Media Mavens: In Conversation with Jaime Bell

Armed with a law degree, a decade of legal experience, and a love of inspiring entrepreneurship podcasts, Jaime Bell searched for a way to combine her interests for an optimal career. Eventually, she founded a law firm and her e-commerce shop, the Contracts Market,  where she provides her own legal contract templates to help business owners protect their business, time, and money.

We sat down with Jaime to talk about how Contracts Market started, what business owners need to know about contracts, what you need to know about using AI in your business, and how social has helped her build her business and connect with fellow entrepreneurs!

CLEO: Can you tell us the origin story of the Contracts Market?

JAIME: It’s been a long process! I have notes in my journal from about 2 years into my traditional law career dreaming up something different for myself. I knew in my gut I wasn’t going to have a traditional legal career. There was this seed planted of always thinking about something different to do. When I was still working for a law firm in Toronto, I started listening to business and entrepreneurship podcasts and wanted to start my own entrepreneurial journey, while exploring ALL the options of what that could look like.

I thought about opening up a running/coffee shop, health, career, or life coaching business (I have a life coaching certificate as a result of this big sky-dreaming), going back to school – all of it.  Throughout this “what if” process I kept coming back to “But I’ve worked really hard to become a lawyer (some ego in there for sure) and invested so I’ve invested so many resources into getting here.”  I started wondering – “would I feel more purposeful and get more joy from my work if I shifted who I was serving rather than what I was doing altogether?”

With this in mind, I opened up a solo law practice where I focused on serving all those people I was so inspired by on the podcasts I was listening to (up to 2-3 episodes daily!) and also created a product that could let me implement what I was learning (content strategy, marketing strategy, email lists, etc.) and (fingers crossed!) serve a greater community than just 1-1 clients. Through my law firm, I was also getting a first-hand glimpse of the DIY contracts business owners were scrapping together, and I knew they deserved better even if they were just starting out and didn’t have a huge budget for legal. This process of shifting my life towards one that just felt more aligned for me took years – and included a cross-country move. Plus, drafting contract templates for specific industries and making them useable yet customizable took a LOT of research and laptop time. Launching the Contracts Market was not something that just happened overnight – it was a serious labour of love – with lots of learnings along the way. 

CLEO: For the business owner trying to do it all, how does Contracts Market make their lives easier and their business safer?

JAIME: As business owners, we wear SO many hats – and ‘Lawyer” doesn’t have to be one. That’s why I started Contracts Market: I wanted to get great contracts into the hands of entrepreneurs so they didn’t have to DIY it or worry whether theirs included everything they needed. Often, it’s not what’s in the DIY contracts that are an issue – it’s what’s not. Contracts Market makes it easy for business owners to use lawyer-drafted contracts they can rely on, and help protect not only their business but their relationships and peace of mind as well.

CLEO: What are the types of contracts every business owner or entrepreneur needs in their business?

JAIME: If you’re providing services to clients, then a great client services agreement is a must-have. This is your money-maker contract that sets the tone, expectations, and boundaries for your business. Your client services agreement should answer the details of what working with you looks like and set out any obligations for your client. This extends beyond payment and can include communication expectations to get you what you need to complete your work.

Second, if you have a website and are collecting any kind of data from visitors to your website via cookies, tracking tools, or personal information such as the names or emails of your visitors, you are legally required to have a privacy policy that accurately sets out why you’re collecting the information you are, what you are doing to keep it safe and other requirements required by the laws of where your visitor is located

CLEO: How often should people be reviewing their contracts and making updates?

JAIME: I think it’s a great habit to review your contracts every 6 months to make sure they are still reflective of your policies and processes. The longer you’re in business, the longer your contract is likely going to get as you fine-tune it. I also think it’s great to update your contract when you have a client issue or some issue that is recurring – like payment issues. If you are noticing recurring issues, you could likely add some clarifying terms to your contract to help avoid this in the future. This is SO lame, but contracts are living, breathing documents that will change over time as your processes change, and definitely as you fine-tune your services.

CLEO: We love how you show up online for your business. How has social media and the online space helped you build the Contracts Market?

JAIME: I have a love-hate relationship with social media. I love it for the ability to connect with other people (my community is so great!) but also not into how much I often feel like I HAVE to do social media. I’ve learned that showing up there lands best with my community when I want to be there, and not because I feel like I have to. Now, I show up when it feels right and am leaning back into the social part of social media – looking for real connections with people versus likes and follows.

Instagram is still one of the biggest drivers for my business so it is an integral part of my marketing efforts. I use ads with great success, which often leads to great DM conversations and then sales if they feel like my product is a great fit. Instagram has also been a great way to nurture my affiliate network as well as to connect and promote other people’s businesses I trust. At the end of the day, the success of my business comes down to relationships and community building – which is great news for me because I truly love the connections I make on social media. It’s all the people who I was so inspired by (and continue to be) when I was binge-listening to all those podcasts, and when this business was just a few scribbles in my journal.

CLEO: AI is on everyone’s mind and in their business right now. You spoke about it on a great podcast episode recently. What do business owners need to know about using AI in their work?

JAIME: This is a BIG topic right now. My general take is to use the output as a starting point if you’re using it to create works, but not as a final product. Especially if you want to ensure you have ownership rights in the final work or that is what your client is expecting.  There is still going to be so much litigation around copyright ownership in AI-generated works. What we know right now is that to have true intellectual property rights in a work, it needs to be unique and created by you. Using AI in your business can be an incredible tool, but if you’re being hired because of your unique skills and creativity, ensure that is still the main driver behind your deliverables.

CLEO: And a fun one to finish off, what is your favourite way to take a break from work? 

JAIME: I aim to get out in the forest with my dogs every day.  I can really feel the negative effects if I don’t make it out each day in some way or another. For longer breaks, I love to get farther into the backcountry to camp and hike – if there’s no cell service, even better!