The Work

Bring the written agreement from The First Customer, if you have an agreed job. Use the checklist below to check its deliverable, revisions, deadline, price and exclusions. First Dollar's productized-service lesson already introduces these boundaries; here you apply them and handle changes.

If there is no agreed job yet, practise with a clearly labelled hypothetical brief. Do not describe it as a customer agreement or paid work. You can study the delivery method without inventing a sale.

Practice brief — fictional, not customer work

A fictional stationery shop wants two product descriptions, each 60–80 words. Exercise-only facts: the notebook is A5, undated, with 80 pages and a recycled-card cover; the pen cup is steel, 10 cm tall and holds desk pens. No prices, delivery promises, waterproofing claims or other specifications are supplied. These facts are invented for practice, not verified product information.

The simulated scope is two descriptions, one preference-revision round within that brief, delivery in two days, and an illustrative fee of A$90. Advertising setup, images, extra products and additional preference rounds are excluded. The amount is an exercise input, not a recommended price or an agreed fee. No person has accepted this brief or owes payment.

Use this brief in this Scope lesson and the next two lessons, When the output is wrong and The invoice:

1. Scope: write a short simulated agreement covering the deliverables, supplied facts, checks, revision limit, deadline, illustrative price and exclusions. Do not contact a business or obtain real customer documents for this exercise.
2. Corrections: draft the descriptions, then rehearse three labelled scenarios. An unsupported "waterproof" claim is a factual error: remove it and update the QA note without using up the preference round. A request for a less formal tone is a preference change within the agreed round. A request for a third product is extra scope: draft a separate quote or decline it before doing the work. These scenarios are supplied practice prompts, not feedback you received.
3. Invoicing: create a draft headed "SIMULATION — NOT PAYABLE" with reference PRACTICE-001, fictional parties, an exercise issue date and due date, and a line for the two descriptions totalling A$90. Label payment details "not applicable — simulation"; do not enter a real ABN, bank account or payment link. Do not assume GST status or claim this draft is a legally compliant tax invoice. Do not issue it, send it, mark it paid or enter it as revenue.

Keep a private practice note of the checks, actual time you spent, any actual tool costs and what you would change. Label all fictional prices, dates, parties and scenarios as simulated. A real study session is not a real client delivery, invoice or payment; keep its output separate from customer records and received-income claims.

What scope includes:

• The specific deliverable — not "copy," but "3 Google Ads headlines and 2 descriptions, verified against character limits"
• The number of revisions included (typically one round of changes within the original brief)
• The deadline
• The price
• What is explicitly not included: "Excludes landing page copy, campaign setup, or any work beyond the ad text deliverables listed above."

The revision clause:

One round of revisions means: they provide feedback, you implement it once. It does not mean unlimited back-and-forth, a wholesale brief change, or additions to the scope.

When a client asks for something outside the original brief:

"Happy to do that — it's outside the original scope, so it would be an additional $[X]. Want me to add it?"

No apology. No free work. A clear offer.

Brief changes mid-job:

The most common scope creep: the brief changes after you've started. Client changes the target audience, the angle, or the product. If the brief changed, the job changed.

"I can work with the new brief — given the change in direction, I'll need to restart the chain. That's [X] additional hours, so an extra $[Y]. Do you want to proceed on that basis?"

Document every brief change in writing before acting on it.