Let me ask you something: Do you feel protected in your business? Like, actually hold-up-in-a-court-of-law protected? Like, Elle Woods protected?

True story – I used to design my invoices and contracts in InDesign, export that contract as a PDF, email it to the client, have them sign, scan and send it back. My contract was pieced together from info I found across the internet, and truthfully, it was a hot mess and it scared clients off. And I don’t blame them.

Now that I’ve been running my business for 9 years, I have some much better practices in place like using The Contract Shop (where I get pre-written contracts) and Dubsado (how I send invoices and contracts).

ooof, that was painful to admit to you guys, I wish I could laugh about it since it’s in the past but there’s nothing funny about being unprotected and leaving yourself open to losing hundreds, even thousands of dollars.

If you’re not sure about whether contracts are worth the investment, here are 3 ways a sturdy contract can protect you:

1. When a client goes MIA

We’ve all had situations where the client could have been a little… clearer. But when a client just straight up ghosts you, what can you do? With a robust contract in place, you’ve collected the client’s address, permission to send them to collections, and you have all the resources you need to at the very least get paid even when the client has virtually disappeared.

2. For super late paying clients

Hands up if you’ve ever had an invoice paid late! 🙋 With a contract, you can clearly lay out your payment expectations right from the start so that your client pays on time, and if they don’t, you have the option to add on a late payment charge!

3. When a client feels ‘wronged’

Effective communication and a proper contract are great ways to avoid any of the above situations. But, sometimes, we run into a nightmare client. It’s reassuring to know that your contracts clearly lay out what you expect of clients, and when, so they can reference this at any time and deliver what is expected as needed. On the other hand, if you have a vague contract that leaves your clients guessing, they could feel neglected, left out, and maybe even fearful that you’re not taking care of them!

So now that we’re on the same page, a good contract is a MUST… lucky for you, The Contract Shop is running a sale where you can grab up to 40% off their products until Wednesday, May 30 (that’s tomorrow)!

This is the PERFECT chance to get yourself a contract that protects your business and, most importantly, Future You 🎉

Here are some of my top picks in the The Contract Shop store in the sale:

1. I personally use the Graphic Design Templates but they also have contracts in the 40% off sale for the following professions:

• Photographers 
• Coaches 
• ​Calligraphers 

2. Turnkey Business Binder

For the first time ever, you can get your business organized, started and profitable in a matter of days, not months! This workbook is practically a done-for-you business plan that helps you create a roadmap for your business – a.k.a. the best gift you could give your biz!

3. GDPR Compliant Terms & Conditions + Privacy Policy Bundle

Did you know that without a privacy policy, you could be breaking federal law? And if you don’t have one with GDPR provisions, you could be breaking an international law?! When you are transparent with your readers like this, it builds their trust in your website, opinions, products and services.

Save yourself hours of head scratching and staring at a blank Google Doc and grab yourself this T&Cs + Privacy Policy bundle.

I use this for my own website and it’s super easy to customize and add to your website or blog!

If you have any questions about The Contract Shop or the best products for you, just email me and let me know! I’m here to help.

P.S. This post contains affiliate links. I receive a commission for each sale made through my link at no extra cost to you.

P.P.S. This sale ends on Thursday May 30 at 11:59pm EST so make the most of it while you can!!

Going solo and shaking the shackles of employment has many benefits. Finally, you can control what you do, who you do it for, and when you do it. You can balance work and life in the way you never did before. For many of us though, these benefits are outweighed by one big con; you no longer get a steady paycheck.

It’s for this reason that millions of people still spend their lives in the office. And, there’s no denying the benefit of knowing what you’re getting and when if you have bills to pay. But, this may not be as far from freelance life as you’d think. When you have steady custom work, after all, you should still be able to arrange payments to meet your needs.

In theory, it’s the ideal compromise, but it’s by no means a foolproof plan. That’s because many freelancers, especially in creative fields, don’t get money when they’re owed. In extreme cases, they never get it at all. This could unravel your efforts, and it’s something you want to put an end to. But, you can’t do that until you ask whether you’re making it easy for those clients not to pay in the following ways.

You aren’t confident in the worth of your services

The worst thing we can do as creative freelancers is doubt ourselves. If you aren’t confident about the worth of your services, non-payments is inevitable. It may be that you feel awkward even asking for money. Or, you may not want to chase clients when they don’t pay on time. If that’s the case, you couldn’t make it easier for them to get away. Make sure that doesn’t happen by remembering that payment is your right as a creator. You’re providing a service, and you deserve a monetary return. Be clear about your rates. Make sure, too, that you chase unpaid accounts until you see results. How can you be sure of payment otherwise?

Using long-winded payment methods

Long-winded payment methods are another sure way to do yourself out of money. If you let clients leave on the promise of direct debit payments, it’s never going to happen. Make sure that no client can walk away by looking to payment product improvements like the Square Terminal. This is a new way of accepting payment which is easy to transfer and operates from battery and offline. By keeping something like this with you, you can kiss goodbye to those promises of ‘I’ll pay you later’. Instead, you’ll be able to get your money there and then.

Not stating a pay date on invoices

You may simply be failing to put payment dates on your invoices. Even if you’ve agreed a day with clients, you have no standing unless you put it in writing. By providing a date on the invoice, you create a reference for both you and them. You’ll then know as soon as that payment doesn’t come in, and take action the moment the client lets you down.

This post about copyright and how to protect yourself and your creative works is sponsored by the Copyright Alliance. All opinions are my own. Thank you for supporting this blog by allowing me to post occasional sponsored content. All sponsored posts feature products or services that I truly feel would be of interest to you.

My heart still races as I think back on this mistake.

He threatened to sue unless I paid $11,000.

I should have known better and it’s even embarrassing to tell this story.

But sometimes you have to mess up to learn the lesson, or in this case, hopefully, learn from someone else’s mistake.

Let’s go back in time… I live on a historic commercial street in New Orleans and, from 2009-2014, I volunteered to set up and run their website, blog, and social media. I’d post about special events, new shops opening, sales and other fun things happening in the 7-block commercial strip.

I would share images from the local businesses to help them get the word out or use photos from photographers that I thought were free to use.

One time, I used a copyrighted image from Flickr for a collage in a blog post. I should have known better but did not even look at the copyright or ask permission. The image was credited and linked back to the photographer’s Flickr page (probably how he found our site, through his Flickr stats). A few months later, I was contacted by him as he was looking for the owner of the site and looking for compensation for copyright infringement.

He sent email after email trying to get me to pay an $11,000 fee to avoid him taking legal action. I talked to an attorney, took the photo down and everything was resolved without a lawsuit or fees. But lesson learned. I’ve heard horror stories of people actually having to pay huge fees for using photos or art that they used without permission (something that no one should ever do).

Ever since that incident, I always ask for permission. Giving credit is not enough. And I try to spread this message to fellow creators, so they can also learn from my experience. I know that as a blogger, creator or small business owner, it’s hard to keep track of all the rules – but it’s part of running a business.

I know that as a blogger, creator or small business owner, it’s hard to keep track of all the rules – but it’s part of running a business.

I’ve also been on the other side of things, having my photos used without permission. Not only were photos that I took used without permission, but I’ve I found my headshot being using to promote courses and products that I had never heard of. And I’ve had friends who have had their work copied and stolen.

It’s sometimes hard to know what to do in these types of situations. But I recently came across an amazing resource that can help whether you are looking to protect your own work or to learn more about copyright in general.

The Copyright Alliance is dedicated to advocating policies that promote and preserve the value of copyright, to protecting the rights of creators and innovators, and to educating the creative community regarding copyright law and policies.

The individual creators that they represent rely on copyright law to protect their creativity, efforts, and investments in the creation and distribution of copyrighted works for the public to enjoy.

Are you a photographer, author, songwriter, designer, or some other type of artist/creator? Do you have questions about copyright and how to protect yourself and your creative works? Are you interested in joining a community of creators just like you who want to know more about copyright and how it can help you make a living and a career? If the answer to these questions is “yes,” then you should consider joining the Copyright Alliance!

They represent the interests of authors, photographers, performers, artists, software developers, musicians, journalists, directors, songwriters, game designers and many other creators.

The Copyright Alliance recently launched a Gold Membership plan to provide you with exclusive benefits that you’ll find helpful on a daily basis.

Their new Gold Membership plan features exclusive benefits designed just for creators, including: access to a private members-only website; access to a private Facebook Forum, where their team will respond to your copyright questions; webinars on copyright-related topics; exclusive copyright toolkits featuring info on topics such as copyright registration, copyright basics, online enforcement; exclusive discounts on worldwide hotels, Adobe Creative Cloud, Dell Computers and Electronics, Office Depot, and numerous conferences and events. To join as a Gold Member, or to learn more about benefits, just click here.  

Today Margaret Latham shares advice based on how she got started in the freelance graphic design world.

Going into business for yourself can be tough at first. You might have trouble getting clients and making sales. Working as a freelancer gives you lots of freedom, but it isn’t always easy to stay busy.

Once you get started, it can get much easier, but taking those first steps is the trickiest part. I want to give you some guidelines for starting out and hopefully help you take your first steps as a freelancer.

Know Your Niche

If you are going to be a freelancer, then you need to be doing something that you love. You will be setting your own schedule, and if you don’t like the work, then you are unlikely to put in the hours. You need to pick a freelance job that you get some joy out of. Many people take their favorite hobbies and turn those into regular jobs through freelance work. Doodlers become artists and fanfiction writers become copywriters.

Once you have settled on a niche you want to get into, you need to get good at it. You may not be an expert at that particular skill in a way that will make you steady money yet. So, read up on how people are monetizing that skill and turning it into a job. Read their blogs and find out how they work from day to day.

For instance, if you are going to be a freelance writer, you need to know how people write for websites and search engines. That’s far different from writing novels and screenplays. You need to learn the ins and outs of your niche.

Find a Job

Now, here is the hard part. Finding someone who will hire you is probably going to take a lot of work in the beginning. You will often be rejected and run into people who are not going to treat you fairly or who demand outrageous things of you. You have to know when to turn down job offers and when to accept, and you will likely only learn that through some trial and error. You have to watch out for scammers too, and you are going to have some bad experiences, but that’s part of the learning process. I’ve had luck using freelancing sites like Freelancer.com, UpWork.com and Fiverr.com. These are great starting points to find your clients. Put out as many feelers as you can, apply for all the jobs you can handle and be prepared to not get a lot of the work you apply for. These are very competitive marketplaces, but they are also the best place to find legitimate clients. There will be lots of people looking for freelancers on these sites and lots of freelancers trying to find work there, so they are very busy marketplaces.

It also helps to make some friends on both sides of the work pool. Maybe a potential client doesn’t need you for one job, but they may want to keep you in mind for the next one. Connect with them through professional and friendly application letters that make you stand out. You can also connect to other freelancers in the same niche as you. If you make friends with some of them, then they may send you some extra work every now and then. That can lead to a lucrative and successful partnership with clients that the other freelancer has acquired.

Make Yourself Competitive

You have to make yourself stand out in some way when you are competing with other freelancers for the same job. One of the best ways to do that is to make yours a bit lower. Don’t make them so low that you are working for peanuts, as that can make you seem unqualified. Instead, look at what people are offering on average for the work you are applying for and cut your price just slightly. You might not like working at such low rates, but you need to keep in mind that you are simply trying to enter the marketplace.

Once you get your foot in the door, then you can start asking for higher rates. Getting started means making sacrifices at first and working for wages you might not feel are worth your time, but once you build up a reputation and a client base, you can quickly grow from there. Your clients will recommend you to their colleagues, and before you know it, you will have a whole network of clients to work with. This is how we ended up with one of our first clients, a cleaning service called Diamond Cleaning Calgary. They could not afford the more expensive graphic design companies, so they went with us. They were so pleased with the work we had done, that when it came time to increase our rates, they were happy to pay. They knew they needed us to keep working with them if they were to continue seeing the same level of success.

Of course, you will only be able to leverage for higher rates if you do excellent work. Even though you may be working for low rates at first, you need to put your best efforts in. This will pay off later when you go to increase your rates. Your clients will be willing to pay those higher rates because they love the work you do.

Another way to make yourself competitive is to advertise. You can get your application boosted on some of those websites we mentioned earlier to make it more visible. This is really only necessary for very competitive job offers, but you can take the same concept and apply it to your business as a whole. You make yourself look more professional by having your own smartly designed website and by doing some marketing on platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Get your name out there, and the little bit of money it costs to do so can be richly repaid.

Thanks again to Margaret Latham for sharing these actionable methods to start freelancing.