92. You Don’t Have to Sign Off on This

Most of the freelancers and graphic design business owners whom I know are not formally trained in business practices. As a result, being taken advantage of by sneaky clients happens all too frequently. I know for certain that it has happened in my company.

After a few years of existence, our agency had an attorney write up a set of Terms & Conditions to be included in all of our proposals. It cost us $500 and we felt like we were growing up. “Check us out! We hired a lawyer for something.”

Most of our prospective clients said nothing about these new additions to our proposals, and we were glad they were there “just in case” something got ugly with a project. We felt protected by our fancy Terms & Conditions. ...

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