Monday, January 23, 2006
Brokering Consultants
Opportunity: Cities/Counties need good consultants. Consultants, especially small consultants, struggle to get known by cities that need their services.
We ought to (for these purposes) view ICMA more as a broker of services, instead of a provider of services. Basically, we should be eBay, not ICMA consulting services.
In this view of the world, ICMA finds itself at the intersection of two dynamic forces:
1. We have almost 8000 members in over 3000 cities that need grant writing services from time to time, varying in topic from Homeland Security to parks grants. Additionally, there are 1000's of governmental units that are in the market for consultants.
2. We have a number of grant writers/consultants, many of whom are former managers who work independently or with small groups as consultants. Additionally, if we specifically seek grant writers, we can solicit them.
There are a lot of ways to make this work. At its heart is a type of electronic marketplace, an ICMA/eBay for consultants where they will list themselves by topic, and by state/region. Users may search the data base for consultants. But the key—the value added by ICMA—is that past performance will be rated by cities. Just like sellers get a star rating on eBay, consultants will get stars from past clients/cities. They will be rated on timeliness, price, quality, value, or any other criteria we decide. This kind of city review will really help small cities, who don’t hire a lot of consultants, to sort through the list, and find good ones. (This feature won’t be available immediately—it is a data base that will have to be built over time—however, past performance could be collected, so we wouldn’t have to wait years for this feature to become relevant.)
There are a lot of ways for us to make money on this. We could:
**Sell it as a subscription to cities, or bill them each time they use the site.
**Bill each consultant a base fee for inclusion on the site.
**Bill a percentage of each sale to the consultant.
**Bill per click—every time a city went to the consultant’s web site, or clicked on the email address, we could bill them.
**Make ICMA corporate sponsors ‘preferred vendors’—thus getting more ICMA corporate sponsors.
**Build small websites (all would be the same) for small consultants that don’t have the capacity, and then bill them for hosting it.)
**This allows us to offer a service to all cities/counties/special districts, without regard to ICMA membership. Our revenue potential is not limited to membership!!! (Alternatively, we could limit to members, and make it a benefit/add-on to membership. But if we want to collect money from consultants, and not just members, then broad-based access is important).
Note: This idea builds on a previous idea to do grant-writing submitted by Barb and Shannon.
We ought to (for these purposes) view ICMA more as a broker of services, instead of a provider of services. Basically, we should be eBay, not ICMA consulting services.
In this view of the world, ICMA finds itself at the intersection of two dynamic forces:
1. We have almost 8000 members in over 3000 cities that need grant writing services from time to time, varying in topic from Homeland Security to parks grants. Additionally, there are 1000's of governmental units that are in the market for consultants.
2. We have a number of grant writers/consultants, many of whom are former managers who work independently or with small groups as consultants. Additionally, if we specifically seek grant writers, we can solicit them.
There are a lot of ways to make this work. At its heart is a type of electronic marketplace, an ICMA/eBay for consultants where they will list themselves by topic, and by state/region. Users may search the data base for consultants. But the key—the value added by ICMA—is that past performance will be rated by cities. Just like sellers get a star rating on eBay, consultants will get stars from past clients/cities. They will be rated on timeliness, price, quality, value, or any other criteria we decide. This kind of city review will really help small cities, who don’t hire a lot of consultants, to sort through the list, and find good ones. (This feature won’t be available immediately—it is a data base that will have to be built over time—however, past performance could be collected, so we wouldn’t have to wait years for this feature to become relevant.)
There are a lot of ways for us to make money on this. We could:
**Sell it as a subscription to cities, or bill them each time they use the site.
**Bill each consultant a base fee for inclusion on the site.
**Bill a percentage of each sale to the consultant.
**Bill per click—every time a city went to the consultant’s web site, or clicked on the email address, we could bill them.
**Make ICMA corporate sponsors ‘preferred vendors’—thus getting more ICMA corporate sponsors.
**Build small websites (all would be the same) for small consultants that don’t have the capacity, and then bill them for hosting it.)
**This allows us to offer a service to all cities/counties/special districts, without regard to ICMA membership. Our revenue potential is not limited to membership!!! (Alternatively, we could limit to members, and make it a benefit/add-on to membership. But if we want to collect money from consultants, and not just members, then broad-based access is important).
Note: This idea builds on a previous idea to do grant-writing submitted by Barb and Shannon.
# posted by Jon : 9:33 AM
