Effective communication is critical when introducing a new Contract Template
As part 2 of my tips on how to roll-out a new Contract Template as an Expert, the following:
๐๐ณ๐ณ๐ฒ๐ฐ๐๐ถ๐๐ฒ ๐ฐ๐ผ๐บ๐บ๐๐ป๐ถ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป ๐ถ๐ ๐ฐ๐ฟ๐ถ๐๐ถ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐น ๐๐ต๐ฒ๐ป ๐ถ๐ป๐๐ฟ๐ผ๐ฑ๐๐ฐ๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐ฎ ๐ป๐ฒ๐ ๐๐ผ๐ป๐๐ฟ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ ๐ง๐ฒ๐บ๐ฝ๐น๐ฎ๐๐ฒ.
To ensure effective communication, make a strategic communication and follow-up plan to convince and inform the companyโs teams to use the new contract template.
As we have learned, the top-down approach does not work. It is not sufficient to simply send out the new template and expect its adoption.
To ensure success, team members need to know the critical components for the use of the new Contract Templates:
* Why
* How
* When
* Benefits
๐ฆ๐๐ฒ๐ฝ ๐ญ: ๐๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ป๐๐ถ๐ณ๐ ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐น๐ฒ๐๐ฎ๐ป๐ ๐๐๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ & ๐๐ฒ๐ฎ๐บ๐
Before starting your communication in the company, make a thorough analysis who will use the new template the most and/or who should be informed about the new template.
It is not about just informing the most obvious stakeholders like – for example – the sales managers who will use the new client contract.
In fact, there may be teams that business owners and Legal did not initially realize needed to be informed, like HR, Finance, Compliance, Operations, Product Teams, etc. Once identified, a communication plan can be developed that includes reaching all relevant stakeholders.
In summary, to ensure success in the roll-out of your new Contract Template, communicate your new templates to a wider group than you initially first thought of.
Contract Template Tip 10: How to Roll Out New Templates Like a Pro
To conclude our series on how to improve your Business Contract Templates, I will share with you the expert steps I advise to use when rolling out your new templates in your organisation.
Having introduced new templates, policies and procedures for more than 15 years as Legal Counsel / Manager in various companies, I have a lot of (too much!) information to share on this complex and multifaceted subject – which I hope will be of great insight to you.
As a business leader, I know how precious your time is. Therefore, instead of packing all my insights into one long article, I have decided to break it down in separate posts which I will share with you in the next weeks.
Examples where you can use these expert tips:
Roll-out of a new template:
– Customer Contract
– Partner Agreement
– Order Form
– NDA (Confidentiality Agreement)
– DPA (Data Processing Addendum)
Introduction of a new policy & procedure that your teams need to follow:
– Contract Procedure explaining all steps in the contract negotiation process
– Contract approval policy
– Legal Involvement Policy (e.g. legal involvement is only approved after completion of a questionnaire and for deals > 100k)
– Vendor Questionnaire Procedure/Handbook
Looking forward to share my insights on this topic with you in the next weeks! If you have any questions in the meantime, do let me know in the comments or in a direct message.
Please see the full list of articles with all steps to take to successfully roll out contract templates in a company::
Tip 9: Use general terms & conditions where possible
๐จ๐๐ฒ ๐๐ฒ๐ป๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ฎ๐น ๐ง๐ฒ๐ฟ๐บ๐ & ๐๐ผ๐ป๐ฑ๐ถ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป๐ (๐ง&๐โs) ๐๐ต๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ฝ๐ผ๐๐๐ถ๐ฏ๐น๐ฒ
๐๐๐๐๐ฒ: it takes a lot of time to get your company’s customer contracts (B2B) signed, even if you have great templates.
Do you constantly need to go back and forth with your customers to make small changes to your contract template, which leads to delays because e.g. both the commercial team and legal team need to amend the client contract manually?
๐ฆ๐ผ๐น๐๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป: Consider making T&Cโs instead and add these to your website.
Next step is to create a great ๐ข๐ฟ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ฟ ๐๐ผ๐ฟ๐บ with:
– details of the customer and company;
– pricing;
– products list;
– โฆ,
with a references to these T&Cโs.
Make sure to perform a legal and commercial analysis depending on your company to determine that all important clauses are added to the Order Form.
This is a very common practice for B2C companies, but for B2B there is still a lot of work to do. Software/tech companies are leading the way in this way of contracting.
๐ฅ๐ฒ๐๐๐น๐:
– the Order Form can be completed by the Sales/Commercial Team without involvement of Legal.
– there is no need to complete the customer contract so you can share the customer contract in a very early stage of the sales process.
– if the client has no comments, the Legal Team does NOT need to be involved.
– if the client has comments, the Legal Team can negotiate the T&Cs, but only under certain conditions (e.g. approval management, volume and/or strategic importance).
– contracts are signed quicker.
Make sure that all your clients have read and approved the T&Cs. Only mentioning the link to the T&Cs is not sufficient.
๐๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ธ๐ด๐ฟ๐ผ๐๐ป๐ฑ: In the past month I noticed with three clients (all tech companies) that, next to their Order Form, they also had to complete and send out specific customer contracts (traditional customer/client contracts). Traditional contract meaning: manually add name and details parties on the first page, specific contract wording follows where further specific information needs to be added. Of course perfectly fine in a more traditional setting, but when handling with tech/SaaS clients this not very ideal. I advised all three clients to change the contract setup from traditional contracts to Order Forms with a link to T&Cs. They all implemented this approach with great success and very good feedback from the Management and Sales teams.
๐๐ ๐ฃ๐ข๐ฅ๐ง๐๐ก๐ง: this approach does not work for all companies, but is especially helpful in technology companies (SaaS / CPAAS / Fintech / MedTech / ConstruTech / โฆ ). Please discuss with your legal counsel / lawyer how to implement this in your company (and if it would be suitable at all).
Contact me if you want to have a chat about this.
Tip 8: Consistent terms & definitions in your documents
๐๐จ๐ง๐ฌ๐ข๐ฌ๐ญ๐๐ง๐ญ ๐ญ๐๐ซ๐ฆ๐ฌ & ๐๐๐๐ข๐ง๐ข๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง๐ฌ ๐ข๐ง ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ ๐๐จ๐๐ฎ๐ฆ๐๐ง๐ญ๐ฌ
Make sure that you use the same terms and definitions in your contracts and other important documents. It is also advised to follow the same rule for commercial documents like pitches / offers and even your website.
๐ช๐ต๐?
1. To ensure that everyone knows what is meant exactly by a certain term that you use in your company.
2. To create the best possible customer experience.
3. To avoid any misunderstanding on what service or product the customer has purchased from you exactly, and under which conditions.
4. In case of commercial discussions (and even litigation) about a term in the contract for whatever reason: e.g. exact services purchased (and under which conditions), the price for the service, termination possibilities, volume commitments, compliance and system requirements, etc.
๐๐ ๐ฎ๐บ๐ฝ๐น๐ฒ
For a typical SaaS/Software company this means that the same terms/definitions should be used for the following documents (depending on the contractual set-up):
โ General Terms and Conditions
โ End User License Agreement
โ Customer Contract / Master Ordering Agreement
โ Order Form / SOW (Statement of Work)
โ Annexes likes the Data Processing Addendum (DPA), Data Security Addendum and the Pricing Annex
โ Disclaimer on the website
๐๐ฆ๐ต ๐ฎ๐ฆ ๐ฌ๐ฏ๐ฐ๐ธ ๐ช๐ง ๐บ๐ฐ๐ถ ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ฅ ๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ญ๐ฑ ๐ธ๐ช๐ต๐ฉ ๐บ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ณ ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ต๐ณ๐ข๐ค๐ต ๐ต๐ฆ๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ญ๐ข๐ต๐ฆ๐ด!
Tip 7: All templates in one place
๐๐ฅ๐ฅ ๐ญ๐๐ฆ๐ฉ๐ฅ๐๐ญ๐๐ฌ ๐ข๐ง ๐จ๐ง๐ ๐ฉ๐ฅ๐๐๐
Remember to store all your (contract) templates in one central place to make sure that everyone is (i) able to find the correct templates quickly and (ii) using the correct template.
Sounds very straight forward, but in reality I rarely see companies that store all templates in one central place easily accessible for all involved team members.
Storing all contract templates in one central place is challenging for most companies, but especially in case of:
โ fast-growing companies
โ mergers/acquisitions
โ activities in multiple countries
โ large groups with many subsidiaries or a complicated corporate structure
โ contracts in different languages
โ involvement of different departments (Account Management, Sales, Partnerships, Sales Operations, โฆ)
๐๐ก๐๐ญ ๐ข๐ฌ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐๐ฌ๐ข๐๐ฌ๐ญ ๐ฐ๐๐ฒ ๐ญ๐จ ๐ฆ๐๐ค๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ญ๐๐ฆ๐ฉ๐ฅ๐๐ญ๐๐ฌ ๐๐๐ฌ๐ข๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐๐๐๐๐ฌ๐ฌ๐ข๐๐ฅ๐?
Best options are:
(a) fully/partly automate your contract creation and be strict that this is the only way that contracts can be generated. This way the relevant, most up to date and correct Contract Template is used and all templates are stored in one spot as you should only be able to use this automated system; and
(b) create a central place (usually an internal website or โ less ideal โ a shared folder).
๐๐ซ๐ฎ๐๐ข๐๐ฅ: give training โ at the start of employment and regularly thereafter โ to your employees to make sure they know where the contract templates are located and how to correctly use these templates.
Tip 6: When making your specific contract, start with the correct template
Introduction
Previously in the series “How to improve contract templates”, we emphasized knowing the content of your contract templates. See the full article here: https://amstlegal.com/tip-5-review-the-contents-of-your-templates/. Now we’re zooming in on perhaps the most common issue with contract templates: How the templates are used daily. Because even with all the technology available to automate contract creation, most contracts are still created in word processing software such as MS Word. The templates are often saved in unstructured ways too. Additionally, the people that use the template contracts on a daily basis for a specific customer contract do not always use the correct template, i.e. the latest version, when making a new contract. While simultaneously doing that without using contract automation, unexpected risks can show up later on. Keep reading to learn what risks you could be facing, and how you can manage them.
When making a specific contract, start with the correct template
Why is it so important to start with the correct template?
Naturally, it sounds very convenient to use a contract of another client or the contract template that you have been using for years when making a new contract. However, this is the biggest risk associated with contract creation for companies that do not use contract automation. More time and money will need to be spent on the (re)negotiation of the contract and/or potential mistakes or claims in the future because your contract did not fit with the client or the specific situation. Using the correct template can be a step on the way to minimize encounters with these risks.
How do you minimize this risk?
So how do you avoid the risks connected to not using the correct template? There are many options to minimize those risks. However, we have found from experience that the two best ways to minimize these risks are:
- Fully/partly automate your contract creation and be strict that this is the only way that contracts can be generated; and
- Create a central place (usually an internal website) to store the contract templates, and give your employees regular training.
Unfortunately, the first tip can take some time to set up and requires recources for it to fully work. The pros outweigh that though, so don’t fear the power of technology when making contracts. For the second tip to fully work, we advise to provide training to the employees regularly. For example at the start of the employment followed by regular consistent training after that. This is our standpoint because you want your employees to know where the templates are located and how to use them.
Another tip that could be conjoined with the other two is to make sure that the importance of this is discussed regularly in your team or during company meetings.
Conclusion
To sum this article up, it can make a major difference on the aftermath of your contracts whether the correct template is used or not. Therefore we do advice to invest in good templates and good training for the employees. Doing this will make your contracting process much easier. If you feel like this is something that you would benefit from, contact us at AMST Legal for further personalized advice.
Tip 5: Review the content of Your Templates
Introduction
This is a follow up on the previous tip 4 to make a full list of all your contract templates. If you want to read that part, follow this link here: https://amstlegal.com/tip-4-make-an-inventory-of-your-contract-templates/. Staying on the same track, we at AMST Legal strongly advise to regularly perform a detailed review of your contract templates. That is part of our tip 5 of the article series “How to Improve Contract Templates”.
Keep reading to learn more about this appraoch.
Review the contents of your templates
Leaning back on the previous tip 3, which builds on cross-departemental collaboration, legal should review the templates – of course together with business – to make sure that the templates are all legally up to date and still work for all products/services that you are offering and cover all business risks.ย That require knowledge of the content of your templates though. The solution to that is to review your contract templates on a regularly basis.
What the review can show you
Think back to when the company started. In the beginning, the company might used certain contract templates without legal alignment, i.e. templates made by the commercial team or online templates. Another scenario is that the company has changed considerably. Thus, your company’s current needs might not be reflected in the contract templates.
Due to this review you might also find out that you can potentially:
- combine templates to limit the amount of different templates,
- remove templates that are not used, or
- make new templates,
Doing this can further improve the scalability & productivity of your company.
Pro-tip
Certain large corporates that I have worked with even ask an external law firm every two years to do a full review of their templates. That concerns e.g. General Terms & Conditions and Master Ordering Agreement. This ensures that their templates are up to date. It can also show how they generally can improve the templates for the business and their customers.ย
Conclusion
If you make sure to keep an eye on your templates you can ensure that the content will be up to date, Additionally, the contracting process can be made easier if unnecessary templates are removed.
Do you want to improve your scalability and productivity? Contact us at AMST Legal for tailored advice on how to do this in a simple way.
Tip 4: Make an Inventory of Your Contract Templates
Introduction
Earlier, we provided tips on how legal should not be afraid to involve other departments. You can access that article through this link: https://amstlegal.com/tip-3-legal-involves-other-departments/. Moving on, we are going to dive into the next tip in the series on How to Improve Contract Templates. This tip 4 concerns making an inventory of all contract templates.
Make an inventory of your contract templates
A must when using contract templates, which we at AMST Legal highly advocate for, is to
- Regularly make a list of all contract templates that your company is using day to day.
- Make sure you know how many specific/different contract templates the company has for its products & services, countries, languages and departments.
Best is not to only ask the legal department, but to especially ask the business (e.g. Sales, Partnerships, Procurement, HR) which template contracts they are using day-to-day. Just to make sure, also ask them to send you the exact template they are using and check if they are using the right templates.
After making the list, you might be amazed how many different templates are currently in use by the company and where they are all stored. Having this list will give you a better idea which next steps you should take to improve your contract templates.
Conclusion
Organizing your contract templates, reviewing how many you have, and sorting them can be a life saver in stressful times. Oftentimes you might not even need all of the templates that you have currently. So make sure to regularly check up on the status of your contract templates.
How many contract templates do you have in your company?
If you want to become even more structure, and streamline your contracting process – contact us at AMST Legal for tailored advice. Let’s take your contracting to the next level!
Tip 3: Legal Involves Other Departmentsย
Introduction
Previously, we shared valuable tips on how to structure legal’s responsibility of the contract process. Access it here if you haven’t read it: https://amstlegal.com/tip-2-legal-in-the-lead/. Continuing, we are moving on to tip 3. That concerns making sure that Legal involves other departments when drafting and rolling out / implementing templates.
Looking back, we have seen lengthy processes when working with large corporations. There, it would typically take 3-6 months before their client contract (a relatively straightforward Services Agreement) would be negotiated, agreed and signed. When working there, we were able to reduce the time spent on this to maximum 1-2 months. Keep reading to learn how you could do the same.
How to shorten the contract process
Three tips
We were able to bring this period down to a maximum of 1-2 months by:
- sitting down with the business to discuss how the contract could be improved, not only from a legal point of view but from a business point of view;
- amending the templates accordingly; and
- strongly involving the business with the roll out/ implementation of the new templates.
This provided an overview of the contract process and having other departments that use the templates on board from the start.
Why should legal involve other departments?
I have seen this working in every company where I had the opportunity to use this strategy. It is therefore my strong belief that Legal absolutely must:
- consider the opinion of other departments of the company, and
- draft/amend the contract templates accordingly where necessary and possible.
This applies especially to commercial contracts and less for purely legal templates like NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements) and DPAs (Data Privacy Agreements).
Alignment with the business โ for example Sales, Products, Finance or Compliance โ is essential to make sure that the templates do not only cover the legal risks, but also cover important business risks, practical issues and all products/services of the company. Another important reason to include these departments in the creation of the templates is to create a support base. The business will be a lot more engaged if they understand and agree with the template contract and if they have helped with the creation of it.
Conclusion
Incorporating insights from other departments when drafting and implementing legal templates can significantly shorten the contract process. By involving key teams such as Sales, Products, Finance, and Compliance, Legal can create templates that not only address legal risks but also align with business needs. Ensuring cross-departmental alignment leads to more effective contracts and greater support from the business. That makes the process more efficient and streamlined.
Stay tuned for our next article on tip 4. In the meantime, contact us at AMST Legal if you want to enhance your contract process through personalized expert help.
Tip 2: Legal in The Lead
Introduction
After having advised in the previous post, which you can read here: https://amstlegal.com/tip-1-80-template-20-no-template/, that your company should work towards structuring it to the โ80% template โ 20% no-templateโ rule whenever possible, the next step is to let legal be in the lead.
Let Legal be in the lead
When you have applied the 80-20 % Rule, you are ready to take the next step. The next step that can improve your contract processes concerns creation of templates and followingly, getting the necessary personnel up-to-speed. For this, an advice from us at AMST Legal is to let legal be in the lead when creating and introducing new contract templates. This shall apply to all contract templates that are within the plan – i.e., 80 % of your contracts – according to the AMST Legal approach.
Do you find this to be unnecessary to point out?
Having legal in the lead on creating and rolling out templates might seem to be very obvious. Especially for e.g. your Terms & Conditions, DPA (Data Processing Agreement), etc. In reality, this is not always the case, as the practice may be to have legal in the lead, but ends with other rogue approaches that we will explain below. Thus, it is not always so obvious, why this is necessary to point out.
Some examples of what AMST Legal have seen at companies are the following:ย
- With small (local) businesses, start-ups and scale-ups: the founders and/or the commercial team have downloaded templates from free online resources or made templates themselves. All very acceptable and completely understandable when starting a company, but if your company grows or becomes more mature it is important to review these old templates and make sure that you discuss this with Legal.ย
- With (large) corporations: the company has good templates, but the commercial / operational team has their own individual versions (not approved by legal) that they like to use and amend for specific products/services. Example: I once advised a company of 100 people where there were 40 versions of the same Sales Contract โ one for each product! We were able to bring it back again to 3 versions.
Therefore, make sure that Legal, i.e. an external lawyer or your internal legal department, is in the lead when making and rolling out new contract templates. We see it way too often that management or the commercial team use templates that legal have not approved. This can create various problems later on.
AMST Legal Recommends
Our recommendation in this regard is (obviously) to let Legal review and control all contract related documents.
Legal should be involved with the following contract processes:
- The obvious ones that is not only pure commercial contracts (like a sales contracts, DPA or partnership contracts), and also for
- documents where you might be of the opinion that they are purely commercial (e.g. Service Level Agreement, Pricing/Offer Documents or Engagement Letters).ย
In other words, legal is crucial for the inital contract process. Legal should control the drafting, implementation and filing of the template contracts to make sure that the templates are managed correctly by the company. However, note that this does not mean that legal have to complete and send out specific contracts made from contract templates.
Conclusion
To sum this article up, we at AMST Legal believe that it is in the company’s best interest to really let legal take the lead in contract processes. It might seem easier to create your own templates, but that can lead to other worrying moments that is best to avoid. If legal is taking the lead, the idea of improving your contract templates can improve rapidly, while requiring less help from legal.
Do you feel like your contract process align with the two problem areas we described and wish to improve your processes? Reach out to us or book a consultation with us at AMST Legal to recieve specialized advice tailored to your specific needs.