‘C’ is for Contract

Once we landed our first big client, I spent a big chunk of money to have a lawyer create a contract template for us. The template is massive – about nine pages in total – and outlines our scope of services as well as termination clauses and who owns the rights to what we create. In our line of business a contract is pretty standard.

It wasn’t until a few years after we opened our doors, that I realized how important this contract template really is … you see, we had a client who refused to pay their invoices.

A quick call with our lawyer (more from him when we get to ‘L’ is for Lawyer) and we knew we were in the right … we’d performed the services that were agreed to and should have been paid for our time. The contract spelled everything out, down to where we’d go to court, if it came to that.

Contracts are important in our type of work (and many others) and without a good contract, it leaves you and your company quite exposed. I remember when we were working with our lawyer, feeling cranky about all of the money we were spending for ‘what if’ scenarios. But I’m sure glad that no one listened to me and we pushed forward with getting that contract template together. In the words of my father, “It saved our buttskis”.