The client is yours.
Here's how we keep it that way.
These are the terms we offer every agency, in writing, before the first project starts.
You own the client relationship.
We talk to your client only when you ask, and then as part of your team. On our latest agency build, Steven drafted the technical answers, the account team sent them, and the client knew him as “our programmer.”
White-label by default.
Our name stays off the work. If you would rather introduce us as your partner, we're glad to be named. Your call.
A written non-solicit.
We don't take work directly from your clients unless you hand one to us. If one of them approaches us, we tell you and send them back to you.
Fixed-price proposals.
One price against a written scope, so you set your markup and no hourly rate ever reaches your client. Each proposal restates the scope against the budget, so a gap shows up before work starts.
A small paid first project.
Something real and limited, before anything large.
Deposit and milestones.
Larger jobs start with a deposit and bill at milestones on the schedule in the proposal, regardless of when your client pays you.
How you'll hear from us
Day to day, you hear back from us usually within a day. On long builds we hold a standing review every two weeks, as we did on the emergency-response platform. It goes best when one person on your side collects the client's answers. On our latest build, the agency's account lead did that, and Steven's questions went through her.
Where we'll push back
Steven argues about technical risk, scope and cost. On our latest build, the client's listings feed arrived without most of what the pages needed: no coordinates, no descriptions, and 304 of 307 listings missing a directory entry. He flagged it, geocoded 254 listings, and the pages still went live by the end of September as planned.
Andréa's pushback is about production: what a file will do at the printer, what a mark does at small sizes. One client put it this way:
Her knowledge of vendors and production options has also been a valuable part of the process.
The design direction and the strategy are your team's. We don't relitigate them.
Want these terms on paper?
You'll have them in writing, with the scope and the price, before any work starts.