Protecting Your Business With Contracts

Have you reviewed your contracts recently? Do you have my number one contract clause included in your contracts to protect your business?

It’s easy to own a business, but it’s a lot harder to run a business. And a huge part of running a business is making sure that you are legal and making sure that you’re protecting yourself, your vendors and your clients.

Contracts are an important part of a service-based industry. We’re responsible for a lot of liabilities, so having tight knit contracts is essential. Make sure you have a good creative lawyer – before you use any contracts, make sure you have a lawyer check them out. Having a professional legal review will save you so much stress and give you the peace of mind to use your contracts with confidence that they’re shielding your business from liability.

I have six contract essentials that I always include to protect my business. Here’s one of the most important things I always include in a contract: a payment schedule. By including a breakdown of all payments, calling out payment amounts and due dates, you are serving your business by guaranteeing your client has agreed to provide payment as scheduled and in full.  

Here are a few of the things I include in the payment schedule section of my contracts:

• Retainer (call out that this is a non-refundable deposit – this will be important if someone cancels and asks for a full refund after you’ve already invested hours into their event)
• Installments (highlight the dates and amounts that the client will be responsible for leading up to the big day)
• Late fee clause (this is so important – don’t be afraid to say something like: “failure to provide payment will result in an additional charge for every day past due”)

Want to learn more about how I use contracts to protect my business? What I include in my different types of contracts for clients and vendors? How I outline pricing and services in contracts? We're talking about all of this and more in our 2022 Mae&Co Monthly contract courses. Plus, don't forget to shop our available contracts - these are the contracts I use for Mae&Co Creative!

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