Sorry about the formatting. I don't know how to get HN to format things better.
Lots of questions attached to my comment. I'll do my best to answer some here.
Question: snowwrestler 9 hours ago [-]
I'm amazed that companies with required legal and procurement processes will just pay an invoice without a contract. My employer's finance team absolutely will not write a check unless they can tie the invoice to an approved contract."
Answer: This is common. The smaller clients that we work with don't have strong controls in this area. Some of mid-size and larger clients don't either. If the client is larger than 'owner operated' we work directly with C-level or less as long as they are the buyer. One of our clients is a large cosmetics company, the CEO directed accounts payable to make payment for all of our invoices without scrutiny. This is common to all our clients, you have to make sure you build strong relationships with the buyer / c-level as you want to act as that person peer and NOT the peer of his / her employees. When you talk to an employee you want them to see you as an extension to the CEO. For plenty of large enterprise businesses, they may force a contract but you'd be surprised at the lack of controls or care in a lot of organisations.
"Question: jklein11 7 hours ago [-]
You might want to talk to a lawyer about how not having an agreement exposes you to risk. This smells like the kind of thing that works out just fine for years until something hits the fan and it explodes in your face.
I’d love to learn more about how you got to 500k in revenue. Any chance you have some time to chat?"
Answer: You don't need a contract as long as you can show that you have entered into an agreement. I usually send an SOW and get an email confirmation that's fine. Sometimes I just get them to sign off on a business requirements document instead. I also write that 'payment us accepted and deemed as agreement". This is perfectly legal in my legal jurisdiction. Oral agreements are also "just as valid as a written contract" but it's harder to prove. Our revenue is more than 500k, 500k is the retainer revenue, the rest is made up of one off implementation work. We used to for a very large software vendor several years ago. When we went independent we contract all of our old client base and won two small contracts then we got referrals (business owners know other business owners). We also run several marketing websites and I personally cold call target clients, put ads in trade publications etc.
"Question:
AdamGibbins 9 hours ago [-]
How do you get gigs without a contract? That no doubt violates all sort of insurance, security and finance rules for most companies."
Answer: I don't understand the first part of your question. No we are not violating any rules.
"Question: TooCleverByHalf 10 hours ago [-]
If you wouldn't mind sharing, I'd be interested in hearing what kind of work you provide to clients when hired to consult"
I don't want to dox myself so I'll be a little vague. We used to work at a large software vendor implementing and customising a commonly used back-office system. We now offer the service independently. We also provide long term support and advisory around technology strategy, vendor negotiations etc.
"queston: hazelnut 10 hours ago [-]
Do you have multiple clients at the same time?
How many weeks do you have no client work? I guess you use it for networking/marketing, right?"
Answer: Yes, we have multiple clients at the same time. Some are retainer clients and some are in discovery or implementation stage. We have never had a period of no work, we have the opposite problem of too much work which saw us working from 6am - 2am everyday for several months. We have now raised our rates to a place where we can hire contractors to help us.
Required reading. Anything by Seth Godin for marketing. Everything by Alan Weiss, the god of independent consulting and "the personal MBA" which delivers many small pieces that allow you think clearly about various aspects of business.
Thanks for the reply! I think your answer has me a little bit more confused. You mention that you get the hiring manager to sign off on the SOW or BRD. I am suprised they would have the authority to do this but not sign a contract. I wouldn’t Think a contract would help you get paid for invoices necessarily. At the end of the day the invoice is probably less than the cost of enforcing the contract. I would be concerned about my liability if I was acting without a contract. For example, let’s say I get sick and miss a milestone. This missed milestone costs the company $X in revenue. A good contract would have language that protects me from this. Without a contract you might be left on the hook( or paying a lawyer handsomely)
They don't actually sign anything. They just need to have any positive response via email followed by a paid invoice, that's enough for the client to be in contract with me should we ever end up in court. Given that I invoice on a weekly basis, there's not much risk on my side. The only risk is that I ruin their business by badly implementing their supply chain or similar but I have liability insurance to cover this.
Everything I do is on a time and materials basis and the client get an invoice every week so there's no real way for them to claim I haven't delivered scope etc. I also make the client test everything that I deliver and tell me, via email, that they have accepted it.
I do understand the usefulness of a contract but my many years at Accenture showed me that contracts don't stop you from having to go to court and spend a lot to defend yourself. I am not against signing a contract with a client, it just makes it harder to sell and it locks me into terms and conditions. No contract gives everyone a lot of flexibility.
Alan Weiss takes the same approach. If I were to enter in to a large piece of fixed scope work with an enterprise client, I would likely get my lawyer to put together a master services agreement though.
Comments
Sorry about the formatting. I don't know how to get HN to format things better.
Lots of questions attached to my comment. I'll do my best to answer some here.
Question: snowwrestler 9 hours ago [-]
I'm amazed that companies with required legal and procurement processes will just pay an invoice without a contract. My employer's finance team absolutely will not write a check unless they can tie the invoice to an approved contract."
Answer: This is common. The smaller clients that we work with don't have strong controls in this area. Some of mid-size and larger clients don't either. If the client is larger than 'owner operated' we work directly with C-level or less as long as they are the buyer. One of our clients is a large cosmetics company, the CEO directed accounts payable to make payment for all of our invoices without scrutiny. This is common to all our clients, you have to make sure you build strong relationships with the buyer / c-level as you want to act as that person peer and NOT the peer of his / her employees. When you talk to an employee you want them to see you as an extension to the CEO. For plenty of large enterprise businesses, they may force a contract but you'd be surprised at the lack of controls or care in a lot of organisations.
"Question: jklein11 7 hours ago [-]
You might want to talk to a lawyer about how not having an agreement exposes you to risk. This smells like the kind of thing that works out just fine for years until something hits the fan and it explodes in your face. I’d love to learn more about how you got to 500k in revenue. Any chance you have some time to chat?"
Answer: You don't need a contract as long as you can show that you have entered into an agreement. I usually send an SOW and get an email confirmation that's fine. Sometimes I just get them to sign off on a business requirements document instead. I also write that 'payment us accepted and deemed as agreement". This is perfectly legal in my legal jurisdiction. Oral agreements are also "just as valid as a written contract" but it's harder to prove. Our revenue is more than 500k, 500k is the retainer revenue, the rest is made up of one off implementation work. We used to for a very large software vendor several years ago. When we went independent we contract all of our old client base and won two small contracts then we got referrals (business owners know other business owners). We also run several marketing websites and I personally cold call target clients, put ads in trade publications etc.
"Question: AdamGibbins 9 hours ago [-]
How do you get gigs without a contract? That no doubt violates all sort of insurance, security and finance rules for most companies."
Answer: I don't understand the first part of your question. No we are not violating any rules.
"Question: TooCleverByHalf 10 hours ago [-]
If you wouldn't mind sharing, I'd be interested in hearing what kind of work you provide to clients when hired to consult"
I don't want to dox myself so I'll be a little vague. We used to work at a large software vendor implementing and customising a commonly used back-office system. We now offer the service independently. We also provide long term support and advisory around technology strategy, vendor negotiations etc.
"queston: hazelnut 10 hours ago [-]
Do you have multiple clients at the same time? How many weeks do you have no client work? I guess you use it for networking/marketing, right?"
Answer: Yes, we have multiple clients at the same time. Some are retainer clients and some are in discovery or implementation stage. We have never had a period of no work, we have the opposite problem of too much work which saw us working from 6am - 2am everyday for several months. We have now raised our rates to a place where we can hire contractors to help us.
Required reading. Anything by Seth Godin for marketing. Everything by Alan Weiss, the god of independent consulting and "the personal MBA" which delivers many small pieces that allow you think clearly about various aspects of business.
Thanks for the reply! I think your answer has me a little bit more confused. You mention that you get the hiring manager to sign off on the SOW or BRD. I am suprised they would have the authority to do this but not sign a contract. I wouldn’t Think a contract would help you get paid for invoices necessarily. At the end of the day the invoice is probably less than the cost of enforcing the contract. I would be concerned about my liability if I was acting without a contract. For example, let’s say I get sick and miss a milestone. This missed milestone costs the company $X in revenue. A good contract would have language that protects me from this. Without a contract you might be left on the hook( or paying a lawyer handsomely)
They don't actually sign anything. They just need to have any positive response via email followed by a paid invoice, that's enough for the client to be in contract with me should we ever end up in court. Given that I invoice on a weekly basis, there's not much risk on my side. The only risk is that I ruin their business by badly implementing their supply chain or similar but I have liability insurance to cover this.
Everything I do is on a time and materials basis and the client get an invoice every week so there's no real way for them to claim I haven't delivered scope etc. I also make the client test everything that I deliver and tell me, via email, that they have accepted it.
I do understand the usefulness of a contract but my many years at Accenture showed me that contracts don't stop you from having to go to court and spend a lot to defend yourself. I am not against signing a contract with a client, it just makes it harder to sell and it locks me into terms and conditions. No contract gives everyone a lot of flexibility.
Alan Weiss takes the same approach. If I were to enter in to a large piece of fixed scope work with an enterprise client, I would likely get my lawyer to put together a master services agreement though.