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I made one costly agency mistake last year.
and it cost me $210,000 in revenue I won’t get back…
I failed to bulletproof our contracts, and more importantly, to stick to them and take legal action when needed.
Contracts means nothing if you do not enforce them.
And contracts can work against you if you don’t craft language properly.
We have non-negotiables in our contracts now. If a client does not agree or wants to change them, we part ways.
We will not risk our company revenue — aka money we need to support 50 people’s lives that work for us — for a single client.
START HERE:
1. Hire a lawyer. Suck it up, pay the fees, and have them build you a bulletproof contract.
2. Stick to the contract template. Do not cave. If a client does not want to abide, tell them to hit the road. There are plenty of clients out there. If someone is trying to take away all of your terms, that’s a red flag already.
3. Get a collections firm on retainer. They’ll take 7-15% of collected money, but do all of the work. Plus, they have full legal teams to escalate and litigate on your behalf. This has helped us collect $70,000+ in the last year that otherwise was lost.
BULLETPROOF YOUR CONTRACTS:
1. Strict, clear cancellation terms. State how they can cancel, when, and for what reason.
2. Make deliverables / work product objective, not subjective. For example, do not say “we will deliver content to your liking” but “We will deliver XX words with XX score on XX tool, with XX words for revision.” There should be no room for interpretation and he said/she said.
3. Collect payment upfront, before work is started. Your contract should read “Agency shall invoice Client by the 1st day of each month in advance of any Services being performed for that month. Agency will not begin services until payment is received.”
This holds the client contractually obligated to pay you, and enables you to not do any work until paid.
Meaning the client could refuse to pay, you can send it to collections, get paid, and then do the work, and the client cannot say “you didn’t give me any work, so I won’t pay you.”
4. Always add late fees, and make them meaningful. Late fees should be added daily or weekly based on nonpayment, and should sting. Give them a free pass one time, but never twice.
5. Always set the term and length of engagement a client is committed to.
Not having these in my contract process cost me $200k in money I cannot collect.
Some of the best lessons are learned the hard way. Implement my advice above and save yourself the pain
-Jeremy
