Do You / Should Use a Contract When Freelancing? Debate

idealmike Level X³

July 10, 2016, 7:13 pm

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When finding work online from a client who found your website or post on a forum or something and wants some work from you. Do you just take on the work straight away as soon as you've been paid or do you make them sign a contract first?

What about those times when you must do the work first and then take the payment after? Do you do the work first and then just wait to collect payment? Also, what if the client wants to cancel half way through? How are you compensated for that without a contract?

If you do use and require a signed contract first before you work, it can be a simple agreement that is made between you and your client that states what the terms of everything are such as that your work be carried out in time and be original and state when you should get paid and how. It can be a simple agreement and doesn't need to be anything complicated or hard to understand. But it can help to protect you when the unthinkable can happen which can happen sometimes throughout your freelancing career.

So knowing that, if I wanted to use contracts with my clients for some expensive work, what would be a good contract to use? What sort of things would I want to state and cover in that contract that were needed to be stated and covered?

And how would you get them to sign this if your relationship is purely online? Sending them a letter and waiting for them to sign it and send it back could take up to a week or more. So what is another way you can send them a contract online they can sign? A blank PDF file with a text field they can fill in? A fax!?

How to get around this if you want to use a contract with a client?

What sort of things should my contract state?

Thanks!

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TommyCarey

2 duplicate contracts that are both signed by me
1 heavy duty envelope that already has my address on it and paid postage
1 pen so they can sign as soon as they open the box
1 hand written letter letting them know I will do anything I can to bring them greatness

Putting all this in the box will help streamline the process of getting the contract back to you because all the client has to do is sign and put the contract back in the envelope and send it back.

After you weed out the people who are just thinking about increased rankings and the ones who really want it, you can ask the following or put it in your contract:

Go over what exactly you're going to do. Try not to leave anything out because it could bite you in the ass later on. If you say you're going to do on page optimization and they complain that you didn't post on their facebook page, you can refer back to the contract. My contracts have saved me a bunch of times because people thought they were getting something that we never even talked about.
Add in the length of the contract so that it's binding. I've had clients try to back out after month 1 or 2 and they have a 12 month contract. They claim they didn't agree to what they signed, but I always have our conversations recorded as well as all the email conversations
Add in the amount per month the client will be paying. You can even do biweekly payments if you want, but in my opinion and experience, monthly payments are much easier.

The only downside with requiring contracts, you can't enforce them well with clients that are out of the country you're in. If someone is out of the United States I won't ask them to sign a contract because I can't do much if they stop paying me Do You / Should Use a Contract When Freelancing?

Do You / Should Use a Contract When Freelancing?

Hey IdealMike, I've used contracts with plenty of my clients who spend $100 to $3,000 a month for their SEO and Online Marketing services through us. Whenever I have someone wanting to sign up I'll let them know that the process of SEO and Online Marketing could take 3 to 6 months to see any kind of ROI. I let them know that if they are in a tough niche that it could even take up to a full year to see their rankings increase because of their competition. When I tell people this it will usually give me an indication on if they are committed to their website or if it's just a hobby. The more committed they are, the more they'll be willing to sign up because you're being honest with them. If they can't afford it because they're new, I usually try to work something out with them. After you figure out if they're really wanting to sign up, you'll need to get a contract to them. If the business, or person, if far from me I'll usually send them 2 of the same contracts. I will send 2 because I will sign both, they will sign both and send one back to me. I'll send a box to them, not a manila envelope with 2 contracts in it. The contents of the box will be as follows: [list][*]2 duplicate contracts that are both signed by me[/*][*]1 heavy duty envelope that already has my address on it and paid postage[/*][*]1 pen so they can sign as soon as they open the box[/*][*]1 hand written letter letting them know I will do anything I can to bring them greatness :D[/*][/list] Putting all this in the box will help streamline the process of getting the contract back to you because all the client has to do is sign and put the contract back in the envelope and send it back. After you weed out the people who are just thinking about increased rankings and the ones who really want it, you can ask the following or put it in your contract: [list][*]Go over what exactly you're going to do. Try not to leave anything out because it could bite you in the ass later on. If you say you're going to do on page optimization and they complain that you didn't post on their facebook page, you can refer back to the contract. My contracts have saved me a bunch of times because people thought they were getting something that we never even talked about.[/*][*]Add in the length of the contract so that it's binding. I've had clients try to back out after month 1 or 2 and they have a 12 month contract. They claim they didn't agree to what they signed, but I always have our conversations recorded as well as all the email conversations :D[/*][*]Add in the amount per month the client will be paying. You can even do biweekly payments if you want, but in my opinion and experience, monthly payments are much easier.[/*][/list] The only downside with requiring contracts, you can't enforce them well with clients that are out of the country you're in. If someone is out of the United States I won't ask them to sign a contract because I can't do much if they stop paying me :(

10 years ago