Good morning, everybody. This is Bradley Bailyn. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m a small business attorney here in New York City. This is Episode Number 12 of my Think Like an Entrepreneur podcast. We talk about various legal topics having to do with contracts, compliance and corporations, which are three of the most common issues that I deal with as a business lawyer. Today, we’re going to be talking about an issue which is so common in my practice and very dear to my heart. It’s going to be how to tell the difference between all of those fast talking salespeople who promise you the world and deliver nothing from the small percentage of the people who are true, fantastic professionals who will be long term parts of your team and can take you to the stars.

Question number one is, can I speak with a few of your references? You would be shocked at how many people send the contract over to me and tell me they’re all ready to go. And yet they’ve never spoken with any of the references of the person that they want to sign a contract with for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. So many people say, I’m so wonderful. I’ve done this, I’ve done that. I just raised a million dollars. I just… you know… whatever the case may be… it’s like, really? Can I talk to that person that you raised a million dollars for? Can I verify some of your claims? And most of the time, the answer is no. They either hang up the phone while you’re speaking. Or say “let me get back to you” and hope you don’t follow up with this question. No…

Second question. Can you tell me who’s going to be working on my matter and how much time they’re going to be working on it for? What I’m getting at with this is a situation which they call Selling Your Stars… where the most important person in the company sits down with you and honors you and tells you how wonderful your business is and how excited they are to work with you. And then the reality is you have totally junior people, sometimes people completely from overseas and junior working on your case. And you’ll be lucky if the grandmaster who sold it to you even spends 10 minutes in a month thinking about your situation. So it’s very helpful to have in writing who is going to be on your team and what are their credentials.

Next thing is, can you provide S.M.A.R.T. goals for the campaign? SMART is Specific, Measurable, Actionable… I forget what R and T are. You can Google it, but basically the point of S.M.A.R.T. goals is you set a very specific number for what’s going to be achieved and when it’s going to be achieved. You set something quantifiable and a good service provider is going to be able to give you S.M.A.R.T. goals. They’re going to be able to give you a good list of what they’re going to do and when they’re going to do it by. And a lot of times they cannot tell you exactly what they’re going to do because it depends on a lot of factors. And so on behalf of my clients, when I’m negotiating these contracts, I’ll say, OK, fine, give me a range. You can’t tell me exactly. But tell me what’s the worst that it could possibly be. Tell me what is the best it could possibly be. And what is it typically in your experience? And I’ll go on to say, within the past year, could you tell me what’s the worst experience that you’ve had for a client like myself? What’s the best and what’s the average experience that someone like myself has? And I’d like to get all of those things in writing. They should be able to provide you with that.

Next, what is the minimum service level that you can guarantee? Say, for example, you have a PR company. What can you guarantee me? Can I expect at least one hit on some website that nobody’s heard of? Yeah, probably. You can expect that. Can I expect to be in The New York Times? Sure, sure. Expect it. Will you give it to me in writing? Will you give me my money back if I’m not? No, no, no. Well, what triggers getting my money back or allowing me to terminate early? What can you guarantee me? I’m sure you can guarantee me something. But what is the minimum? At which point I should be so disappointed that you will give me my money back? And if they cannot answer that question, if they say it’s a hundred percent nonrefundable, we cannot guarantee you anything at all. Then you know exactly what you should expect. Nothing at all.

And next, I’d like to see some examples of jobs similar to the one that you’re going to be doing for my client. Has my client seen any examples? If this is PR. Can I see some of the press hits that you’ve achieved within the past year? Well, what can you show me that you have done for clients similar to mine? Can you show me letters that you’ve sent out on behalf of clients like mine? Can you show me responses? What can you show me about similar campaigns? So I get a sense of what level of quality you’re going to be providing. So I have a better understanding of what it is that you’re actually going to do.

Next, will you indemnify me in the event that we get investigated or sued? It’s not an uncommon situation for outside companies to violate the intellectual property rights of third parties on behalf of their client. And if you’re going to get me investigated by the Federal Trade Commission or get me potentially sued by someone for violating their intellectual property rights, do you have insurance for this kind of thing? Are you going to indemnify me for this kind of thing or are you just going to directly stick me with your negligence? So I would like to at least hear your answer to this.

Next, can you tell me what process you’re going to use exactly? What should I expect you to do? You would be shocked at how opaque the answer to this question can be. A lot of the times, the reason being that they’re actually going to do nothing. So, of course, they cannot tell you in detail. This is what we’re going to do. This is how we’re gonna do it. This is the results you should expect. And this is how many times we’re going to do it per month. And this is who is going to be involved. Each time that we do it, if you get this level of detail now, you’re actually beginning to understand what it is that you’re paying for.

Next, I want to know what are the limitations of the service? Are there any limitations, such as a limitation in the number of letters you’re going to send, if it’s PR, which I like to use as an example? Is there a limit to the number of customer service hours? Is there a limit to the number of revisions of the web design project? Please tell me all of the revisions that you think… I’m sorry, not revisions. Please tell me all the limits that you think might apply to my particular project. I would like to know that. And can you tell me some of the common problems for projects much like my own?

So this about wraps up this podcast. I hope I gave you some pretty good things to think about that are going to be practical and useful to you. If you think my videos are helpful, then please click the subscribe button or the follow button depending on which platform you are using and feel free to give me a call. Or email me at Brad@BailynLaw.com. Thank you and have a wonderful day.