The Top 5 Contract Mistakes That Cost You Clients, Cash, and Credibility w/ Angie Boynton

0:01 Welcome back to the Coaching Equation podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Lang, CEO and co-founder of Empire Partners. And I've got a special guest in studio with me today. Angie Boynton is here. How are you doing, gal? I'm good. I'm really excited. I am so excited for this. This has been a long time coming. We've known each other for quite a while now. And you are an attorney by trade and specific focus right now on contract law and stuff like that. And there's so much goodness that we're going to dive into in this episode. Before we go there, though, I want to ask you this because I think – I mean, it's really interesting to me.

0:44 Thank God there are people like you that are passionate about things like contract law. It's so needed. But what – like you've got such a background. I mean, I think 26 years in law in general. Yeah. What was it that led you to contract law? Where did this start for you and kind of got us here? Well, that was an unexpected path, right? So when I was in law school, I was the queen of mock trial and evidence and civil procedure and all this stuff. I probably couldn't tell you an evidence rule now if I had to.

1:25 And everybody thought that was going to be my path. And I got out of school and I hated fighting with people all the time. Right? Because none of it felt meaningful. I wanted to build things. I wanted to help solve problems. And you can't do that when you're a litigator. If you want to build things and solve problems, you help people work out their business relationships. And the contract is the foundation of the business relationship. Right? And that's the thing that everybody gets a little wrong. They think the contract is like a shield or a sword. And it's really, it's the foundation of how you want to relate to somebody at its fundamental core.

2:09 I love that. How long did I'm curious, how long did it take after you? Did you kind of have this epiphany while you were still in law school? Or had you gone out? Did you go out and practice for a while before you kind of realized, I don't want to do this fighting thing? Yeah, it was about I was about a year out of school. And I was working at a regional law firm. And I at that firm, wherever your office was, was what kind of work ended up coming your way because some partner Some old gray hair lawyer who'd been practicing for 26 years would see you and give you some work. And I was lucky enough that the guy on the corner was the guy who did all the big ticket divorces.

2:50 So he represented, you know, the doctor's first spouse, the family business that had gotten real big. And then the people had, you know, their relationship fell apart, that kind of thing. And he came by my office and he was like, hey, dig into this stuff and start looking at all these contracts. And I realized that those relationships were – that the levers for how to manage the relationship were actually in those contracts. The stuff in there about indemnities and who's going to sue who and where you can do it, that stuff matters. But it only matters if the relationship doesn't go the way you want it.

3:36 I got my dream in-house job at a giant company. And some of the folks that are listening will remember a little scandal back in 2001 called Enron. Enron went down the tubes. I didn't work for Enron. I worked for a company that had contracts with Enron, right? And so because we got caught up in that industry-wide sort of jet wash and everybody's freaking out and things are falling apart, people getting laid off and all these things. We had to sell about eight. Well, I did. I think we sold more than this, but I think I worked on about $8 billion worth of asset sales in three years. Wow. And this is where I learned that it's never just business because these were high level, C-level people, sophisticated M&A investment bankers, all these people.

4:24 Yeah. But at the end of the day, they were still people having an experience of a business transaction. And it absolutely changed my practice. And I was so lucky that it happened in like year three of me being out of school and being licensed. Because I started to see that the human relationships – have to be accounted for in the business relationships. And so it's never just business, right? Like people say it's just business when they're about to do something that, you know, they know you're not going to like, right? So true. That's a dangerous pre-frame. Right, right.

5:04 I'm about to look like a big jerk, but it's just business. No, it's not. It's always... It's like, no offense. Yeah, no offense, but... It's the business version of no offense. Yeah. Yeah, that's so true. That's so true. You know, number one, it's funny because I'm just chuckling as you're talking about Enron and, you know, we just recently discovered our, you know, our mutual past in the oil and gas industry and current to some degree. But, you know, last time we chatted, I want to bring something in and I hope this is okay. But... Last time we chatted, we were talking about contracts and you literally, you literally got emotional about it.

5:51 What is it that makes you, I mean, you talked about the relationship and, and, you know, kind of this sort of actually being a tie for the relationship that humans are making together. But what is it about this that you're so passionate about in terms of helping people get it right? It's that there are rules and structure to contracts and there's technical language. But at the end of the day, if you just understand how it works, you can absolutely change the direction of your business. And people who have a mission to change the world.

6:33 they are focused on the mission, right? Like that's their zone of genius, but they can get really taken off track by not understanding how contracts work and how it can help you and how it can get in your way. And I see people make mistakes or end up in a bad spot for something that really would have been a very simple addition to the terms and conditions on their website. Or, you know, language on an order form. And it's to me, because I live in that world, I'm like, wow, that's such a, like, I'm going to put in air quotes, right? Simple fix. But if you don't know, how are you supposed to know? Yeah, of course.

7:13 And we don't teach people this stuff. It's true. So true. Yep. That's really well said. Really well said. And watching, you know... actual pain from people that I cared about. You mentioned I've been a practicing lawyer for 26 years, but along the way, I've had my entrepreneurial adventures too. One of those was a coaching business for other lawyers. And so I met all these coaches and what would happen was A coach that I knew and really respected as a coach or a consultant or really high level impact, right? I would get this little side conversation.

7:55 Somebody would sort of come around at a meeting or send me a chat and say, hey, I'm having trouble with a client. Do you mind if I know you know about this stuff? Can you help me? And I would just be like, yeah, call me. And that's where I would see that these little tweaks to how we do things can have huge impact. Yeah. I, uh, my, my husband is an artist, so we know a lot of artists also, and we have an artisan friend who, uh, called me up saying, I don't know if I can feed my kids this month because I've got this customer who's so upset and wants all their money back. What do I do? Oh, wow. And that's the, like, it feels like, shall we say just business, but this is real world impact on people's lives, on their income, on their sense of self and their mission in the world and like paying the mortgage, you know, it's real.

8:50 Yeah, it's so true. And one of the things that I love about people like you that help with stuff like this, this is law in general, as you know, is something that I think feels like the big, hairy, scary thing that, you know, the lay person doesn't really understand. And I think that in the coaching industry, you know, law, generally speaking, is, It's basically the equivalent to what people get on sales. It's like maybe half a chapter in a book or a page of stuff or some templatized bullcrap contract that kind of sucks.

9:36 And nobody really understands it. And they don't really understand what they should be doing, what they shouldn't be doing. And needless to say, like you said, I think it can land people in spots when the shit does hit the fan where they're not protected. And I also love, by the way, if you're listening to this right now, one of the biggest advantages to having Angie around is that she actually understands the coaching industry. You know, and and that that is unbelievably valuable because there are so many different facets to law. It's it's very much like medicine that way. And there are so many different specialties and and ins and outs.

10:18 I love that that you really do understand coaching. So let's go down. Let's dive in now. We've got basically. We talk about having a customer contract. Let's just start here before we dig into the things that people should really make sure they're getting right. Yeah. Why do we need to bother with this in the first place? Because I guarantee you somebody listening to this right now does not have an agreement. So why bother? Why bother? Yeah. And, or they have something that they borrowed from a friend, right? One of the most surprising things to me when I started my journey in the coaching part of the business was that I would see people in coaching groups or consulting groups or marketing groups post, hey, does anybody have a whatever contract I can borrow?

11:10 And, and half the time these posts would start with, I just landed my dream corporate client and. right? The client that's going to change the trajectory of my life and my business. Does anybody have a contract I can borrow? Now, I get it. Sometimes that's a budget thing. Sometimes it's a knowledge thing. Sometimes it's a lawyers are scary thing. And so that's when I started to see, okay, this is where I can really actually help people. Because lawyers are scary. And they act in weird ways. They do stuff that doesn't make sense if you don't understand legal services industry, right? Like, it's weird. I love that you're saying this right now.

11:51 Yeah. Let's just admit it, right? And there's reasons for all of that. And actually, some of the things that I teach in the Happy at Law Network are around how do you understand and decode what these very smart... I mean, listen, most of the lawyers I know are smart, passionate, funny, dedicated experts. But if you don't know how to talk to them or manage that kind of service, you will not get what you want from them. It's just hard to do it, not understanding. It would be like that old thing about going to the mechanic to get work on your car and you don't know how your car works, right?

12:32 Yeah, right. It's the same kind of thing. Yep. What was the question? I went off on a tangent. No, that's okay. That's okay. The main question to start with is just why do we need to bother having a client agreement? Yeah. Yeah, because there are things that can go wrong, right? So that's part of it. You want to know that you've got the levers in place to manage the relationship. And a lot of times we think, well, if I don't have an agreement, then I won't have an agreement to fight over. But the problem is whenever you're providing goods or services, right, you still have promises that you made and you're still getting promises from your client or your customer that's But if you don't have it written down somewhere that we've all agreed, this is what the rules are, then we have to figure out later what we all agreed to.

13:24 And that's where you end up in a fight with somebody. There are misunderstandings because people just talk past each other. That's where a lot of heartache and things get more expensive by the time you get there. What do you say to the coach who comes and says, Angie? I've got this client who I sent an agreement to. I do have an agreement. I put it in place, but I sent them the agreement. They're basically saying, look, I want to work with you, but I'm not going to sign your agreement. What do you do? Yeah. So that's where, believe it or not, you make those decisions in advance based on your business and personal values.

14:09 Because the best client, the best client contract for a coaching business is a client contract that aligns with your values. So if somebody came to me with that question, I would want to know from them and ask them some questions about, what, Where'd you get this contract? Did you download it off the internet? Did you use AI? Did you borrow it from somebody? Even if they say, I paid $5,000 and I hired a fancy hourly rate at a lawyer and we did a whole thing. Did you get a chance? to understand what was in your client contract and make sure it aligned to your business and personal values.

14:50 Because if that contract doesn't align to your personal business and personal values, you're not gonna feel strong in holding that boundary. So if we think of the contract as the set of boundaries we're asking our clients to respect, And the set of boundaries we're willing to hold to ourselves with our client. You can think about it a lot differently. Then it's not legal stuff. It is what is the boundary I am expecting and willing to respect? Okay. I don't think I've ever heard anybody say that. That's a mic drop moment right there, seriously.

15:31 And I think really when you read between the lines, if you're doing it the way that you suggest, that basically is your client saying, I'm not going to adhere to your values and I don't care about your standards. Basically, basically. So how do you know how to respond if you're not clear about whether that contract really respects the boundaries that are important to you? That's the fundamental question. And the question we want people to have a chance to think through before they send out an agreement and get that response back. Because when you're waiting on the card to clear, and you're waiting on the card to clear so you can pay your rent, you're going to have a different set of motivations, right?

16:16 Let's just say that out loud. Yep. Yep. And you know, what's funny about that is that's actually the reason that I asked the question is I think that especially early on when things are tighter than you might like them to be, there are those tempting moments where it's like somebody says, oh yeah, okay, I'll pay you, but I'm not going to play by the exact rules that you gave me They're going to be my rules, whatever they are. And we feel pressure to say yes. So I love that you bring this up because I think that generally speaking in business in general, you know, we set ourselves up for a whole lot of, of difficulty and heartache when we don't establish very early on what our standards are and, and commit to holding to those standards.

17:03 Yeah. And if we can talk about one of the most common ways that people violate their own boundaries with their coaching, or this happens a lot with consultants and freelancers, right? Is, you know, in the term comes from mostly IT projects, but it's scope creep, right? You agree to a certain scope of services, and then the client asks for a little more and a little more and a And pretty soon the scope, the scope creep has expanded everything you've done for them. And you are working for free. You did not get paid for that. I don't know what you're talking about, Angie. I've never experienced this.

17:43 Ryan either feels super seen or super judged. It's hard to say. I'm like, I'm like, shit. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't have a name for it, but now I do. Yeah, scope creep. And the thing is, it is a danger zone for freelancers and IT folks and consultants. But with coaches whose whole business and identity and passion is built around being of service, it is a danger zone. Like, it is so common. And then you feel... taken advantage of and you feel unappreciated and all these things when really we can set boundaries with a, with the right client agreement to help you manage the scope creep.

18:27 Right. And that's some of the stuff we talk about when I do negotiating tips for for coaches and consultants. One of the things we talk about is how do you ask for what you need without feeling like you're being greedy or over, you know, overly whatever, you know. Yep. And there's a way to do it. I love that. Gosh, we could probably do a whole episode on that because I think especially especially in this industry, there are so many heart centered people. And so often as a heart centered person, we so often make ourselves feel guilty for what we either want or need. And and this is all foundational stuff.

19:07 Well, they literally give till it hurts. Right. Yeah, exactly. And, and, you know, hurts literally. Well, we'll, we'll put a bookmark on that one because I, I, we could definitely open up that can of worms, but. Getting back to the contract, you've got really five key things that we need to be checking for in our customer contract. And I want to go through these five and document these for people so that they understand exactly what they should be paying attention to and looking for. So let's kick us off with number one here and dive in. Yeah. Number one is your name, right?

19:49 Like you would think you know who you are, but as I, so, so in my big corporate part of my practice, cause I am still practicing law for in-house at a, at a big energy company. Um, and so I see on the other side, agreements from small businesses, coaches, consultants, freelancers, um, These things come through. And one of the things that I see all the time is that they don't use the correct party name for their side of the contract. So you think, how in the world does that happen? And there's a formula for how you state your name in a contract. Awesome. If you're acting as yourself, if you're a sole proprietor, then it is literally your name, right?

20:33 Yep. But if you're signing that contract as your business, then it's the full legal name of the business. And then there's usually or very often a little place after that where it says a blank type of company. So a Delaware corporation, a Texas limited liability company. And I see this all the time. People will either misspell the name of their company or whatever. They won't know what to do when they see the form come back from the big corporation. And there's a blank where it says state type of entity. Well, all it's asking is what state did you create your business and what kind of business is it?

21:14 Is it a corporation, limited liability company, partnership, whatever it is, that's what goes in that blank. People mess this up a lot. Sophisticated people, right? Yeah. Well, yeah. And you know what? I mean, having dealt with all the contracts that I dealt with in my oil and gas career, it really is vital. But for the let's just say and I should say, number one, not only do we need to make sure that we differentiate between our our name, if we're sole proprietor or our company, our legal company name. But obviously double check your spelling, people. Yeah, it's real. Yeah. And the thing is, this is a mistake that can sort of be overcome in a lot of cases, not everything.

22:01 Like if you're talking about real estate documents, you got a real issue. But it's a mistake that can be overcome. But the thing is, you just don't want to look like an amateur. And when you make a mistake like, I didn't know whether to write out company or co or corp in my own company name, just make it match up. When you formed your LLC or your corporation and you filled out the form with probably LegalZoom or Rocket Lawyer or whatever – Or you hired a service to do that. They sent you back a certificate of formation or a certificate of incorporation. Like you've got that document somewhere that has your official legal company name on it.

22:46 And so if you're not sure what it is, you can go back and look that way. I love that. What do we do in this sense, Angie, if we are on this one specifically, if we're using a DBA because people do that from time to time. But if we're using a DBA, do we do we need to list out the full legal name of the company and the DBA or what do we do in that case? If you. put the DBA on your contract and it's registered somewhere, right. Then you're probably okay. When I do it, I have them do the company name, DBA, DBA name, right.

23:26 Got it. Because your client or your customer, they know you as that deal. Right. So for a while, my company is called happy at law LLC, currently in Oklahoma corporation, although we're getting ready to convert to another state. Um, And, but I was doing business as Angie Hooper coaching on a lot of my marketing. Yeah. Yeah. That was before I, before I married my sweetie. Um, and so for my contracts, they would always be in the name of happy at law. And I never filed the DBA on Angie Hooper coaching because it was a product. Yeah. Right. Got it. So, so that was the difference for me, but you just look at, did I register that DBA somewhere so that if somebody looked up that DBA, would they find my company?

24:10 Would they find it? Yeah. Got it. Yeah. Okay. That stuff is like putting people on notice of who they're dealing with. Right. Yeah, that makes sense. And that's a really good distinction because as the DBA, we can decide to DBA as anything, but that's a really good tie to make to, you know, is it registered? Is it not? That's, that's crystal clear. Is it branding or did I register it as an alternate name for my business? Got it. Got it. Okay, cool. Let's move on to number two. Number two is confidentiality language. So there's two ways that this often comes up for coaches. One is you may have some...

24:52 clients who you're going to ask them some pretty personal stuff. And it's not necessarily the coaches you think of, right? Like, I've talked to people in a business context where maybe there was a relationship that was having some difficulty with either another member of the LLC or a counterparty or whatever. And I always ask the question, is there anything else going on that's And some, you know, crazy stuff like, oh, yeah, I used to be married to that person, right? Or, you know, yeah, that's my brother in law. And we've all been fighting over the, you know, kids summer camp, like whatever.

25:33 And remember, because it's never just business. If there are, if you're going to be asking people as part of your coaching about their personal stuff, about their finances, they may want confidentiality language to know that you're not going to run off and share that with people. Now, ICF trained coaches, people who have been through ICF programs, part of the ICF code of ethics is that you keep client stuff confidential. The reason to have confidentiality language in your contract is to make sure you know what they agree is confidential. Yeah. And the circumstances where you might breach or make something not confidential.

26:19 Right. Because there's a safety issue, because maybe you've got a license that makes you a mandatory reporter. Yep. Yep. Maybe you get a subpoena, right? If you're doing marriage and family programs and somebody gets divorced and you get a subpoena from the divorce lawyer, right? When you get that kind of legal, you get entangled in the legal stuff. Yeah. That confidentiality language can say, yeah, I can talk about what you told me if I have to go tell the judge. Yeah. you know, or if you don't want me to tell the judge and you want your lawyer to, you know, resist that subpoena for me, you got to pay for that.

27:02 Right. So there's some things you can put in confidentiality language that set those ground rules and expectations about what will be confidential, the circumstances when you can share something that you would otherwise keep confidential. The other thing you use it for is when you're on the coach or course creator side, you can say to people, I'm going to share with you some proprietary techniques and some secret sauce and some pretty cool stuff. And you agree you're not going to run out and reteach it to people. Right. This is the copycat risk. Right. One of the ways, so when we think about copycat type risk at Happy at Law, we think about the multiple ways you can protect your secret sauce, your intellectual property, your techniques, your course materials.

27:52 Some of it's, you know, putting that copyright attribution. Some of it is including in the agreement whether they have to keep those materials for their own personal use. as part of confidentiality requirements. And some of it is going out and getting registrations and those kinds of things. So one of the legs of the stool of resisting copycats is confidentiality language on your own stuff and that they won't share what they hear other participants in a group program say, for example. I, I, okay. I'm going to avoid going too far just in the interest of time. I want to get through these five and I want to avoid going too far, but Cliff's notes answer to a burning question that I've got on this because I think it's an interesting one.

28:38 Obviously, when we as we learn anything, you know, we're if we learn anything and it impacts us in one way or another, at some point or another, if we're doing anything related to what we've learned, it's very possible and likely that we'll be influenced by and or use some similar languaging that we've learned or been taught or impacted us at some point. Is there like, because I get this question a lot of like, okay, look, my mentor taught me this thing. And like, I really, I have my own way of teaching it.

29:19 But like, it's at the core. It's not mine, quote unquote. How do we know what we're allowed to actually go and teach? Yeah. Oh, this could be a whole episode on itself, but we can say this, right? Nobody owns core fundamental concepts, right? Nobody owns mindset. Nobody owns limiting belief. Nobody owns asking for the clothes, right? You know, that would be like somebody claiming they own the recipe for scrambled eggs, right? It's just part of the way the world works. Yep. You know, you question a limiting belief.

30:00 Nobody owns that. Now, somebody might have particular ways they ask a particular question that they say, I came up with this question and it was so unique that I have the copyright on that because I published it in my book or on my website or whatever. Okay. Okay. So that's, you know, that's one thing. But in terms of I ask it a different way because I put my own spin on it, then, you know. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And that's a really major distinction. And there's probably, you know, we're up to like three episodes now, Angie. We've got a whole other episode on that one. But I think that's a really big one because, you know, most of the people that listen to this show, and are in our inner circle are big on personal development.

30:46 They are constant learners. Uh, and, uh, I, I love that if we can just find the right way to frame it, kind of make it our own, um, that we don't have to leave those things behind. Um, there's a respectful way to, to go about doing it. You're allowed to get smarter. Right. Exactly. I love that. I love it. You have permission. Yeah. All right. So number three. Number three is what happens if there's a personal disaster. The old force majeure. Force majeure. The old law French definition. We used to say act of God, but I think people recognize that it can be any kind of disaster that prevents you from performing under the contract in the way you would have normally.

31:31 So like, Pandemic was a huge force majeure for a lot of folks. Yes, that's a great example. Yeah, yeah. Suddenly you can't have your in-person workshop. What do you do? And force majeure language says, here's the list of things that could prevent me. I get sick. I have widespread internet outage because the cyber attack. I have all the power goes out and I can't get on Zoom. Or, you know, whatever the, the world shuts down for a couple of years. And so that list of disasters, and there'll be a little bit different for everybody. Yeah. Right. But you, you put that list of things in your contract and then you say, what happens if the disaster occurs?

32:16 Can you get somebody else to coach them? Right. Do you just give the money back? Or is it something else? Right. Do they just have to wait for you to get, to get back to where you can perform? I love that you put the nuance in there that it is something different for everyone. Because I think this is a clause. First of all, most people do not understand this. They just see force majeure in general. And they skip it. Yeah, right. What's this forky majority bull crap going on here? But I also find that just in contracts in general, in my more contract experience than most, certainly not an expert, but...

33:00 I, I, I think it's probably one of the most copy and pasted generalized, you know, paragraphs in an agreement. And I love that, that, uh, that you're encouraging people to kind of create their own nuance in there. Um, yeah, basically you sit down and you say, okay, what are the terrible things that this is? This is why all the lawyers are depressed, right? Because this is the job you sit down and you say, what are the terrible things that could happen? That would prevent me from fulfilling, for instance, my group coaching obligation. I might get sick. I could die. I could have a death in the family. I could have widespread electrical outage. There could be a named storm that makes me evacuate my normal place I work.

33:44 My house could burn out. All the things, right? And then you list out the things. And then you say, if that happens here, I'll do one of these three things. And I get to pick which one I do. I give you your money back. I, you know, give you an equivalent number of weeks on the other end. Or, you know, we just part friends, you know, pro-rata refund, something, whatever, whatever fits your business goals and values. Yep. I love that. I love it. All right. Number four. Number four is clear obligations. Now we talked about scope creep earlier, so we don't have to dive too far back into this one, but basically that's what this is. Could you look at your contract and say, from this description of what I'm going to do, I could make a to-do list and check off that I fulfilled all my obligations.

34:33 Could I do that? And if you can do that, then you're in pretty good shape. Yeah. But you'd be surprised how many times I look at it and I'm like, I have no idea what these people are going to deliver. This is such a good one because I think there's a lot of confusion around this. Let me ask this question. Is it necessary that we – like how granular do we need to go? on what we're listing in terms of obligations? Because I think it's like, well, do we have to spell out exactly how many modules are in our, you know, our program, exactly how many hours of content we're going to provide?

35:14 You know, how granular do we need to go? Part of that is your comfort level. And part of it is you want to keep some flexibility, right? So you're going to balance this, right? You want to keep some flexibility so that let's say you're doing an eight-week program and you have figured out that actually week six and seven are the same and week eight is just like celebration. So you want to compress it to six weeks, right? So, or vice versa, you get in there and you're like, man, week four is really kicking everybody's butt. They need two weeks for that. So now my six-week program is a seven-week program. Right. So you want to keep a little bit of program, a little bit of flexibility there.

35:55 If you're doing something that's like a project where you're going to have deliverables, then you can just list those out. Here's what I'm going to deliver. You know, here's what I'm not going to deliver. And here are the things that you very good client have to do in order for me to fulfill my obligation. If you don't show up to the call, I can't coach you. Yeah. I love that. If you don't provide me the information about your business, I can't write your contract. Yep. Right. So this is a big one, too, because I think a lot of times, you know, coaching agreements primarily cover what the obligations or the deliverables that the coach is going to give.

36:39 And they don't necessarily, you know, give good language or clear language on what the responsibilities and obligations are of the client. Yeah. And that's vital because, look, we've all had we've all had shitty clients and it's not fun. And when they show up and by the way, we've not only had shitty clients, but the ones that don't show up and then ask for their money back. Oh, wait a minute. You didn't fulfill your obligation and now you want me to pay you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And actually, oh my golly, we could do more just on refund policies and customizing your refund policy to match your business and personal values. That's like a whole thing on its own, right?

37:20 But it is part of this idea of obligations. If part of your coaching is a done for you deliverable or a done with you kind of thing, if you're doing marketing type coaching where you're going to help somebody launch an ad campaign or build out a landing page or those kinds of things where you are dependent on your client to share information with you, you can't deliver on time unless they give you that information. So the obligations can go both ways and setting that up. It's part of setting those boundaries so that the client knows what to expect. Yeah. Yep. And then that, I think I, you know what, we talk about this a lot in sales, uh, about framing the call, you know, the obligations portion of the agreement is very much so a frame for, you know, the, the work that you're going to do with someone.

38:15 And when everybody knows what the expectations are and it's clear, it's just easier. It's better. It feels better. People are Totally agree. I love that. Well, before we go to number five, I'm going to blow your mind on this one. Please. Okay. So imagine you're on a sales call and you've been talking about, maybe it's more of a exploratory kind of thing. You're going to customize some deliverables for them. Sure. And you've discussed certain things with the client. Maybe they want this, maybe they want that. what you put into that description of the obligations is going to be that much more important because they may remember later, Oh, you said you could do this thing.

38:58 And you're like, yeah, but you said no, and I didn't price it in. Right. So then you got scope creep issue. Yep. Yep. That's how it happens. And then for those folks that record calls for training and you say, so back to the, should I have a written contract? Let's say you don't, but you've got a recording of that sales call where you said some things and they said some things and you made an offer and they said, yes. Now, then somebody at some point might say, okay, you didn't have a written agreement. You didn't have terms and conditions on your website, but you had a recording of the call where you agreed. So now is that recording of the call, the record of your contract?

39:39 And are you comfortable with that? Yep. So having a written agreement where you set it all out to just tidy it up. Here's, we had some discussions, but here's, here's what we're all agreeing to. Here are the ground rules. Here are the boundaries. Here are the deliverables. Everybody's on the same page. We can have the kind of relationship we want. Yes, yes, yes. And if you're listening to this right now, you better be recording your... I didn't say not to. You'd have some lawyers out there that would be like, oh my gosh, never record. I'm not an attorney. I am not qualified to give legal advice. In fact, I'm going to tell you purely from a sales training perspective.

40:21 We'll just go with that. That's why you need to record your sales calls, which you do for that reason. But anyway, needless to say, let me move on before I get myself in trouble. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Number five, bring it home. Number five, an end date. How will you know when your contract is terminated? Do you have a date that this thing is over? Now, here's what you're going to think. You're going to think, well, it's a six-week program, so it ends in six weeks. Well, does it? Because what are you going to talk about in that six-week program? Are you going to follow up with them and have a aftercare calls, right? So maybe you want the confidentiality and the other, like the, you know, there's going to be some limits of liability and some fun stuff like that, the force majeure.

41:07 Maybe all of that you want to continue, right? Maybe you want to upsell your client at the end of your program to another program and you don't want them to have to sign another agreement, So you want this one to continue or, you know, maybe you're like, no, six weeks to the day, that's it. Terminate. I'm done. I don't have to do anything else. Right. But having a date where, you know, there's no more obligations is really, really valuable. Awesome. Awesome. I love that. I do have one question on that front. So with regard to the length of the agreement – Let's talk about term for a minute.

41:54 So how would we – like let's just say that we have an agreement that – where we spell out, hey, the program is going to be 12 weeks. Do we need to go into then additionally specifying like most a lot of contracts have an actual provision for term where, you know, do we need to go specify a term that the agreement is going to remain in full force and effect for, you know, period of X? Yeah. Is that necessary? Yeah. You can. Where I would love for folks to look at that in their contract is, do they have a start date for the program?

42:39 And do they have an end date? So for instance, as we're recording this, there's a holiday coming up. At the end of May. And so if you're not going to have normal programming that week, then your 12 week program on the calendar has become a 13 week program. So having a start and an end date and you can give a little wiggle room at the end, right? Like maybe there's a, you know, and you can even say unless it's extended by a holiday or a force majeure week by week, right? Like you can do some stuff like that. But so that's one way to do it. You just put your start, your start date, and then you rely on the 12 weeks, or you put a start and an end, you know.

43:20 Um, where you can get a little sideways is if you're selling a coaching package, right? Just going to ask you that. Yeah. Yeah. So you're doing five sessions in X number of days, right? And, or, and, and, and I, I made this mistake actually very first year I was doing coaching. I sold a package that was, um, it was like five sessions in two in 60 days kind of deal. And then I kept rolling it because she kept calling up, Oh, I'm so busy. Oh, you know, there's a, she was, she was one of those people that attracted drama. And so she was like, Oh my, my kid in college and the ex-husband and the crazy person and the thing and the thing.

44:05 Right. And we've all, we've all had one of those. And so there was a point at which I was like, Hey, your package is expired. Right. So either, and I just sent her an email and I was like, if you want to schedule these sessions by this date, I'll still honor it. But then if you don't schedule by this date, I'm not going to do that anymore. So I offered to kind of compromise with her. So that was fine. And she ghosted. So that was fine too. I'll tell you where it's a trap for people. And that is lifetime access to materials. Hmm. Right. Okay. If you had lifetime access from 2002 to whatever platform we were using back then to deliver courses, is that thing still up and running?

44:53 Would it even open up on your smartphone? Right. Wow. Yeah. So what, this is a good one too. So what do we, what do we do with the lifetime access thing to, to, cause in theory, there are certain things, especially when we get into like courses or maybe we do a hybrid program that includes modules and we're like, yeah, look, you can have access for forever. It's fine. Um, but we're not thinking like you said, you know, uh, that, you know, back in technology advances, right. Technology is going to change all the things. Um, You swap platforms. Yeah. So how do we do lifetime access the right way? So you can actually define what lifetime access means.

45:36 So number one question is who's lifetime? And I'm going to suggest it's lifetime of the program. Never even thought of it. It's okay. You're, you, you used to do like, yeah, real property type stuff. I'm just going to say rule against perpetuities and listen to me laugh. But okay, so that's an inside joke. So what we want to do is define lifetime and whose lifetime. So we're going to say lifetime access for as long as we offer this program on this platform. But for a minimum of 12 months, right? That's a great definition of lifetime access. I like that. Yeah. Oh, that is so good. Right there.

46:16 Worth the, worth the price of admission today. Hell yes, it was. My gosh, we should have, Andrew, geez, Louise, we should have charged like, you know, a lot of money for this. That's okay. Maybe we'll do that in the future. Uh, no, you know what, gal, this has been unbelievable. Um, first of all, thank you. I, I honestly, I, there are so many insights that were pulled that, you know, that people are going to be able to pull out of this episode that are relevant, that are specific, that they can act on right now. Um, uh, uh, uh, Now, if they want to learn more about you, what you do, we can send people if you want to learn more about Angie and working with Angie, getting some of her some of her stuff, go to www.happyatlaw.com.

47:00 A couple of things that I love about that page, Angie. Number one, you talked about the copycat risk thing. You've got like a quiz at the at the top that people can do. Right. Right. Yeah, there's a quiz and we'll get you a customized report that gives you some stuff you can like when you find out what your risk factor is, you'll get a report that gives you some suggestions to start working on like immediately. Oh, that's dope. That's amazing. And then the other part that's super cool right now, if you were listening to this and you're thinking either a holy crap, I don't have an agreement, I better get on that or be I have one and I and I borrowed it or, you know, I chat GPT it or whatever. Yeah. Angie actually has an agreement on her website that you can download right there.

47:45 So go to happy at law dot com and you can get more of that. And Angie, I think we've already agreed we're going to have to do this again. So. Thank you for coming and hanging out with me today. This will be first of many, I hope. That's a pleasure. Yep, we'll be back. And I just want to honor you too, Gal. Again, what you're doing in the world is so necessary, so important. I'm just so grateful that you have taken it upon yourself to go out and really give what you're passionate about to the world because it's very, very needed, especially in this space. Just know you're loved and appreciated. And yeah, thank you.

48:27 We want to level the playing field on this because you do not have to be scared about this stuff. You just, you just need to know a little bit about how it works. Yeah. Well said. All right. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Coaching Equation Podcast. Until next time. Take care.