Let's say you and a customer are a good fit: you work well together and your product and service is exactly what he needs and will continue to need. You sign a contract and something changes or one of you made a mistake. You end up in court. You will have spent years on this dispute rather than building your business and you will have spent a lot of money. You will also have lost a good customer. So, why don't you settle out of court? But then, why did you need a contract in the first place?
If you aim to build long term relationships with your customers and are willing to be flexible when things change unexpectedly, you need a minimum of paperwork. This kind of relationship is always and will continue to be a win-win situation. When it is not, you have to amicably part ways. This means that you will never make a killing or windfall profits but you will always be a good partner to your customer. Win-win means he will always want to pay you because he will always have received good value and will always want to continue to receive good value from you. So where would you need a long, complicated contract?
In such relationships, the essentials such as price are usually confirmed in a simple letter. If more detail is necessary, the letter can refer to previous correspondence. As a supplier, you can ask for reasonable progress or up-front payments which will act as your security that a contractual relationship actually existed. Anyway, your risk is really low. And away you go without having to worry about whether clause 15 of contract part II really takes precedence over third party liability.
As a small business, you can take this route. Nobody is going to sue your small company for hundreds of millions of dollars. General Motors can't because somebody might. In the world outside of North America, contracts are often less important and business still seems to work.
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