Life Of E's

Recently, a Life of E’s member sent me this question:

One of the independent contractors that I work with has asked for advice about charging/not charging for training & materials (specifically PowerPoint slides) that she has produced.  In particular, someone who hired her actually said, “Could I get a copy of your PowerPoint because I’d love to do this presentation, too.”  My opinion is that she should charge for them. I just wanted to check with you about it. If someone hires you to conduct a training, the training materials are still your property, correct?

Here is my response:

Unless someone who is hiring her paid A LOT of money, they don’t own the PowerPoint, handouts, or other materials like that. People who do contract training are hired to prepare and present, etc….but they retain their intellectual property.

I get asked about my PowerPoints ALL the time and I just tell them that I don’t send those out to others although I would be willing to send them a specific slide that they might want. I try to pretend that the person asking is not so unsophisticated as to ask to present my material…but I do get the question your person got all the time…asked pretty much that way.

Once it became a big issue and I didn’t sign the the contract because the person hiring me couldn’t understand that my speaking fee (and a custom-designed presentation for a national group) didn’t include the custom-designed PowerPoint, etc. When I told them the price of what all that would entail, they were outraged (let’s say there were some anger/control issues that this person had!  HA!)

Anyway, hope this helps. Tell her that she needs to be confident and unmoving in what she says.

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