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Designer Developer Partnerships, Episode #15

with Emily White and Greg Young on June 19th, 2014

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Are you a freelancer developer or designer? Do you either want to take on larger projects, but don’t have the capacity or simply want to farm out certain tasks to someone with a specialty?  If so, this episode of Genesis Office Hours is for you. Guests Greg Young and Emily White are a dynamic Genesis duo who have separate businesses, but often partner on projects. We discussed, in-depth, ways to set up good working relationships, find new partnership opportunities, and more.

As usual, we also covered a random range of questions brought up in the chat room. The chat component is one of the things I love most about Genesis Office Hours – some great conversations and introductions happen there. In order to make the chat experience better (there’s not way to notify user mentions or see a transcript with the current service), I’m experimenting with moving the conversation to Twitter for next week’s episode. Use the #officefm hashtag to join the conversation at any time.

Guests

Greg Young – Owner of hardboiledgreg.com. Greg is a Genesis child theme developer, specializing in taking designs and converting them into fully functional themes.

Emily White – Owner of theblogfairy emilywhitedesigns.com. Emily is a web and graphic designer, specializing in custom WordPress themes for the Genesis Framework.

Key Takeaways

What are  some tips for success when it comes to partnering with a designer or developer, for either a single project or a long-term relationship. Communication (clearly stating expectations), transparency (i.e. what a client’s paying, sharing contracts), and being respectful of each other. If you want to have a partnership with someone, it’s not an employee/employer dynamic. The best scenario is when there’s a mutual investment in the success of a project – more of a collaboration as opposed to one party taking a straight sub-contractor role. Note that this typically doesn’t happen on a first project, rather it’s a relationship of trust built over time.

More than just finding someone really skilled and able to deliver on a great product, find someone who feels some sort of investment in your company. – Emily White

How do you find new clients? Build and maintain a good reputation for yourself and your clients will sell you. Make connections in the community (both the WordPress community and Genesis community). The same applies to finding a quality person to partner with on projects. Network. Network. Network. 🙂 You can get started by joining this email list started by GOH participant Andrea Whitmer.

Show Links

Talking About Real Estate Themes for Genesis

  • AgentPress Pro – Genesis 2.0 update to the original AgentPress theme for realtors
  • Winning Agent Pro – Genesis 2.0 theme for real estate agents (created by me!)

Code

  • Core Functionality plugin example – by Bill Erickson
  • Custom Featured Post Widget plugin: Skeleton for amending the output of the Genesis Featured Post widget – Code snippet from Gary Jones

The Business of Themes, Plugins, and Pricing Models

  • What happens if WordPress themes get more expensive? – by Chris Lema
  • A WordPress Theme Developer Introspective – by Tom McFarlin
  • We’re Ruining WordPress – by Philip Arthur Moore

My Mini-Rant

  • I say no to promoting your (unknown) product – by Chris Lema

Watch this episode

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