My Contract With You

Many web developers and marketing agencies build marketing programs that require you continue to use them after your website and program is setup. I’m 100% against that.

The following outlines the standard agreement I make with clients. This agreement has worked without issue since I started in business, August 8th, 1998.

I do not typically set up a signed contract but use invoices and receipt of payment based on either project estimates or monthly retainers as our mutual agreement but it is important that you understand what you own of the work I do for you as I've seen many web developers take advantage of clients by holding properties or assets.

Your Website on Squarespace

The most important is full ownership of your website. When I start a website build, I create a new Squarespace website which begins in trial mode for 90 days and when your site goes live, I have the customer put in their credit card to activate the site and then I transfer ownership of the site to them so that they have full ownership. I typically remain as an administrator of the site so I can jump in any time, but you, as an owner can cancel my access at any time, as well as add new admins.

Your Squarespace website is hosted by Squarespace so you don't have to worry about separate hosting charges and they provide support via chat or email (no direct phone support).

Your domain name, or the URL people type to get to your website is a different component, which many people confuse with the website, and most customers own and manage that themselves (most common is GoDaddy or Network Solutions). My customers will often do something similar from their account (i.e. GoDaddy) and invite me as an admin to that domain so I can help connect their Squarespace account to their domain. I don't normally accept or advise that a customer give me their credentials to log in but rather add me as a user.

I some cases I will purchase a domain name for a customer and then transfer ownership to them — typically I use GoDaddy and they need to establish a GoDaddy account in order to accept that transfer.

Website Assets

We typically use Google Docs to store and share content assets because it's free and the marketing interns I help customers connect with, are familiar and comfortable with that collaboration platform.

For Graphic Design, we use a program called Figma.com which is also free for 2 users, and we provide that to customers so that they have full access to those design assets.

Services

Whether a customer needs a full project that's designed and spec'd out or they engage me in a monthly retainer, all agreed upon tasks are outlined in a project management software tool called Asana. Time spent is logged against those tasks and tallied daily for an immediate and ongoing tracking of time budget used.

I communicate that budget regularly so that we can collectively decide where to prioritise time and adjust the budget accordingly. Many times that budget adjustment is either decreasing or increasing the monthly budget or if it's a fixed bid project, we'll agree to limited overages and deliverables or create a new project or phase 2 which establishes a new budget.

Marketing Interns

My mission with all projects is to build a marketing platform that can be managed by the marketing interns I regularly train to help my customers cost effectively manage their marketing. If you choose to hire one of my interns, you pay them directly with no mark-up or extra charges by me. Depending on the level of website customization, customers typically need to hire me to help standardize the maintenance program so the customer and the interns can easily follow and cost effectively deliver marketing services.

Conclusion

My goal is to bring 26 years of professional digital marketing into a marketing platform designed around your needs and then wean myself away from the day-to-day audience building activities by training and connecting you with talented and inexpensive local resources (high school and college interns).

I will continuously develop better and more efficient digital marketing approaches and then share those with you and my interns as my key audience building strategy.