As an entrepreneur for creative entrepreneurs, I realized that many of my clients were unaware of what contracts they needed for their businesses. Many entrepreneurs who reach out to me are just starting out or have some of their systems in place but feel lost about which contracts they need to legally protect themselves and their businesses.
I came up with the quiz “Are You Legally Protected” on Interact because it’s a question that many entrepreneurs ask me about. My goal with my quiz is to provide some insight into what contracts are essential to protect business owners from liability and the agreements needed for clients or any partnerships being entered into. Creating the quiz was also an opportunity to explain what my pre-drafted contract templates are and that entrepreneurs have a more quick and cost-effective option in comparison to a custom drafted agreement. My attorney drafted contract templates are industry-specific and are pre-written to allow business owners to easily customize them. A business owner would just have to fill in their remaining basic information (i.e. name, opposite party’s name, and specific pricing information) in pre-highlighted fields that have already been laid out. Contract templates provide entrepreneurs with a more cost-effective option, while still allowing them to get a semi-custom and industry-specific agreement. I wanted to explain this as part of my quiz results, which I ultimately did.
When it came to creating my questions on Interact, I decided to start out by asking the individual what type of business he or she is in. There are a myriad of entrepreneurs out there, and this was in my opinion the best way to start. I wanted my questions to focus on the different creative entrepreneurial fields and their pain points. For example, if you are a service provider, (i.e. a wedding photographer, graphic designer, web designer, wedding planner, business coach, life coach, or virtual assistant, etc.), you’ll want to make sure that you have a service agreement in place to give to your clients. Having your contracts in place legitimize your business, manage client expectations, ensure payment, protect your intellectual property, help you handle disputes, and give you peace of mind.
If you sell your intellectual property frequently (as a portrait or wedding photographer, for instance), you need specific language that explains who owns the rights to your property and what will happen if they infringe on your rights.
If you have projects or information that you’d like to keep confidential for a certain period of time, then having a non-disclosure agreement is essential.
If you have employees, interns, or contract out your work, then you will need employment contracts (for your employees), an intern agreement (for your interns), or an independent contractor agreement (for any sub-contractors).
If you have a website, then you will need to make sure that you have your privacy policy and terms and conditions pages set up to inform visitors of any information that is being collected. Whenever you collect information, you’re legally obligated to inform users of what they’re sharing and how it’s being used. Especially with recent data and privacy breaches in the news, it’s essential (and legally required!) to outline your terms.
If you’re a brand wanting to take advantage of influencer marketing, then having a solid contract in place to provide to content creators or influencers is key. Brand ambassadors and influencer partnerships are an effective new method of advertising. Take advantage of the social media connections and online advice community without worrying if the collaboration is best-serving your brand. With a bulletproof brand influencer contract, you can lay out exactly what’s expected and have legal documents to back you up in case something goes wrong. I made sure to all of these industries to specific contract templates.
From there, I created a series of questions designed to test out how far along in their business or “entrepreneurial journey” the individual was. See example below.
I ended up using a template because I wanted to get an idea of how to structure my quiz and the type of questions and photos that I could use. I tried the “coach template” and liked the structure and re-invented the questions and changed the photos. It was my first time creating a quiz, so I decided against creating one from scratch. I found the template to be more helpful and more of an efficient way to create the quiz.
For the results section on Interact, I wanted to make sure that I addressed the individual’s specific pain point(s). I wanted quiz takers to understand the foundation of why contracts are so important. Essentially, contracts legitimize your business, manage client expectations, ensure payment, protect your intellectual property, help you handle disputes, and give you peace of mind. The goal of my results is to help entrepreneurs understand where they are in their business and what specific contracts the will need to protect it. I linked the contracts to my contract template shop so that they can learn more about my contract templates.
I used the email marketing platform ActiveCampaign because this is the platform that I have been using for the past several months and I wanted to be able to easily integrate both systems and to keep my current email list. I also segmented my list by creating an entirely new list so that I would know who specifically took the quiz.
I decided to place the quiz in my announcement bar so that users can easily and quickly see the quiz when visiting my website. I also decided to create a pop up so that the site visitors would be prompted to take the quiz after seeing the pop up.
I decided to promote my quiz using the Instagram platform because it is my number one source of traffic. I have a direct link in my bio so that my Instagram visitors and followers can easily see the link and take the quiz.
So far I’ve run the quiz for one day and do not have any results yet. I look forward to seeing how the quiz does. I am confident that it will be very helpful to my audience. I had fun creating the quiz and look forward to getting feedback from my audience.
The most challenging part of the process was integrating the quiz with my email platform, ActiveCampaign. Other than that, the Interact platform is very intuitive and easy to use.
My advice to other business owners interested in using Interact to creative quizzes is to be creative and to make it fun!
**This is a partnership post with the platform Interact regarding my experience in creating this quiz. I will receive a commission if anyone signs up using my referral link (cited above) as long as the individual stays subscribed to the service. All opinions are my own.
