Process Prognosis for Software Dev Agencies

As a small agency, the biggest challenge you face is strong competition from the existing players. Most agencies will go the obvious yet weaker path long term – offering services at a cheaper rate. Instead what most should do is stand out by doing 2 things:

I will often throw around this line when talking to a Dev Agency;

“What sets an Agency charging 30 USD/hr apart from one charging 100 USD/hr? – Process; 

And what sets apart an Agency charging 100 USD/hr from one winning quarter million contracts? – Branding”

In this article I will go over the top 3 ways how I have improved the process for various software development agencies 10xing their revenues.

1 – Getting off the right foot in your process

Delivering value upfront is the best way to stand out – even if the client doesn’t convert, the impression you will leave will be the long term worth you should look at as an agency.

When it comes to software development, the answer to a strong first impression is – Discovery

Integrating any basic system to do a discovery with your new clients will improve 3 aspects of how you deliver software:

A – It will show the clients you care about diving deep into their specific problem and are not having an ‘off the shelf’ approach to things.
B – It will help you with your design, development, and other stages of the delivery process if you do the documentation right as far as the discovery is done.
C – The discovery serves as an excellent test to see if the client you are about to get in deep with – is even a good fit or not? Learn to say No to clients that will without question cause you more pain later down the road.

Ok so I want to do a discovery, where do I start?

Well I can tell you how to offer it first –

The best way I have found on how to offer a discovery is to position it as an introductory service of sorts.

You let the clients know that this will be a paid engagement (could be a small payment to start with) – which will then be adjusted into the larger cost of the project if the client decides to go with you after the call.

What’s in for the client?

They get a blueprint for what they need designed and/or developed. A document that will help them understand their requirements better and help them get the work done from any other team – if they don’t choose to go with your team.

What’s in it for you?

The ABC mentioned above + an additional source of revenue for your efforts that can lead to higher quality of opportunities and  better outcomes for your new engagements.

2 – Get approvals done correctly

Clients WILL ALWAYS try to maximize their bang for the buck.

Which means they will always try to adjust or change the requirements as the project goes on.

In your Agency, you need to have strong processes for approvals – period.

If you don’t have strong and intermittent stages where approvals are done – the project will NEVER reach the finish line on time and in budget.

Here’s how you go about it:

Go with 3s – love the 3s. For your design and development stages, give your clients 3 rounds of feedback, be clear about it. Let them know they ONLY get 3 rounds of feedback (feel free to give an extra round if absolutely necessary of course) so that they LIMIT their feedback and think long and hard before passing it along.

Secondly, you need good feedback mechanisms for the feedback to be handled.

I am a Google Sheet veteran, Gsheets are a win in my book – but if there is something else that works better for you – more power to you. Just understand that clients are not savvy, and it needs to be easy for THEM not YOU so you can refer back to the feedback as the source of truth down the project pipeline. If you use a complicated tool, the client can always pull the ‘I didn’t know it did that’ on you leading to further dissonance.

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