How to Hire a White-Label Squarespace Designer or Developer (Complete Guide for Agencies)
Introduction
As a creative or marketing agency owner, we’re all well aware of times when clients come to us with requests that are just that little bit too far out of our wheelhouse for us to feel confident in delivering (whatever service it may be).
The concept of white-labelling essentially means to hire an external partner to fulfil a service under your own brand name - as if it was being carried out by your internal team. Except doing so in a way that doesn’t involve finding, hiring and training up your own team members to do the actual work.
This is a fantastic solution when clients are interested in services that are complimentary by nature to your core offering. For example if you design logos, I’m sure that at some point in your career a client has asked if you can design them a website. When this happens, you’re faced with a decision - say ‘no’, turning down the opportunity (and potential profit) from the opportunity. Or say ‘yes’ and find someone who can deliver the service for less than you can sell it to your client for, making a margin as a reward for owning that client relationship.
Simply put, the goal of bringing in a white label partner (in this article we’ll discuss web designers) is to have a 3rd party deliver a service (and generate revenue) from an opportunity that you would have otherwise had to turn away.
Who Can Take Advantage of the White Labelling Model?
Anyone who delivers some kind of digital/creative service. Whether your primary focus is on designing logos, running paid ads, or writing copy, I can almost guarantee that there will have been countless opportunities throughout your career where you could have capitalised on an opportunity to deepen the relationship with an existing client, generate more revenue and do so in a way that doesn’t cause stress, hassle or headaches.
If you’re starting to realise that this is you, then keep reading. Because the best time to start offering white-label services was yesterday, and the second best time to start is today…
Why Agencies Use White-Label Squarespace Designers
Here at SpaceWorks, our primary offering is Squarespace web design and development. We’ve developed and launched our very own offering ‘UnlimitedSQSP’ which is designed to allow creatives and agency owners to tap into our team of Squarespace web design talent on-demand. Why did we bother?
There are countless benefits to using white label partners but arguably the biggest reason is simply the fact that it’s extremely scalable. You only pay for a service when you have a client who needs it, this is very different to a full time employee whose salary you have to pay regardless of there being work for them to do or not.
Now, you might be wondering “how are white label partners any different from just hiring someone on upwork?” - in principle, they’re not. But in practice, freelancers tend to have a habit of labelling themselves as ‘experts’ in multiple fields. True white label partners tend to be much more specialised in a single service area (such as Squarespace web design) and typically therefore deliver higher quality work. You shouldn’t be having to micromanage a white label partner - you should be able to sleep easy, let them do good work, and collect your margin in the process.
White labelling also lets you expand your core offering, quickly. Going back to the above example, if you run a graphic design agency, creating logos, visual identities and brand guidelines for your clients, there’s no doubt that being able to sell your client a shiny new website to go along with their new brand makes sense. If you don’t offer it, they’re just going to have to go and find someone for themself that will. In this case, you could find a reliable, highly-rated white-label web designer (such as UnlimitedSQSP - definitely not biased!) and overnight you’ve added ‘Website Design and Development’ to your service offering. You could just as easily do the same for ad management, PR and before you know it, you’re running a full stack marketing agency.
Key Skills to Look For Before Partnering
If you’re considering adding Squarespace website design and development to your service offering, you should keep a few things in mind when looking for a white label partner. We’ve broken these down below:
Track record - the benefits of hiring a white label partner quickly become lost if you’re having to micro-manage every piece of work they’re doing. It’s important that you find a partner who’s got a solid track record of doing high quality work. Look for reviews on platforms such as Google Reviews or the Squarespace Marketplace (if you’re looking to hire a Squarespace web design partner)
Communication + reliability - similar to the above, you need to be partnering with a company that can communicate quickly and proactively. Using a white label provider shouldn’t be a stressful experience but it can quickly become one if you’re working with a subpar provider. This is primarily due to the fact that at the end of the day you’re still delivering a service under your brand name for your client.
Expertise - ideally, white label partners do one thing really well. When hiring a white label partner, check that the service you want them to deliver is what they do day in, day out. This helps reduce stress and increase the chances of success. When it comes to websites, UnlimitedSQSP (and our team here at SpaceWorks) only design and build Squarespace websites. Nothing else. If you’re looking to partner with someone for marketing, we’d always recommend going to a facebook ads expert for facebook ads. Not a ‘jack of all trades’ that promises they can do everything - as we all know, in reality, that means they are a master of none.
Pricing Models - How Does It Work?
There are a variety of ways you can engage with white label partners. One of the most common models are hourly rates where the partner charges you a fixed rate per hour of time worked. They should submit a timesheet for the project/task you assigned them showing how long the work took, and bill accordingly. This is good to get started with but it’s not as advantageous as project pricing (see next) where you have more visibility into final costs upfront.
With project pricing, the white label partner will quote a fixed price for a piece of work. The benefits of this are that you know how much you have to pay the partner upfront, allowing you to add your margin to the service before quoting your client. For example if you want to offer a squarespace website design service, you may find an agency to build a website for $1000, which you will be able to resell for $1500 - a $500 margin!
The downside to project pricing is that as a client you are likely in a queue of other projects that are waiting to be worked on. At UnlimitedSQSP, we’ve adopted a slightly different model. We charge a monthly subscription which you can take advantage of when the need arises. The amount stays the same whether you need help working on one website or three and if one month you have no clients, you can cancel the subscription. The benefit of this is a much more collaborative, team-style approach - just without having to hire a team.
All of the above models have pros and cons, so I’d suggest you consider this carefully before deciding to work with a partner.
In Summary
White labelling allows you to offer services you otherwise wouldn’t (think website design for a graphic designer), increasing revenue opportunities whilst avoiding the potential headaches of working with unreliable freelancers or hiring and training your own in-house team. The most important thing when looking for a white label partner, is one that communicates well and has a track record of doing one thing very, very well.
If you run a design or marketing agency and would like to be able to offer Squarespace web design and development services to your clients in a white-label manner, feel free to reach out to UnlimitedSQSP and we’d be more than happy to setup some time to see if might be a good fit.