contracts

hey forum. i was wondering if somebody could give me some advice regarding contracts. in what form do you guys give the contract to your customers? do you use PDFs, a word document, fax it, mail it, email it, or........? i am hopefully going to be doing business with people all over the united states so having a customer sign a contract in person is not an option.

thanks a lot in advance

NEVER use PDF not everybody has the PDF reader on his computer, I suggest you to fax it if you are able to do so. On the other hand, I don't like mail because letters can take a while and can even not go where do you wanted. Use a Word-based format that can fit on every machine (even the old one). Make your contract easy to understand, clean, and ask them to sign it before beggining any work unless you have a written or spoken agreement on the contract.

Marketing tip : If you mail it to them, pay them the return fee (a stamp or a prepaid stamp).

This help was brought you by:
Michael Clermont
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Check out the thread of the year, all about contracts with a free sample one:

http://www.talkfreelance.com/showthr...5&page=1&pp=10

I mail the contracts out, if it is needed in a hurry I either e-mail it to the client or fax it and they fax it returned with their signature. The crucial thing here is to get a signature in at least an electronic format, faxed format is fine.

I suggest using Julian's contract as a base. It's extremely well writtin for use with design.

I personally almost always use PDF's and after about 30 clients, haven't had a problem.

I always draft a very professional-looking project "proposal" as well as a "contract." The proposal states everything that Julian's post pointed to:

http://www.talkfreelance.com/showth...45&page=1&pp=10

At the end of the proposal, I append a "contract" with the legalese (ownership, payment schedule, etc.). Then I e-mail the proposal AS WELL AS print a nice color version, put it into a presentation folder, and mail it Priority Mail (requiring a signature) to the client. This always adds an extra touch of professionalism.

Once they sign the proposal agreement and the contract, they can either fax, mail, or even hand it to me at the next client meeting.

Good luck!

Originally Posted by pklin http://www.talkfreelance.com/showth...45&page=1&pp=10

Broken link.