Podcast

Who Should I Hire to do My Website

Chris: Welcome to Web6. This season we are talking about how to navigate the website project process. I’m Chris LaFay.

Daniel: And I’m Daniel Cowan.

Setting a Project Budget

Chris: And, today our primary topic is going to be, who should I hire to do my website? And, I think really the first question that we need to really kind of go through is your budget, because numbers have a lot to do with who you should hire. So, what are your thoughts on that, Daniel.

Daniel: Yeah. So, I think even though it’s very difficult to sort of assess that whole budget conversation and talk about money for a lot of people, uh, that can be really difficult.

Freelance v. Agency

Daniel: But it’s really important to even just know where you’re starting from. So, that’s going to help determine whether you’re gonna be working with sort of a solo design and development shop, maybe a one guy kind of thing, or whether you’re going to be able to work with an agency. And, if you have a strong desire to do, to work with an agency, you’re going to need to know that your budget’s going to have to be higher in order to accommodate that.

Chris: And when do you go the freelance route. Part of that is understanding who you like to work with and how you like to work. If you enjoy the kind of the team aspect of working on projects and marketing ideas and creating those goals, working with a marketing agency or another team really helps generate ideas a lot better. You’re getting a lot of people’s different perspectives from development to marketing to, marketing is too much of a global term, but branding, design, etc. And, you know with agency comes a higher cost. When you work with a freelancer, you typically have a lower cost. You’re only getting that one person’s perspective, but some people like that. So, with this all kind of, you know, with the whole idea of teams and budgets and whatnot, there kind of comes a line of where you had to decide how much do you need to know this industry.

Daniel: And I think for a person who has, who has a desire for a greater amount of control in their project and who has more technical knowledge or skills and abilities, they can definitely, um, tend to have a better time working with a freelancer or solo shop because they’re able to, you know, be a more active part of the process. But you know, if you’re the, um, if you’re a business owner or if you’re the head of marketing and you want more of sort of a hands off or like a — almost spa experience where someone’s taking care of you, um, and, and they’re doing a lot more of the work, maybe providing content for you, taking photos and videos for you, uh, then you’re going to want to tend to towards an agency more.

Chris: There was, um, I actually just had a conversation with somebody, um, out of state and it’s a startup company. And one of the interesting thing was when I talked with them initially, it sounded like he wanted to work with the group. Um, then when he talking about his budget, it really sounded like he needed a business partner in that and really working with an agency, you don’t get that one on one business partnership type of thing. Like he was actually really looking for like a CTO type of role, looking for that one person that he and he and the other person can bounce back, bounce ideas back and forth off of to come up with a new, new and innovative ideas for his particular product. And he just didn’t have the budget to hire an agency full-time, which is basically what he needed at this particular stage. So, also knowing kind of where you want to go with your project, your company, whatever it looks like and how that looks like down the road will also determine the person or the group that you need to be partnering up with.

Identify Your Website Goals

Daniel: And I think you always want to find, whether it’s for a freelancer or working with an agency, you want to find someone who is going to take the time to get to know your business needs. Um, you know, I would always encourage people to avoid going to someone who’s just gonna, you know, completely just start designing from scratch, you know, start designing right out of the gate or start developing right out of the gate. Um, I think in today’s market, you know, if you’re gonna have a competitive website that’s going to perform for you, whether you’re working with a freelancer or an agency, you’ve got to find someone who takes the business goals to heart and, and is really going to help you achieve, you know, greater success in your business with your website. So, we don’t need, we don’t need anymore, you know, just brochures online.

Chris: No, we don’t.

Daniel: We need websites that are going to actually perform for companies and, and business owners are, are keen to that now. Whereas I think, you know, even just a few years ago, people thought, I have a business. I just need a website.

Chris: Right.

Daniel: But now you really do need to focus on having a website that’s going to perform for you. It’s going to generate leads for your company. Um, whether you’re going to be selling something online or not. You need to have a website that does something for your business and provides value. So you, you know, regardless of whether it’s a freelancer or an agency, choosing someone to work with who’s going to help your business grow, I think is a, you know, of the most utmost importance.

Chris: And that really leads into a whole different topic of marketing message and content and how you really drive people to take action. I think that’s a whole other episode in and of itself.

Daniel: Absolutely.

Chris: Just to talk through why content actually matters. So, um, I think that really pretty much wraps it up for this particular topic. Anything else you wanna chat about today, Daniel?

Daniel: No, that’s it.

Chris: Awesome. Thank you guys for tuning in today. And we’ll be back next week.

Headshot of Chris LaFay

Chris LaFay

Chris's goal in life is to conduct connection and bring heart to every interaction in life. He puts humans above to-dos. He consistently brings the band back together, leveraging long-term relationships across a swathe of experience to empower career transitions, life event pivots, and, ultimately, an incredibly versatile, flexible, and creative team for his clients.