HOW TO WORK
EFFECTIVELY WITH A
WHITE LABEL
PARTNER
Create New Opportunities
It can be difficult to consider letting go of control on tasks or projects, in fact some may consider this to be
overwhelming. This is understandable as every agency owner wants to ensure that the best work is delivered to
their clients.
It’s good to have concern as this shows that you care about your clients and you care about the quality of the
projects that you work on.
Working with a white label partner gives you an opportunity to take your digital agency or business to the next
level, through assistance with your current and future projects.
White label services allow you to scale your business, taking on more clients, whilst ensuring that you’re able to
deliver the work effectively.
You can also take advantage of outsourcing your work to bring more free time to yourself or to take on a different
role in your business that enables you to be more productive.
White labeling is even a great option if you’re looking to work on larger projects and want to complete these
effectively with a partner you can trust. They can bring skills to the table that you don’t currently have, plus
extensive project experience so you can feel confident that you’ve made the right choice.
So how do you get the most from a white label partnership?
Just like when you’re working with your own clients, it’s important to build a great relationship with your white
label partner. When you have a great relationship in place, your projects will run smoothly.
Taking your time to make the right decision is important. Your white label partner will be acting as an extension of
your business, creating great work for your client. You need to be able to trust that they can deliver your projects
successfully.
Our guide runs through five important areas that form the foundation of a great working relationship between
your business and your white label partner. We’ve included tips throughout that will help you to plan how you can
outsource your work.
1
Start Small
Just like any new working relationship, it’s a smart idea to make sure that your chosen white label partner is a
great fit with your business.
It would be a mistake to start with a large project, as the first thing that you work on together. At this point, you’re
still building trust and assessing if you are a good fit for working with each other.
A smart choice would be to start with a smaller project. Something that is a matter of hours or perhaps one day in
terms of the time required for completion.
This small project will give you an opportunity to see how your white label partner works with you, and the quality
of work they can deliver. You can judge if the work delivered meets the brief that you’ve agreed together.
Communication is vitally important too. From the first step where you agree on the project, during the project and
right up to the delivery of the agreed work. You’ll want to make sure that you’re working with a partner that
communicates effectively with you so that you can manage the project and communicate with your own client.
If you don’t have a suitable small project to start with, you could consider creating a test project. The boundaries of
these will vary depending on what you’re after, but here’s a recommendation of how you could carry this out.
For a test project, you’ll want to create something that will last a number of hours, something between 2-4 hours
would be a good fit for a test. Long enough that it takes a little bit of time and expertise to complete, but not too
long that it’s a waste of time for something that isn’t a client project.
The test project should have a brief prepared where you explain to your white label partner what you’re after. A
clever option here would be to add in a step that effectively acts as a decoy, as it’s incorrect.
What we mean by this is to create a simple mistake in your brief. Nothing that would make the test project
something that couldn’t be completed. What you’re actually looking to do is make it something that an expert
would notice and resolve.
The ideal result here would be that your white label partner would notice this issue and either raise it with you, or
resolve the error and present the final solution with the error corrected. If they don’t spot the error at all, this is a
red flag that helps you to understand the partner might not be a great fit.
Test projects should always be paid, so you’re being respectful of your white label partner’s time. Keeping it at a
few hours means that this won’t break the bank and it’s absolutely a small price to pay when it helps you to find a
white label partner that you can trust.
TIP: When you find a white label partner that you want to work with, start with a small project. If you don’t
have a small project immediately available, create a test project. Consider adding a small error to the brief of
your test project so you can test the expertise of your selected partner.
2
Trust
As we’ve just discussed, the first project is going to be the one that really starts to build trust between you and
your white label partner.
You may know each other from online communities before you start working and you can talk for hours, but until
that first project is worked on and delivered, you won’t be able to trust that the work will be delivered.
Trust is an essential step to building a relationship with your white label partner, in much the same way as it is
with your clients. People buy from those they know, like and trust.
Once you have established a good level of trust, you’ll find that you can start handing over projects with less
discussion before you start. You’ll still want a brief (obviously), but the trust and working relationship you build
together will enable you to both be more autonomous.
When your projects are running smoothly, you could find yourself needing less time for on-going project
management. This is a huge benefit to you and your business. Having more time available to you means that you
can focus your time elsewhere.
As you can imagine, having someone assisting with your projects and having free time for you to focus your
energies elsewhere is a very powerful tool for your business. All those tasks that you keep putting off can now be
achieved, because you’re available.
Another benefit that trust brings will be that you can work on bigger projects with your white label partner. You’re
only limited by the size of the project that you can agree on and whether you both trust each other to deliver on
each side of the agreement.
Trust works both ways. Just like you need to trust your white label partner, your partner also needs to have the
same confidence in you and your business.
They want to know that you’re taking projects seriously, that you can communicate effectively and that you’re
going to complete the project in a timely manner.
Having an easily understandable brief, clear goals that are communicated at the start of the project and agreed
timelines that are met, will help you both to trust each other and work together well.
TIP: Make sure that every brief you create is clear and easy for your white label partner to understand. Establish
timelines and communicate effectively throughout projects. Try not to miss deadlines as this can create delays
for both your project and also your white label partner.
3
Communication
Good communication starts from the very first point of contact between you and your white label partner. The
early messages or calls that you share, will start to form the type and quality of your communication.
Once you’ve established trust and started working together, it’s vital that communication is consistent and most
importantly timely. Just like on your existing client projects, one of the most common things that can derail a
white label project is untimely communication.
When you leave your white label partner waiting for information that is vital to assist them with making progress
on your project, you create an unnecessary delay. This can have a greater impact if they have a busy timeline, as it
could lead to your project being put on hold.
Likewise, it’s critical that you receive timely communication from your white label partner so that you can
understand the status of the project. You need to be able to discuss progress with your client and potentially
present stages of the project to them for approval.
Project feedback is important too. You need to be able to speak with your white label partner on a regular basis to
sign off on various stages of your projects. Before sign-off you may have amendments or changes that you want
made, so clear and concise feedback is crucial.
It’s a good idea to remember to take out any personal feelings from your feedback and focus on what your client’s
business needs from their project. You’re likely well versed in helping your clients to do this when you work with
them directly.
Feedback should be constructive and intended to create effective changes that will help to deliver the result that
your client desires. This is likely something that you communicated in the brief at the start of the project, so it’s
good to reflect back on any project goals and discuss these with the feedback that you send over.
It would be smart to ensure that with every project you always have a named contact available in your office who
will be the main point of contact with your white label partner. This could be you, or any other member of your
team. Your white label partner will also have a named point of contact.
These fixed points of contact help to ensure that there is one clear voice on each side of the agreement, clearly
communicating the current position, status, change requests and more.
Finally, with good communication on your projects, you are helping to build more trust and a better relationship
with your white label partner. The better you communicate, the better you will work with each other. Better work
means your clients will be happier with the results you achieve together.
TIP: Always have a clear point of contact available from your business. They should be the only one that sends
over requests and feedback to your white label partner. This person does not have to be you and can be any
member of your team that you nominate.
4
Time
Time is an important factor in every project that you undertake with your clients. It defines the schedule of your
project and when results can be expected.
Each project will have a defined length. Again, this is much the same as the way that you work with your existing
clients. For longer projects, you can expect a series of milestones to be in place that will split up the delivery of the
project stages.
Your white label partner will work with you to ensure that all agreed timelines are met so that your project is
delivered to your client successfully.
Your time is important too.
As an agency owner or freelancer, you’ve likely left some internal projects to one side while you’ve been busy
working on client projects. It’s natural, internal projects don’t pay the bills in the same way as the income from
client projects.
What could you do today if you had more time available to focus on your business? Would you be able to work on
that long list of internal tasks that you’ve been putting off for a while? Could you lead more sales conversations
with new prospects?
When you outsource projects to a white label partner, you free up more time in your business. This extra time can
greatly benefit your business. Not just that, it can also benefit your private life too.
Outsourcing work to a white label partner could give you an opportunity to replace yourself inside your business.
You could use your extra time with your family and loved ones or simply to give yourself a chance to rest and
recharge your batteries.
Your white label partners are agency and business owners just like you. They understand the stresses of your
business and they know how important time is to you.
Working with a white label partner can start off small, with just a few hours per week. Perhaps this saves you half
a day or a day of time that you can use elsewhere. As we mentioned previously, this could be for sales,
professional development or for your own personal life.
As you work on larger projects together you can free up more time and use this to grow and scale your business.
Your white label partner is ideally positioned to help you with this.
No matter where you are in your current business, you’ll always find a need for more time.
TIP: Make a list of everything that you’d love to do in your business and also your personal life that is currently
unachievable due to a lack of time. Which of these would you love to have the time to do? Focus on these as
your first goals when you start working with your new white label partner.
5
Scale & Growth
You’re likely interested in growing your business and generating more revenue. After all, that’s why most people
are in business, isn’t it?
To do this, you need to be able to scale your services and grow.
Right now, your business growth is limited by the number of hours that you and your team have available each
week. If you want to take on new projects, there needs to be time available in your schedule, otherwise, you won’t
be able to complete them effectively.
For a service-based business, your option for scaling is to add employees. Each employee you add in will need a
salary, relevant benefits, and if they’re going to be based in your office, you’ll also want to consider the increased
furniture / equipment costs.
As you likely already know, it’s not cheap for you to scale in this way. Before you take on a new employee, you need
to be sure that you have enough work for them to assist you with - which can be a difficult skill to master in its own
right.
An easy option to scale would be to outsource projects to a white label partner. When you do this you are paying
your partner on a per-project basis and marking up the cost to your client. You don’t have to worry about an
on-going salary.
Whilst you will likely make a little less than if you completed everything in-house, you will be able to generate
profits just for managing a project, rather than taking care of every single step of the process yourself.
The more projects that you send to your white label partner, the more you can scale your business and grow.
It’s important to consider your white label partner as you continue to grow and make sure that they are able to
handle growth. If they’re only able to assist you with one project per month, then they won’t be able to help you
scale your business if you need more work from them.
Of course, you could work with multiple white label partners… but if you’re building a great relationship with a new
white label partner, then you’ll want to ask them how many concurrent projects that they can realistically handle
from your business.
The right white label partner for you will be the one that understands your growth plans and helps you to achieve
these through quality work at a scalable rate.
TIP: Have a clear plan for the growth of your business and the goals you want to achieve. Make sure the white
label partner you choose to work with can help you to reach these goals.
Take Your Business To The
Next Level
Working with a white label partner can bring many benefits to your business. Not only can it help you to grow and
scale your business, it can also help you when you’re too busy to take on new projects.
A white label partner will work with you to understand your processes, ask questions and help you to deliver
fantastic results for your clients.
As the name suggests, they do this work for your business and in the name of your business. It’s a “faceless”
approach that means you will get all of the credit for the work from your client.
It’s important to start on a small or test project so that you can start to build a relationship with your white label
partner. You need to establish how you will be working with each other and to build trust to ensure that you are a
good fit.
Trust is crucial. You’re relying on your white label partner to understand the brief and to deliver the project exactly
as promised. Failure of a project or a lack of communication is not an option.
Regular feedback will help to keep the project on track. It’s highly recommended that you have a single point of
contact who will send any messages, feedback, and requests to your white label partner. They will typically have
the same in place when they work with you.
The biggest benefit that white label partners can bring is freeing up time in your business. This can be hours, days
or weeks, every single month. You can use this time to work on your own internal business processes or take a
little extra time to yourself.
If you’re serious about growing and scaling your service-based business, you have two options. You can undertake
the costly process of hiring a new employee and all the paperwork that goes with this. Or you can work with a
white label partner who will deliver the projects for you, leaving you to mark-up the price to your client.
We’ll be sending over some additional tips and suggestions over the next few days that you can take and action in
your business. Keep your eye out for these as the first one should be arriving tomorrow.
In the meantime, if you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch!
Team Outsource SEO
sales@outsourceseo.com