Importance of Business Contracts w/ Yasmine Salem Hamdan
Contracts are the first line of defense for service providers and small business owners—but where do you even begin?
I’ve learned SO much in my 9 years of entrepreneurship as it pertains to business contracts. And yet—I’m still learning! Take for example the time when I decided I needed to up my contract game… It was late 2023 & I stumbled on Coaches & Co. But that wasn’t the lesson part—nope! It’s what I discovered inside the copywriting contract template that blew my mind. There were all these “what ifs” that I hadn’t previously considered adding in my old contracts.
That’s the moment I not only felt REALLY good about the new contract template I purchase, but also the moment I knew I needed to have Yasmine on The Basic B podcast! Whether you’ve found yourself in a not-so-fun situation with a client where you wish you included something in the contract, or you’re newer to business—you’re going to get lots of answers!
In this episode, we get into all things contracts for small businesses, online entrepreneurs, & service providers. Save yourself the hassle & headaches of trying to do legal without some kind of support!
Topics covered in this podcast episode:
What inspired Yasmine to start Coaches & Co.
What Yasmine wishes online business owners knew about the legal world
How to get legal protection—without breaking the bank
How you can legally protect your business as an entrepreneur
When you should get legal contracts for your biz
Different types of legal contracts business owners might need
The ONE smart next step you can take to legally protect your business
Don’t forget you can submit a question that will get answered in an upcoming podcast!
Yasmine Salem Hamdan is an award-winning entrepreneur and intellectual property attorney based in Dallas, Texas. She's the founder of Coaches & Company, where she's revolutionizing legal protection for entrepreneurs by offering plug-and-play legal solutions and lawyer-created business contracts without the hefty law firm fees.
⭐️ Disclaimer (because, duh): The information presented in this podcast and on any affiliated platforms are for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only. Consuming this content does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you need legal advice pertaining to your particular situation, you should consult directly one-on-one with an attorney.
Mentioned Resources:
FREE Legally Launch Guide & Legal Checklist
Coaches & Co. legal templates (save $50 w/ code: BASICB)
Connect w/ Yasmine:
Connect w/ Brittany:
This episode of The Basic B podcast is brought to you in partnership w/ Leah Bryant Co.! Help me reach more service providers like you by following the show & leaving a rating or review on Apple & Spotify!
The unedited podcast transcript for this episode of The Basic B podcast follows
Welcome back to the Basic B podcast. I am so excited to have you here, whether you're watching on YouTube or tuning in from your favorite podcast player. I'm just so grateful to have you here. And we have a very exciting guest and conversation ahead for you. So I am joined by Yasmeen Salem Hamdan, which I'm crossing my fingers that I said correctly. We're gonna be talking about the importance of solid business contracts.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (00:23.394)
You nailed it. You're great.
Brittany Herzberg (00:29.439)
And here's a quick intro for you. Yasmeen is an award-winning entrepreneur and IP, also known as intellectual property attorney, based in Dallas, Texas. She's the founder of Coaches & Company, where she's revolutionizing legal protection for entrepreneurs by offering plug and play, like the best play and play, legal solutions and lawyer-created business contracts without the hefty law firm fees. Yasmeen, I'm so excited to have you here today.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (00:57.366)
Brittany, thank you so much for having me on. I'm excited too.
Brittany Herzberg (01:00.863)
Yes. All right. I am going to jump in with my very loaded first question for people. You can't mess this up. Just whatever your honest feelings are. Which do you believe is the most important for sales? SEO, storytelling, or social proof?
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (01:19.398)
Oh man, okay. That's a really good question. That's really good. Yeah, that's really good because they all play a role. Which do I believe is the most important for sales in particular? I would say social proof. But I wanted to say SEO first because it has a very important role. But I want to… The…
Brittany Herzberg (01:23.112)
Thank you!
Brittany Herzberg (01:32.478)
Mm-hmm.
Brittany Herzberg (01:37.22)
I love that.
Brittany Herzberg (01:43.057)
Yeah.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (01:48.942)
specific question of sales has me thinking it's social proof. Is there a right answer?
Brittany Herzberg (01:53.577)
What's the tip? No there's not. No because we talk about all three and I want to talk about all three because I feel like they all definitely play a role. So you hit the nail on the head. But I'm also curious why, why did social proof edge up to win?
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (02:01.45)
Yes. Yeah, for sure.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (02:09.55)
Hmm. I, so whenever I hear SEO storytelling and social proof, like you said, and as I mentioned, they all play a role. I think of SEO as positioning yourself to where people that are looking for you can find you. So your role of marketing is like, you don't need very much heavy lifting on that front. You know, they're looking for you. You want to be in their path and be found by them.
presenting them with social proof, which I think can go hand in hand with storytelling. Presenting them with that social proof can help the consumer see and put themselves in the shoes of other people who have benefited from your product or service in the past and see, okay, this could work for me too, or this could solve that problem that I also have that maybe I was seeking information for and found you through SEO channels. So, yeah, yeah.
Brittany Herzberg (03:05.815)
Exactly. I never imagined it was going to be this fun to ask this question of an attorney, but that is why I'm like, because you've got all of like the wheels are turning, I can see the smoke fuming from your brain.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (03:18.254)
I'm like, hmm, that's a really good, I never thought about that, which one, but they are all very important. And I've, you know, leveraged each of those and I'm actively working on bettering my storytelling abilities because, you know, I don't know that it necessarily comes naturally, but it's a skill just like any other skill. So I'm excited to learn more of your philosophies around storytelling in particular.
Brittany Herzberg (03:24.132)
Yeah.
Brittany Herzberg (03:37.971)
Mm-mm. Mm-hmm.
Brittany Herzberg (03:45.167)
Yeah. Let's see. Yeah, it definitely is. We'll see if it does. But the cool thing is, in which you, like, totally connected for me, is that all three of them are in my case studies that I write. There's SEO, there's social proof because we have the quotes from the people, and there's the storytelling, which is just their story. So, all right, let, let us segue over into, like, the spicy fun topic that we have you here for. So, I, first of all, I love
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (03:45.238)
I don't know if we'll get into that today, but I know your podcast is chock full of them. Yeah, let's see.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (04:06.209)
Yeah.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (04:10.666)
Love it.
Brittany Herzberg (04:15.063)
the name of your company, Coaches in Company or Coaches in Co. Can you tell me a little bit more about what inspired you to start your business?
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (04:18.85)
Thank you.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (04:24.33)
Yes, I'd love to. Thank you. So my background is business and intellectual property, practicing as an attorney. I started my private practice, launched my law firm in 2016. And I started working with entrepreneurs and business owners providing legal services. We focused on trademark registration, protecting your copyright assets, so IP protection, and then also contract drafting. So
All the clients that I was working with, most of them at least, were selling a service of some kind. And so when you sell a service, you need a contract with your client, right? And that's for starters, because as you go, you work with contractors, you work with employees, you enter into different partnerships or collaborations, you need written agreements in place there too. So I was working with clients on that one-on-one as clients of my law firm, which was a great time. I loved it. I still love working with clients. And from a client standpoint,
I would like to say that they all had a great experience working with my law firm because they walked away having their legal ducks in a row, everything in place, their contracts were suited to their business, they knew their IP was protected. And so that at the time, I thought that was the one and only solution for all entrepreneurs and everybody else was just, you know, SOL, didn't have an option, which they kind of were, you know, it was like, if you couldn't afford to work with a lawyer to custom create all of your contracts.
Brittany Herzberg (05:45.092)
Yeah.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (05:50.462)
You were stuck trying to wing it, piece it together online. Maybe your biz bestie has a contract that you pull together with a contract you found on Google or, I don't know, in a free Facebook group. Let me tell you, I've seen it all, Brittany. And so that was really the option that was available to people. And I would consult with, my calendar was booked every week with these initial discovery calls.
Brittany Herzberg (06:05.073)
I'm sure.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (06:16.93)
figuring out if people were ready to move forward and work together and become clients of the firm. And like half of people were like, I really wanna work with you, but I'm just not in a position, I don't have a budget for this right now, so I'm gonna come back. And a lot of people would come back later. And it got me thinking, okay, how can I create something that doesn't require my law firm to render the services one-on-one? Because it is a specialized service and it's a high touch service. And it is not.
a cheap service either, you know, to work with a law firm and hire a lawyer. And so it got me thinking, how can I create a service or excuse me, how can I create a product that does not require my law firm services, but still helps entrepreneurs get protected from a legal standpoint? And so this is certainly like maybe the longest story short, but it brought us to coaches and company. Yes, literally.
Brittany Herzberg (07:07.47)
I think we all have it.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (07:14.034)
It was actually the end of 2019. I was working on developing coaches and company, which my vision for it was it would be a digital product based website where people could just go and purchase the contracts that they need that are all lawyer created, they're designed with their industry or their niche in mind, they're ready to use, they're instantly downloadable, they come with a user guide, so they're not having to be led, you know, somebody holding their hand or a lawyer holding their hand step by step or having to explain the confusing legalese.
They were all legalese free where, you know, a normal person could just grab it on, on the website and be able to customize it and use it in their business. That was my vision for it. And we brought it to life in 2020 and actually it, we launched in July, 2020. So of course we all know what happened March, 2020. And I was like, what the hell is going on? But okay. Like, let's just keep going with the plan. Like let's not stop.
And it turned out to be one of the best things that we could have possibly done because everybody went remote, which we didn't see coming. I actually remember going live on Instagram in March thinking, trying to like comfort my community, like, okay guys, this is probably not gonna be forever. Let's just stick it out and like, stick together and keep doing what you're doing. Don't slam on the brakes in your business. Most of my clients were working remotely anyways and had work from home businesses. So.
It's interesting how things panned out at the time. But yeah, July 2020, we went live and it was so well received by our community and our community has only grown since then. It's hard to believe that it's been almost four years now. But yeah, it's been awesome. It's been a fun ride. Let me just put it that way. Yeah. Yes, yes, certainly.
Brittany Herzberg (08:54.835)
Yeah, it's been a ride for sure. Like, I can only imagine. I absolutely love your templates, and we'll get into that because I want to talk about my experience with it, but I also kind of want to talk about how we even ended up here. So I don't remember exactly, and it's so wild, because this just happened, what, like a month ago where we were talking? It was not very long. I feel like I've known you forever, but it was, yeah, definitely within, like, the two-month window
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (09:04.022)
Thank you.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (09:16.722)
Not long ago, yeah. Maybe I'm a little more than that. Yeah.
Brittany Herzberg (09:24.971)
I think you ended up DMing me something or like responding to a story or something like that. And then I saw we had already had somewhat of a conversation and I was like, oh my gosh, what? And you showed up. I mean, talk about like perfect timing. I was ready to update my contracts. I had just had a client where I was like, I really need a new contract. You end up my DMs. I go and look, you were having a sale. Of course, like I always need to find things on sale. And I was like, no.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (09:41.802)
Love it.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (09:45.289)
Yes.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (09:49.602)
Perfect. And we don't have a sale all the time. Let me just say, that's literally once a year. Yes. Yeah, I'm glad. Yes, maybe. Yes. We might, we'll set up a code for you guys to have in your podcast show notes. Yeah, we could do that. Yeah. Aw, I love you too.
Brittany Herzberg (09:55.959)
Yeah, and it's a really good sale. So maybe if you're listening you can hold out and tell what was that like Black Friday or not. Ooh.
I love you. You're so nice. But literally these contracts are like the best because I downloaded it. I modified it really within a matter of I think it was like 30 or 45 minutes. You're the user guide that it comes with. Perfect. Perfection. Loved it. Not only is it user friendly, it's cute. Can we just like... It's cute. Okay. So I'm, I don't know if you know much about astrology, but I'm like geeking out about astrology these days in my life. I'm not only a tourist.
rising so it's like my son is there. I'm a, sorry, Torah's son, Weber rising. I like pretty things, that is the point I'm getting at and it's very pretty and it's either friendly and I used it the next day. Yes! It's just, I, oh, it made my heart so happy. But yeah, they're the best. So, enough of me gushing. What do you wish?
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (10:46.102)
Love it, love it. A moment for the cuteness, yes.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (10:57.398)
I'm so glad to hear that. I mean, listen, please continue. I love every bit of this. Yes. Exactly.
Brittany Herzberg (11:02.275)
You're like, we'll just have the rest of the time for you gushing about the templates. We've, I will weave it in. Don't worry, I'll weave it in. But what is one thing, yeah, what is one thing you wish business owners knew about legal things, the legal world, legal for business, like whatever direction you want to take that in? What is one thing you're like, I wish you knew this?
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (11:10.431)
Love it.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (11:20.674)
Yeah.
Yeah, you know, Brittany, there are a lot of different things, of course, that we could get into as far as important things to know. And I think we'll probably touch on a few of those throughout today's episode. But what I would say is what I wish every entrepreneur knew is that you are capable of getting your legal protections in place in your business. You're not the first person to do it and you're certainly not the last. And it is not beyond you. Yes, there are.
Historically, there were barriers to entry in business generally, in the legal world. There was this knowledge gap and information gap between the legal world and the business world where you could only access that information if you were able to have a $5,000 retainer with the biggest law firm in town. And that's the only way you could get great contracts in place and access ways of doing business. But that is not the case anymore. That is not. Thank God.
Thank God, that is not the world we are living in anymore. And so now there are tons of resources available that can help you educate yourself and get up to speed on, okay, what are these core components of legally protecting myself when I'm doing business? And it's not that complicated. Of course, there are some sources that are going to make it, you know, if it's like a, a law book at a law school, like that's not exactly the source you're looking for, but.
You know, that is something that we seek to be at Coaches & Company in our content online, on our blog. We're launching our podcast as well. It might be launched by the time this episode is live and that's called the Business of Doing Business podcast, where we're trying to break down these legal concepts in a way that makes it really easy to understand and apply because that's step one is actually having that baseline understanding. And I want you to know that…
Brittany Herzberg (12:59.175)
I think so.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (13:14.53)
You're fully capable of this. You can do this. It's just a matter of gaining the knowledge and having access to the tools. And that's the entire reason we do what we do. So you can do it is what I'm here to say.
Brittany Herzberg (13:26.875)
I love it. And that message definitely not only applies to legal. I say that a lot with SEO. I say that a lot with storytelling. I say that a lot, even with social proof, because when people are first starting out, everything seems really daunting and overwhelming. I'm starting a business. What are the legal things? What do you mean social proof? I haven't like taught this thing before in this capacity yet. So it all seems overwhelming, but it's all very doable. And a lot of it, at least in my mind, is finding the right people.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (13:35.287)
Yes.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (13:41.951)
Yes.
Yes.
Brittany Herzberg (13:55.783)
to connect with who are good teachers, who do have the resources. And you are definitely one of those people where I'm like, go find what she has on her website. Go. There's a wealth of knowledge over there. I don't know enough. Go talk to her. So I love having someone to point people to and I just love that you exist. It's just so fantabulous.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (14:03.232)
Yes.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (14:07.345)
Yeah.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (14:15.106)
Thank you! I love that you exist too. I'm so grateful that our paths crossed.
Brittany Herzberg (14:19.479)
Oh, me too. Thank goodness for Instagram DMs, right? So what is one thing or I guess even however broad you want to go with this, what do entrepreneurs need to know to legally protect their businesses? Let's say maybe there's something for someone who is first starting out in there. Even me, I had a massage therapy practice. It was an in-person practice. 2020 hit. I was like, oh, let me make sure I've still got money coming in other ways.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (14:21.875)
Yes, exactly.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (14:48.696)
Yeah.
Brittany Herzberg (14:49.435)
I jumped into the online world and now I'm fully online. So let's say it's someone like me who's entering this for the first time, or maybe they're like taking a next step. What is something that they might want to know to help protect their business?
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (15:02.57)
Yeah, so when you're selling a service, the first place to start is you can't sell the service without a contract with who it is that you're selling the service to. So that's typically the first place that most people begin. I know that some people are like, okay, let me formally form the business and form the LLC. And we could talk about that too. And that's certainly a piece of the puzzle. But I find that some people are like, let me...
like dip my toes in a little bit. Let me, you know, validate this idea or like see how I actually like this. Some people are all in and they know that, you know, even if it doesn't work out the first way I try, I'm gonna try something else. And so maybe let me just form the business right out the gate and then everything is under there. That is my ideal approach. My ideal approach is form an LLC or a corporation. That's that formal business entity at your state level, wherever you are in the U.S. and abroad there are business entities as well, of course.
Brittany Herzberg (15:32.716)
Hehehe
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (16:00.258)
But in the US, every state, all 50 states have their own Secretary of State's office and you can form a business in their office. You can do it digitally, online, and form the LLC or the corporation. As far as the difference between the two, they're pretty much the same thing except corporations have more formalities necessary like filing and record keeping to maintain the status of it. LLCs are for people like you and I who don't have, you know,
a bunch of shareholders or investors or planning to issue stock later, et cetera. There are less formalities associated with maintaining an LLC. That's not to say you can't form a corporation. I know entrepreneurs like you and I who have corporations for various reasons, but that's just a general overview. So my preference is form the LLC or the corporation and then just start doing all of your business activity under that entity.
Brittany Herzberg (16:53.038)
Mm-hmm.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (16:53.686)
But if you don't have it, that's not necessarily, you know, the wrong way of going about it. It's just the more I would say risk averse and like precautionary ways. Let me make sure I have an LLC or a corporation in place. And the function of it is to provide you with that personal liability protection. That way, if anything goes south in your business, you have that protection of your personal assets and you individually. Um, so having that entity in place is a great first place to begin. And then.
If you're ready to make your first sale, ready to work with your first client, having a contract in writing is absolutely the way to go. In my opinion, it's not negotiable. Like don't work, don't accept money from anybody without the terms in writing because you'll be saving yourself a lot of potential headache and, and it can be expensive to clean up a mess. It can be time consuming. So have a contract in place with your clients. If you're hiring anyone, have a contract in place with them and
I mean, there are many benefits to having a contract in place, but I would say most importantly it's to support the relationship and to really lay out a plan of, okay, this is what we're agreeing to, this is how we're going to proceed, and then have all of the what ifs in place. So like, what if, you know, somebody requests a refund? What if somebody needs to cancel the contract? Or what if somebody needs to pause the term? What if somebody wants to add on some extra services? What if...
Um, somebody wants to, you know, needs to reschedule the calls. And, you know, an example of that is if you have, if you work with the client on an ongoing basis and they're rescheduling calls every month, do those calls roll over to the next month or are they forfeited at the end of the month or. Do they have to be redeemed within a certain period of time within the original colleague there, you get to set all those terms as the business owner. And that's the beauty of it is I feel like, and I really believe that.
Brittany Herzberg (18:40.991)
Mm-hmm.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (18:46.006)
You have so much power as the business owner. You get to set the terms. You have that home court advantage. I think of it as the law of your land, you know, is lay down the law, you know, like make it clear. Okay, what are the terms? When somebody works with me, what are the policies that are going to apply? You get to determine those policies and guess what happens if you don't determine those policies? You have to negotiate them in real time.
Brittany Herzberg (18:50.847)
Thank you.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (19:10.73)
which is not fun when you're already in a contract with a client, because then there's a lot more at risk. You know, things could go south, you guys could come to a disagreement, maybe the deal falls apart, maybe they demand a refund at that point or they want to cancel or, you know, other possible scenarios. So have the contract in place no matter what.
Don't accept money from anybody without a contract that states what you're accepting it for and what your obligations are and what their obligations are. And that, I believe, is what makes for a successful working relationship with clients.
Brittany Herzberg (19:48.119)
Yeah, definitely. And one thing I remember when I first, well, not first, but the second time, within the last two months where we were connecting on Instagram, there, I don't know if it was an interview or a real or something that I saw where you were speaking with someone else and you were talking about there is no legal reason here. It's very easy for the business owner. Let's say it's me and you come to me and we're doing SEO services. I feel protected. I feel very clear on what the contract is.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (19:56.041)
Mm-hmm.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (20:12.738)
Hmm.
Brittany Herzberg (20:16.219)
you feel protected and you feel very clear about the contract is. And that's one thing that I like is that it's a win-win. It's not like I'm over here being, you know, slimy about things and there's stuff that's hidden in here and you can't understand even the language of it. And you do run into contracts like that where it's like, let me make sure four people in my life read this because I don't have an attorney and I want to make sure that I'm not getting screwed, right? Yeah.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (20:26.378)
Yes. Yeah.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (20:36.542)
Yes, literally. Exactly. And that's never the situation you want to be in as the business owner either, where you're putting forth a contract that the client doesn't understand. You run the risk of it possibly deterring that. Like they're just like, oh my gosh, I'm not going to work with this person. What are they even talking about? I don't understand this contract. Like I don't feel confident in them. It feels like they're trying to deceive me in some way. Or if you find yourself as the business owner.
Brittany Herzberg (20:54.643)
Hehehe
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (21:03.982)
putting forth a contract like that and the client asks for an explanation of what a part means and you're just like, I don't know what like that's not good. Exactly. Yes. And then you have to hire, you have to pay that lawyer to explain it to you or you're trying to decipher what this means. Like I don't believe that contracts need to be that way. I know they don't have to be that way because I've seen it work successfully where they can be in plain English where everyone can understand.
Brittany Herzberg (21:12.583)
When I go find the attorney that created this, we'll be right back.
Brittany Herzberg (21:19.475)
Mm-hmm.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (21:33.29)
And that's actually the best way to apply a contract as well, you know, when you do need to enforce a policy. That way it's crystal clear as to what is being enforced as opposed to there's some room for misinterpretation potentially.
Brittany Herzberg (21:49.315)
Yeah, and let's talk about the different types of contracts that you have because you have contracts for every type of situation I was looking and I was like this is amazing. I can choose exactly what I need And like you said all of the what-ifs that you were laying out earlier That's covered in the contract if something didn't make sense for me
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (21:59.186)
Yes.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (22:05.899)
Yes.
Brittany Herzberg (22:07.915)
or there were definitely sections where it was like this language or this language. And I was like, oh, this one makes more sense to me. I like this. This applies more to my business. It was so easy for me to go in and tailor it to my needs and to my clients needs. So let's talk about maybe like a few different examples of the contracts. And then we'll go into like some of the specifics that are in there that we get to modify as the business owner.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (22:29.79)
Yeah, yes. Yeah, well, thank you, Brittany. I appreciate you. And we do have contracts for pretty much any situation you could find yourself in and any service that you're planning to sell. So we have personal coaching contracts. If you're working one-on-one with clients, we also have group coaching contracts. If you have a group program, we have terms and conditions for an online course. If that's something you're selling.
Uh, for a masterclass or a live workshop terms and conditions for those, we've got those, so all of your different offers, um, we have those and that's not an exhaustive list, we have more that you can check out on the website for sure. Um, and then there are specific services around marketing and operations. So as you and I both know, um, there are so many opportunities for offering services to others. Yeah. So if you're selling copywriting services or general marketing services.
Brittany Herzberg (23:17.183)
You
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (23:24.806)
Um, if you're selling graphic design or web design and branding development services, podcast production services, Pinterest management services, like all of that, we have all of that in the shop and contracts are so many options yet. Our goal is to just have whatever an entrepreneur needs to sell services online, there's a contract to where you're not having to hire a law firm and shell out like $3,000 plus for a custom contract, which is not even
Brittany Herzberg (23:35.379)
They have so much over there. It's absolutely incredible.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (23:53.226)
best option in my opinion. I've seen contracts drafted by lawyers that I'm like, this lawyer clearly had no idea of the nature of the transaction or the nature of the type of business at hand. And that's not to knock the lawyer. They might be a great attorney, a great advocate, very qualified to do specific kind of work. But when it comes to the nature of marketing, selling and delivering a service online, there are unique implications there. And it's a unique container and a unique transaction.
Brittany Herzberg (24:19.827)
Mm-hmm.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (24:22.898)
Our contracts are all, as you mentioned, legally is free. So it's in plain English, easy to understand, easy to explain, easy to apply. And our industry specific. So they're specific for the type of interaction and transactions that we're engaging in. We also have contracts for your website, like terms and conditions and privacy policy. If you're collecting any data on your website, even if it's just a name and email address for your email list, you need to have a privacy policy on your website.
telling people how you're using their data and how they can contact you if they want it deleted. And then for your team members, if you're hiring contractors or employees, we've got contracts for those too, including like if you have a coaching program, if you hire an associate coach, or if you're hiring a virtual assistant, if you are bringing guests onto your podcast, we have a guest release. Yeah, we've got it, we've got it all. And you know, that's not to say we have.
Every single contract that you could possibly need, we're always open to receiving requests and recommendations for contracts that our community members want to see. And we're rolling those out throughout the year as well. But I'm pretty happy with the suite of products that we have available for our community.
Brittany Herzberg (25:35.939)
Yeah, you should be. I mean, it really is a comprehensive list and I felt very good looking through that to be like, oh, I feel one. I felt really confident even understanding what I needed to buy. Now I am still the type of business owner, the buyer where I'm like, let me just make sure. So I did DM you and I asked you a question and you were like right there. I mean, not immediately and I wouldn't expect you to be there immediately. But just saying, like I have definitely had some maybe like
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (25:52.767)
I hear ya.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (25:58.015)
Hehehehe
Brittany Herzberg (26:02.083)
lacking interactions in DMs where I will have a question and I really have all intentions of buying something from someone, but I don't hear back from them, even like a few days later. So I really, I just want you to know that I really appreciate that you were even there to answer a question, even though it was like, oh yeah, Brittany, like no worries, you can definitely modify that in the contract. Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate you back.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (26:22.21)
Thank you. It's my pleasure. I appreciate you.
Brittany Herzberg (26:26.683)
That's part of the reason I wanted to have you on to shout you out. Okay, let's end with one, what would you say is like one smart next step that business owners can take to legally protect themselves?
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (26:27.338)
Hehehehehehehehe
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (26:40.794)
One smart next step, I would say, I don't wanna be a broken record talking about contracts, but I would say if you are a business, yes, okay, I will. Thank you. I will gladly. Because I already do. I'm always talking about contracts, but yes, you're right, they're critical. They absolutely are. And they are your first line of defense, in any dispute that might arise within your,
Brittany Herzberg (26:49.695)
Do it.
Brittany Herzberg (26:57.515)
Because they are really critical.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (27:10.082)
business when it comes to your clients or your contractors is, you know, typically when there's a dispute, let's say you and your client are working together and the client is upset about something, they're typically not going to run to the courthouse and file a lawsuit immediately. You know, they're going to, and you don't want that either. You don't want to do that either. You want to resolve it between the two of you. And so you want to be able to say, okay, I hear you. Let's take a look at the contract that we agreed to and see if there's something in the contract that can help us and support us in resolving this dispute.
Um, and if it's a good contract, there should be something that clearly lays out, you know, maybe the client was like, I thought you were going to, you know, provide me with XXX service of whatever fill in the blank services. Um, and then you're like, well, it's not exactly what I agreed to, but if it's not in writing, you don't know what exactly, you know, they, they thought you were going to provide and what exactly you agreed to provide. So ideally you can go look at the contract. Let's see, what are the scope of services that were laid out?
Brittany Herzberg (27:59.798)
Mm-hmm.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (28:10.574)
Oh, it was actually X, Y, and Z. Oh, well, you know, I'm good because I was, I was, you know, misunderstanding what our agreement was. So now we're clear because we had it in writing. Or perhaps it's something around, you know, the client believed that you were going to provide a service that was outside of the scope of your services.
And that way you're able to go back to the contract and take a look and say, okay, well, this is what we agreed to. So this is what was stated. Let's say it's something related to payment. You know, you offered your clients. I know many people offer payment plans to their clients, which I think is great in terms of accessibility to services, especially if you're serving small business owners. Um, so in your contract, you really want to make sure you're laying out the payment plan schedule if they're providing you with, um, that first payment on that first day of payment, when does the second payment do? When is the third payment deal?
What constitutes a late payment? If there is a late payment, what policy do you apply? Is there a late payment fee that you're able to apply? If you don't have that in your contract, you don't really have any grounds for applying a late payment fee. You know, if somebody wants to cancel, like so all of these different situations that come, it's a nature of client relationships, you can account for those in your contract. And so a great first step I would say is revisit the contract that you're using right now.
If you're using a contract with your clients, take a look at it with a set of fresh eyes, um, and then set a recurring event on your calendar for every quarter, you know, every three months, at least every six months to review your client contract. And as time goes on, the more clients you work with, you'll find that you get clearer on the kind of policies that you need to have in place. Yes, for sure. Right. Like you can relate to that. I think we all can as you get really clear on what this looks like in practice and what kind of policies.
Brittany Herzberg (29:51.443)
Yes.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (30:01.742)
Do you want to maybe modify or add in? What kind of what ifs should you incorporate because it's just something to be expected now? It's not like a one-off situation. It's like, okay, this comes up with every single client. I should probably account for it in my contract. That way we have some clarity around how to proceed. So I would revisit your contract and if you know it needs to be.
I invite you to check out our contracts and we will have a code. I'll make sure we get one set up for you guys so you can save some money on your purchase too. Yeah, you're welcome. It's my pleasure. And like I said, set up that recurring reminder on your calendar to review your contract and revise it before you send it out to more clients. And that I think sets you up for some great client relationships ideally.
Brittany Herzberg (30:33.336)
Thank you.
Brittany Herzberg (30:50.543)
Yeah, it really does. I actually made notes while you were talking because I was like, this situation and this thing. And you already talked about one of them, which is like, I've definitely learned lessons, I would say from each client that I worked with.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (30:55.517)
Yes.
Brittany Herzberg (31:03.111)
of what I need to include, what I need to update in my contract. And it totally is a first line of defense. And I've been, I'm so grateful I've been a part of a couple of teams, like being brought in as a contractor, where I have seen that business owner go, okay, let's actually check the contract. Oh, this is what we said here. And it was just such a like kind, gentle, and yet firm.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (31:07.702)
Yes.
Brittany Herzberg (31:24.123)
like redirection of like, all right, you think we're going down this set of railroad tracks, we're actually over here. And it's like, oh, okay. And it completely redirects in a positive and quick and efficient way, the project and like everyone who's, you know, all hands on deck and oh, okay, this is what we're going to be doing. So that for sure definitely helps.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (31:29.183)
Yes.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (31:34.476)
Yeah.
Brittany Herzberg (31:42.475)
Also, like, I think, so I got your contract, I updated it for my purposes, put it in, used it with a client, and then I think the next week I had someone that had signed one of the older versions of the contract that I was using and she didn't really read the contract when she signed. Like, she was like, oh yeah sure, you're great, like, let's just work together, which I appreciate, but also...
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (31:56.252)
Mm-hmm.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (32:05.91)
Yeah.
Brittany Herzberg (32:08.411)
it did, even though it was the older version of the contract, it still did help us something in place where she was under the impression that these were the deliverables and actually what we had agreed to was something slightly different. And I was like, okay, you know, I could definitely help you with XYZ. This is what our current contract says. If you want that extra work, it'll be X amount and I'll be able to deliver it by X date. Let me know if you want me to proceed.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (32:17.154)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Brittany Herzberg (32:32.779)
Now I will say it has taken me years to get to that point where I can confidently rattle that off and not be like, um, you know, like if you want to keep it right.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (32:41.006)
Yes, I know it's challenging at first for sure. It's because it's new.
Brittany Herzberg (32:45.291)
It can be. Yeah, it's new. And you know, having a really solid contract that you feel good about, that you feel confident putting your name on and having clients sign gives you that extra bit of confidence to go into this work, to have your business, to approach clients and to even be able to say, yeah, I hear you. Just like what you said earlier, I hear you. This is what's in the contract. If you want to do blah, this is what that will look like.
And I will also say just even having all of the what ifs in your templates really even opened my eyes to a couple of things that I still had yet not thought about. And I was like, oh, yeah, I really like that. I'm going to leave that in there. This is great. Or I'm going to modify this slightly. It was it was just perfect because I could make it what I needed to be. And it was still getting me thinking and therefore protecting myself and my client in another instance that I hadn't even thought about. So highly recommend you go check out these contracts.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (33:40.99)
Love it. Thank you. That's music to my ears. I'm so glad to hear that you found those to be useful and maybe some things that you hadn't considered. But we created the contracts from experience and working with tons of clients and seeing the kinds of problems that they encounter with their clients, the kinds of disputes that arise. And the goal, of course, is to avoid the disputes from arising and to reducing the risk. Yeah. Reducing the likelihood.
Brittany Herzberg (33:42.707)
Of course.
Brittany Herzberg (34:04.732)
Yes.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (34:09.798)
of disputes and of problems and of misunderstandings with your clients. And, you know, as many things in this life, it comes down to communication, you know? And if, yeah, I know, big shocker, like, resolve it and avoiding those disputes comes down to clear communication. And in business, you want to make sure that communication is in writing so that you can reference it, especially if you've got a long-term working relationship with your clients. So.
Brittany Herzberg (34:19.087)
Great walker there.
Brittany Herzberg (34:29.904)
Mm-hmm.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (34:37.57)
Thank you for sharing, I appreciate you. And I'm so glad that you found them beneficial.
Brittany Herzberg (34:41.943)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's nice to know that your work is working, right? Like that's, just like you said, music to your ears. It's great to hear. I think you have something, and I've actually used it, so I know you have something that can be really helpful for folks when they're getting started out. It's, you know, some sort of a guide, right?
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (34:45.911)
Yes.
Yeah.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (34:59.326)
Yes, I actually was going to plug it a second ago whenever you asked like, where should we start? And then I was like, okay, let me give you like a tangible action item. Actually. Yes, we have. Yes. Love it. We have a legally launch guide. So you can download our free legally launch guide. It's a short ebook, that PDF format that you can download and read. And it just takes you through the high points of what you need to be aware of from
Brittany Herzberg (35:04.943)
Oh yeah!
That was amazing! You get a two-fer.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (35:27.246)
forming an entity, to having client contracts in place. We even get into intellectual property and what IP means. Nothing too wild, but just enough for you to get, to feel like, okay, I actually understand what this means within the context of my business. And yeah, some really great resources in there for you. So check it out. Hopefully we can include a link in the show notes. Otherwise you can find it on our website, yeah, at coac And I hope.
Brittany Herzberg (35:34.633)
Mm-mm.
Brittany Herzberg (35:49.448)
Oh yeah.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (35:55.622)
It is helpful to anybody listening.
Brittany Herzberg (35:57.519)
It is, I can guarantee it is. It will definitely be linked in all of the places. Oh, I'm so glad you were here and we were able to have this conversation. But before you go, where can people find you? Definitely plug the podcast again.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (36:02.37)
Thank you.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (36:06.005)
I own two.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (36:10.606)
Yes. Yes. So I'll be jamming out over on our podcast, The Business of Doing Business podcast. Wherever you're listening to podcasts, you can find it at tbodb.com or theb Either one, you'll find us there. And then we're on Instagram at Coaches & Co. I've been loving threads. I think you have too, Brittany. Yes. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Yes.
Brittany Herzberg (36:30.651)
Yes, I know. I love your thoughtful threads. I'm just over there like this is my answer. They're great.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (36:39.206)
I love it too. I love the engagement and the conversations and just hearing people's thoughts and ideas. It's a different format than Instagram, which I liked Twitter for it or X or whatever it's called. I liked it for that reason before. It was just the crowd that I was not crazy about. And so now I feel like the worlds are colliding and all of my friends that were on Instagram are now able to communicate in this new way. So it's been really fun.
Brittany Herzberg (36:50.371)
Mm-hmm.
Brittany Herzberg (36:57.903)
Yeah.
Brittany Herzberg (37:05.449)
Yeah.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (37:05.858)
Yeah, I like to hang out over there, but I'm all over the internet. Wherever you're hanging out, you can find me there. Yes. But would love to have you over on the podcast. Would love to have you join us on the podcast too soon. That would be great. Yes. And yeah, hope to connect with all of your listeners as well.
Brittany Herzberg (37:08.669)
I'm sorry.
Brittany Herzberg (37:15.939)
Yeah, I would love that. Yeah.
Brittany Herzberg (37:22.767)
Yes! Thank you so much. This has been exciting. I can't wait to see where we go from here. We're gonna have to do like a catch-up episode once the podcasts have been out for a while, once our babies have grown up a little bit.
Yasmine Salem Hamdan (37:26.726)
Thanks. I will too.
We will. Exactly. For sure. Thanks for having me on, Britney. I appreciate you.
Brittany Herzberg (37:38.898)
Thank you.