What we put in writing before we work under your brand

Why publish these

Because they're the four questions every agency owner asks in the first ten minutes, and answering them before being asked is cheaper for both of us than a negotiation.

They're also the four places a subcontract arrangement goes wrong, so a supplier's willingness to commit to them in writing is a reasonable proxy for whether they've done this before.

The four

1. Non-circumvention, in writing, covering everyone you introduce

We will not approach a client you introduce us to, during the engagement or afterwards, for a defined period. That's a clause, not a promise, and it should be in the agreement before work starts.

This is the fear underneath every subcontract conversation and it's a legitimate one. An agency's client list is the asset. Handing a supplier direct access to it is a real risk and the only sensible response is a contractual one.

2. Client communication routes through you by default

Your client should not receive emails from us. When direct contact is useful, which it often is for technical questions, it happens with your knowledge and you stay on the thread.

The reason isn't secrecy. It's that you're accountable to that client and you can't be accountable for a conversation you didn't see. This one matters more in practice than the non-circumvention clause does, because the damage from being out of the loop arrives faster than the damage from poaching.

3. Documentation your team can take over from, included

Not an extra line item. Not a phase at the end that gets cut when the timeline compresses.

What that means concretely: a written explanation of what was built and why, in language a developer who wasn't there can follow. Access and credentials in your names, not ours. A note on what breaks and what to check first. If we stopped tomorrow, somebody on your side could pick it up on Monday.

An arrangement where the supplier's documentation is thin creates a dependency that's good for the supplier and bad for you. Ours is included because a resold engagement where you can't take over is a worse business for us than one where you can.

4. A named person on our side

Your project manager deals with one person, not a pool and not a shared inbox. That person knows the engagement and answers within four business hours.

The rotating-pool model is efficient for the supplier and expensive for the client, because the context is reassembled from scratch every time somebody new picks up the thread.

What it means when a supplier won't commit

Non-circumvention is the easiest of the four to agree to and the most telling to refuse. Anybody hesitating on that clause is either inexperienced with subcontracting or planning to keep the option open.

Documentation is where the vagueness usually shows up. "We document as we go" is not a commitment. Ask what specifically will exist at the end, and whether it's in the price.

The one we ask for in return

Direct access to whoever knows the domain, at least for the first week. Subcontract engagements are usually slow to start because the context arrives second-hand, and one conversation with the person who actually understands the client's business saves about a week of guessing.