For my business, I’ve gone to great lengths (and quite a bit of expense) in hiring my own legal professionals to help me generate an iron-clad contract. I run a DJ master-mind group and we recently shared all of our contracts amongst our group. I was completely dumbfounded by the simplicity of the contracts that other DJ companies in the group were using. Most just crafted something on a Word document that they themselves came up with – no legal jargon and quite frankly, it would be laughed at in a courtroom if they needed it for legal protection.
Others found something online and just tweaked it for themselves. Both approaches are a bad idea. We had a spirited discussion within our group about the purpose of a contract. For all of us, its primary purpose should be to protect us from any legal jeopardy.
However, the second thing it should do is be an extension of our marketing. Your contract should be so unique, detailing exactly what you are providing and your differentiators, that there is no question that it is tailor-made for your company. I shouldn’t be able to just cut and paste another DJ company name into your contract. That would make you and your service a commodity instead of one of a kind.
I implore you to spend the money now to find a legal professional who can you help you craft this. Trust me, it’ll be much cheaper than running into a situation where you aren’t protected if there’s a problem. Don’t let this happen to you. Assuming you have a contract that has been created and/or vetted by a solicitor, how do you handle it when potential clients want changes?
The short answer is you stand your ground. You should have a sense of confidence and be able to defend each particular clause within your contract, in layman’s terms, to your potential client. Showing them that you are professional on the business/contractual side of things will help to build confidence in your ability to deliver on the performance end. This gives them even more reason to believe they’ve picked the right entertainer for their event.
But let’s say that they aren’t satisfied with your justification for certain clauses and still want changes to be made. I simply tell them that my solicitor has a rate of £X per hour and that, based on their required changes, it could cost anywhere between £X and £Z. I then make it clear that those charges would have to be passed on to them, the client. I have yet to run into a client who has agreed to take on those additional costs, which tells me that they weren’t that serious about those clauses being changed in the first place.
With all that being said, you have to be prepared for these clients to walk away and book entertainment elsewhere. Like I said at the beginning, it can be frustrating to lose a potential client but, on the flip side, you are probably avoiding a major disaster. Early in my career, I would make these ‘clientrequested contract amendments’ and, without fail, they would end up nit-picking everything else throughout the process. In some cases, even when I would crush their event, they would still complain that the service wasn’t up to expectation.
Now I can see those ‘red flag’ clients from a mile away. I’ve come to peace with the fact that not all clients are created equal. I know that the right clients will eventually sign with me. Have you run into this type of client?
How well does your client contract protect you and does it actually reflect who you are as a company? Send me a note! "Your contract should be so unique, detailing exactly what you are providing and your differentiators, that there is no question that it is tailormade for your company "
