The Research Design Associates Blog

As all businesses are turning more to frelance workers and consultants, there is sometines sticker shock at the costs. Here are some ideas for consultants trying to figure out how to price service and some guidelines for those uning consulting services.

So much changed during the recession–many small businesses closed and never re-opened. But some hung on and are coming back stronger than ever. Two examples show how perseverance and strong business acumen helped two fledgling enterprises to profitability. Both are niche service providers who would normally have the odds against them: a concierge service and a food delivery service.

As it is summer, I thought I would reflect on two books that I recently read. One light read, “The Lost Throne” by Chris Kuzenski written in 2008 with a Dan Brown theme.  The part that was interesting was the discussion of technology.  A gee whiz moment in the book was the 3 oz printer that easily fit in a laptop case, or going to an internet café to read an important encrypted email. The other was the ability of the government to search numerous databases to find out individual’s occupation in other countries and find their location via cell phone. Numerous times in the novel items needed to written down or photo copied. There are 25 to 30 pages of story line development on implementation of these technologies or lack thereof.

Time to start planning to be part of Southeast United States and Canadian (SEUS-Canada). Over the last four years I attended the partnership held in Newfoundland, Mississippi, New Brunswick and South Carolina. This effort was put together to facilitate business between the states of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee with the provinces of Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island and Quebec. There are two components: a conference with seminars on leading trends in one of the three targeted sectors and business-to-business meetings among companies in those different sectors. The previous sectors were advance manufacturing, IT, and energy.