charge them a late fee? What does that look like? Because they will be clients that will pay you late. You want to protect yourself if it's super late and you want to charge them fees for that. Grant of rights, you need to say who owns what and when. I mean for me, once I have received full payment, then the client has the right to use all my work and do whatever they want with it. Different fields might do different things with how they grant rights, but whatever it is. Is this where you would also mention that they would allow you to show the work you did for them on your website as a sample? Yeah, that would be a good place to say like, hey, I want to include... Yeah, if you want to include that on your portfolio or submit to design awards or anything like that. Anything you're going to do, it's a good place to state that somewhere in your contracts. But grant of rights would be good for that. Client responsibilities, so what happens if the client turns out to be awful? Like if they don't make timely decisions or don't provide you the content on time, which happens all the time, it feels like. What if there are errors in the project that are found six months or a year later? Who's going to be responsible for that? I don't want to be responsible for that. So my contract is going to state that upon the client signing off on it and everything that is now back in their hands should there be errors. Confidential information, of course, you want to be upstanding and not disclose anything you might learn during the project to other clients or industries or whatever that the client wouldn't be happy about. So definitely let them know that you'll keep it all in your head and nowhere else. So relationship of the parties, like I'm an independent contractor and there's no exclusivity. You're not an employee, I mean I guess if you wanted to be, but this wouldn't be what we would be discussing then. And then you, or at least I state that if a dog trainer hires me to do their site then I can do another site for five other dog trainers and nobody has the right to have me not take on other work that I want to. Warranties are, again, in the future what's it going to be like for this project? Your time period supports after the project is done for a website of course that might live for years after it's launched. What are you responsible for? So in my contract I say if you find something within 30 or 90 days of it launching, a bug or something crazy, I will fix that as part of the project fee. I have a maintenance plan so I also put some language in about what that includes. Your liability section, again in the future, something happens, who's responsible, you want to not be responsible basically. Term and termination is what if the project gets canceled? What if you need to cancel the project because the client is terrible and you're just ready to be done with them? You should have some language in your contract that allows you to do so. Also, if the project stalls, like if your clients are not giving you what you need to finish this project, I have some language in my contract if it's been over 90 days, I haven't heard from them. The project can go on hold and I have a restart fee so it's going to cost you 500 bucks or 10% of the project fee, whatever's greater, to restart it again. I have exactly, yeah, $500 or 10% I think, whatever's greater as a restart. I haven't actually billed a client that, but I've referenced it before, hey, I realize it's been a few months, we really need to get back on track here. I don't want to have to enforce this thing and usually the idea of having to pay more money to get people moving, hopefully get the project done. And miscellaneous stuff, terms can be modified but only in writing. Client can authorize expenses, orally revisions. Any disputes must go through arbitration. That's an important part. I've had clients want their deposit back and I really had this happen really twice, but once where they were really nasty about it and I thought I did a really good job on the work I'd done so far. So the amount of the deposit, which in my contract I say it's non-refundable, kind of makes it so that if we went through arbitration it wouldn't be in their best interest to really pursue that. I don't want them to take me to Small Claims Court. I think stating that arbitration should be used can be a good thing. And of course signatures on the contract makes it all real. Some resources. My contract is actually based off the AIGA's standard contract and has just been modified over the years. Freelancers Union has a good one too. So those are good places to check out. I'll share links to these slides too at the end if you don't get everything written down. Alright, so once you have your contract you want people to be able to sign it online just make it super easy so clients don't you know you don't want to be faxing or anything crazy like that these days. So I use Hello Sign. I love Hello Sign. I think it's like 13 bucks a month or something. I think it's a pretty affordable fee for what you get. Which is really easy signing. Really easy you know I upload a PDF put my signature fields where I want have the dates reflected where they when they signed it it updates the date for me and my signature and then keeps an archive of that for me so I can go back and look to this client sign their contract to this client sign their contract. And then I also put a link up on my website which is JillLynDesign.com slash terms which has links to download my contract PDF and then also links over to Hello Sign. So you definitely want someplace to sign online and links for where people can access those. So now we get into like oh somebody wants to work with me okay well what do you do? Your next step is qualifying and vetting the client. Because just because someone wants to work with you doesn't mean you want to work with them. Maybe it's just sowing your own but you know once you've been in business long enough you start to realize not everybody is a good fit. And for me having a consultation call I call it a free chat 30 minutes just to get ideas about the project you know make sure that I can communicate with this person it just goes a long way to knowing that it's going to be a successful project. So yeah consultation calls you know if you're you can certainly meet people in person if your clients are local to you that's also an option my clients are all over the place so calls are the way to go I usually do mine just as phone calls but you know Zoom chats or you know however video conferencing however you want to do it and then I use an online scheduler calendar to make it really easy for people to schedule calls with me. I started using this like a year or two ago and I was like where was this thing all my life because it is like hands down one of the best ways to save time because I just say here's my Calendly link Calendly.com slash Jill Anderson and I have it I schedule my calls Tuesday Wednesdays Thursdays from 10 to 2 because that's good for me my kids aren't home they're super loud they don't like to be on the phone when they're around it's not too early in the morning and I have it synced with my Google calendar so like if I make a doctor's appointment or something it'll take that off my availability and then it's just like hey you client pick a time that works super easy for you and we'll save back and forth emails and all that trying to pick a time and on this consultation call you definitely need to discuss time frame budget and where they are in the decision making process so I start off each call really by saying alright tell me a little bit about your business and your project and we'll see how I can help and then I just let them talk and I just sit back and listen and doing active listening to really get an idea okay am I going to be able to communicate with this person does this project seem like it's going to be fun am I the best fit for it maybe they want something that I don't do or I can't do or I don't want to do so really just listening to their needs and then you start offering some solutions but not you don't want to do the work for them at this point at all it's more like yeah I think this would be a good fit here's how I think I can help you but yeah definitely discussing alright what's your timing like you know am I going to be able to meet that time frame and budget how much money do you have but also you know a lot of times clients don't want to give you their budget but you know letting them know your ranges or fees you know in some way so that you know you're on the same page and they're not thinking it's a thousand dollars and you're thinking it's five thousand dollars and where they are in the decision making process they could just be starting or they could be like ready to go and I think it's important to know that so that you can respond adequately and you know take the time you need with them if they're ready to go and you really like this project feels like a good fit you know you might be more out to really pursue it and then of course paying attention to the red flags while you're on this call or even in person just to know like maybe this isn't going to work out so these are some various ones yeah if they don't have a budget it's like well why are we talking if you have no money to give me if they badmouth previous creatives or previous service providers that are what you do you know everybody's had bad experiences and that's fine and we're human and you know if they want to talk about it that's great but if they do it in like a disrespectful way you know maybe the problem isn't the creative it's the client so you just want to keep an eye on you're out for that you're having communication issues you know you're just not gelling well they have trouble defining what they want that can always lead to issues later if they're in a rush like I don't take on rush work it just gives me anxiety and it's no fun you know you might love rush work so good but if they're in a rush might not be the best fit for me if they talk about their personal lives a lot you know you might have to always hear that on the phone with them this is a business thing we're into you know sell websites or whatever it is we're doing we don't need to hear the drama in their lives if they stand you up that's like a big red flag like look we have this meeting on the if you can't make it that's fine but let me know will we schedule or whatever but you know if they just don't show up that's that's no good they want everything that's never good you want to be able to rein them in into like manageable phases of a project they're waiting for a check to clear that's not necessarily bad but you know I don't necessarily want to know about all your financial things I want to know that you're going to be able to pay me but I don't want to hear excuses either so and if they're too busy doing other things while they're talking to you they're putting you on hold you know that's probably might be an indicator of how the project's going to go and that might not be good either so keep an eye out for this when you're vetting people and your own personal red flags too as to you know things you want to stay away from okay so you've got your contract and you've talked to somebody so the next part of this process show me the money and I don't think any project is real until you've received money for it so any new client if they want me to start a project they're going to have to give me a deposit you know everybody's always excited, ready to go, let's get this started we've got great ideas but that's not going to happen I'm not going to put you in my calendar and schedule out your project until you've given me some money for it I gave somebody a deposit once I packed them on the computer and they really ripped me off they ended up doing nothing and it wasn't possible to get my deposit back of course but did you have a contract with them? how do you talk to people about leaving a deposit what do you say to them? like they're going to make a deposit for your service for your service, for our services I mean I say a deposit's important just because you want to schedule time in your calendar for their project and you can't really do that or I won't unless I have a deposit it also if you never took deposits you might not ever know when people are ready to actually start on a project how do you talk to them? about a deposit I'm just very forthright about it I break payments into thirds I require a third upfront and once you pay that deposit and sign my contract then that's when we can get the project scheduled and ready to start I also usually book a few months out so I try to say the sooner you get me that deposit in contract the sooner you're going to get I'm going to be able to get to your project so I think it's pretty commonplace in a service industry to have a deposit you know because you don't want to give away your time and start working on stuff without that so when I say my investment or proposal or whatever it is I always say deposit required to initiate work on the project and when you allow them to pay online like through harvest or PayPal or Stripe or whatever it is usually it's pretty quick so they're anxious to get moving and they know you're not going to even look at it until they pay up that credit card makes it pretty easy for them and I found that that's been a lot faster to get people motivated than waiting on them to mail you a check and write the check and they have to find a stamp and just give them an online option to click approval I give you're able to pay online credit card or I will accept checks too just because some clients have to do it that way that's fine I think that just goes towards your overall marketing strategy too and showing you have this buttoned up contract and process that you're a professional that they can trust you with their money you're not just going to run away but packaging it up I guess that could be a talk all on its own is whether your website prices are on your project prices are on your website do you offer any packages too because when we talk about money with clients if they've seen what they can expect it can be a lot easier of a conversation so I have packages on my website and I have my starting fees for those so when I'm having a consultation call I can say hey have you been on my services page services so it can be a good way to get that money conversation started with knowing that they have an idea and then you definitely want to use accounting software like Sue said there's all kinds of ones I love fresh books I've been a customer of theirs since 2008 they are awesome they're not the only ones like Harvest, QuickBooks 17 hats 17 hats yeah so all kinds of different ones the only thing I say about any accounting software you use is I think it should allow you to make one email to the client that you can customize so once I talk to a client I want them to get just one email from me with everything they need to get started I don't want there to be a lot of back and forth and different emails from here and let me find the contract here and find this estimate over here just one place, one thing they can reference it's all there for them so the email that I send out with fresh books when I send out an estimate or invoice they have a place where you can put in your text so I have this boilerplate text that I copy on in there I usually send this out right after the consultation call right after we get off the phone just get it out of the way and I'm going to tell them right here I want to work with you I'm currently booking projects to start like right now I'm booking projects for July I do have a questionnaire I use so I throw that link in there I think that's a good way to get people started to think like what you're going to talk about or what information you're going to need from them and then I have my three steps like once these items are completed then we can get our kickoff session started so I want them to review and accept the estimate and fresh books you can like accept the estimate like click a button then I'll send them an invoice so they need to pay that invoice and sign my contract so there's that link back over to my contract on hello sign and then you know I look forward to working with them so they get this email from me after every consultation call and then hopefully you've gotten your contract you've gotten your deposit and now you have an official project so yay so this is like an extra step here at the end they've signed on the dotted line but it's that way to kind of move that from okay now we've been doing client onboarding and now we're actually going to start off a project so I also have a kickoff call again I like to talk to people on the phone or if they were in person you could do it that way too and then now is where we really get into the nitty-gritty of the project and start discussing what we're going to do so using a project questionnaire can be great as the scope of work that's the questionnaire that I placed in that email that I sent with my estimates and now finally you can get to work through all of that and that's it so that's the process, fairly easy and straightforward and then of course here's links to the slides and all of these fun stuff you can get from me no one can talk about what happens next that could be like another presentation like oh no let's go