Ensure Digital Signature Legitimacy for Freelance Contracts in United States

How to eSign a document: digital signature legitimacy for Freelance Contract in United States

Do you need a contract if you work as a freelance social media manager? And if yes, what do you put in that contract? Who sets the social media contract? You are your client. Do you need a tool to send that contract or to sign that contract? These are all things we're going to cover in today's video. And I'm actually going to share with you a real-life example of a contract I've been using for the past few years with my client. But before we dive in, I would love for you if you're new to this channel to subscribe and give it a thumbs up. If you find the content valuable. OK, so now let's talk all things contracts, social media management contracts. Should you have one or not? It's a strong yes from me, and there are several reasons apart from the obvious where you would state what the pricing of your package is. You would obviously, of course also put in the dates when you start working with your clients and when the contract ends. But more importantly, also, how to cancel the contract. Then again, I'm going to share with you in a minute right away what that looks like. But the most obvious thing to put in that contract, but still a lot of people forget is your actual package, because I don't suggest working on an hourly basis with your clients. You want to put in your social media management package. So what is it that you're actually offering? And it's more like a result based on how you work with your clients rather than on an hourly rate. Right. Let's dive right in to the contract and I'll share with you exactly what I mean. Right now here in my contract, and I'm just sharing it with you as I have it as a Google doc so I can constantly change things. And then I would send it as a PDF to my clients. Now again, I'm going to share with you tools that you can use at the end of this video if you. However, first starting out, you might not have the budget to invest in fantasy tools later on you definitely want to do that because it helps with a smooth client onboarding process. And as well with cutting down your time in the beginning for your first and second clients, you're simply going to use a Google doc, save it as a PDF and then you can sign it online. Right, First of all, the obvious one you're going to write down, when is this contract going to start and who are the two parties involved? And then you can name the company and client you're working with. And I always call myself in the contract consultant or service provider. You can also call yourself social media manager, and you use that word moving forward in the contract. Then right away, we have the most important part, and that is what is your actual social media management package? In this example, I'm showing you Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest. I’m sharing in that, what are the things I am going to do for the client? However, as you can see, I'm not sharing any time. I'm not saying every day I'm spending 5 hours or your account or 5 minutes on your account because I have very good workflows in the first month or two It might take a little bit more time, but then as I move on, it will be quicker and I don't want the client to know that. And they shouldn't care anyway because they should care about the results I get them. So here you want to put in your exact package for your client. So map out what are you going to do for them. If you have specific KPIs a.k.a numbers you need to achieve, you put them in here as well. So that's the second part already done. And then we're going to go in the terms of the agreement, a.k.a. when is the contract going to start? And then how long will it be? And this is crucial, you guys. You definitely want to have a minimum of three months. The contract is to be a minimum of three months. If you work with a client for only one month, it's very hard to get results on organic social media marketing. It's different with paid ads, but still I'd prefer to have at least three months because the algorithm needs time to adapt until you actually see results. So I always do a minimum of three months. Obviously, at the time the client gets the contract, they already agreed to three months. You would see that on the discovery call, and then either party can cancel the contract with a thirty day advance. So that means you can't quit the contract on the 30 years of June. And then say, Oh, I don't want your services anymore as of July, you will then still have a full month of social media management and the client still has to pay that. The reason why we do that, it's pretty obvious what we don't want to happen is that suddenly at the end of the month, every client quits their contract for whatever reason and you are out of money. So that is why I constantly have a 30-day advance period where they have to tell you that they want to quit the contract. And the same goes for you. Obviously, not this specific contract. You can see it starts from the first of two. That means then if you want to quit the contract, it would be at the end of the month. Obviously, you don't have to start your contract all at the first. You could also start them in the beginning of the in the middle of the month. And I actually like that because that helps you with getting consistent cash flow. If everyone pays on the same day, then you run out of cash flow in the middle of the month. It's a bit tricky, right? So I like to have a consistent flow of clients, not just on the beginning of the month. Now here is something you have to look out for. If you do that, obviously you also have to send invoices during the month, in the beginning of the month, at the end of the month. And you have to make sure that those clients pay. That is when you do need the tool because the tool then will automatically send those invoices and send reminders. So you don't have to think about that. Then you need to move on. And these are more things of additional work and confidential informality in duration. I'm going to put that together. These are things you don't have to put in the contract, but I personally like it additional work simply just means if the client wants anything outside of this package, I can do it, but I will charge hourly or I will charge an extra amount of fee. So you can put that in here if you want to. I really just write that I personally will treat the information I get from the client as confidential so it's more for the client so that they feel, OK, she is a professional. She knows she can't just hand out that information. One thing I heard the other day, a woman say to me that a client wanted her to put in a competitor clause, which would mean you're not allowed to work with their competitors. I would never put that in a contract because as you know, I'm a huge fan of working in one niche. So if I only work with fitness coaches and then I have a competitor colause with my first client, then the whole I'm working with fitness coaches won't work anymore, right? So I don't work with clients who tell me that they want to have a competitive clause in their contract. And frankly, I also don't think many social media managers would do that. So be aware of that. Don't put it in the contract. And if the client says that they won't, that would be a red flag for me. Then the most important part, the payment you want to add and how much is the price of your package and when is it due? And here is an important thing. Your clients pay you up front so they pay before I start the work. So as you can see in this contract, it says the payment is due on before the first of each month. Right? When I wrote this contract, I also worked a lot with PayPal. So I don't do that as much anymore. So if you want to work with PayPal, put that in on top of the package price you agreed you can work with stripe. You still pay a fee, but it's lower. You want to make sure that you put these three things in your contract. What's the amount? When is it due and when do you send the invoice? That's actually four things. And the fourth thing, if there are any fees being covered by the client and I automatically say that stuff on Discovery call if someone asks me, what's your package price, I always say, let's say $1,500 a month plus 2.9% payment fees. Again, if someone doesn't pay with credit card and does a direct bank transfer, those fees will be taken away and you could put that in your contract. And then the last part is you will state that you are an independent contractor. You are paying your own taxes, you're paying your own government things, that you have to pay depending on each country and you're a completely separate entity from your client. You're not their employee. I just put that in there because some countries actually need that. If you hire an independent contractor that needs to be in there, for safety for both parties. But these are things that you need to have in your contract. Again, the confidential information you don't need to have it, but it is helpful and it shows the client that you care for them but definitely want to have is the payment information the terms of your agreement, your packages, when does it start? Who are the parties that are doing it and how can we cancel that contract? So now I'm just simply going to save it as a PDF and sign. You can use Adobe Sign for that, for example, and send it out. But if you have more than one client and you want to have a super smooth workflow, you might want to use one of these tools. There are three tools I suggest you look into, and then you pick the one that feels most intuitive for you. Number one is Dubsado. It's really cute. I like their design. It's a bit more for designers, and artists. I feel like you have more options to make it look nice. You can do drag and dropyour packages and then send out invoices, proposals, contract invoice reminders. Everything you can think of, you can just do a free trial. The second one is called Honeybook. It's similar again you can do contract invoices, cetera, so go and have a look at these two. And then the third one is called 17 Hats. Now I personally use 17 hats, but only because I've already been working with it for so long and it can't be arsed to change. I do personally feel that honey Boots and Dubsado have the better visual options, but I'm stuck with it now. So here's an example of how my contracts look and you can see it's super simple. I have my package beginning of the date, et cetera, and then just sign them. So I'm not going to share all of my client information but you get an idea on how it looks like. So have a look at these three tools and then you can send it out from there. Another option would be simply just to use and just send a contract via the signing tool. But you don't have the invoicing option, obviously. So this is what we call CRM tools are super helpful if you work as a freelance social media manager. All right, guys. Now, if you have no idea what to put in your social media management contract or what tasks you even should be doing as a social media manager, watch the next video that I'm going to link after this video about your social media management tasks and what you should be offering as a social media manager? See you soon