#general

I was JUST working on this slide for my latest course so your timing is perfect. In contracts you get from the client, here are my top things to watch out for: 1. Definition of intellectual property is always too broad and tends to include your proprietary business processes /methods you've developed that you use for every client. You almost always need to exclude this.

1. Payment terms. I always tell my customers to find out how long it will take to get paid as soon as possible so you can budget accordingly and set up a payment schedule to get paid as fast as possible

1. Insurance/indemnity: Clients often want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to have final approval over deliverables AND require that you indemnify them and have insurance. They get final approval OR they can ask for indemnity. Insurance is absurd unless we're getting towards a 6-figure contract

Interesting, I've never heard of #3

@Brionna the insurance piece is also part of the same contract you just advised me on. So it's reasonable to ask for that clause to be removed too?

Generally yes! But depending on your client, they may not agree. When you do the contract review service, we'll troubleshoot it. Some clients are super unreasonable about these things, but there's ways to work around them/get connected to the right people to get what you need.

A few of the most common things I ask clients to revise are a) overly broad non-compete language—I usually explain that I need to protect my ability to earn a living as a content writer within niche industries, so that’s an automatic dealbreaker for me, and they remove or revise it; and b) an unexpected limitation on my ability to use their name or my work samples on my website or portfolio—I usually explain that samples of my work are what prove my ability to deliver and generate future work, and if the content I’m producing is not able to be shared publicly, I charge more to compensate for that lack of portfolio-building, similar to ghostwriters. That usually gets them to just remove it 🙂

Interesting thanks for sharing @Sara Gates