Top 11 Must-Have Clauses In Your Life Coaching Contract

Top 11 Must-Have Clauses to include in your Life Coaching Contract

Check out these 10 must-have provisions for your life coaching contract if you are currently a coach or are considering becoming one.

1. TERM OF LIFE COACHING CONTRACT

The start and end dates of the agreement constitute the term of the contract. Even if your clients will adore and value your services and want to keep working with you, your time is valuable.

It’s crucial to establish limits for when your clients can access your time and attention and for when that interaction ends. This clause may be used in:

• When they can start using your resources and material.
• When their access to your materials and content expires.
• The deadline by which they must use all of their sessions and calls.

2. PAYMENT TERMS

Payment terms are crucial during this delicate period of getting to know a new client. You ought to be explicit about the terms throughout the discovery call as well.

If you want to be flexible but are risk-averse, you could alternatively provide a payment plan that is set up such that sessions are always paid in advance. If you’re selling an 8-week program, for instance, the customer pays 50% when they book and 50% after 4 weeks. You can suspend the sessions if they put off paying so that you won’t lose money.

3. SCOPE OF SERVICES

You have a wealth of experience and knowledge as a life coach, but you must safeguard yourself by being clear about the extent of your services. A detailed description of the services you offer will assist the client know what to anticipate. 

This contains details such as how frequently they receive calls, how long they last, the resources they have access to, etc. This guard against the dreaded scope creeps so you don’t end up offering services that are outside the bounds of your service offering.

4. ADDITIONAL SERVICES

The additional services clause should cover any services you offer for more money that go beyond what you agreed to offer as part of your price and scope of services. It’s fantastic if you want to provide extra calls, a review of your client’s work, extra resources, access to you via Voxer, etc. Just be sure to include it in your additional services clause and charge more for it.

5. COMMUNICATION GUIDELINES

Indicate in your communication requirements section how you prefer to be contacted by your clients, such as by email, Slack message, Voxer, etc. Next, establish your office hours so that clients won’t contact you by phone, email, or text at 8 p.m. on a Saturday when they don’t need an instant response. 

6. DISCLAIMERS

In your contracts whether you work in the field of health and wellness or if you coach people, disclaimers are very crucial to include. If you’re sued, they could be able to protect you. The hazards that could specifically affect your client during your coaching partnership are detailed in an excellent disclaimer. So that your client is aware of these dangers right away, be clear about them and include them in your contract.

7. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

You’ll probably offer a tonne of excellent resources and content to your clients, so be sure to safeguard all of it since it is your intellectual property and not anybody else’s or theirs. The worst feeling is when you discover that someone else has used your work without giving you credit for it.

As part of your coaching program or as free resources or information on your website, make sure your life coaching contracts are extremely explicit about how clients and potential clients can utilize the resources you provide to them. Being explicit about this is crucial because it’s likely that you don’t want them to use it for business objectives. 

8. RESCHEDULING AND CANCELLATION

Establish a policy for rescheduling that specifies when it is possible to do so and, alternatively, when it is not. A further precaution you should take is to prevent no-shows, which result in lost revenue. So that you can make the most of that time, you should ensure that the client notifies you at least a few days in advance. 

Clients that fail to show up should still pay for the session or pay in part, depending on the circumstance and how it affects how you run your business. 

9. GOVERNING LAW

When you are in one nation and your client is in another, make sure you include a governing law clause that specifies which laws will apply to the contract. If you wind up in court, you want to make sure that the court is nearest to you and that the contract clearly states that the laws of your province or state control it. Setting this out for your clients is crucial.

10. REFUND POLICY

The refund policy is a further crucial consideration. This is one of those things that many coaches’ current contracts don’t include. You must put effort into creating a refund policy and including it in your contract.

You must sketch out:

• What justifies the provision of a refund?
• Is the return in full or in part?
• Do you adhere to a no refunds rule?

When creating your return policy, you should consider all of these factors. Get everything in writing once you’ve determined how you’ll handle those annoying refund requests.

11. CONFIDENTIALITY

You must make it clear to your clients that you will keep their information secret to let them feel at ease and confident in you as their coach. Everything that is private to you or that isn’t published online is regarded to be public knowledge.

You require your client’s consent to safeguard the secrecy of your company operations and any non-public information disclosed during the coaching relationship. To guarantee that everyone can have the best coaching experience possible, both parties must agree.