Helpful Contracting Tips from Mike Figliuolo, managing director at thoughtLEADERS, LLC
Through Mike Figliuolo’s course in LinkedIn, you will learn what different contracts mean, pricing and payment terms, warranties and liability terminology and expectations, and insurance requirements. He also lets you in on what you should consider when defining your project scope.
The following content is a mixture of copied text and personal interpretation. The purpose of this blog post is to share our experience taking this course and highlight it’s value and availability to access through LinkedIn’s Learning portal.
We know contracts are not the sexiest topic of conversation in business, but boy are they life savers. We have been writing contracts for years now here at YBB and we enter into contracts for a significant majority of our collaborations, specifically ones that span over months or years time. Event if exchange of services is the primary payment detail, we highly suggest you start entering business relationships with a contract agreed upon by both parties before any work or exchange is done. Through Mike Figliuolo’s course in LinkedIn, you will learn what different contracts mean, pricing and payment terms, warranties and liability terminology and expectations, and insurance requirements. He also lets you in on what you should consider when defining your project scope.
Helpful contracting tips the highlights are:
Minimize the size of numbers.
“Instead of saying, "The client will pay $60,000 for 300 hours of services," say, "The client will pay $200 per hour of services rendered. "The consultant will provide up to 300 hours of service."
Those are much smaller numbers. That's a lot easier to accept and approve on the client side.”
Specify expenses in words verses in numbers.
“If you say, "The client will pay up to $15,000 in travel expenses," they'll likely negotiate that number. It's a big dollar amount. If, instead, you say, "The client will reimburse "for actual travel expenses," it's more likely to be accepted as written with no negotiation.”
Require a minimum purchase of services.
“A lot of effort goes into selling, proposing, and contracting for an engagement. You don't get paid for that time. If the client uses 60 hours of your time contracting and then only does a six hour engagement,you've made a pretty poor hourly rate. Require the client to pay for a minimum number of hours,whether or not they use them. It'll at least guarantee an acceptable return on your sales and contracting time.”
Define your classes of travel.
“Many consultants spend a lot of time on planes and in hotels. The client will want you to choose the cheapest accommodations possible. Don't sacrifice your lifestyle unreasonably. Specify acceptable classes of travel in your contract. At thoughtLEADERS, when we travel internationally, we specify that we travel business class. My instructors are on the podium for eight hours, teaching a class to up to 35 people. I cannot put someone on a plane for 20 hours to go to Singapore and teach a class back in economy in the back of the plane. It's specified in the contract the class of travel that we'll use.”
Use terms like in its sole discretion, or as mutually agreed upon in writing.
These terms can simplify contracting and improve negotiating success. The terms are advance permission to make a decision without further approval, or they get the contract done sooner and leave the smaller points for future discussion and mutual agreement.
If you’re interested in taking Mike’s course on LinkedIn, here is a list of learning objectives you will learn:
Learning objectives
Identify effective consulting contracting techniques.
Explain how to evaluate an attorney for legal counsel.
Compare and contrast different types of major contracts.
List the major players in a contracting process.
Define payment terms.
Define warranties and liability.
Scope a consulting engagement.
Describe how to negotiate major contract points.
Tipsy Tuesday | 4 Marketing Tips to Elevate Your Business
To save you the time and hassle I have put together 4 key components to elevate your marketing strategy and reach out to your potential IDEAL client.
Hey there, my name is Brenda Janet and I am a business coach who focuses on motivating & educating women to turn their passion into a viable business. When I first decided to jump into entrepreneurship, I quickly realized that there is more to setting up a business than just a fancy product or service. It was time consuming (to say the least) to research items like: vendors, product quality, figure out shipping details, website platforms, social media, marketing, target audience, authentic social media content etc. and the list does not stop here !!! This felt totally overwhelming and intimidating.
As an entrepreneur you manage many different roles in your business including Marketing. Now we understand that yes, it is great to have thousands of followers on your social media platforms but it is VITAL to the success of your business to have a strategic marketing plan.
— You're probably wondering what a marketing strategy is and why it is important to implement one to your business.
Now a marketing strategy is: plan of action designed to promote and sell a product or service. But why is it so important to have a marketing strategy?
— A marketing strategy is a key component that outlines your business’s purpose, goals and what makes it unique from the competition. A successful marketing strategy should clearly define who your ideal customers are and why they engage with your products and services.
To save you the time and hassle I have put together 4 key components to elevate your marketing strategy and reach out to your potential IDEAL client.
The first key to have a successful business is to understand who your targeted audience is, what problem or need do they have that you will be able to resolve.
Begin by narrowing down the following topics:
Geography: Where is your ideal client located?
Age: How old are they?
Likes & Dislikes: What are they interested in and what are their hobbies?
Gender: are your customers mainly women? Men? Or both?
Language: What language(s) do they speak?
Demographic
Education
Finances
Married or Single
What do they do for work
What do you want to inform your ideal clients about? Focus and refine your message so it is clear about what you have to offer! You want your dream client to be able to say
“YES, this product or service is for me!”
Take advantage that Facebook has a whole platform specifically for business & you're able to link both your Facebook business page and your Instagram Business page together. This simplifies creating an Ad. Facebook Business Manager is amazing because you are able to directly target your DREAM CLIENT.
— Take into consideration where you’re ideal client spends the majority of their time and focus on that platform.
To narrow this down, ask yourself the following questions:
Are they usually on social media? If so, which platforms?
Do they prefer to be contacted by email? Then consider focusing on growing your email list on your website!
Do they like to receive text messages of a new service/product?
Does your client prefer video content instead of pictures?
Always take advantage of the tools that are available to you on these social media platforms and utilize them to the best of your abilities. Upon completing your audience research, depending on who your ideal client is and what their interests are, you will be able to determine where and how your clients get their information.
You got your message across on your desired platform and your dream clients are loving it! They are engaging and booking with you, this is exciting!!! This is what we wanted, but now we have to figure out how we are going to keep this momentum going?
Review your analytics and data that is provided by your website or social media platforms and as yourself :
Is your message making any impact?
Is your message reaching your potential clients?
If so, are your potential clients encouraged to reach out to you?
As a busy entrepreneur, growing your audience and booking clients is vital to the success of your business and I hope that with these 4 tips will help elevate your marketing game and bring you further success! Keep pushing and working towards your goals, you got this!
Submission By: Brenda Janet
Check out my Instagram for free Business & social media tips!
Instagram - www.instagram.com/brendajanet.co
Website - www.brendajanet.com
Facebook - www.facebook.com/brendajanet.co
FEATURED POSTS
UPCOMING EVENTS & WORKSHOPS
