Speaker 1: So ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another video. In today's video, I want to talk about, do you need contracts for your agency and just tell you and really just give you a bit of insight as to how in some cases contracts can be super just futile and a lot of times they really just don't hold up and I'm going to give you some very tangible examples of that. Now it's funny because contracts are this thing that especially a lot of beginners just really stress over. And also I think a lot of beginners and really people who haven't been in the world of business full stop think that a contract is this binding thing. And no matter what, if you have a contract with a client, that means that they will a hundred percent pay in that. And then a contract locks things into place for both parties when you need to realize that, uh, I said a lot of time, that's not the case. So that's what we'll be delving into in this video. Now the caveat to this is you should have a contract because in my opinion, it's well, well you should have a contract because you should have a contract. Wow. It's a professional. If I was working with a, um, service based business and they didn't have a contract with me, I would be, um, I would wonder why not. At the end of the day, there are just certain things you have to do to maintain that level of professionalism as a business to business service provider. And not only that, I mean, look at the end of the day, if you're going to have a contract, you might as well make sure that it's bulletproof. So for any of you guys in agency incubator, I actually give you guys two contracts. I give you guys my old contract that I used for two plus years. And then I give you guys my latest one that my lawyer draft up last, basically this time, last year I got them to draft up 12 different agreements and contracts for you guys. So you guys wouldn't have to spend the thousands and thousands in billable hours. I don't know if any of you guys have experience with lawyers. Um, they suck. Like lawyers just suck. But anyways, for those of you guys in agency incubator, just use the one I give you guys in the program. That thing is seven pages of the most bulletproof writing you could ever come across. But apart from that contract, using and processing payments through Stripe gives you another layer of security because, look, I've never had it for the agency before, but I know that some agency owners out there have had clients of theirs. Um, you know, because then they like not every single client can be a rainbows and butterflies. There will inevitably some client be some clients that you come to a disagreement with and that disagreement can't be solved amicably. And yeah, some clients are just, I don't know. Some clients are just, to be honest, unreasonable. And, um, there, there are definitely stories of agency owners who have had clients of theirs dispute their payment. Now, if you do just a regular wire transfer, and they dispute the payment, then there's going to be a whole host of issues or credit card stuff would Stripe. They are the middleman. You, you know, they will dispute, um, it will get retracted from your, um, balance. Like they'll, they'll take that out of your account, but you also have the ability to appeal. And then obviously it will be redeposited once you win the appeal, which if you have a bulletproof contract, you have that seven page behemoth that I give you as an agency incubator, you will never not win a dispute. In fact, that actually happened to one of our students. Um, he posted in the group, this, this situation, this situation that happened where a client wanted a refund, even though he provided the services, he provided great services as well. Um, and the client ended up disputing and you know, I saw this and I really felt for him. So I just gave him a quick call on Facebook and, uh, and basically I ran him through exactly what to say on the dispute. I said, it's never happened to me at the agency, but at the education we have a 0.4 0.5 a dispute rate. It just comes with doing business no matter what business you're in, you're going to have a dispute rate and for industry standard, that's actually very, very low. So I'm familiar with sort of the ecosystem and, and you know how our team handles it and stuff like that. So, so I ran him through exactly what to do. And as I said, because he did have a contract in place there and because obviously he had a proof and evidence of him delivering the services, he then won this dispute with Stripe. You know, uh, the client, uh, the student had his money redeposited back into the account. And, um, I think that's a, that's a place where a contract is important. I think that is the only place where a client is a contract is important in my place. Or it serves a actual functional purpose, which is if a client ever tries to dispute a payment, you have that bulletproof contract in place there. What I really want a lot of people to understand is that a contract is not a guarantee. Okay. And I'm just speaking from experience. Like I've had, uh, to give you a perfect example, like I had a client last year around March and that was a 7,200, I think 7,200 pound a month retainer. So $9,600 a month retainer. And it was so annoying. Because the client signed on and the client was actually in the process of moving to Dubai and something along, you know, somewhere along those lines. And we had written the ad copy. We were getting ready to go, all that stuff. Uh, his business manager got shut down. His personal ad access got shut down, all this stuff. And it was, we didn't even get a chance to run the ads. It was like, it wasn't, uh, anything based on what we were running. Plus, you know, uh, having a agency that, uh, serves info product businesses, exclusive 80% of our roster is info product business for the past two years. You end up, um, getting very good at being compliant. So yeah, with this client, uh, obviously we had a three month minimum as I do with all my clients and the client, I, you know, tentatively he asked, he's like, look, um, I understand that we have a three month minimum and I understand that you could run YouTube ad cause we do Facebook and Google for our clients. He's like, look, I understand that you could run exclusively YouTube ads, but to be very honest with you, I kind of came to you guys with the intention and really looking for you guys to run my Facebook ads. Like that's really what was more important to me. Not so much the YouTube side of things. Um, do you mind if we find an arrangement or another contract? And I was like, yes, of course. Like not only did I rip up the contract, I actually refunded him that first month, even though we wrote the copy, it was 30 days and then we, you know, we worked on his behalf trying to get his business manager ad account back, trying to shift it over to a new business manager. But yeah, anyways, my point is in a scenario like that, yes, contractually he had to pay for three months, but just as a human, like just as a business owner, that cares about his reputation, I'm not going to with an iron fist enforce that contract. There have been other examples. There have been one example that I can think of. Um, this is the only time where someone has like wanted to leave early. We had one client and they wanted to break after two months rather than after three months. Um, they made up some, you know, once again, it was very amicable. They weren't like, you know, this is like we were getting that. I guess that was the frustrating thing is we were getting such good results. Um, it was a business owner that I think was, just, um, there are certain people that are just a little harder to please. Um, he was one of them. Oh, that's for sure. Um, and yeah, you want to bring it in house. Uh, and to be honest, like we didn't mind, we didn't really care to be honest, because as I said, they were a little more of a, they were only 4,000 pounds a month. Uh, they were a little bit of a more, one or more are difficult, um, uh, clients to say the least, uh, in terms of, in terms of, you know, just, uh, first of all, just being happy about the incredible results we were bringing them. Uh, you know, saying thank you to my team, uh, et cetera, et cetera. So, um, once again, in that scenario, yes, we had a three month contract. The client wanted it to end it after two months. Uh, we actually wanted to end it after two months. So in that instance, you just void the contract. Like you just, it doesn't do anything. And you need to understand that in that instance with the client that want to leave after two months, if I had been like, no, you're not leaving after two months because our contract states that you can only leave after three months. He's he just could have been like, all right, cool. Fuck you. I'm out. I'm out. And this happens like, for example, once again, in the community, there are people where they get their clients incredible results. And after two months they want to leave because they want to bring it in house because they think that they're going to save money by bringing it in house. There's one example I can think of specifically where like this, this, this person, his billables were, you know, uh, over well, well over five figures a month, um, in performance fee. But like he basically didn't even charge a base. It was only performance. So, you know, yes, you're ending a, you're paying this guy multiple five figures a month, but you're also making a crap ton of money. But at the end of the day, you can't enforce the contract. Like, yes, what are you going to do? Take them to take them to court. It's just not worth the hassle and the headache. So yes, everyone should sign a contract because it legitimizes the relationship together. And it also sets this underlying president. It all sends this, uh, it sets this underlying, uh, understanding that this is a binding thing, you know? And, uh, even subconsciously that has some merit, um, to it. So yes, you should always, always sign a contract and have a contract in place with your clients. And a contract will really save your ass. If a client ever disputes, which as I said, it's like, it's very, very uncommon in the agency space, but every once in a while, every blue moon, it happens, but you need to understand that if a client wants to leave and a client wants to walk away, then at the end of the day, a contract isn't going to stop you. And plus, I guess maybe that's just the way I like to do business. Like whether we have a contract or not, uh, if you don't want to continue the agreement, I'm not going to make, I'm not going to force you. You know, I, if a client asks for a refund on services already rendered, that's where I draw the line. Yeah. Fuck no. Fuck no. And once again, I've never had a client ask for a refund on services render. But in that instance where I told you, I haven't had a client want to leave at the two month mark rather than the three month mark where we stipulate it. And as I said, for me, it just comes down to a, what do I want my reputation to be like as a business owner? And if someone genuinely does not want to work with me and work with our agency anymore, then I'm not going to force them to stay whether we have a contract in place or not, to be very honest. So yeah, ladies and gentlemen, as I said, you also want to have contracts in place with for NDAs with your, with your contractors. You want to have contracts in place for, I mean to be honest, the 10 plus legal agreements that I give you guys in agency incubator because at the end of the day, it's, it's a small thing and at least it will in some rare instances save your ass. But, but contracts are also way less important than people realize and very, very simple. Whenever someone is signing a contract, you or the other party just use DocuSign, HelloSign. I use HelloSign personally and that's how you go about things. But as I said, always in your mind, just have it there that look at it and it's never guaranteed. So ladies and gentlemen, I hope you guys have gone a better understanding of kind of the real purpose that contracts serve as an agency that you should have contracts, but you should never rely on your contracts. I hope you guys enjoyed this video. If you haven't already, we would love to speak with you here at great agency.com. I'm going to go ahead and leave a link down below to book in a call with Kaden, who's our student integration manager. Basically his entire role at the company is to make sure that new students are integrating well into agency incubator and also look for people who might be a good potential fit to join the program. So if you've ever had any questions about how we get such ridiculous student results, you know all those student interviews you've seen all the, you know, I think about 400 plus reviews on our website if you want to know about the philosophy, that I have when it comes to running an agency and said what myself and our students are doing to get such ridiculous results and kind of what's like to be part of a real community both offline and online for all the events that I do. Go ahead and book in a call with Kaden. It's a super chill conversation, super laid back and yeah, we'd love to speak with you. So ladies and gentlemen, that's all for me today. Go ahead and book in that call with Kaden and hopefully see inside of agency incubator soon. Thank you so much for joining us today. We'll see you next time. Bye.