Hi Reader!

Ozzy and I have started our slow trek north from Arizona to our summer digs in Wyoming. We take about six weeks to go the 1,000 miles, so we get to enjoy the journey and visit friends and family along the way.

This week, a situation came up where a client wanted me to bend one of my standard boundaries, “I don’t start work until the invoice is paid.”

The reason I have this boundary is simple: I don’t have the staff or want to spend the time tracking payments down. As a bonus, this boundary helps keep my rates lower because I don’t have to factor this overhead into what I charge my clients.

She said that the reason she wanted me to bend this boundary was because I would be traveling and unavailable on Tuesday, and she needed the task done by Wednesday, meaning I needed to start ASAP.

I explained I was happy to take care of things once the invoice was paid (and resent the invoice link that she’d had for more than a week) and reminded her of why I have this boundary and how it helps her.

She paid, and we got the project done on the schedule she wanted. But this boundary was put in place because the opposite has happened. I’ve done the work and then had to spend months tracking down payment.

👉 Your action item: Write one sentence describing why you have a specific business boundary in place. (Like my explanation of how it keeps their costs lower.)

🌟 For gold stars:

• If you are a service provider, check your contract to make sure that you can enforce this business boundary. (Don’t have a contract? I’ve got contract templates available for purchase here.)
• If you sell products, check your terms of service to make sure you can enforce this business boundary. (Don’t have terms of service? Make sure to grab my Website Policy Mad Libs here.)

Did you complete this task? Come share your thoughts about doing a knockout trademark search on LinkedIn or Facebook.

I'll be sitting at my computer until about 9:30 AM Pacific and I'd love to know if you run into any roadblocks in completing this week's task. (And if you are reading this after then, please reply! I'll get back to you ASAP.)

Chat soon,

P.S. Next week, I’ll be announcing our first For Real challenge, designed to help you have all the right permits and licenses in place. This will be the first challenge in the For Real series, with more coming soon. If you have a legal project you’ve been putting off that you’d like me to create a challenge to support, hit reply and let me know what it is!

Proposal or contract: which one is right for this project?

Are you unsure if you should send your client a proposal or a contract? Contracts and proposals have very different purposes; by the end of this post, you'll know when you should send each.

​

❤️ Easy to understand legal resources should be available to every creative, regardless of their financial situation. If one of my resources has helped you and you would like to say “thank you”, you can make a contribution here. ❤️