Unlock eSignature Lawfulness for Freelance Contracts in the European Union

How to eSign a document: eSignature lawfulness for Freelance Contract in European Union

I'm so excited about tonight's topic because it's about the legal aspects of freelancing and we have Marin here a real life lawyer who's going to educate us on how we can protect ourselves what I do want to say about contracts and the legalities is that if you are newer to freelancing and this feels a little bit overwhelming don't let it overwhelm you and if you have to just compartmentalize this for a time when you are a little bit further along in your business feel free to do that because I will say this if I had this presented to me when I first became a freelancer I think I would have been extremely overwhelmed I think one of my strengths and how I was able to launch myself into self-employment so quickly was because I didn't necessarily bog myself down with all of the details so this is good stuff to know but it's also well okay if you're not there yet it's okay right I want to just share with you kind of how this came about and why this is such a priority as a lot of you probably know already because I've shared it in the slack group and a little bit elsewhere podcast episode but I finally came to the point where I did have like a legal discrepancy and hired a lawyer to send demand letters for me and also just create freelance contracts for me and I invested a couple thousand dollars into that so I was so excited to have Marin on today because not everyone can afford to hire a lawyer for a couple thousand dollars number one number two and I'll tell you a little bit about my situation the amount that was owed to me that they were refusing to pay me and Marin you can tell me how you feel about this but it actually really wasn't worth me litigating over it was about two thousand dollars twenty four hundred dollars total and when I spoke to the lawyer he was basically like yeah this really isn't like the odds of you actually litigating this bringing it to court winning it's gonna be not worth your time because it's a smaller amount of money but I was in a situation where I needed him for other services so we lumped all of the services into one package he sent demand letters to the client that had ghosted me and then he actually negotiated with them over the phone and they just settled today for half of my fee so I had a client that refused to pay me kind of Midway through the engagement and I just want to share with you some of the red flags that I wish I had paid more attention to before this happened number one being that they were a very early stage startup and this is a kind of a double-edged sword in the sense that as newer Freelancers startups can be great to work with they're actually the ones that wind up Taking Chances on newer Freelancers and they're a little bit easier to get as opportunities the downside is is that financially they might not be in a place where you can depend on getting paid by them which I didn't really understand until now and when I say early stage startup I'm talking they had three Executives and a couple of Freelancers so they were not established I mean they had never even raised one round of funding so they were super early stage and I ignored that red flag the other thing was that there were so many cooks in the kitchen they were bouncing me back and forth between so many different contacts this tends to be a red flag when you're working with freelance clients you really want to have one person that is responsible for communicating with you the reason why this relationship fell apart the way it did and they refused to pay me was that the point of contact that I had been going back and forth with on the work well they fired him they were unhappy with him and then everything that I had gotten approved by him and all the work I had done with him also was thrown out the window because now these two co-founders were left and they did not want to acknowledge that I had done the work with the guy that they fired you get what I'm saying so they were arguing on calls it was such a bad Vibe and I again ignored those signs my biggest mistake in this process was that because I have worked with more established companies more built out marketing departments who really are pretty they're good for the money they're reputable I've always been a little bit lenient on payment I always do request 50 up front but because I work with larger organizations those invoices take a lot of time to actually get processed and I like to just speed up the process and say okay I know the invoice is going to eventually get paid I'm just going to start now well that was a bad move with this company because I completed work for them they were still outstanding invoices they came to me for more work and I started anyway even though there was an outstanding invoice so that's how we got to that 2400 outstanding invoice was because I continued to do work for them even though they weren't paying me the other thing is just your gut feeling about what it is like to work with somebody I think we all can get a gut feeling about whether or not we want to work with a client or not but for me I took this client they weren't really in my Niche I ignored my gut feeling there were so many little red flags just the way they spoke to me the way they argued with one another they seemed very out of sorts and disorganized and I disregarded my gut feeling and it bit me right so I just want to share with you a little bit about what my experience was and why I think this is so important and with that I'm just going to give the Florida Marin okay thank you I'm Mary and Shara I'm an online business lawyer and I have been a lawyer for over 15 years so at this point I've probably seen pretty much everything I've been in the online space for almost three years and I am a bit of a global Wanderer I'm a digital Nomad I sold my house in Charleston South Carolina in 2020 and most of my stuff and move from country to Country I'm in Arizona now because I really wanted location Independence but just 30 second nutshell about my business living and legal I create DIY contract templates so business owners can basically fill in the blank of the contract they need and get protected as quickly and painlessly as possible because as Christine said especially when you're starting out I am realistic enough to know how overwhelming and intimidating the legal committee this is just it none of it is intuitive and trying to Google this which please don't Google this and trying to put together your contracts yourself you're not going to get anywhere very quickly so and then I also do custom work and trademarks as well but that's a little bit about me so Christine sent me a bunch of really great questions so what I tried to do to keep me on track so I don't go down rabbit holes just kind of map out where I want this to go topic by topic and then I want to allow uh obviously always allow time at the end for questions so here's kind of what I was thinking contract workflow what do you need when and what point do you send you know a prospective client your contract what contracts do you need we're going to walk through contract specifics like I know for Freelancers portfolio use is a huge one important Clauses to be aware of intellectual property confidentiality Etc what about non-disclosure agreements and non-compete language what should you be aware of what is a red flag and then we'll walk through because this is Law and we talk worst case scenario what to do when things go wrong like what to do when a client ghosts and then obviously come back to your questions at the end all right so contract workflow this kind of dovetails with contracts you need but pretty much all Freelancers are starting with a proposal whether that's an informal proposal is sent in an email I don't know if any of you are on Fiverr or anything like that but at some point in time you're going to send some sort of proposal language that is great but I want you to know that that has no legal protection for you whatsoever this is basically a proposal is basically an informal discussion between you and your client it has none of the legal language that a contract has that's a backstop that's going to protect you that's going to protect your payments that's going to protect you against scope creep which I know unfortunately happens to pretty much every copywriter at some point in time in their career so if you have beautifully branded proposals absolutely use them but know that you always need to backstop that with a contract so as far as when this all goes down you're going to send your The Proposal whenever you're going to send the proposal a contract needs to be signed whether it's e-sign or I don't think anybody's hand signing contracts nowadays but it needs to be executed before you start working because the contract has your payment language so you don't want to start working before even if you're not I should back us backtrack a second so like let's say I know most copywriters are getting paid at least a little bit up front whether it's a retainer deposit first installment payment whatever it is but some opt to get paid at the end of 30 days if that's the case you still need that contract to be signed because that contract is going to say you're going to get paid at the end of 30 days so very important to make sure that you have sent the contract they have signed the contract before you start working and I know sometimes especially if you are working as a freelancer with say an established Corporation they have loopholes they have departments things have to go through I know that's annoying and especially if you're just starting out you may be chomping at the bit you want to get started you may have a lot of different clients that you're trying to balance and you want to get started on the work my recommendation is never start until you have a signed contract okay so what do you need and if you have any questions please drop them in the chat and I promise I'll Circle back to them at the end if I try and do it now I know me and I'll go down rabbit holes but I will definitely look at your questions for sure okay so contracts you need very very very important before you get started and I know Christine said you know about be overwhelmed and the legalities and that you don't need to know all this up front I don't want legal to ever be a hurdle to you starting your business to you taking your first client because if you try to learn all of this which again is not intuitive you'll never get you'll never get anywhere you'll never get started but the caveat I will say with that is you need a lawyer drafted contract for your copywriting services whether it's something you hire a lawyer to do which I know I'm realistic enough to know is outside of the budget of most people that are just starting or you get a really good lawyer drafted contract template I mean I have one I'm sure there are other lawyers other reputable lawyers out there that have one this is so important because this is how you protect yourself against scope creep it's how you protect your intellectual property it's how you protect your payments it's is how you protect your business if absolutely everything hits the fan that contract is going to be the most important document in your business okay so a couple contracts that you might need beyond that original I don't want to go too into the Weeds on this because this is when people hit maximum overload and I don't want you to get overwhelmed and then tune everything else out there are other contracts you might need as you get further along in your business if you're hiring a subcontractor for example if you're going to assign any works for a subcontractor that you know any client work that subcontractor is going to be doing for you you'll need an independent contractor agreement and if this applies to any of you and you have questions on it please drop it in the chat and we can Circle back but like I said I don't want to get too into the Weeds on this and and you know confuse anyone if you have a website there are three policies that you need now I know some of you might have websites others might just advertise strictly strictly on social media or any sort of sites like I keep mentioning Fiverr and I apologize I'm sure they're similar more reputable services for copywriters but you know something along those lines you know then you don't have a website you're advertising your services on but if you do have a website you need three policies the biggest one is a privacy policy and I'm sure you've seen when you've been online shopping or gone to other business owners websites you know a cookie notice that pops up or if you are on a European website there'll be a something that pops up and you have to agree to it this is along the lines of a privacy policy a privacy policy is a legal requirement you have to have it if you have a Business website this talks about how you use information that's collected from your website like if you have a freebie attached to your website site or you track cookies that kind of thing all that information is in your privacy policy there are two other website policies that I recommend every business owner have disclaimer policy and terms and conditions let's say you have a blog or anywhere somebody can read content of yours the terms and conditions is going to protect your intellectual property and intellectual property if you're brand new intellectual property is is your original content that's what you own and it's your rights in what you're creating and then a disclaimer policy especially as you get more established you're probably going to have testimonials from various clients you're probably going to have samples of your work the disclaimer policy is going to say that basically those testimonials are the experience of one client not the experience of every client and they can't expect the same Etc so those are the three policies I would have for those of you that have a website for your business okay um I know I'm kind of Rapid Fire here but like I said there's a lot of information and there are a lot of questions I want to make sure that we get through so contract specifics what are some things to be aware of what especially unique to copywriting what should you be aware of if a prospective client gives you their own contract what should you be aware of so the big one well the couple I want to talk about but I want to start with scope of work so remember what I said about proposals and that a proposal doesn't give you any legal protection whatsoever so if in your proposal you say to a client I'm going to provide three blog posts two email newsletters and sales page copy okay well all of that needs to be in your scope of work in your client services agreement that's going to go to the client before you start working for them but I would say that's the barest of minimums when it comes to details for what you're providing because think about it this way okay blog posts you say three blog posts well how long I would always make sure that you have word count in there and if there's a window if there are parameters 500 to 750 words put that in there what about keywords what about SEO optimization is that a thing is that relevant to this client are they paying for it what does SEO optimization even mean I'm sure it means a lot more to you than it does to me you guys are probably the experts on this I had to Google it to see you know I had a vague idea but I'm certainly not SEO optimizing my own Vlogs so make sure you define keywords like that email newsletters okay how many words how many topics who's providing the topics are you providing the topics are they are they giving you an outline are you giving them an outline these are just some things to think about I always tell clients when I work with them on one-on-one and then in my contract templates I have a whole bullet point you know list of of things to think about but breakdown exactly what you are doing for a client and really think it through and think it through from the perspective of somebody that has absolutely no idea about you your business copywriting or even what they are asking you to do and then that helps you get so granular that you don't forget those key details that might come back to bite you later on couple of other things to make sure that scope of work has deliverables Milestones Are you delivering everything at one point in time or is it staggered is it in phases like in the example of the three blog posts when is the first blog post being delivered when is the second when is the third one of the biggest things I see especially beginning copywriters the mistakes they make is they don't talk about rounds of revision and you can get stuck if you aren't clear on rounds of revision and turnaround time in that hamster wheel where you're back and forth waiting on them to approve something waiting on them to communicate with you all together and never actually finish the project and get paid because they haven't approved so what I would think of talk about in terms of rounds of revision is how many rounds of revision do you think feels aligned for you what works for you and for this particular client it might vary from client to client and project to project but then I would talk about even get so specific as to what constitutes a revision that you are including within this package because revision to you might be a few word tweaks revision to a client might be I don't like this at all I want you to rewrite this entire thing so put parameters around it what revisions are you including some clients will even put something like small revisions are included but beyond these small revisions if a client requests you know major rewrites of multiple paragraphs that that's up to the copywriters availability and will you know subject to their discretion and will be assessed at a rate of and then you put whatever your hourly rate is so that's a way to protect yourself from sway key clients who want you to rewrite everything um you either do it and get paid for it or you say no this is outside the scope of work and then I would also put in there make sure you have in there how many days turnaround time do they have to approve something so that way you're not stuck waiting and waiting and waiting on them to get back to you and what my contract template even says is if it gives them three business days and if after three business days they haven't said anything then that copy is deemed approved so you know it's that's just a suggestion or recommendation you can do it however you want but the point is you need you need to say it because you don't ever want anything like that ambiguous because then the client is always going to choose the scenario that best fits the client and that might skew you and your work completely rounds of revision get really really really clear on let's see what else did I wanted to say and like I said Milestones deadlines Etc payments so and and I'm talking about things that are if you get a good lawyer drafted contract this all should be covered but I know some of you might be still trying to piecemeal This Together yourselves I I would highly recommend against that but it is what it is I want to make sure that you're protecting yourself regardless of whatever route you go down for payments make sure you're clear on how you're charging are you automatically charging are you invoicing when will you be charging them are you charging by the hour are you charging by the word are they paying a retainer a deposit and then are you paying them per month make sure you have in there what happens if they don't pay you if they default will you charge a late fee that kind of thing okay I know I'm peppering you all with so much information but hopefully you know it's it's helping a couple other things I want to say as far as contract specifics portfolio use I mentioned that before this is I know key for copywriters so make sure you have in your contracts the ability to use the work that you create to Showcase in your portfolio in your website in your marketing materials on your social media and what my contracts say is they say you know that the company company being you as a copywriter has the right to use this once the client has made the content available publicly so that seems reasonable fair you give them the copy they approve it they put it on their website then you can use it you know a segment of it a smidgen of it on your own website but what because I know sometimes clients are really particular about this what I say in my contracts is if the client wishes in writing they can request that the copywriter anonymized the company's business name the company's logo you know the individual's personal name that kind of thing and then I say you know this this survives the the conclusion of the relationship or the agreement so that way you always have permission to use that in your portfolio you may get pushed back on this depending upon the client I know in particular law firms can be very very they don't want you to use anything anything so it's all going to depend on the client and what I would say is try to have this in your contracts like in my contracts and if you get pushed back this is something that you can negotiate with a client on but if it's important to you especially as you're building your business try and stand your ground on this if you are anonymizing their information then they should have no problem with this because they've already published what you created publicly so where is the harm you're not attributing it to them in any way if they're if they do not give you express permission to use portfolio pieces is it okay sharing samples in an unlisted Google drive folder and sending it directly to a client when we get into that conversation of hey show me your portfolio I'll say okay here's the ones listed publicly on my website here's the ones in and then I send a private Google Drive that only they have access to if they have the link in your opinion is that putting myself at a lot of risk legally because I didn't get permission to be as risk averse as possible I would advise against that because when you are creating works for hire so you've already gotten paid for that you relinquish your intellectual property rights in that to the client so they own all the rights they have the copyright rights this is it's almost as if they created it themselves so I would always get permission but if it's you know contained within those parameters where it's not going public you're not putting it on your website or anything it's just going to a prospective client I don't see why they would have any reason you know to be against that and you can further say I will anonymize your name everywhere and then I think you know that obviously bolsters your case for sure okay something that I know myself and some other writers are doing is like we'll get some good feedback from a client and it's not a testimonial per se that they authorized it's like a screenshot of them saying like great job like this writing was exactly what we were looking for and on my website my Raiders website I'll screenshot that and I'll blank out their name and or or their last name I'll blank out their picture or whatever so it is anonymized is that risky too or is that okay because it's anonymized that's okay I mean generally when people give you feedback like that they're you know ex expect I mean this is online business they're expecting you to but if you were to use their name or their business or their picture absolutely ask permission but if it's just the language you're fine okay and this is getting very into the weeds but something I advise in my online course is to get LinkedIn testimonials so on LinkedIn you can request what they call a recommendation it's sitting on your profile what I recommend my students to do is to take that recommendation that's sitting on your profile and then copy it paste it onto their writer's website so that it's living in those two places is that illegal is or I don't want to say illegal is that bad as well even though they endorsed you expressly you know I would have to look to get really precise and legal about it look at you know linkedin's licensing requirements you know as far as what LinkedIn says you can do with LinkedIn contents but I would think that generally if somebody endorses you like that on LinkedIn publicly they would be fine with you using it elsewhere I I always say ask permission just because it's I don't know you never know what's going to happen down the line with relationships Etc and you never want to have to go back and take something off your website I would say always ask permission wherever possible but if it's a situation where you absolutely can't ask permission then I think something like that is is generally okay I mean there's the the way I see it is there's the straight and narrow legal answer completely and totally risk-averse how do you do everything right and never get in trouble that's ideal and then there's reality and I think you know the reality of it is ask permission where you absolutely and get permission where you absolutely can but if it's something like that where somebody has already publicly endorsed you on a public platform it should be okay to also put it on your website but like I said always ask permission where where possible but the scenario where it's work that you created for hire work product they paid for they own that's absolutely something that where you need their permission perfect okay we are getting more questions now so Kiana said you have to have a byline in order to use the sample of work we've created sorry say that again so Kiana's question is do we have to have a byline in order to use the sample of work we've created I think you kind of answered that Marin where it's like it's about asking permission but I guess my question if I'm on like my follow-up question of that is if we do have a byline meaning a piece of work online that says written by Christine gamoka written by Kiana does that automatically give us permission to use it or no foreign so you wrote a post for somebody you have a byline so it's attributed to you but it's still on their website they still paid you for it yeah yeah I I would because it's still even though you know it's attributed to you they own the content they paid for it okay perfect and then Dina asked what language should we look for to make sure the clients know that they won't get deliverables if they miss a payment so that's where you're gonna have that's where it's really important to have a lot of your draft pick contracts because that's going to be reflected in the payment terms that gives you the right to cancel if they don't pay you that gives you the right to hold your content you're deliverable until they pay you so the question is basically like what language do you need to add or what language do you need to look for in their contracts I'm not sure exactly but I guess my question would be like what Clause because you mentioned what was the the term you used where if you do the work for them it automatically becomes there is the minute you they they publish it or you hand it over or it's uh work for hire right so that's like a legal term that I didn't know until getting involved in the legal stuff is there a clause or language that signifies you don't get the right you don't own the deliverable unless they pay I'm assuming this is an IP thing because that's what happened with me with my lawyer he was like we can try to go after them for intellectual property saying that because they have not paid you they do not own like they're stealing your intellectual property because actually the client that I'm talking about they published my work on their website and refused no yeah wow well and that's a tough situation on multiple levels because intellectual property trying to go after somebody for intellectual property violations like that it's an interesting route I I can see why he went there but you know sometimes it's easier just to go for the money and say you know like take them to smoke whatever I'm gonna get to go into the Weeds on this but like to small claims court for your twenty four hundred dollars because trying to unless you can go through channels issue what's going to take down notice and have them take down the content and you can but you have to prove that you own it and if they have it in their possession and you had a contract with them that's tough to do I'm getting too far in the Weeds on this but I would just say you know and it's hard because a lot of this is a case-by-case basis right so I'm trying to think of something without a contract in front of me to tell you to put in there as far as you know it's how would I say this you know you so I'm sorry what was who who asked this question again so Dina had said what language should we look for to make sure that clients know that they won't get deliverables if they miss a payment they miss a payment so this is the case where you are delivering content and then they're paying you after I'm assuming yes like I know we we tend to work on like an ongoing basis okay we do four blogs per month and then we charge 50 up front so it's like oh we did the work but they probably didn't pay the 50 percent after after all of a sudden done the remaining 50 okay gotcha what I what what my contracts say is when it talks about work for hire and intellectual property provision section of the contract it said it says you know all work is work for hire dependent upon successful satisfactory payment so that protects you right there everything that transfer of intellectual property rights that occurs is based on their successful satisfactory payment to you like that trans transfer doesn't happen until they successfully pay you so I think that's how you insulate yourself there perfect and this is I don't know if you want to get to this with like the NDA and conversation but Cheryl asked if the and this is I I had mentioned leading with your own paper as my lawyer put it but she said if the prospect has their own contract when we negotiate the terms would you suggest we give them a draft of Provisions we want to be included in the contract you know I think that's a good way to do it if you know they're gonna absolutely give you their contract but I would make sure that you have whatever Provisions you're going to give to them you have those approved by lawyer first first is trying to put them together yourself or you know you can have your provisions and have them include them in a contract and then have a lawyer review that final contract before you agree to it I think one thing to always be aware of is that you can't have dueling contracts so you can't have they can't have you sign their contract and you can't have them sign your contract and have two separate contracts they cancel each other out so either you have them sign your copyright writing services agreement or you sign theirs but I would make sure that you have you never sign anything before having a lawyer review it and I know that that can be an expense that you might not be prepared for at this stage in your business but it's how you're going to protect yourself especially when it comes to payment intellectual property and scope creep because think about it this way like my contracts for example are written from the perspective of protecting the business owner they're fair to both parties obviously but they have protect protections built in for you as the copywriter the business isn't going to be drafting from that perspective they aren't thinking about well what happens if we forget to pay them what happens if we're late let's make sure that we include a late fee for ourselves you know let's make sure we Define what SEO optimization means or let's make sure we get really granular in this you know scope of work they're not going to do that they're probably especially for larger corporations they might have this standard agreement that they use for everyone every online service provider they for they hire not just copywriters and so if that's the case I can guarantee you it's not going to be protective of enough of your payments and your time and your boundaries it just won't because they're not gonna have that level of detail in the scope that you need hope I answered the question I would say you know it's worth it to just take a chunk out of your payment to to do something like this in the sense that what could potentially go wrong could cost you more money so I think I'm just speaking from my own sheep self I'm very hesitant to invest in anything so I up until this point saw the legal aspect of like that's not something I want to invest in I thought it was also something for more experienced writers and now that it's happened to me I'm like you know it would have been worth it for me to buy a template even and have like a real contract instead of like you said Marin I literally Googled mine it was just not a good not a good look and that I I never want to fear Monger but like I said I've been doing this long enough I've seen so much and I've also audited a ton of those free contracts that you find when you Google just because I'm a nerd and I like to see but also you know to be as protective of as possible of my clients and prospective clients and their varying degrees are terrible they're they're just not going to cover you and you I mean you can get a template for less than the cost of working with a good attorney for an hour and like buying you they're they're even payment plans so you know just something to think of but think about but that's something that I would I can't stress strongly enough get a good contract it also you know intrinsically you know up levels your game too like you are a professional you take yourself professionally you don't put up with anybody else's stuff you know like I know this is going on YouTube so whatever I'm censoring myself a little bit but like you this is who you are this is your business you are working business to business like I said it up levels your game and and I know personally like I I respect people and businesses more when they have have done the work have have made the investment in in their business so okay let me talk about ndas and non-competes if any questions popped up while we were kind of talking through that definitely drop them in and I will like I said get back to them at the end so ndas I know can be big and scary but they really for a lot of businesses especially businesses bigger businesses they're kind of a matter of course they just give out the ndas just to you know protect themselves so I would say always review in detail everything that you receive in your business before you sign it but when it comes to ndas these are pretty I don't want to say they're pretty General but they're they're pretty common but what I would say if a client asks you to sign an NDA you're going to need to ask them what does this mean for my portfolio what does this mean for being able to showcase the work that we're doing together and make sure you get it clearly in writing what you can and cannot do here's where you can offer to anonymize their information and just say you know I I won't use your business name or your logo that kind of thing but you want to be clear get it in writing what you can and cannot do because you never want to be accused of being in breach of an ND and that can happen if you you know try to use work that they might consider to be confidential between you two okay non-competes so I I know when you can get very specialized very Niche sometimes you might come across non-competes I would be very very very careful before you sign any non-compete language you know across the U.S and some of you might even be in other areas of the world I'm not sure non-competes aren't always enforced because they can be so overly restrictive but you never want to get to a point where you have to go to court to avoid a non-compete and what I see sometimes with businesses especially in the early stages of their business they get a potentially big client and the client wants them to sign a non-compete and they get a really big retainer and they say you know what it's worth it they're not thinking about their business 18 months down the track five years down the track they sign that non-compete they're barred from working with anybody else in that particular industry that can be extremely extremely restrictive to your business and and your ability to make an income so I would say when it comes to receiving language like that never sign it without having a lawyer review at first and I would be very very skeptical sometimes I have to be honest it's better to walk away than it is to sign something that's going to seriously a cap your ability to make money down the line and what I've seen some companies even do is they'll give copywriters or other online service providers they'll give them a non-compete and they'll lay out 10 companies that they have identified as their direct competitors and say that you can't work with these 10 companies well it's kind of ridiculous because what if you were hired to do something completely different for one of those 10 companies than you were doing for them under that non-compete you're barred from doing that and and these companies these big companies that would utilize non-competes they have legal departments they enforce these things so it's not something you ever want to deal with so I would say and you might follow up questions about non-competes I would be extremely cautious and never sign anything without having a lawyer review it first and tell you what your rights are what your remedies are and and basically how restrictive it is and if it's even something that could be enforced that's kind of what I would say about non-competes all right how are we doing on time okay when things go wrong all right the big one I want to talk about here is ghosting because unfortunately that is the issue I see the most apart from scope creep and the reason most people come to work with me is you know somebody's defaulted on a payment there M.I.A so when it comes to a situation like this I want to say a couple things first this is another example of why a lawyer drafted contract is a non-negotiable that's absolutely critical because that contract is going to say what your remedies are if they fail to pay you if they're late it's going to allow you to assess late fees you know nothing is more than a catalyst in business than money and so if you know you're charging late fees you're invoicing them you know that can be a catalyst for people to actually pay their invoices it's also going to say things like it's going to give you the ability to terminate so you're not locked into continuing to provide work when you haven't heard from them in two weeks they haven't paid their invoices you have no idea if they're even alive it's also like my contracts for example give the business owner the right to send something to a debt collection agency because here's the reality of online business and enforcing contracts like Christine said and alluded to hiring a lawyer is not inexpensive and like your situation which is so unfortunate you know trying to pursue somebody like that trying to get them on intellectual property violations claims or even just trying to get them in small claims court that takes time and if you hire a lawyer it takes money you know trying to take somebody to court nowadays it's the backlog you're talking two years in some states and it's extremely expensive so what I say to clients is the best way to prevent somebody from ghosting is to minimize the change like the backtracking a second sorry prevent ghosting by making sure it doesn't happen in the first place and the way to do that is again Crystal Clear scope clear communication with your clients that might be regular Zoom meetings and this is more of an issue question for Christine like how she does it with her clients but some sort of regular communication check-ins with your client are you on the same page being clear about those revisions how many revisions they get and then having it in your contract what happens when they're how much they're getting charged or how much they're getting invoiced when they're getting an invoice how many days they have to pay that invoice before something is considered late how many days something can be late before there you have the ability to terminate and then something in the contract that says that if you have to terminate they're still on the hook for the balance of the contract that said okay they ghosted their M.I.A what do you do first try to establish you never want this to happen but you know worst case scenario what happens if it does what how have you been communicating with them through the duration of your relationship has it been a messenger service on the website that they hired you from like LinkedIn is it email is it phone calls whatever it is contact them on that particular mode of communication remind them that the invoice is late attach the invoice if you're automatically charging them and their credit card canceled or whatever attach a payment link so they can can quickly pay you right from that email if they're already late remind them that they're you know USS late fees at the five day Mark if you know you're past the point in your contract where you can terminate remind them that we're past the part of time in in the contract where we can terminate I value your relationship I value working with you I don't want to terminate this relationship for non-payment but I'm going to have to if you know I don't receive payment by the end of the day or whatever again include a payment link attach a copy of the invoice Etc if that's still not working and you think this person is completely Mia Off the Grid then you need to think in terms of demand letters and before you go the attorney route hiring an attorney you can put together your own demand letter it has less teeth than hiring a lawyer and having them send the letter but what you would say in this demand letter is you know make it very formal and you can I would say send it in an email your business name your business contact information their business name their business contact information exactly what you agreed to the payment that's outstanding when it was due remind them that they're you know it's delinquent then you're going to attach your contract with a highlighted relevant portions which are going to refer to payment when it was due how much is owed and then you know it could be as simple at the end as you know I I wish to resolve this amicably please submit payment by X dates if not I will have to pursue legal recourse I tell you that pursue legal recourse those three words can instill fear and you know cause people to actually move so that's what I would say and then if that doesn't work then you're going to want to think about you know a lawyer debt collection agency Etc but hopefully you know you targeting them with this is what is owed this is the contract this is what you agree read to this is what we provided on time will will be enough to you know get them to submit that outstanding payment all right I see that there are more questions in the chat and go ask would a template contract work the same way in multiple jurisdictions or across different countries for example if I have a client in New York and one in London can I use the same contract yes what you do in the dispute resolution section of the contract the dispute resolution section of the contract is what you where you're going to say what happens if things go wrong what happens if you know things can't be resolved amicably you're going to put your location and like mine is fill in the blanket it'll prompt you you can put your state in your country and then that will work regardless of where you and they are in the world and since it's fill in the blank you shift it for you know whoever the client is actually you wouldn't shift that because you're going to put in your own state or country Marin this was the issue with that client so they were in California I am in New Jersey and first of all we I had like I said a Googled scope of work with them I was not protected legally at all but I was full and ready to take them to small claims court to get that money back and I was so confused because I was like how are they going to show up to small claims court when they're in California and I'm going to pursue them in New Jersey so that's it's confusing about how that works is it that you're putting in the contract language like hey if things go sour and I take you to small claims court you have to attend small claims court in New Jersey it's what mine say is we do arbitration arbitration if you're unfamiliar with it it's cheaper and easier and quicker than going to court because for a lot of reasons an arbitrator is like a judge they have full authority to issue I don't want to say verdicts but it's the same thing as a verdict and decide that case versus going to court when you go to court you get into issues of jurisdiction like you're talking about which state laws you know govern at the end of the day that person has to be served wherever they are and so it can get really really dicey as to taking them to small claims court because like you said how do they appear usually what happens is you have to take them to court wherever they are so that's why arbitration there's even online arbitration now can be you know a good route to go or putting something like I said in your contracts about debt collection agencies and allowing you to if it's an issue if it's non-payment you just submit it to a debt collection agency and then you know it's not like the be-all end-all where they get where you get a hundred percent back like if they get any money they'll take a portion but they do the work regardless of where that person is and I usually recommend for my clients to do that because it's just it takes the onus off of them and trying to deal with the legalities of state to state or whatever because the debt collection agency will hire a lawyer in their state if or country if necessary okay got it and Chrissy Phillips asked how common is it that copywriters get paid fully up front I'll take that one I think 50 no matter who you're working with should be your standard when I asked to get paid up front is typically when I'm working in an ongoing relationship with a client and I pose it to them like this I'll say hey wouldn't it be easier if I could just send one invoice per month instead of doing this you know two invoices meaning the deposit and the remaining balance they usually say yes I would love less paperwork and I say okay great and then I start invoicing them you know at the beginning of the month before the assignment I've seen people online saying that oh clients will never pay you up front if you do have a relationship with them they will pay you up front it is worth asking but make sure that trust has been developed first perfect thank you so much Marin I just dropped the templates in the chat so everybody can visit your website and find those templates I'll also include them in the slacker for everybody but thank you thank you thank you so much this is so important to us and we appreciate you you're welcome and if anybody has any follow-up questions or you know wants to stay in touch my Instagram I you know try to post daily tips that's a great place to follow me and then my website which they'll have access to for the contracts link that has free checklists and videos as that I think are a worthwhile watch Perfect all right thank you so much everyone I hope you have a great night and Marin thanks again you're welcome bye