How Agencies Access Technical Specialists Without Full Time Costs
Your agency needs a WordPress expert, but only for 20 hours a week. Hire someone full-time and you're paying for 20 hours of unused capacity every week. Skip the hire and you can't take the project. Traditional hiring approaches can create challenging choices.
Prodigi's fractional talent service solves this by giving agencies access to specialists for exactly the hours they need. Several agencies are using this model to compete differently.
The Problem with Generalists
Darrel Noe runs Seventy Seven Collective, a remote-first digital agency. When he needed development capacity, he knew exactly what wouldn't work. "The skills we're using from the fractional talent pool are mainly WordPress development and Shopify development. For us it's key that we have someone with deep platform knowledge."
A lot of agencies try the opposite approach. They look for one person to handle everything, a UX designer who also animates and can design logos, an SEO expert who runs paid search and knows Google Tag Manager.
This approach doesn't work. You get someone mediocre at the main job and poor at everything else. The person hired ends up frustrated doing work outside their expertise. Your team gets average output and clients get subpar results.
Prodigi's model takes a different approach: match agencies with specialists who excel at specific skills, available for the exact capacity needed.
Variable Demand, Fixed Costs
Noe's workload follows a pattern most agencies know: "Our business goes in ebbs and flows. We get one or two websites, three websites at a time. Sometimes some are in the design phase, some in building, some in revisions. We don't always have 40 hours a week of work for a WordPress developer or a Shopify developer."
Projects don't arrive on schedule. Client briefs cluster, then you have nothing for weeks or months. Full-time specialists cost the same whether they're working or idle.
Sian Eddy, Operations Director at Modern, a B2B consultancy, had the same challenge: "We work on lots of projects, and demand for technical roles comes in peaks and troughs. Working with Prodigi has let us fill those gaps when we need them. We've got people in long-term roles, but also ad hoc contracts to plug gaps whenever we need to."
Carbon, a digital marketing agency north of Boston, couldn't find qualified paid search candidates locally. Relocating specialists proved expensive and slow. They needed a way to access talent beyond their geography.
Through Prodigi's fractional service, Noe found the solution: "Having access to 20 hours a week lets us deliver on time. Our clients are happy with turnaround rates, but we're not burning hours with a developer sitting there with nothing to do. It helps our pricing model and helps us deliver for clients."
Speed Matters
Sammy Mansorpour, Managing Director at Agency UK, describes the timeline pressure: "Time is not our friend. With lots of the projects we take on, we get last minute requests, as most agencies do. We have to react."
Traditional hiring can take months, post the job, review applications, conduct interviews, negotiate terms, wait out notice periods. The client brief that triggered the search has often moved to a competitor by then.
Prodigi's pre-vetted talent pool removes this bottleneck. "As an agency, to consistently find, source, manage and vet technical capability and have that on tap when we need it, which is often at short notice and ad hoc, becomes difficult and labour intensive," Sammy says. "The partnership with Prodigi lets us tap into that resource quickly and flexibly."
His team sees unpredictable capacity needs: "We have times of the year where we need to increase the team scale by 20%. Prodigi’s model is by far the best way of doing that."
The model allows flexibility in both directions. "We have access to a person full time for us, which was delivered on short notice, but he's been with us for about a year now," Sammy notes.
Access to Specialists
Sian's team needed specific technical knowledge they lacked in-house. Through Prodigi, they found it: "We're working with a gentleman on more technical projects, so that deep knowledge of Salesforce we don't have in-house, which means we can call on him, get that information, and get projects up and running quickly when we need to."
Noe describes why the fractional model through Prodigi works: "Prodigi offers solid talent and solid solutions, but you're not committed to 40 hours a week, every week, every month."
Why Prodigi's Approach Works
"Prodigi understands what agencies need because in previous lives they've managed their own agency," Noe says. "They understand what the needs are and how that fits into pricing models, work scopes, time scopes."
This agency background distinguishes Prodigi from traditional hiring partners. Most talent providers treat agencies like any other business, missing the specific pressures of client work and project cycles. Prodigi built their service around these realities.
The global talent network removes geographic constraints. Sian's team works with someone in a different country and timezone: "We work on a hybrid model anyway, we're primarily remote. The fact they're in a different country and timezone has made no difference. They're an extension of our team."
Business Impact
Noe can adjust capacity as projects demand: "We can dial up those hours when we notice a week coming up where we're going to be heavier, and that helps us."
Faster delivery improves client satisfaction. Better resource allocation improves margins. Agencies can pursue opportunities that were previously out of reach.
Sammy on quality: "The technical capability and the level of talent offered by Prodigi has been exceptional. For us, that's the highest priority. We need access to the highest level of talent, and we have reassurance that whenever we tap into a technical resource, there's a high standard of capability."
The service reduces operational burden. Sian: "Prodigi have been more flexible than partners we've used in the past. The fact Prodigi do all of that for us takes a huge weight off our shoulders to focus on what we need to do, which is doing great work for our clients."
Making the Shift
"We haven't come across any other organisation with such rapid access to that talent pool when they also bring along that high level of capability," Sammy says. "Prodigi provides us with that reassurance."
Noe: "The interview process is smooth. The talent they put in front of you is great and it helps round out what you're able to offer back to your clients."
Agencies using Prodigi's fractional talent service can take on work they would have turned down. Those sticking with traditional hiring models face tighter constraints as client expectations for speed and specialist expertise increase.
Prodigi offers agencies a straightforward way to access this model: pre-vetted specialists, flexible capacity, provided by a team that understands agency operations. For agencies facing the capacity constraints described here, it's worth a conversation.
