Speaker 1: This is by far the number one question that I get asked the most about, so let's jump into it. All right, so the first thing that I typically find that is missing in most people's contracts is not necessarily how much you're charging, but how you want to charge them. And what I mean by that is, how are you breaking up the payments? Most clients don't want to pay everything up front, especially if it's their first time working with you. So what I have found that works well for me is the 50-25-25 rule. So what this means is, I charge my clients 50% of the deposit up front, or 50%, which is a deposit. It's non-refundable, and this primarily is to cover things like pre-production and most of production. Then I charge them a remaining 25% once we get to the first round of edits. This is when I submit them, the first edit, the first draft, whatever that is. Obviously, I still have a watermark on it because the full payment hasn't been done yet. And then I charge them the final remaining 25% when the project is completely done, they've signed off on it, and at this point is when they actually get their video with no watermarks. See, it's important in your contract to actually not only dictate what you're charging, but how you're going to charge them and when they should expect to actually receive these charges. So that way they're not out of the blue figuring out how they're going to pay you or trying to figure out what works the best. So it's best to go ahead in your contract to not only dictate how much the project's going to cost them, but how they're going to pay for it and when. Now real quick before I jump into the remaining things that are currently missing from your contract, I've actually created an entire video document bundle, which includes two different contracts, a work order, a talent release form, a video scope project, as well as a work order document. Now if you guys want to check out all these documents, I'll have them linked down below in the description. You can purchase them and literally every single one of them is customizable. No matter if you're going to be editing it in pages or in Word, or if you just want to be able to use the PDF to see how it looks, copy, paste it, alter it however you want. This document and all of the documents in here were all created for you guys to make the process of actually taking your business more seriously, easier. All the documents are color coded, makes it super easy. Definitely check those out down below in the description. All right, now the next big thing that I typically find that's missing in most people's contracts is ownership. Ownership is huge and I get this question from you guys all the time in DMs and emails and whatever, and that is who owns the footage? Well, your contract should state it. Now a lot of clients believe that because they hired you and you shot their video, that they should own all the raw footage and at any moment they should be able to call you and ask for it and you'll deliver it to them on a hard drive. When in actuality, you may not be thinking the same thing and this is why it's so important to have this in your contract. If you don't have this in your contract, it's going to be a huge issue later on when you're having to explain to them that yes, even though you shot it, you still own it, even though they paid you for it. It's a big hassle. Go ahead and talk to your client about this ahead of time and put it into your contract. Now one thing that I typically do is I own all my footage, I have the rights to it. If I want to reuse it, I can. If I want to use it for my YouTube channel, I can and it's on my client to let me know that they're not comfortable with that and then ultimately on me to decide if I want to make that change to my contract for that client. Typically if a client wants to have all of the footage, I charge a little bit extra for that and if they want ownership of everything, then I charge extra on that. See, it's really important that you state in your contract what exactly your client is paying for and who owns the raw footage as well as the finished video when the project is completed. All right, the third thing that I find that's really important for your contract is your deliverables. Now we talked about the raw footage, but let's talk a little bit more about the actual finished video. First of all, what will the finished video look like and what exactly is the client going to be able to do with that finished video? See, just giving them a video is one thing, but how would you feel if later on, maybe a year, maybe two years from now, you actually saw that finished video in a big campaign on television all over the internet and you had no idea that the client was going to be using it that way? You'd probably feel maybe a little cheated, especially depending on what you charge them for the project. See, this is why it's so important that you put in your contract what the client can and cannot do with that finished video. For example, in the past, I actually had a client who took my finished video and actually sold it, sold my finished video to someone else for them to be able to use. That's not okay, and especially because I had it written in the contract. So it is super important, especially if you're new to this whole thing and you're not sure what your client's going to do with the video when it's all said and done, that you have it dictated in your contract what your client can and cannot do with your finished video. All right, now this fourth one is one that, trust me, if you can put this in your contract, it's going to save you so much headache, and that is who is the shot caller or who is the decision maker? Now, I don't know if you guys have ever been in this situation, but I have been in situations where I've been working with clients and it's a company and there's a couple people who have input on how the video should be done and I'll submit an edit and then I'll get four different people emailing me back telling me how the actual video needs to be changed and what alterations should happen. This is a nightmare because it is impossible to make all those people happy. So one thing that I always recommend you do is find one person or allow them to choose one person within the company and make them the point of contact. That way, the four or five or six, however many of them can all come together, tell that one person what changes they want to be made, and then that one person communicates with you on how to make those changes. If you can figure out a way to put this into your contract or like I said before, use even my contract state that says this, it's going to make your life so much easier because now you only have one person to please. And ultimately, it's going to put a little bit more work on your clients to really determine what they want from that video, come together, collaborate, and then submit that to you. So then you're only having to deal with one person and making one person's vision come true. All right, and the fifth and final one is something that I had never heard of before until I started writing my contract. And that is something called a force major or a what if clause, pretty much what I call it. And that is what happens if something happens to the footage. This could be an act of God, this could be hard drive corruption. What happens if the worst of the worst comes into play? Who's at fault? Do you owe them a 100% refund? Could you be sued? If you don't have some type of clause like this in your contract and the worst does come to worst, it really puts you in a situation where you feel helpless. And trust me, you don't want to be in this situation. I personally can say that I've been in situations where I had a client project and I had it on a hard drive and that hard drive failed before I finished the project. This is a nightmare situation. It'll ruin your whole month. It'll ruin pretty much probably that whole quarter until you figure out how to make it right. And if you don't have something in your contract kind of guiding you and telling you what you can and can't do and what you should and should not do and who's responsible and ultimately what that ending is going to kind of look like, it's pretty much just going to be a terrible situation. Trust me from experience. If you don't have this type of a clause in your contract, you're going to regret it. So I strongly recommend that you figure out a way to type this up, throw it in your contract, and if your client has questions about it or if your client wants to come back to you on it, then have that conversation with the client up front. So that way, if worse came to absolute worse, everybody's on the same page as far as what will and won't happen if the worst situation actually comes true. But there you have it, guys. Those are the five things that I personally think that are missing from most videographers' contracts. Don't let your contract just kind of be this little vague document that you have your client sign. Be detailed with your contracts because trust me, it's one of those things that you hope you never have to enforce. But if you ever have to enforce it, you're going to be happy that you had it and everything was lined out. I mean, if anything, it'll make you and your client feel more confident. So that way they know if anything happens, both parties know what to do in any type of situation that could possibly come up. But there you have it, guys. Those are the five things that I personally think that are missing from most videographers' contracts. Don't let your contract just kind of be this little vague document that you have your client sign. Be detailed with your contracts because trust me, it's one of those things that you hope you never have to enforce. But if you ever have to enforce it, you're going to be happy that you had it and everything was lined out. I mean, if anything, it'll make you and your client feel more confident. So that way they know if anything happens, both parties know what to do in any type of situation that could possibly come up. I'll have links down below to my video production document cheat sheet bundle, so that way you guys can actually check that out. Like I said, everything you need as far as a video production document should be in there. If there's anything else you guys want me to add to that in the future, definitely let me know. And any other questions you guys have about documents, I'd be happy to cover those in a future Business Monday. This video specifically came from questions that you guys were asking, so be sure to leave comments down below on things you want me to cover in future videos. But thanks so much for checking out this video, and I'll catch you guys in the next one. Peace.