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Did you know that in 2021, 5.4 million new business applications were filed? That beats 2020 records, which was 4.4 million. Seems like the pandemic did very little to halt the entrepreneur inside all of us, and we love that!
When we think of all these new booming business ventures, it’s not just about the small mom & pops opening their doors around town (although we love those too!). It's e-commerce stores, online service providers, course creators, and coaches. Working from home and working from yourself is where it’s at — and we want to make sure you have what you need to get your business started.
Of course, weare The Contract Shop®, so we’re mostly going to talk about the legal side of things. We want to share three must-have legal documents that you should have from the start.
Your business is your baby, and what is one thing that all babies need? Protection.That’s why you want to make sure that you cross your t’s and circle your c’s with the proper Terms & Conditions for your website or shop.
Terms and conditions are important because they create a binding contract between your website and the site user, or between you and your client.
If you leave them off of your website, people could potentially share or reuse your content in ways that you don’t like. And that could lead to not-so-fun stuff like copyright infringement lawsuits. Solid terms and conditions for your website will outline information like:
Terms & Conditions are important for anyone with a website — because you want to make sure that it’s legal from the start.
If terms & conditions exist to protect you, privacy policy contracts exist to protect your clients. These policies ensure that any site visitors know how you’re going to save and use their information, i.e. emails, names, site activity, etc. In today’s world where data breaches happen all the time, having a clear and correct privacy policy contract is of serious importance.
Privacy policies are a must-have since GDPR went into effect in 2018; if you don’t comply with privacy laws, you can land yourself in HOT water. Let’s avoid that, and any other type of hot business water, to be honest. You never want anyone to worry about how safe your website is, or how you’re using their email addresses, names, etc.
That’s why having that a solid privacy policy in place is good for business. And a good privacy policy contract will end up protecting you, too. In the event of a data breach, you will want to make sure that you have proof of protection for any affected clients, and security measures that were in place in an attempt to ward off potential events from occurring.
When you’re first starting your business, we know it’s easy to just want to get paid and do the work quick. No need for fancy-schmancy (aka EXPENSIVE) contracts. Instead, you just know you’re going to do the work and they’ll pay you for it.
That is… until you run into a hiccup. Your client thought you were deliveringsomething you never agreed to, but it’s not in writing. Or the client is late on payment and you want to withhold deliverables but you’re not sure you can do that. It’s all messy.
This is why a contract is so necessary. There are so many situations where a contract is helpful – and you might not have considered them. Don’t wait until a situation arises toget a contract, though. Protect yourself from the start!
That’s where our contract templates come in. We have a contract that will fit your type of work, whether you’re an independent contractor, a coach, a virtual assistant, or even an equine photographer (hey, horse people!).
Instead of grabbing some generic contract template that you have to customize, we create specific contracts for many niches because:
At The Contract Shop® we have contracts for 30+ types of niche businesses. But, if you’re still figuring out your exact title or business (it’s okay!!!), an independent contractor contract works great to cover a variety of services. And if you're looking for a comprehensive guide to help you out, check out our No-Nonsense Checklist to Starting a Business!
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