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[Music] hi everyone welcome to another episode of my vlog series which started a couple of months back and i titled it becoming an interior designer because at that time i you know decided that i didn't want to do business marketing anymore i enrolled myself back in school and i started making vlogs on the stuff that i was learning how to actually transition into this new career path and so forth and back in july which was just two months ago i guess i graduated from my online course and then i quickly jumped into my own business which is called elevated living by sarah advan and so here i am an entrepreneur in a field which is very new to me and every single day that i work on projects with clients both on the residential as well as commercial side i'm just learning so so so much which i would have never learned in school because you know some things you just learn from experience dealing with people nobody can teach you the stuff that you learn when you actually dive yourself deep into this type of work i know i haven't filmed in a long time but that's because as a business owner i have literally been working monday to sunday 9 a.m to 11 p.m and i just couldn't make the time to put together content that would be useful to you guys because you know the whole purpose of this vlog series and the whole purpose why i even started documenting my journey is because i wanted to help you guys i know that when i started into this i was super lost i was confused i didn't really have people in my friend's circle or in my family member who was in this industry to kind of guide me and navigate me through the different challenges so there was a lot of stuff that i had to learn on my own and as i was learning and i'm still learning through each of these episodes just to kind of help you guys out i hope that i'm able to answer some of those questions and help you guys on your journey today's vlog is actually quite important and that is all about what to include in your interior design service agreement or contract and my kitty has just made an appearance into my vlog say hi okay [Music] before i get really into it and talk about the different clauses that we should include in a contract i do want to take a moment to thank each and every one of you who have been watching my vlogs you guys messaged me on instagram telling me how my vlogs have been helpful how i've helped inspire some of your decisions and it's just so so so heartwarming because that's exactly why i'm doing this whole social media stuff i made a promise to myself that i will not stop making these vlogs and i will not stop communicating with you guys on dm because trust me i've been there i know how difficult it is trying to figure out things on your own let's get into it so a little bit of context it's been about three to four months since i've actually been working professionally and the number one the very number one thing that i have learned is that a designer is not a contractor now some of you who may be watching this video right now may already know this but in my experience as a designer i noticed that a lot of my clients expected me to also be a contractor it was just something that they assumed came with the package of hiring a designer and of course when i took these projects on being so new to the game i thought that was the same thing as well i thought that me being a designer putting the designs together i would also have to be responsible for executing them which meant you know hiring the right type of trade for example a painter electrician and so forth and as i started managing the execution side of my designs i started realizing that it was not feasible for one person to manage all that and so that's where my kind of researching began and i learned that a contractor is a separate role and a designer is a completely separate role when it comes to your service agreement you make sure that they understand that your work is independent of the work of a contractor and the second most important thing is that you make your client understand after they have chosen a contractor to implement your designs it is their responsibility to manage the communication with the contractor figuring out when they're going to be on site to do the work how long are they going to take to do the work how is a contractor wanting to be paid the client directly pays and works with the contractor and the ownership of the quality of work does not fall onto the designer that is also something that a client must oversee and overlook when the work is happening so that's number one number two is identifying your hours of operation now this is something that often gets overlooked in a sense that oh who would whoever puts hours of operation on a contract but as a business owner somebody who is maybe the only person right now in the business who's working you need to be very clear with the client your hours of operation in which you will respond to their email text messages called is from this time to this time and that's something that you completely can set on your own terms it doesn't have to be a monday to friday nine to five like you can have it flexible however way you want it but you must include it so that's number two now on to number three this one is all about making sure who does the purchasing and delivery of the items that you guys have selected this is really important and something that i would say needs to be written in a very large chunky section because there are so many logistical pieces involved in the task of purchasing and delivery coordination within purchasing you have to consider things like your car is your car big enough to carry chairs and sofas back in from point a to point b you have to consider your mileage are you being compensated for driving from stores to store because there will be times where you go online and you see that a product is available but by the time you get in store the product is out of stock and now you have to drive on the other side of the city to a different location to pick up that item additionally there's things like storage so once you actually purchase the chairs do you want to just go and drop them off at point b which happens to be the client's residence or do you want to keep them somewhere else where you know that they're going to be safe not tampered with and you're able to bring them for the day of installation for that big reveal and aha moment so there are a lot of things that you have to consider when it comes to purchasing and delivering and ultimately you of course want to maintain a healthy relationship with your client right you don't want to upset them or they're expecting something of you and you're like but i never agreed to do that and then that's how arguments happen and you know you want to avoid all of that so just make sure that it's very clearly stated now let's go into point number four and that is payment within payment there are a lot of different structures that you can put in place one of the great things about being your own business owner is that you get to dictate how you want to get paid when you want to get paid and how frequently you want to get paid for example do you want to consider taking a deposit from your client or do you prefer taking the whole lump sum at the end of the project secondly if you're somebody who is charging your client by the hour versus a package rate do you want to get paid for all of those hours at the end of the projects or do you want to set a structure in which you're getting paid every 10 hours that you complete so you have to really think about your pricing structure and make sure that this is really clearly identified the last clause that i want to talk about is defining your scope of work in a very detailed format in your contract now what i mean by that is including a list of all of the items that you have discussed with your client that you as a designer will perform for this job or project what i like to do is create a separate exhibit within my contract where i list all of these items line by line this helps keep both parties aligned as to what is going to be performed and executed on site and it also avoids things like last minute changes that the client might want to do such as adding additional light fixture in the hallway those are things that really disrupt the flow of the design that has already been prepared and agreed upon so you want to make sure that all of these items are listed and there's no going back and forth on what's been decided and the last advice i would give just before wrapping up this blog is that you must make sure everything is in writing sometimes it's human nature to say things verbally and assume that the other person has agreed on and they're going to do it but if it's not in writing then it's not really official so you want to make sure that everything that's been discussed is written in your contract or agreed upon via email and so forth all right everyone that is about it i covered a lot of topics and again if you have any questions you know where to find me on instagram send me a dm and i'll be more than happy to answer your questions until then if you like this video then definitely give it a thumbs up subscribe and share it with all of your friends who might be in need of this type of content until next time bye