The following content is a mixture of copied text and personal interpretation. The purpose of this blog post is to share our experience taking this course and highlight it’s value and availability to access through LinkedIn’s Learning portal.
We know contracts are not the sexiest topic of conversation in business, but boy are they life savers. We have been writing contracts for years now here at YBB and we enter into contracts for a significant majority of our collaborations, specifically ones that span over months or years time. Event if exchange of services is the primary payment detail, we highly suggest you start entering business relationships with a contract agreed upon by both parties before any work or exchange is done. Through Mike Figliuolo’s course in LinkedIn, you will learn what different contracts mean, pricing and payment terms, warranties and liability terminology and expectations, and insurance requirements. He also lets you in on what you should consider when defining your project scope.
Helpful contracting tips the highlights are:
Minimize the size of numbers.
“Instead of saying, "The client will pay $60,000 for 300 hours of services," say, "The client will pay $200 per hour of services rendered. "The consultant will provide up to 300 hours of service."
Those are much smaller numbers. That's a lot easier to accept and approve on the client side.”
Specify expenses in words verses in numbers.
“If you say, "The client will pay up to $15,000 in travel expenses," they'll likely negotiate that number. It's a big dollar amount. If, instead, you say, "The client will reimburse "for actual travel expenses," it's more likely to be accepted as written with no negotiation.”
Require a minimum purchase of services.
“A lot of effort goes into selling, proposing, and contracting for an engagement. You don't get paid for that time. If the client uses 60 hours of your time contracting and then only does a six hour engagement,you've made a pretty poor hourly rate. Require the client to pay for a minimum number of hours,whether or not they use them. It'll at least guarantee an acceptable return on your sales and contracting time.”
Define your classes of travel.
“Many consultants spend a lot of time on planes and in hotels. The client will want you to choose the cheapest accommodations possible. Don't sacrifice your lifestyle unreasonably. Specify acceptable classes of travel in your contract. At thoughtLEADERS, when we travel internationally, we specify that we travel business class. My instructors are on the podium for eight hours, teaching a class to up to 35 people. I cannot put someone on a plane for 20 hours to go to Singapore and teach a class back in economy in the back of the plane. It's specified in the contract the class of travel that we'll use.”
Use terms like in its sole discretion, or as mutually agreed upon in writing.
These terms can simplify contracting and improve negotiating success. The terms are advance permission to make a decision without further approval, or they get the contract done sooner and leave the smaller points for future discussion and mutual agreement.
If you’re interested in taking Mike’s course on LinkedIn, here is a list of learning objectives you will learn:
Learning objectives
Identify effective consulting contracting techniques.
Explain how to evaluate an attorney for legal counsel.
Compare and contrast different types of major contracts.
List the major players in a contracting process.
Define payment terms.
Define warranties and liability.
Scope a consulting engagement.
Describe how to negotiate major contract points.