We talk a lot about strategic development services in our marketing. For our long term clients, it’s a critical element of their overall growth strategy. For us, what starts as a simple website module fix or a HubSpot integration quickly evolves into full technology planning, a new website, tweaking a resource center, optimizing page load speeds, sifting through reporting optimization in HubSpot and more. Making HubSpot work for our clients is something we literally geek out on every day. However, when we do this work through agencies - it can become a little convoluted and a client might not necessarily get the full breadth of services available to them. 

It’s extremely important for agencies that white-label their HubSpot development talent to make sure they really have the expertise needed to consult fully when it comes to an organization’s technology. Without a full understanding of the opportunity for data integrations, the intricacies of their workflows and the struggles they face on a day to day basis and how you can optimize their technology to truly fix those struggles - how can you call yourself a Partner? 

HubSpot developer white-labeling is a service that we’re struggling with increasingly, depending on which agencies we work with. Here’s the long and short of it (here we go with our bold claims):

If you don’t let your developer speak to your clients directly, you’re doing your agency and the client a disservice.

Believe me, I get it. King of the castle, keeper of the keys - maintaining a singular contact point can be super valuable when it comes to making things easy for the client. But you know that song?

“Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same.”

It’s a true statement. We find our most successful white-label relationships happen with agencies that trust us to speak to the client directly. You’d be surprised what we can pick out of a conversation - symptoms of poorly configured reporting, optimization opportunities inside HubSpot portals, integration opportunities, basic department workflow issues with applications, opportunities for integrated data analytics - the sky is the limit. But when a partner that doesn’t have the appropriate technology savvy to explain solutions or offer chances for developers and architects to dig deeply into a client’s tech stack and HubSpot portal? There’s a ton of missed opportunity.

Here’s a little insight on the best way we’ve found for agencies to work with a HubSpot CMS developer in a white-label capacity and how being more flexible on how you work with your white-label developer can actually make you much more money. 

Indicate where the needs are, but leave space for more.

So many agencies come to us seeking one time development or integration work, but stop short of understanding that they should really let our developers and architects take a look under the hood of their client’s HubSpot portal and website in a more in-depth way. 

We don’t mind being told exactly what needs to be done - it’s often easier to work with a HubSpot-savvy agency that really understands a client’s workflow process and can cut some of the preliminary discussions by providing a lot of that information beforehand. When we’re allowed to really dig in and get strategic, though? That’s where the magic happens. 

When you leave the needs and budget parameters so closed with a client, you miss opportunities for both you and the client to benefit from a deeper dive. Let your client know that you’re going to have your development team do a full analysis and come back with a comprehensive list of potential improvements and spaces that can be optimized to best situate them for success. There may be a better way to configure their database or resource center or configure their reporting that they haven’t even considered that an agency that isn’t technically focused may not have seen.

Don’t gatekeep. 

This is easily the most frustrating part of taking on white-label work:

“Well, explain this to me in more detail so I can explain it to them.” 

We’ve played telephone plenty, but odds are high you’re not going to be able to explain it as well as we will, you might leave out some important details, or you won’t be able to answer the follow-on questions adequately. Rather than gatekeeping or playing telephone here - lets all sit down and have a chat together. 

When you gatekeep the client, you might not know what questions to ask, where you can identify processes and other issues inside their HubSpot portal or how you might be able to empower their website beyond the basics of what your agency is good at. 

There’s always a way to put agreements and best practices standards in place for how you wish for us to interact with your clients or compensation agreements that we can work out when we quote and upsell strategic technology to your client. 

Agree on compensation structures that work for everyone.

One time we discovered that an agency was marking our labor up by 300%. 

We didn’t work with that agency again. Maybe that’s not good business, but for us - we like long term, sustainable relationships, and something about that felt… unethical. While we want to help HubSpot Partner agencies out with whitelabel HubSpot CMS development, it needs to make sense for us, financially and for our growth. Something that added insult to injury? At the same time, that agency was also requiring us to work under their company e-mail inside the portal, meaning that the partner got Managed Credit in HubSpot. While some of you may not realize what that means - for us it means that we have to work harder somewhere else to get our Managed Credit up enough to maintain an existing or reach a new tier. 

If we don’t adequately benefit from the work we’re doing, it makes us less incentivized to do that kind of work, which brings me to my next point… 

Related: Ethical Outsourcing Tips for HubSpot CMS Developer Whitelabeling

True white-label services are going to start costing more money.

It’s not that we don’t love our agency clients, but we’re a business first. As such? We have to do the work that we love while earning money and continuing to tier as a HubSpot Partner to earn the perks that come with that. 

Our Agency Partnerships are important to us, but we can only continue them in the way that’s most sustainable for us. We will no longer be able to work in a portal under an agency’s e-mail domain and will expect to share Managed Credit for the work that we do. In doing this we seek to even the playing field, make things more fair, and get credit for the work that we’re doing to show the world - and our other prospects, what we’re capable of. 

If you’re a HubSpot client that’s reading this and not an agency, we hope that you do your diligence to understand if the relationship between the developer and the agency that you’re working with is fair and how working with that developer more directly will help you supercharge your technology strategy. 

If you’re a HubSport Partner agency that’s reading this and you’re not getting the most out of your whitelabel partner, the points above might be why. Take the time to really analyze the relationship you have with your whitelabel HubSpot CMS developer and determine if they’re benefitting as much as you and where there could be gaps in communication with the client that more direct contact can fill. 

At the end of the day, we’re all here for the success of the client and to build incredible marketing and lead generation machines that move forward the missions of our clients. Let’s do that sustainably.