185 - You Need More Than One Contract

On today's episode of the podcast I share part five of the Contract Series where I discuss the reasons you need more than one contract in your business. A lot of us tend to only think about our Client Service Agreement when working on contracts for our business but there are other types of contracts you may need for your business so I'm breaking them down on today's episode. For downloadable contract templates, click here. 1. Client Service Agreement. This is the common, most important one, we sign with our clients. Typically, we need more than one Client Service Agreement. one for each service we offer and one for each package tier. I recommend having one template for each inside your CRM like Honeybook or Dubsado. 2. Contractor Agreement. This is what you will use if you're hiring a contractor to help with your business like a Virtual Assistant. If it's something project-based that the VA offers other people, ideally the VA should send you a Client Service Agreement because you are their client. If you are hiring them on a monthly basis to do a variety of hourly work then you would have them sin your contractor agreement in addition to their Client Service Agreement if they have one. Contractor agreements are also common when you are subcontracting work, for example a second shooter for a photographer. Check out my course Unf*ck Your Hiring for more on contractors and subcontracting contracts. 3. Wind-up Contracts. These are contracts any time you have a hiccup with a client (head back to episode 184) or you're wrapping up with a client or you're postponing your services. The other option is an addendum. I don't typically recommend this over a whole new contract unless it's just a small tweak or added little paragraph. 4. Website Contracts. The U.S. has a lot of privacy policies, though not as many as the EU, about what you can do with people's information when you're collecting it on your website. You have to have a privacy policy on your website, especially if you're collecting email addresses. These are pretty formulaic, there's not a lot you can change up in a privacy policy. You will also need a Web Terms of Service if you are selling something on your website if you have a purchase button on your website. This covers returns, warranties, shipping costs, etc. and this also applies to online digital contracts. 5. Intellectual Property Contracts. This includes Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) which are useful when someone needs to poke around your website or something with sensitive business information that they need better insight to before they can start on a project. An NDA comes before a full client service contract or contractor agreement. Another IP contract example is a licensing agreement, for example if you are going to license your content to someone else or provide another business with educational content they are going to provide to their members. 6. Guest Speaker/Podcast Contracts. These are for any time you're going to be a guest speaker, especially if there is payment involved. 7. Affiliate Agreement. This is not a partnership agreement, those are for people going into business together and splitting income and opening a joint bank account and getting an EIN. Oftentimes when people say partnership they mean affiliate, which is when you are teaming up to create a digital product together or one project or I'm going to help them sell something they're offering. 8. Partnership and Operating Agreements. These are like corporate bylaws. Whether you have a single member or multi-member LLC you need to have an operating agreement. This is a required corporate formality when forming an LLC and will protect you in a lawsuit from someone trying to pierce the corporate veil. Learn more and get templates through my program, Unf*ck Your Contracts, available here.