Process Prognosis for Software Dev Agencies

As a small agency, the biggest challenge you face is strong competition from the existing players. Most agencies 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 this line around when talking to a Dev Agency:

What sets an Agency charging $30/hour apart from one charging $100/hour? Process. And what sets an Agency charging $100/hour apart from one winning quarter million dollar contracts? Branding.

In this article I will go over the top 3 ways 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 leave is 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 run a discovery with your new clients will improve 3 aspects of how you deliver software:

• It shows clients you care about diving deep into their specific problem, and are not taking an ‘off the shelf’ approach
• It helps with your design, development, and other stages of delivery, as long as you do the documentation right while the discovery is done
• It serves as an excellent test to see if the client you are about to get in deep with is even a good fit. Learn to say no to the ones that will, without question, cause you more pain later down the road

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 is to position the discovery as an introductory service of sorts. You let clients know this will be a paid engagement (could be a small payment to start with) which then gets adjusted into the larger cost of the project if the client decides to go with you after the call.

What’s in it for the client? They get a blueprint for what they need designed and developed. A document that helps them understand their own requirements better, and get the work done by any other team if they don’t choose yours.

What’s in it for you? The three points above, plus an additional source of revenue for your efforts that can lead to higher quality 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 strong processes for approvals, period. If you don’t have strong and intermittent stages where approvals happen, the project will NEVER reach the finish line on time and on budget. It is the same discipline behind securing your payments strategically as a freelancer.

This is how you go about it.

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

Secondly, you need a good mechanism for the feedback to be handled. I am a Google Sheets veteran, they are a win in my book, but if something else 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.

3. Documentation, Documentation, Documentation

Process everything through documents, but it needs to be done right. The primary issue with documentation is that most agencies go overboard with it, to the point where it is hard for clients to grasp, hard for your team to follow, and what you end up with is a contract no one will bother reading.

You NEED to learn how to do lean and effective documentation, exactly to the point that protects both your interests and your client’s.

Get the discovery, the approvals, and the documentation right, and you stop competing on price. You start competing on process. That is the gap between an agency charging $30 an hour and one charging $100. If you are earlier in the journey, the skills to build before you make the jump matter just as much as the process itself.

With or without my help – I wish you the best.

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