Nashville Branding Photographer, Dolly DeLong Photography, shares 3 reasons why having contracts for your small business is essential. Scroll below for resources for your small business!

1. They Serve As A Record Of Commitments For Both Parties

At its very core, a contract is basically a relationship. This “relationship” involves two (or more) parties which have agreed to work together to accomplish a task (i.e. an individual copywriter signing a contract to work with a company for one month, a speaker agreeing to come to a specific conference on so and so date, etc.)

The Contract should work to hold each party accountable to their original agreement.

In other words, long gone are the days of just taking a person for his/her word. Yes, you may fully trust a person and “like” them, but they are still human and both parties still should be held accountable for their words (and work) especially when conducting business. Contracts help prevent conflicts and mitigate risks.

2. You Are Most Likely Not A Lawyer

So I’m assuming you are reading this article because you are not a lawyer, and you are wondering why contracts are important for your small business! 

Listen, I get it, I don’t understand “legal” verbiage and sometimes it makes me feel a bit queasy thinking about someone suing me (yes it is every small business owner’s nightmare). But even in the beginning stages of your business, you should have contracts set up in place by a lawyer who is local to your area (so that they can communicate the terms and conditions of your city and state in your contract since every state has its own regulations and policies).

This is ONE vital step you should not put off. Yes, hiring a lawyer to look over your contracts to ensure that everything falls in line with your local city and state policies will be pricey, but would you rather have peace of mind knowing that as you move forward in your business you have excellent contracts versus just “hoping” that no nightmare client will come along and tear your business apart and find loop-holes in your “piece-mealed” contract you put together by copy-pasting it from a Google search? (I feel like I hear so many nightmare stories about this scenario over and over…and it just makes me sick to my stomach)

3. Your Business Should Not Be Treated Like A Hobby

If you are running a small business, this may seem obvious to you, but you should be treating your small business like a business and not as a glorified hobby. Part of the operations of a small business is setting up contracts in place to not only protect you as the small business owner but to also protect the people you are working with (the other party).

In addition, this also shows potential clients that you are professional and you are taking your job very seriously (and not joking around).  I remember when I started implementing contracts in my own photography business, that shift really helped elevate my brand in so many ways. I even had clients email me telling me how impressed they were that I was now operating in such a professional manner.

I know this may seem very extreme, but I will not work at a session unless the other party has signed a contract. I want to protect both sides (my business and the party/client) as much as possible and have a clear paper trail of our working relationship.

Summary

So have I terrified you? I hope not. But I do hope that I have encouraged you to take the necessary steps to protect your small business by ensuring you have contracts in place. It is so necessary to have evidence and documentation to protect BOTH parties in the event “the poop hits the fan”.

Listen, I get it, you most likely are in this small business not to read over contracts and become a lawyer yourself, so I want to point you to an incredible contract shop: The Legal Paige. The Legal Paige helps you with “the legal side of small biz ownership. In fact, they have made it effortless and approachable so small business owners can protect themselves from all the ‘what ifs’…and get back to doing what they love which is running a small business”. 

So if you go to The Legal Paige, you can actually click on that link (it’s an affiliate link) and it will take you straight into contract heaven!  I love that this shop is run by a lawyer who intentionally wants to help other small business owners out!

Don’t forget to follow The Legal Paige on Instagram and find her podcast as well!

This post may contain affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase from my link I may make a small commission at no cost to you.

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Meet Your Friendly Nashville Family+Branding Photographer & Systems + Workflow Educator

Dolly DeLong is a Nashville-based family & branding photographer and a creative business owner who educates other family photographers on how to best streamline their family photography business by using powerful automation tools in order to find the JOY in workflows and systems.  Dolly loves serving families, and business owners with her timeless, radiant photography.  And, she also loves educating other business owners on how to set up systems and workflows that will ultimately help them save time in their business.

She has a heart for serving the larger business community. Dolly shares her knowledge of tools like Dubsado, Email Marketing, and Business Systems with new creative business owners & family photographers in an encouraging and supportive way because she believes that anyone can find joy in automation! Plus BONUS: Systems is where the MAGIC happens!

Dolly’s faith and love for her family motivate her to help other business owners find the joy and freedom she’s found in running a successful small business.

Whenever she has a spare moment, she enjoys watching TV (i.e. Survivor), loves eating way too many sweets, and listens to podcasts while running or walking. To work with Dolly DeLong Photography LLC, fill out her contact form here.

Interested in learning how to best automate a part of your business but you have no clue where to begin? Check out www.dollydelongphotography.com/automate to begin your automation journey today!

Resources for Creative Business Owners who want to know how to take baby steps in streamlining (and automating) their small business!

(*Click on the banners to get started! It’s super easy to work with Dolly DeLong & it’s super easy to automate your business today!) 

Learn how to start growing out your email list as a creative business owner

Find out why it’s important to know the customer journey (your ideal client’s customer journey) so that you can create content that speaks to them! 

Learn how to streamline & track your finances for your creative business with ease! 

Understand the magic of saving time by batching out your content so that you can focus on other areas of your business!