From the category archives:

Sales Dept

Three reasons to educate the other side’s negotiators what to ask for in the contract

August 25, 2010

“If the other side doesn’t know what to ask for, it’s not my job to educate them.” That’s one reason a contract drafter might not want to use a PRECUT baseline contract form: the other side would be led to the Curator’s Notes for that form, which would give them a good idea of what [...]

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PRECUT NDA: A free, balanced, multi-purpose, nondisclosure agreement

August 16, 2010

[UPDATED 2010-09-02] PRECUT ™ NDA Downloads NDA form (fillable PDF) Curator’s Notes (PDF) Word document containing all PRECUT NDA clauses, plus numerous other NDA provisions that can be copied to a custom addendum (RTF) Confidentiality provisions adddendum — just the confidentiality provisions from the PRECUT NDA, for possible use with other agreements Commentary The PRECUT ™ [...]

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How to sign a company contract without incurring personal liability

June 3, 2010

If you’re an employee of a company, and you sign a company contract as just “John Doe,” you might end up being held personally liable for the company’s obligations. (If you’re the owner of the company as a sole proprietor, or the general partner of a partnership, you probably will be personally liable in any [...]

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Note-taking in meetings and phone calls: Three easy habits your lawyer will love you for

May 27, 2010

Chances are that at some point in your career, a lawyer — yours, or someone else’s — will want to review notes you took at a meeting or during a phone conversation. So thinking ahead to that possibility, whenever you take notes, you should routinely do as many of the fol­low­ing things as you can remember, especially [...]

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How to sell [software] to large companies

May 24, 2010

Smart Bear guest blogger Steve Hanov has posted a long essay, “Bending over: How to sell to large companies,” with advice for small software vendors. The essay is getting a lot of positive attention on Hacker News; the comments there from entrepreneurs are worth reading as well.

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Why tech vendors should consider providing a written risk-factors disclosure sheet

May 11, 2010

A problem for vendors: Customer claims of oral misrepresentation Cheap insurance: Provide written disclosure of what could go wrong Disclosure of risks may actually boost sales Brainstorming risks can increase the odds of a successful project Related posts A problem for vendors: Customer claims of oral misrepresentation I recently wrote about why, when complex technology [...]

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Vendors, consider a no-reliance clause for your sales contracts, to help forestall claims of fraudulent misrepresentation

May 11, 2010

When technology deals go bad and everyone starts pointing fingers, claims of fraudulent misrepresentation are often a weapon of choice for customers’ lawyers in suing vendors. We saw that in two recent cases involving world-renowned software- and services vendors. To help preclude such customer claims, vendors should consider in­clu­ding a ‘no-reliance clause’ in their contracts. [...]

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Lawsuit-defense tip for software vendors: Clearly label demos and mock-ups as such

May 6, 2010

In making a sales pitch, it’s not uncommon for a software vendor to put together a non-working demo or mock-up of what the customer might see in the final, customized software imp­le­men­ta­tion. Such demos can be great sales aids. But they can also give rise to fraud allegations if the customer later claims, "you never [...]

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Why the fraud claim is the lawyer’s weapon of choice in lawsuits over failed technology projects

May 6, 2010

Two recent examples "They lied!" is an easier sell in court The threat of punitive damages raises the stakes Related posts Two recent examples When a big technology implementation proj­ect fails, the cust­om­er’s law­yers will pretty much always try hard to find opportunities to ac­cuse the vendor of having lied. Why do customer lawyers do [...]

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Justice Department reworks its Web pages containing Foreign Corrupt Practices Act info

April 29, 2010

Looks like there’s useful information at the Justice Department’s Web portal for the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. (Hat tip: Main Justice via Ethisphere.)

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A better way to handle a breach of contract (at least in some cases)

April 26, 2010

Contracts often contain generic statements that, in case of a breach, the breaching party will cure the breach within, say, 30 days. Some­times, however, it helps to spell out exactly what the other side must do to cure the breach. That way, the other side’s lawyers will have less wiggle room to come up with ‘creative’ [...]

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