the artist's J.D.

18 days ago

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1 min read

🦅 Aligned price and usage, getting curious + your weekly roundup

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Hi Reader!

A couple of weeks back, I shared the story of the illustrator I worked with for a pickleball tournament design. She gave us a price before fully understanding how we planned on using her work. And because of that, she had to walk back that price once she realized that our scope of use was bigger than she thought.

That’s why I believe that you should flip the order of the typical workflow, rather than naming a price and then having the pricing feel off. Get curious about their usage first, then name a price.

I gave her the five questions that I’m sharing in this week’s video to help you tweak your workflow:

  1. Can you walk me through where this will be used?
  2. How long do you plan to use this?
  3. Will this work be limited to a specific region, or will it be used around the world?
  4. Would this be exclusive, or can I continue to use it?
  5. It sounds like you intend to use this [internally only/externally only/both internally and externally]? Is that correct?

👉 Your action item

For an opportunity sitting in your inbox, get curious and ask one of these questions.

If you feel uncomfortable asking your client one of them, hit reply with the number and I’ll help you think through it.

If you only have 20 minutes this week, the task above is the most important thing to do. But if you have a little more time, keep reading.

Chat soon,

P.S. If you want talking points for times when clients go silent or push back, that’s exactly why I created Copy + Paste Legal Week. It gives you my swipe file of professional email scripts so you’re never staring at a blank message.

The clause to notice

One small section of a contract that can have an outsized impact later.

This week’s clause: Timeline

BLURB

One thing to look for: When it comes to usage, you typically find everything in a section called something like “Licensing”. But over the past year, I’ve negotiated three contracts that had conflicting language about the license length inside the Timeline clause.

👉 Open the Contract Decoder​

LATEST VIDEO

The 5 questions to answer before you agree to any usage rights

A client asks about usage rights, and you feel pressure to answer right away. Before responding, ask these 5 questions.

Protect the business you’ve worked so hard to build

Each Friday, get a focused, jargon-free legal task, designed for creative entrepreneurs who want to protect their ass(ets) without legal confusion. No fluff, no overwhelm. Each one takes 15–30 minutes and helps you handle what matters, without wasting time on what doesn’t.

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