Let’s set the scene: you’re a service provider – maybe a marketing strategist, designer, or copywriter – and you offer strategy calls to help your clients brainstorm, get unstuck, or map out their next move.
It’s meant to be a quick, powerful 60-minute session for your clients to get clarity and be able to take action quickly!
But somewhere between “let’s hop on Zoom” and “just one more quick question,” that one-hour call can quickly spiral into weeks of free follow-up, blurred boundaries, and frustrated expectations.
As a service provider, strategy calls are an incredible way to share your expertise, provide value, and create new client relationships, but without the right legal agreements in place, they can also be a recipe for blurred boundaries, misaligned expectations, and unpaid labor.
The solution? A solid contract of course!
In this blog post, I’m diving into how this ONE document can protect your time, your energy, and your business and help you feel confident going into every strategy call, knowing all of your bases are covered.
What a Strategy Call Contract Should Cover (And Why It Matters)
It happens more often than you'd think… someone purchases a strategy session that’s supposed to just be 60 minutes of your time. Easy peasy, right?!
But after the call, your inbox is filled with “just one more quick question” emails for weeks. Or even worse, your client expects full implementation help based on a brainstormed idea.
The root of the problem here? A lack of clearly communicated expectations and boundaries from the very beginning.
That’s where a strategy call contract comes in and there’s six key sections your agreement should include. ⬇️
Service Scope
Without a clear outline of what’s included in your strategy call, clients may assume they’re getting certain deliverables, follow-up support, or hands-on implementation help.
To avoid any confusion and frustration on your end, your strategy call contract should specify the purpose of the call, what deliverables will be provided, and what is NOT included.
This helps prevent scope creep and ensures clients respect the boundaries of a one-time session.
Payment Terms
You’d be surprised at how many strategy call disputes come down to unclear pricing and payment structure. 💸
Your strategy session agreement should include a clear payment amount, a due date, and your policy on overages or time extensions and how they’re handled.
For strategy call payments, it’s typically best practice to charge a flat rate instead of hourly and it’s smart to charge the payment upon scheduling, NOT after the call has been completed.
When you have clear payment terms like this set from the very beginning, if your client asks to “go just 10 minutes over,” this clause gives you the leverage to charge accordingly!
Rescheduling & Cancellations
A huge difference between strategy calls and other services that you may provide is that strategy sessions are scheduled and time bound, meaning they take up space on your calendar.
With that, it’s important to acknowledge that life happens and sometimes people need to reschedule or even cancel. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to be the one absorbing the fallout of no-shows or last-minute cancellations.
When crafting your strategy call contract, make sure you include a rescheduling and cancellation policy that clearly covers how much notice is required to reschedule, whether missed appointments can be made up, and whether cancellations are refundable or forfeited.
Intellectual Property Protection
Strategy calls are often packed with a TON of value that your clients get to walk away with – your frameworks, tools, resources, and ideas.
And while this is of course the purpose of a strategy call, it also poses a big risk if you don’t have the proper legal protections in place. Without a proper contract, a client could walk away and resell or implement your strategies as their own.
To prevent this from happening, make sure your agreement includes ownership clauses for your IP, restrictions on sharing or reselling your materials, and limits on how your advice or strategies can be used.
It’s essentially your “no stealing my stuff” clause that’s incredibly important for any coach, strategist, or service provider.
No Future Obligation Clause
All of the clauses in your strategy call contract are important, but if I had to choose one that you REALLY don’t want to skip, it’s this one…
During a strategy call with a client, you’re likely giving them a ton of awesome ideas for them to go act on. And while that’s amazing, what you don’t want to happen is for those ideas to turn into, “Hey! Can you help me implement this?”
It’s a strategy call, NOT a long-term coaching relationship. But if you don’t say that upfront, some clients may assume that they have ongoing access to you.
To avoid this, your contract should state that the strategy call is a standalone session and that additional support or services after the session will require a new agreement and payment.
Overall, this boundary prevents your 60-minute call from becoming an unpaid coaching container.
Limitation of Liability
Lastly, you want to make sure that you’re legally protecting yourself from liability. Even if your advice is solid, it’s impossible to guarantee results and you shouldn’t be legally responsible for what a client chooses to do with your guidance.
When offering strategy calls with clients, make sure you include a limitation of liability clause that covers that your advice is for informational purposes only, results are not guaranteed, and you are not liable for any business decisions your client makes after the call.
At the end of the day, this clause helps protect you from blame or backlash if a client doesn’t see immediate success.
The Simple and Easy To Use Strategy Call Contract Template for Service Providers
As a service provider, there’s nothing worse than giving away hours of your expertise for free, especially when the original offer was just 60 minutes. But the GOOD news is, you can stop this problem before it starts.
With a strong strategy call contractin place, you don’t have to worry about scope creep, payment issues, or awkward client expectations. Instead, you can show up confidently, deliver your best, and move on knowing everyone’s on the same page.
And while you could absolutely take the advice above and piece together a contract on your own, if you want a simple, easy to use, customizable, and lawyer-drafted agreement that covers everything mentioned in this post, click here to grab the TBL contract template!
But if you’re wondering if a contract like this is necessary for you, let me be clear: this is for ANY service provider who conducts audits, brainstorms, Q&A calls, or offers high-level business advice in a paid container.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a social media manager, copywriter, business coach, designer, brand strategist, or a virtual assistant. This strategy session contract was made for people like YOU to ensure that both parties are clear on what they’re getting – and what they’re not.
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