Top 4 Contract Mistakes You’re Probably Making and How to Fix Them

Published in

Bootcamp

7 min readApr 7, 2023

There are a million reasons to begin your own freelancing business in the age of limitless digital and remote opportunities. Whether you are trying to build something novel away from your other career experience or you’re a young professional trying to innovate in the digital economy, you’ll need to curate the proper formula for a clear and protective contract according to your niche.

In the first couple months of starting my freelance design business, my excitement had me jumping into contracts without many guarantees for my own fiscal protection or respect for my own time.

Furthermore, despite consuming loads of resources from other contractors and business owners, I still felt like I was swimming in the open water, with no practical or straightforward guidance tools for a true beginner.

In other words, while there are many tools for people to harp on the network, tools, or industry knowledge procured through years cultivated in the path they now seek to bisect in the freelance realm — there are very few practical guides starting from zero.

Thus, I’ve been inspired to take a break from my writing about AI and tech alone, and start a series for the true freelance novice.

Here are key top mistakes I’ve seen myself and freelancers make when creating contracts:

1. You are not making the contract clear enough.

When starting out as a freelancer, I had an aversion to spelling things out to people like they were 1st graders.

However, it took a while for me to understand that feelings weren’t hurt by being ultra-specific — even to the point of being pedantic.

It is guaranteed to encounter expectations and assumptions that you make about the client’s interpretation of the contract and visa versa. Therefore, it’s often worth it to spell out the basics by segmenting then dissecting each part.

First, create functional definitions for the payment terms, deadlines, and scope of work involved. Next, dissect the steps involved to getting to these shared goals.

This means chunking each of those terms into smaller elements which I will elaborate on below.

2. Your payment terms are not specific enough.

What are the terms of payment?

This is the list of base fees and standard fee rates for revisions and additional renditions that fall outside of the basic project guidelines.

Here you should also list the following:

Form of payment: Zelle, Venmo, Square, Stipe . . . Upwork — specify the platform you use.
How any disputes regarding payment will be handled.
Whether a deposit or retainer is required before work begins, and the amount of the deposit or retainer.
Termination terms and fees: i.e. what happens if they spontaneously want to stop doing the project altogether.

Initially, being overly specific about these details made me feel like I might be conveying a lack of trust in my client I was onboarding. Trust is essential in creating a good client-contractor relationship, and the best way to get there is with clear expectations and guarentees.

Money can almost feel like the awkward elephant in the room when you hit it off with a client or already have a good rapport.

“Good energy,” however, does not mean leaving out the bottom line. Though the work can instantiate a friendship and business relationship, the binding financial exchange should be outlined first and foremost.

One of the joys of contracting is having personal relationships with your clients that go beyond the capitalistic element of work. However, something every freelancer will grow to understand is how chumminess can begin to blur the lines on finances if not understood from the get-go.

3. Your deadlines are too loose.

Be realistic about your schedule and map out how new deadlines will correspond with others if you are juggling multiple projects (something I don’t strongly suggest). Some projects require client input or collaboration, so keep this in mind when outlining the specifics of this in relation to the deadlines you create.

Include the following to fix this error:

The specific due dates for each milestone or deliverable in the project timeline.
Communication expectations: elaborate on expectations you have for responsiveness on behalf of the client. Some projects involve more client feedback than others, so make sure you give the client a picture of what you need from them to meet the defined deadlines.

Often it is the client’s timeline you’ll consider when creating deadlines, however, consider how long you will be willing to work on the project as well.

Contracts I made earlier on integrated the assumption that clients would be eager to get products ASAP. As a general rule, people enjoy getting the instant gratification of quickly-delivered results according to their goals. This however, does not always mind the process it takes to get to the outcome.

Certain contracts — think something along the lines of business or brand strategy — cannot be achieved by the consultant alone.

You could hire a top-of-the-line personal trainer and never get to your goals despite having paid for the resources.

Keep in mind that beyond providing a physical or digital asset, you are also, at least to some degree, a coach.

Knowing this will structure your expectations in a way that won’t leave you confused about why a client is being unresponsive to emails and updates regarding progress on a project they seemed so jazzed about a couple weeks earlier.

4. You are not creating clear boundaries around the scope of work.

This one can be difficult to outline if the project involves consulting and deliverables that are on a actively mounting list. No matter how dynamic the scope, there should be a clear outline of 1.) the project’s purpose, 2.) the goals you are trying to achieve, 3.) and any specific requirements or constraints that need to be considered.

In your contract, do your best to include the following:

A clear description of the project:

Bring your client’s attention to this portion, to make sure you two are on the same page. Often, there are details that may need to be redacted or added after the initial consultation.

2. Identify the deliverables:

What products/materials/reports/etc. should be created by the end of the process of working together.

Ex. To a beginner, a logo design project could seem like a pretty straightforward deliverable . . .

However, I’ve been surprised to find out the clients of mine had different expectations from procedures that I considered to be standard.

Clients may have worked with logo designers who didn’t give them black and white versions along with color in all applicable file types, so I make sure I’m clear on what they will be receiving and why (most don’t know the difference between .svg and .png).

Takeaway from this example:

Include specific details on the products being provided (ie the quantity and purpose) as well as how to use them. Make this clear in the contract and you’ll avoid confusion on both sides.

3. Clarify how changes to the scope of work will affect timelines and payment.

A client has a new component/add on/plugin they want to their business! No problem! However, it’s best to make it clear, before the project even starts, what impact this makes on deadlines.

It may seem obvious to you: extra work = extra time.

However, you might find yourself with a client who “thought the process was supposed to take a week,” and yet here you are on week 2 or 3 after the custom font, custom icon design, etc. that was added on post-contract.

Do yourself a favor and make sure the scope of work, from the initiation of the project, includes language about extensions of timelines with add ons. Though you won’t have foresight to what your client might add on, it’s important to standardize the procedure of an evolving scope of work — at least as it relates to payments and deadlines.

4. Define your hours and meeting restrictions.

Early on, I normalized the concept of freelance work invading any hour, any day of the week. It’s great to put yourself out there in the beginning, by striving to make yourself accessible to your clients.

However, there’s a point at which that trickle becomes a waterfall and you find yourself overstretched and underpaid for your time.

Defining your hours doesn’t mean you cannot go outside of them, but it at least creates a clear vision for the client on the appropriate hours to contact you.

I’ve gotten enthusiastic about projects to the point of not respecting my own time guidelines, and taking meetings and doing work that far exceeded the initial scope of work.

Though this kind of excitement is doubtlessly a great sign you’re following the right line of work for yourself, it has the potential to leave you burnt out and underpaid.

Outlining business hours and number of hours for consultation within the contract will stop you from second guessing if you are ‘doing enough’ when you don’t take the 10th impromptu meeting with your client.

In sum:

Crystallize the language of your contract and piece it into clear, digestible concepts.
Make payment terms clear from the get-go.
Create targets and timelines within the overall deadline to create clear expectations and manageable goals.
Define the scope of work such that your deliverables and hours of availability are clear.