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This might be surprising, but I actually don't do contracts with my clients.
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I can't be bothered with it.
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It makes things too serious.
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And even if things go wrong, I'm probably never gonna seek any legal action.
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So, there is really no point for me. Because of that I make sure things don't go wrong.
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Here are a few precautions that I take, to make sure a project goes smoothly and I end up getting paid.
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This mainly applies working outside of platform. On the platforms like Upwork,
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The contract is taken care of there. It's in their interest that you get paid.
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And if something goes wrong, then they're going to mediate and decide who is right or wrong.
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Regardless if you are working with a contract, or not working with a contract,
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here are some precautions to take to make sure things don't go wrong.
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First, you have to make sure that you're clear with your client and then no surprises come up anytime
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in the project.
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For this, I use my proposal document and make sure everything is stated there that could potentially
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come up in the future.
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And if some disagreement comes up, then we can always go back to the proposal and see what saying there.
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When working with clients across the continents, it's often easier to break a contract, but not as easy
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to break and screw up a human to human relationship.
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So, when I work with clients and usually I do work with clients abroad and across continents,
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I try to have face to face on Skype mainly. Because having a face to face interaction with people and
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having this face to face relationship establish, creates a different sort of bond between clients and
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me. And breaking this relationship is much more difficult.
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If they've already seen me and if we had some interaction over the call, versus if I was just some guy
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with a profile picture and a user name, or just an email address. Plus I can gain a lot of information
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on my clients, by seeing them and talking to them. I use my [REMOVED] sensors that Mother Nature gave it
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to me and I can sense if there is anything dodgy and fishy about them.
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With new clients, I always invoice them step by step throughout the project.
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I don't wait for the entire project to be done with and then finally send the entire value and then
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, you know, hope that they're going to pay.
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If I'm working with complete strangers, that I haven't worked with and it's outside of the platform, then
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I'm going to ask for 25% upfront payment.
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This way, I can balance the risk between me and the client. Because if I ask them 100% upfront
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payment, then they are taking the full risk and I don't want to put my clients in that situation.
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Neither they will be willing to do. Or if I am charging
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at the end of the project, 100% then I am taking the full risk. By asking only 25% upfront,
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yes they are taking small risk, actually themselves, but at least I have 75% remaining payments
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to motivate me to do the rest of the job. With existing clients, that I've already worked with and I trust
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and they have already paid me for previous projects and always paid on time.
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Then I can relax and I can easily invoice them at the end of the project 100%. But that's
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what I do,
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that doesn't mean that you,
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that's what you should do as well. Judge for yourself and see the relationship that you have with your
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clients.
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I also, I often like to be trustful of my clients. And kind of, when I see that we have a good
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relationship, I do like to show them that I trust them and that I'm not suspicious of them. Because that
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sort of stuff.
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If I trust them, then they know that they can trust me.
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Sort of it's a mutual thing, if you trust them,
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then they feel this obligation that they have to trust you back. And it just creates a very good relationship.
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But if I'm always suspicious about them, then, you know, relationship is going to be a bit more
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cold. When you have a bad experience,
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adjust your strategy. When someone violates your trust and they don't pay you on time,
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then make sure to change your strategy.
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No excuses, no second chances and ask for upfront payments.
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I only had a payment issue once. I was working with this startup,
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I did the website for them. And they were waiting for an investment to come in and they couldn't pay
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me on time and I had to chase them. And it was unclear when they're gonna pay me, I had to call them
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and email them, all that stuff.
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They did end up paying me eventually and the delay wasn't that big.
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But after that moment, once they violated my trust, that's it for me. And then after that moment, everything
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that I had to do about the website, I was just billing them upfront.
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They were saying, you know, "Oh can you edit this?"
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I was like, "Sure,
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here is the upfront payment. You pay me, I do the job,
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If you don't pay me, I don't touch it at all.
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If someone shows you that they're not trustworthy,
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believe them. And take according measures. If you would feel safer to sign contracts or maybe your client
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is asking for one directly,
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then you can generate contract on Bonsai.
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Bonsai is this freelancer solution, which has invoicing proposals and things like that. And they also
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have this contract that you can generate for a specific design or a web design work.
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It's a really nice customisable contract.
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All the highlighted parts are what you edit and put your information in. The rest,
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you can keep intact, because it's been generated by their lawyers. Editing highlighted parts are very
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easy. And they give you an option and ask you straightforward questions, so you can answer those questions
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and you will easily kind of auto fill in a language that is suitable for contracts.
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They've done a great job.
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So, if you need it, just sign up with Bonsai and generate a contract there. I've played with it, but I've
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never used it on a real project, but if I ever need to, I'll certainly use it.