How to Outsource Your Web Development
Outsourcing your web development may be easier than you think, but there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. Generally, web agencies looking to farm out their services do so in one of two ways: they either hire an agency or they hire a handful of freelancers. There are pros and cons to each, which we’ll look at in a moment.
Hiring Freelancers
The biggest pro about hiring a freelancer is that they are generally cheaper than hiring an agency because they don’t have any overhead. They often work from their home or on the go, so there is no need to pay for an office, HR expenses, etc. so you usually get their labor at cost.
Of course this benefit can quickly become the biggest reason why not to hire a freelancer. Lack of structure, consistency, and redundancy can quickly become a headache. Many of us who have hired freelancers can tell story after story of freelancers that we’ve worked with that have taken on too much work, did poor quality work, or who simply stopped communicating altogether in the middle of a project.
Hire a White Label Agency
Hiring an agency solves the problems that you might have with individual freelancers. An agency essentially works at your HR department doing all of the personnel management for you. Generally, you’ll have one Project Manager or Representative that will be your “go to” person and manages all of your projects for you.
True, hiring a white label web development company can be more expensive than hiring individual freelancers, but the time you’ll save in managing your projects can be well worth it. I’ve personally known of at least one web agency who nearly doubled their business after they started using white labeled web services because they were able to focus on sales and customer satisfaction instead of the nitty gritty details of the actual projects themselves.
How to Outsource Your Next Project
Step 1) Find a White Label Firm: Contact a white label web firm like ours here: http://splashingpixels.com/ and get in touch about what kinds of projects you do and what kind of work you are looking to get off your plate.
Step 2) Do a Test Project First: In addition to showing you some of the projects a white label agency has done, you should do a test project first. Select a smaller client project or a project of your own to test an agency to make sure you and them work well together and to get the processes of communication hammered out.
Step 3) Do a Bigger Project: Once an agency has proven that they can do a good job with your projects, go ahead and let them tackle a bigger web design or development project for you. Continue to refine the process of communication being sure to clearly layout milestones, points at which feedback should be solicited from you and your customers, payment schedules, and work flows. Continue to work on this process through the next few projects to make sure the system becomes a well-oiled machine.
Step 4) Set it and Forget It: Now that you’ve built a trusted partnership with an agency, you can effectively “set it and forget it” – that is, you can get back to work scaling your company through sales and networking knowing that you can handle the increase in workload that will come about.