Unlock the Power of eSignature Lawfulness for Freelance Contracts in the United Kingdom

How to eSign a document: eSignature lawfulness for Freelance Contract in United Kingdom

hey what's up and welcome to my I think it's a fifth I lost a number on how to start freelancing today we're gonna talk about contracts proposals what's the difference between them do you need them doing both of them so let me get off starting by saying that I'm not a lawyer so you should take this advice as a freelancer advice rather than a lawyer advice so here's how I see the difference between contracts and proposals contracts are documents are legal documents that are more focused on kind of like the terms of the deal what's gonna happen who owes what and and all the legal terms proposal is a document that is more focused on selling on why we should do this deal what does it include how much does it cost and so it's more of a sales document with the purpose of sealing the deal now a proposal also outlines the terms of the deal kind of how much money cause in the payment terms and so sometimes actually a lot of times a proposal is already kind of like the contract and so some people I'm included only sent a proposal and do not send a contract later on some people send a very simple proposal and then expand on the terms on a contract but again for me I usually don't have too many terms who will discuss that in a second in my proposal and so for me just a proposal with about probably ten bullet points of terms at the end is enough now for my experience I've been freelancing around maybe 15 years and I actually never had a problem well I'm very lucky that I never had a problem with a client not paying me but never getting to a position of having to sue somebody in the court and honestly and I have a lot of designer friends and freelancers friends I don't know any of them that actually had to sue a client or use a contract in kind of a legal standing until I don't really think that the purpose of the contract or the purpose of the proposal is to kind of protect you in court even though what that's with lawyers they're gonna tell you I think that this document is actually kind of like to set your expectations right so that both sides know what's going to happen at that everything is going to be clear because when things are vague when different sides of you know you and your client have different expectations or you know you imagine the process of the work to be different then this kind of might lead to tension or to conflict and so the purpose of this document is so that everybody is going to be clear on what's going to happen and in that sense I think a proposal or a contract really really helps you out and I always send them obviously I'm using prosper or product to send the proposal online and it also serves again as a way to sell my services so it looks great and client think that I'm professional but the core the core function of that is so that everybody knows what's going to happen and I think that by having both sides sign on something agree to something that makes the most much more likely to agree to those terms and to actually do this rather than if they don't do this it's not because they're afraid that literally somebody's going to sue them in court it's just because they've made a promise they put their name on something they gave their award and so they're going to actually do this and I think that if what you're worried about and should be worried about is getting paid how do I make sure that I'm getting pay then the actually the most important thing that you need to do is actually get a down payment before you start the project because somebody who already paid you is much more invested in the project and much more likely to pay you quickly on the next time plus you're already in their system so it's much easier to pay you and if somebody doesn't want to pay you up front maybe that's a red flag that this client might be problematic so I think if what you're looking for is to protect yourself then the most simple thing that you should do is get a down payment but it's got actually nothing to with the proposal or the you know or the contract so let's talk about the terms my basic terms there again they're not very complicated they're basically the payment terms which is usually fifty percent upfront and then depending on how the project is complicated it might be at either milestone after every milestone so after the design phase after the development phase the rest of the money or if it's a very simple project it might be like 50 percent upfront and then 50 percent on delivery then there's the the bullet point that you know if I need any more assets like photos I'm a designer so my worth might include illustration and stock photos and stuff like that or fonts so that is not included IP intellectual property means that until they're not paying the last payment of the project they don't own the intellectual property I own the intellectual property of the project and then upon final payment I transfer the intellectual property to them might be an idea for a different video to speak in depth about intellectual property I'm not gonna cover this right now but basically yeah and and one of the other terms is work after this iteration that are specific to this proposal I'd say I've set like three iterations included in the proposal every work afterward will be billed hourly at whatever my rate is so those are kind of my basic terms when I set a proposal and again most of the proposal is just to describe our process our work together our deliverables the goals of the freights to help help them you know gain trust in me and help me sell the project and then the last section of the terms is kind of again not really to protect me as to make it clear how those kind of financial terms will work if you want a more in-depth video about how I'm actually structuring my proposal and that's actually that the template or a format that Prospero works in I've actually made a specific video about this topic for envision so I will link in the description the full video on envisions YouTube channel about how I write my proposals alright hope you guys found this helpful and have a great day I'll catch you guys [Music]