The difference between a ‘vendor’ and a ‘partner’

These days, it seems like there are a million cheap ways to build a web site. From fly-by-night freelancers to apps like Squarespace, there are countless vendors that small businesses and organizations can work with to get a simple site online.

With so many lower-end options, when does it make sense for your business to upgrade from a vendor to a high-end web partner?

We sat down with Shardul Kiri, co-founder of UNIT partners, an award-winning San Francisco branding agency, to chat about his company’s long-time partnership with Howard Development & Consulting – and how we’re different than your typical vendor.

“To me, a partner is someone that is willing to invest the time and energy in understanding your business, understanding your needs, looking at it from a long-term view or perspective and able to help provide solutions and ideas to meet the goals in the long-term.

“A partner understands that if you invest that time and energy in a conversation or a consultation now, maybe nothing comes of it today – but something will come from it in the long-term. You’re building that relationship versus just looking at your next check.”

As the owner of a bustling agency, Shardul sees a lot of web projects come across his desk. When they’re truly simple builds, they may be the right fit for a vendor. For those that require big-picture thinking and flawless execution, he and his clients invest in working with us.

“A vendor is someone that does something – they’re the pair of hands. They might be a subject matter expert in what they’re doing, but they are basically executing very specifically what you’ve asked them to execute and that’s it.

“You make the process so much easier for us. We don’t have to have a lot of back and forth. You understand our attention to detail and requirements on the visual side of things as much as you understand the technical side of things.

“When we decide that we will take on a web site project that is more robust, has more functionality, more technology requirements, we definitely would only take those projects on if we had the budget to bring you onto the project.”