Whatever form of self employment you're pursuing, contracts are your bread and butter. Whether it's a client, a user base, or investors, someone's giving you money and expecting something in return.

There's no diffusion of responsibility like at a corporate job: it all comes down to you.

My first major contract involved building a software for an entrepreneur. Here are all the mistakes I made:

Not being diligent with my updates

I recently came across some fantastic advice from Leila Hormozi: a hidden key to fantastic client retention and repeated customers.

Keep notifying existing clients about how much they’re benefiting from your service.

Depending on your offer, this could be number of new clients reached, features built, etc etc etc.

This keeps them happy, and happy clients → great testimonials and recurring contracts.

In retrospect, my client never should have needed to text me asking how it was going.

This is especially important when you're delivering an ongoing product.

As always, it's not about how much you deliver, but how much your clients feels like you're delivering. And people have short memories.

Here's a little case study: when it comes to subscription-based coaching programs, it's been observed that cancellations are more related to frequency of new material than amount of new material.

Releasing new material often is far more beneficial than releasing a lot each time, simply because the clients are more engaged.

This general principle is very easy to neglect but delivers enormous value.

Taking longer than expected to deliver

My expected ETA: 4-6 weeks. Actual ETA: 10 weeks. This was due to me vastly underestimating the initial scope of the project.

Whatever your field might be, this is more common than you think. I thought it would take around 40 hours total, ended up taking me well over a 100. Not only did I exceed my estimate, this project ended up having a very poor hourly for me. I would have made more working a few extra weeks at my 9-5.

My solution: charge an initial flat fee for the first portion of investigating + working on the project. At the end, give the client what you’ve done so far and a final quote + time estimate for the rest.

Depending on the type of work, this isn’t always possible. Unfortunately, the best you can do is deliver a very conservative estimate at the beginning and do what it takes to deliver, even if that means taking a hit.

It's easy to fall into the trap of promising the moon - nothing like money on the line to tempt you into people pleasing.

Remember: happiness is the delta between expectations and reality. Do your best to surprise your client in a good way.

You might be wondering: why didn’t I simply alter my quote midway?

The client probably would have paid it. Contractors do this all the time, and people begrudgingly pony up.

Multiple seasoned entrepreneurs advised me against this. Always overdeliver early in your journey. It’s much more important that your first few clients are happy than you get the best bang for your buck.

Not planning out communications in advance

If you're working for someone, they're going to know less about the work than you do. Therefore, an unexpectedly huge impediment is explaining what’s going on in terms they understand.

You want to come off as competent, eloquent, and self-assured, and this is hard when you’re continually fumbling for the right word or giving incoherent explanations.

You look stupid, and that makes them second guess hiring you.

I’m usually an excellent communicator, but I found it really difficult to improvise explaining what progress had been made so far. It was almost always something quite nitty gritty that the client had next to no knowledge of.

I wish I’d drawn up some charts or rehearsed breaking down the issue into simple language.

Bonus: avoid neurotics

Luckily, my client was understanding and easygoing. It would have been living hell if he hadn't been.

Whether it's business partners, tenants, or clients, when it comes to doing business avoid neurotics like the plague.

People who are unusually fussy, uptight, anxious, or indecisive behave very poorly when things go even a little bit not as expected.

Anyone who's had a neurotic boss knows it's a nightmare; a neurotic client is worse.

You will mess up. That's okay!

Mistakes will cost you time, energy, and - most crucially - money.

People tend to value money more than their time; the idea that something might take a while is easy to swallow, the idea that you might burn a few grand is not. Take it from me: everyone who has a bunch of money has lost a bunch of money.

Learn to shrug off the cost of learning a lesson. It's okay, it's inevitable, it's almost certainly going to be less expensive and more practical schooling than what one gets from a few semesters in college.

Over-preparing to avoid mistakes is not how you succeed; it's how you end up like the aforementioned neurotics, often too afraid to take action.

Being able to adapt and bounce back is what will get you where you want to go.

Good luck! Love,

Divs

P.S. If you have questions or need advice/ more specifics, respond to this email! I answer every single one, that's a promise!

​