Ask a Website Design Company

18 November 2011
Hi Alex

You may find it hard to get other designers to give you clients, there is a lot of work goes into securing clients anyway given the level of competition and ongoing there is always repeat business from clients from site updates, re-designs, recommendations and so on which to my mind would make it an unattractive proposition to just give clients away for a percentage, unless it was a substantial percentage of course!

Things may work out better for you if you offer your services as a subcontractor or freelancer to start with, you can advertise on freelanced.com for example.

We do use freelancers from time to time, perhaps if you send me a link to your website and any work you have done either under your new company or before starting your company we may be able to use your skills at some time, you can email me at contact@theisleofwightcomputergeek.co.uk

Good luck.

Jamie

www.theisleofwightcomputergeek.co.uk

18 November 2011
Hi Alex
As Jamie says, you are not realistically going to get anyone to hand over clients to you.

If you've set up in business you need to have your own ideas on how you are going to get the clients you need to stay afloat, otherwise you haven't got much of a business. You have to know how to market yourself, too.

We are also interested to work with other agencies/companies where it might be mutually beneficial to do so, but would like to see examples of work and some more information from you.

Do you not have a profile on here? If you have then post the name and location of your company here and your website address so we can go and have a look.

Thanks.

18 November 2011
Hi Alex,

We actually do this already.

We've positioned our company where design is only a small part of our business, and our core strength is offering designers the ability to outsource work to us. They design it, we build it using our CMS and then support the client's email, CMS tech support, hosting, domain renewals, etc etc.

We find a lot of designers and marketing agencies lack the technical ability or resources to build bespoke sites and systems, as well as look after their design portfolio.

This is a good partnership - the designer does what they are good at, and we do what we are good at. The result is a happy customer without a one-man-band trying to do everything themselves. We have SEOs, front-end devs, ASP .Net devs, customer service people - all experts in their area.

The designer is happy too as they spend their days working in photoshop, doing what they enjoy, and don't end up tearing their hair out doing tech support when they are up against a deadline.

Because we don't do much front-end design (in comparison to our other work), we often return the favour and choose from our portfolio of designers to do work for our own clients, which actually enhances our offering too.

Once a client is happy with a designer, there is no reason they would switch, as they will loose all design consistency, so there is often nothing for the designer to lose and everything to gain. The designer is far more likely to lose a client by biting-off more than they can chew, than they are if they get us to help out.

Your idea can work. You just need to position yourself properly in the market, and stick to your morals - one whiff you trying to pinch a client off a designer and it'll all be over!

Of course this isn't for everyone, but it certainly works for us.

Good luck, and welcome to WWDC!

Ed Tallents,
16 Interactive

25 December 2011
Hi Alex,

If you pop me an email to ryantaylor@lushcreativedesign.co.uk of some of the things you can do, any examples you've got I might be able to send you some work to do from us.

Many Thanks
Ryan