Congratulations on keeping the client and being able to attend the meeting via conference call. I’m sure that was a hard conversation…

Thanks!

This post caught my attention as I had a contract related issue recently.

I have a client who loves meetings… preferably in London – 50 miles from my home on the South Coast. I charge by the hour. I charge ‘out of pocket costs’ – such as travel separately. Up until now all has been fine.

In my last quote, I dropped the line about ‘out of pocket expenses’ – due to would you believe – space purposes. I wanted my quote to fit neatly on a page.

For my latest project I was asked to attend a meeting – 260 miles from my home. Out of courtesy I asked whether the company would be happy for me to save circa 6 hours travelling time by train, by flying up for an extra £20 ($31). I am so glad I asked – as I was told that from now on the company would not pay my travelling and meeting expenses, as their web developer doesn’t charge for meetings. I was expected to give away a day of my time for free and incur the cost of travel – £100 ($157).

I suggested the web developer may charge for his time differently – by day, and would build in meeting time into his quote somewhere.

After a very difficult conversation – I will now attend the meeting via conference call.

But, in the back of my mind I am still thinking about the fact that if I hadn’t had asked the question about flying – and just attended the meeting – I would have been quite severely out of pocket!

So the moral of this story is – yes I totally believe in contracts. I like your idea of having a lawyer look them over. And will contacting one in the near future.

Thank you very much.

Claire

Thanks for your comment!

To answer your first question – a template contract is “just OK.” It’s more than nothing, but I recommend having your “own” contract ASAP. You can also take a template contract into an attorney and ask him/her to customize it – that may save some $$ in attorney fees, too!

To answer your second question…well, your question was SO good, that I think it will be next Monday’s video post. Stay tuned…and thank you!

I look forward to your next post on the subject of copywriting contracts.

There are, in particular, 2 issues that I’d love to hear your views about. These are:

(i) Your thoughts on template contracts that you can download from the web.

(ii) Small one-off copywriting jobs, where a contract may seem OTT for just a few hours’ work.

Just curious as to whether you’d be covering these 2 points in future instalments.