June 6, 2017

“Can you value price through an agency?”

Today I’ll answer the second question that reader Shayne Rempel sent in.

Here’s the original question again (shared unedited, with permission):

Hi Jonathan,

I have a question about the Why Conversation that I think other readers may be interested in hearing as well. Is the Why Conversation something you can do in a questionnaire format or do you believe it should only be done through a verbal conversation?

I have a partner agency who is looking to bring me in on a job, asking me how much my portion of the project (designing 8 web page templates) would cost. Should I value price the agency who is looking to subcontract the work (determine how valuable my service is to them) or have the partner agency use a Why conversation questionnaire I create to help me price my portion of the project?

Thanks so much for your time and valuable snippets of pure wisdom!

Shayne Rempel

There are two things to comment on here:

Yesterday, I tackled “Must a Why Conversation be done verbally?”

Today I’ll tackle the second:

Can you value price through an agency?

Value pricing through a middleman (e.g., an agency) is virtually impossible. The bigger question is, should you be working through an agency at all?

In general, working through agencies is not a good long term strategy for your business because you don’t own the client relationship.

I think it’s fine to do agency work in the short term to establish a “keep the lights on” cash flow. But you have to be diligent to prevent it from consuming all your time.

Every week that goes by where you don’t work ON your business is another week wasted kicking the can down the road. It is very important to have time left over every week for you to work ON your business.

If you must do agency work to keep the lights on, you might as well do it by the hour to keep the relationship simple. Trying to value price an agency gig would be frustrating and fruitless for all involved.

Yours,

—J

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