Get it in writing

Verbal agreements simply don't cut it.  How, you ask, would I know that? From several experiences.  I'll share one...which is sort of linked with another one. 

In 2006 I met a guy doing one of our first shows, Violet. He was very charming, sweet, and helpful.  His father owned a construction company.  He and I began dating that fall.  In the process he both loaned me $100 to pay my credit card bill, fixed the brakes on my car (about $60 for the parts), and offered his father's huge stock of lumber and his set design services for our 2007 production of The Sound of Music. 

Fast forward to winter 2007, when I found out that this guy was a sociopathic monster. Nonetheless,  I offered to pay him back the money I owed him, which he refused.  He said his father would still loan the materials for the Sound of Music set, and that he would design it.  He assured me this was the case.  I believed him. 

Good question.

Shocker: He disappeared and suddenly was completely unavailable to answer any calls or offer the services he had promised. Money was extremely tight and I didn't have enough to buy any kind of decent set, since we had been promised lumber and set design services.  And by the time I figured out he had bailed, it was too late. So the set for the show left something largely to be desired. 

Why, you ask? Did I not have a backup plan?  Did you not have other resources? DID YOU NOT GET A CONTRACT? Nope, nope and nope.  I'm not proud of it.  It was one of the hardest lessons I had to learn. 

 If you get a promise from someone of a donation of goods/services: A) Get it in writing.  B) Have a backup plan in case they bail. This means making what I call a Worst Case Scenario Budget (or a People Sometimes Suck Budget).  

Look at your show budget and figure out what would happen if this person's promises fell through.  What can you move around? Where can some corners be cut? (Do you need to spend that much money on printing? Can you shop around for some less expensive paint?  Does that opening night reception have to happen? Can you hit a thrift store for some of your props or costumes instead of renting them?) 

I have had to be extremely frugal, usually not by choice.  Over the years I have learned how to do things on a limited budget while not sacrificing quality (for the most part).  Part of this has come from Worst Case Scenario budgeting, which gave me some budgeting techniques that then crossed over into my actual budgeting.  I will talk about all of that another time. 

But the moral of the story is I didn't get it in writing and I got screwed.  Would I have had time to take it to court and fight him for it? Probably not.  But when you write something down there is at least paper proof of the legality of the arrangement.  So (again, worst case scenario), you can pursue these people if they screw you over.  And if they sign something, they know you've got them and are more likely to follow through.

A few years later we had our costumes donated for Edgar Allan Poe's NEVERMORE. This wonderful business, Ravenworks at Westgate Mall, totally came through and would have no matter what.  But you can bet we had a contract. And I also had a Worst Case Scenario Budget and plan, outlining where I could get the elaborate period costumes we needed, and the money for them, if in fact this arrangement did not work out. 

Funny story: Same guy reappeared after the show was over (and after MTM had gone through some serious problems and I was utterly devastated). He reappeared because he was suing me for the $200 he loaned me during our relationship.  This process included repeated phone calls and emails, threats of sending the police after me, insults, offers to babysit for his new girlfriend's daughter to "make up the cost", calls asking me if I wanted to go on a TV judge show, a humiliating experience where I asked for a restraining order and the judge denied it because he had not physically threatened me or hit me. Finally we went to court, at which point a much smarter judge told him he didn't have a leg to stand on.  He appealed.  And then didn't show up to the hearing. 

All this happened because it was a verbal agreement between the two of us that he would loan me the money for a couple of personal expenses.  And remember, when I offered to pay him back, he declined. 

Moral of the story? Write. It. Down.  Outline the terms of any arrangement that could affect you or your business (and yourself, for that matter) explicitly.  

If nothing else, get commitments in an email and save everything you ever receive.  (My email inbox is up to over 100,000 right now.  Still hanging on.  And trust me, I've had to go back and nail people.) 

Also, don't date sociopaths.