The hesitation people sometimes experience with implementing their own 'Put It In Writing Policy' is understandable, however unjustified. Many people worry that a service agreement, for example, will offend a prospect and make it harder to turn them into a client. They feel, perhaps, that asking a client to apply a signature is an act of distrust to which a client will take offense.
In practice, however, honest clients don't see it this way and neither should you. Rather, it should be treated as a seamless act of routine business policy for the benefit of all parties concerned.
It's never offensive when someone discusses the written components when they are routine. Only when it is not a policy to begin with does it rightly become a reason to question your motives. Think of it as showing your clients that you take their business seriously, you will meet deadlines and quality standards, for example, and you expect the same from them.
Sounds reasonable doesn't it?
Frankly, this is how reliable organizations do business. Not signing service agreements, employment and partnership agreements, recording minutes at a meeting - generally operating on handshakes - puts you in an unreliable category of business and opens you and your clients up to a lot of avoidable aggravation. We have heard horror stories and we have been there to help clean up messes that tend to occur naturally when people fail to keep to this truth.
We're not saying you shouldn't shake on a deal if it's your tradition. Just put it in writing, too!
Look at it this way:
A prospect is not really a client until a service agreement has been signed and dated. A business partner isn't really a partner until a comprehensive partnership agreement has been signed and dated by the partners. And so on...
The benefits of putting it in writing are many. We'll leave you with three for now:
1. Putting it in writing makes it less likely that you will conduct your business by the seat of your pants.
2. Putting it in writing promotes an organized approach to your operation.
3. Putting it in writing greatly increases the chances that your business relationships will be stable and secure.
Put It In Writing: Everything. Always.