From casual Instagram scrolling, it seems a lot of online business owners I follow are launching group programs this summer. Exciting, but there are a few things you need to consider if you’re also launching:
Group Program Contract
You knew this was coming. 😉 Even if you have a great 1:1 client contract, there are nuances in a group program contract that aren’t reflected in a 1:1 contract. Think about it: you show up differently in a group program. You’re available in a different capacity. Payments are different. Intellectual property is different.
If you need a group program contract, ours will take you less than 30 mins to customize and you can use it for any live group program.
The beauty of a group program contract is you can drop it into your checkout as something buyers have to click to agree to before they can checkout (versus trying to wrangle contract signatures from all of your program participants)
You can also drop this into the footer of your webpage/sales page so everyone is on notice of the terms before buying (especially since most people don’t read contracts). This can help combat issues down the line if someone wants a refund, for example. You can say that they agreed to the terms when they checked out and were on notice of the terms because they were posted on your sales page/webpage.
Privacy Policy
If you’ve been following me awhile, you’re probably familiar with this legal requirement, but it’s the law that you have a compliant Privacy Policy on your website or sales page, wherever you’re selling your group program. The free privacy policies you can get online aren’t comprehensive enough and I haven’t seen any that are actually GDPR compliant even though they claim to be. As an online business owner, your website or sales page could reach people anywhere. You need a Privacy Policy that’s compliant with global data privacy laws.
If you’re selling from a webpage, I recommend you get our webpage policies bundle because it has the Disclaimer Policy and Terms and Conditions Policy you need to protect yourself, your business, and your website. If you’re selling just from a sales page and don’t have a website, you can get just the Privacy Policy.
Collaboration Agreement
If you’re planning on collaborating with another business owner, maybe they’re contributing content to your group program, or appearing as a guest speaker… you need a Collaboration Agreement to spell out who owns what. Otherwise, under the law, it’s considered a “joint work” and all contributors have copyright rights in the work. You don’t want someone who does a quick live for your course to be able to influence how it’s sold, marketed, when it’s offered, etc. (unless you do, which you can outline in the contract). My template will be finished next week, but you can buy now as there’s a placeholder and the template and accompanying video tutorial will be sent to you as soon as both are finished.
Trademark search
Is the name you’re considering using for your group program clear? Not only do you want to ensure you’re not infringing on anyone else’s trademark rights by using the name, you want to make sure you’ll be the trademark the program name yourself.
You need to check your country’s trademark database. You also need to do a common law trademark search. For guidance on both of these, grab my free trademark guide. If you’re going to want to trademark the name, I’d recommend a trademark clearance search by a lawyer like me (reach out to me via the Contact link in the footer!)
Questions? Let me know!