I have worked with several tech businesses and realized how flawed their contracting process is.

I once helped a SaaS business client.

They used to have multiple back-and-forths with changes in the contract with their customers.

Their contracting process with the customer used to take too long.

And sometimes they would lose the customer in the process.

In my experience, the contract should be executed as soon as you can.

Otherwise, it can turn into a cold lead.

There are a few points that I recommend to make this process easier and quicker:

1) Start with Fair Terms

When you are contracting with your customer, always expect some resistance and negotiations from their side.

What you can do is try to mitigate such resistance by sending a fair contract in the first place.

In most cases, you can predict the areas in your document where you will get the most pushback.

And if such areas are not of much commercial importance for your business, you should change or remove them in advance.

But remember there are certain areas like "liability" where even if you get a request for changes, you cannot budge down easily.

2) Streamlining Process

IT projects commonly involve multiple documents like SOWs, principal contracts, a separate SLA, etc.

Sometimes these are executed at different points in time, and there could be inconsistencies in these documents.

I reviewed one SOW and Main Contract contradicting each other in reference to the deemed acceptance policy and thus made changes to it.

Discovery of such contradiction again creates a hindrance in the contracting process.

And moving forward, the customer takes longer to review and execute.

The general rule is that the SOWs should be executed with due care first because most disputes arise from the scope/deliverables.

3) Changes in Requirements

In most IT projects, customer requirements change in the development phase.

Sometimes, the end product looks much different than what was initially agreed upon.

Such requests for changes should be formally incorporated into a separate document as and when required.

Oral requests should not be entertained, as this does create disputes and disagreements later on.

That's it!

These are the 3 points that I focus on to make sure your lead doesn't turn cold.

The Contract execution should be done with speed in mind, but also your protection.

Take too long for the draft, or spend too much time back and forth, and the project gets delayed.

And in some cases, you lose it.

Now if you need a Good Contract and a Fast Contract, pick a Time here:

https://calendly.com/mtlegalteam/discovery-call-with-mtlegal-team

We can talk about how we can work together. 

Talk to you soon.

-- Akhil Mishra