I have been building websites for years and have been using Divi exclusively since it’s release. Back in 2015 I even joined Nathan Weller for an episode of Divi Nation, and the topic was on Building a Divi Consultancy.
Like most Divi users, I worked mostly with clients that needed help with their single website. Unfortunately, most of those clients rarely provide an opportunity for long-term ongoing work.
So, like most website design freelancers, I found myself always on the search for new customers and new projects. That all changed when I decided to stop looking for clients and started looking for Divi White Label Partners.
What Is a Divi White Label Partner
Divi continues to thrive because it is a great product and has one of the largest WordPress related online support communities. With more and more larger companies and agencies embracing Divi, the need for experienced Divi designers and developers continues to grow.
Many of these agencies do more than build websites, and they need someone who can tackle the website design and development piece so that they can provide their services. They choose Divi because it is easy for their team to maintain, update, and add new content after the initial build. Here is a sampling of some of the Divi White Label Partners we work with.
- Marketing Agencies
- Social Media Managers
- Hubspot Partners
- IT Service Providers
- Life Coaches
- Business Coaches
- Content Providers
- SEO Consultants
- Other Website Design Agencies
So while website design may not be their core offering, most of their services will revolve around a well-built website. And that’s where your Divi expertise comes in.
The Benefits of Partnering
These are just a few of the benefits of Divi White Label Partnerships as a freelancer and/or small agency.
Ongoing Work
One of the benefits of partnering with agencies like this is the potential for ongoing work regularly. By partnering with a handful of large agencies and a more significant number of small agencies, we now have a steady stream of new projects scheduled out several months in advance.
Partnering has allowed us to budget and forecast much easier. The goal is to avoid the infamous “feast or famine” that is typical in the world of freelance.
Decrease Sales/Marketing Time & Expense
Another benefit to White Label Partnering is not having to spend so much time on sales and marketing calls. Before making this change, I had to spend hours and hours each week on non-billable calls, emails, and proposals.
Since our partners know who we are and what our capabilities are, we do not have to spend all that extra time trying to explain who we are and what we are capable of before each new project. With all this extra time saved each week, it allows us to focus more time on doing what we do best which is building awesome websites using Divi.
Specialize in One Platform
Partnering has also allowed us to expand our Divi skillset. Our partners are always throwing us new challenges and unique requirements. This allows us more time to think outside of the box, create new Divi features exclusive to our client’s needs, and learn new tricks within the Divi inner workings.
How To Be a Successful Divi White Label Service Provider
There are already many people who offer this type of service, and it is not something new. But I also know many Divi users would like to start providing this service and would like a few tips that helped me.
Change Your Mindset From Clients To Partners
When I decided to market this service, I created a separate landing page on our Monterey Premier website. We immediately started receiving incoming leads for this service, and after many phone calls with these leads, I learned several things.
One of these things was that many of them have tried outsourcing to large “White Label” services in various parts of the world and got burned in one way or another. Most service providers have the mindset that these are merely customers.
The difference between a customer and a partner is that as a partner, we have the best interest of the partner in mind.
- We want them to succeed
- We want them to have a great reputation
- We want them to trust the source
- We want them to have consistent work
- We want them to feel like we work right there by their side as if we were employees
- We want their clients to be stoked with the end result
Help Manage Projects and Client Expectation
Another pain point was that many of our smaller partners struggled with project management and scoping. So now we often get involved at the beginning of the project to help them scope it out, recognize potential challenges, and make recommendations early on.
We will even get on a client call with them as a representative of their company. Many of my partners trust me to work directly with their clients. We do several weekly screen sharing progress reports with their clients. They love that we treat their clients the way they want their clients treated.
Communicate Frequently
One more common pain point was communication. If you are a designer or developer, then you understand how hard it is to switch gears from coding, to project management throughout the day. But lack of communication can be a real frustration for agencies who outsource.
Nathan Ingram has a great rule on communication that I try to adhere to.
“One way to vastly improve your communication is to send a three-sentence email every Friday. Send a short, simple email to your clients each week that explains where the project is at: ‘This is what we did this week (past). This is where things are (present). This is what’s next (future).’ ” – Nathan Ingram
Be Diverse in Who You Choose to Partner With
One of my biggest mishaps was getting comfortable with having only one or two big agency partners. While it was great getting three to four new website builds each month from those two partners, we took a big hit when things slowed down.
Now we go after a combination of large and small businesses to partner with. So while the large agencies throw us some large projects now and then, we get to fill in the gaps with the occasional smaller websites that have a quicker turnaround and payment cycle.
While most of our partners are billed at the end of each month, the smaller projects allow us to receive payments throughout the month.
What to Look for in a Divi White Label Service Provider
I know that many people reading this article might be on the search for a great Divi White Label Service provider so this section is for you. In addition to the qualities listed above, these additional tips should help you find the right fit.
Look for Solid Experience With Divi
It does not mean they cannot use a variety of Page Builders & Themes, but the more experienced they are with Divi, the more they will be able to offer best practice solutions and best use of the core functions and tools.
We choose to only work with Divi because it keeps us proficient and efficient when building a custom website and website specific plugins. If you can find someone who only uses Divi, you will more than likely get a better bang for your buck and prevent future problems with the website.
Design and Development
You are going to want to make sure that your Divi White Label service provider has both design and development experience. While there are many things you can do with just the visual builder alone, there are always things that require a little CSS, PHP or Javascript tweaks.
We have built many custom plugins for unique WooCommerce/Divi integrations, LifterLMS/Divi integrations, and GoogleTracking/Divi integrations (to name just a few). It will be more convenient and efficient for you if both design and development is coming from the same team.
Consider Time Zone Differences
Most of our clients love to be able to hop on a call or video chat during regular business hours. That does not mean your service providers have to live in the same time zone as you. It just means they can make themselves available during your business hours.
Although we have team members in Texas, England, and Portugal, all of us operate on standard US business days and are available for scheduled conference calls throughout the day Monday – Friday. Fortunately, there are many amazing Divi power users all over the world so finding someone who works in your timezone should not be a problem.
Look for Divi Community Involvement and Authority
One of the things about finding someone who is very involved and trusted in the Divi Community is going to help you with the vetting process. Although there are dozens of Divi Community Facebook groups, some with over 10,000 members each, it is pretty easy to see who is active, trusted, helpful, and experienced.
It also helps to see if they are contributing to the Divi Community via tutorials, blogs, layout kits, and plugins. This will give you an idea as to whether or not they are going to be a good fit design/development wise.
In Closing
With so many people embracing Divi these days, there is plenty of room for everyone. I believe one of the reasons the Divi community has grown into one of the largest WordPress product communities is because of how much Divi users give away, including successful business strategies.
Hopefully, the strategies listed in this article will help some Divi users start a business, help some Divi users grow their business, and help some Divi users find the right partners to help their business succeed.
The post Geno Quiroz: How I Built a Successful Divi White Label Business appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.
