| There are necessarily limits to how much
work we can do for free as a service which is funded by the work we perform
for other participants, but such limits should rarely apply.
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This is a "for profit" business, but we profit by introducing
executives to relevant services, which enables those service providers to
meet the right executives at the right time. They invest in this
independent service because it can drive down their marketing costs and
improve their results, even though we do not agree to "push" any one service
or business location. Instead, we just "pull" them in when executives
want to meet.
In effect, the other participants are sharing a very substantial investment
in the creation of this independent service to assist the many top
executives who they would like to meet quickly whenever there may be a
relevant opportunity for them to be of service.
Instead of every service provider or area representative
trying to identify and reach each such executive separately to promote their
individual capabilities, this work creates a shared process to introduce any
of them very quickly whenever an executive may be seriously interested in
their capabilities. That should be a better solution for everyone.
It is hard for those participants who fund this work to
reach such executives at the right time by other means, so this can be a
very efficient business development investment on their part.
They all
agree as a condition of their participation that, as an independent service,
all introductions are driven by the preferences of the executives, rather
than their own funding commitments. If they do not
actively participate in our services, our knowledge of their capabilities
will necessarily be more limited, but that doesn't exclude them from
consideration. They are not buying introductions or "leads".
They are investing in creation of a better
marketplace from which they should all benefit, but nobody can predict or
control where individual investments will go.
Their investment in participation reflects their
expectation that, over a period of time, this process should provide some of their best opportunities to support major projects
by introducing them to the right executives at the right time. It also
enables them to minimize some of their less productive business development
activities, and focus on better qualified opportunities for their purposes
as well as other priorities such as "business retention" and "aftercare"
programs to provide better services to companies which are already in their areas. |
How much does this free service cost us to
provide?
Consider how much it costs to recruit and retain one highly qualified
relationship leader, typically an outside sales professional or consultant with 10-20 years of strong experience in this niche,
including practical knowledge from many projects and a large network of
contacts.
Consider the cost of time, travel, and other expenses to dedicate such a
professional to focus on the support of a relatively small number of top
company executives each year.
It needs to be somebody with the qualifications and skills to be able to
look a CEO or CFO in the eye and advise them how to develop investments
which may involve tens of millions of dollars and have a major impact on the
future performance of their companies, and then introduce specific professionals
who can help them succeed.
Aside from the basic salary, benefits, and overheads for such a
professional, there is considerable travel to meet with executives and the
various other participants to remain familiar with their needs and
capabilities.
There is also the cost of participation in professional associations and
special events to stay well-informed about the latest developments in this
niche and to develop more valuable contacts.
There is research work and significant marketing investment to help
identify and reach the executives who most need such professional support,
and to understand their requirements.
Since companies change, and executives or their responsibilities get
reassigned, that's a moving target requiring frequent, direct contact.
The level of service varies by company, since some will need very
frequent contact and multiple visits each year, while others may need less
frequent support.
On average, however, it is expected that the investment in each free
support relationship may range between $5,000 and $25,000 per year, with
some more and some less. Given our selective focus on "major"
investments (50+ jobs), we still believe that high service level will work
out to an attractive "average cost per job created" as a shared investment
over time from the perspective of many leading area representatives.
It should also be a good value for professional service providers who choose
to participate in our SICR work to help them find potential clients whose
interests are a good fit with their capabilities. |
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The services provided by GDI
Solutions are intended to be free to all executives who choose to
participate, with almost no exceptions other than to avoid unreasonably
large and complex research requests by a single executive to the
disadvantage of other participants.
For
example, it would be unreasonable for one executive to so completely
monopolize the time of a relationship leader that it becomes impossible to
adequately support other participants.
Although the work is entirely free, the time of
such a professional is as valuable as any highly qualified consultant, so there
needs to be some recognition that this is a shared service, and the relationship
leader must always balance the work among multiple participants.
In other words, even though the work is free, think of
it as though it was costing over $250 per hour plus expenses, because it
actually does. In fact, at some professional firms the fees for such
talent and knowledge resources would be twice that level.
We have just arranged for other participants to support
that cost as a free benefit to executives because our work can also add high value for
them, whether through support of your own projects or our work with similar
investors. We have to remain efficient in the performance of our work to
keep their investment viable. We therefore need to work together as though
you were paying for our time, because somebody else is paying for it.
It is estimated that between 20 and 100 hours of
work per year will routinely need to be invested in each relationship among the
active participants. In some cases far more time may be necessary, and
others may require less, but this illustrates the typical scope of investor
support on the assumption that each relationship leader will need to focus on
the support of a limited number of participants.
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One of the objectives of
maintaining three large networks of contacts, and extensive reference
materials, is to efficiently find relevant services or information through
the experience and networks of all active participants to complement the in-house
knowledge at GDI Solutions. That's why executive feedback is so
important to the process of sharing valuable knowledge.
The value of the
free service, therefore, isn't measured just by the cost of the time of the
relationship leader. It involves an extensive research and network
development process to maintain the capabilities to respond quickly and
effectively to executive requests like a "hot line" service, with
knowledge rooted in practical experience.
That's our infrastructure or "overhead" investment in research to make this
service viable.
For example, we should already know who can
support the most common project needs, but we may not immediately know who
can meet a specialized need in a given location.
In such circumstances, our investment in
building the GDI Solutions "Network" enables us to efficiently research and
find out who can meet that need well. We don't attempt to know
everything "off the shelf" which we might ever need to know to support any type of project
anywhere. We just need to know how to find the contacts or information
quickly.
That is one of the key distinctions of the concept of
"corporate development for a networked world". The idea is to apply
extensive and growing networks of very specialized contacts to find good
solutions quickly, even for unforeseen or very complex needs, rather than
attempt to anticipate every possible need of investors.
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| If support needs greatly
exceed the normal scope of free services, then any costs to perform the
custom research work involved would be negotiated in advance. No
surprises.
The intended role of GDI Solutions is to
identify and introduce relevant specialists or information sources for free,
rather than to earn fees from executives by attempting to do everything
which may be requested by anyone who participates.
Ideally, it should take us only a few hours of
work to identify effective solutions for the needs of participants, so our goal
is to achieve results in fewer hours, rather than to get paid for our time.
If a specific request is beyond the scope of our
capabilities, we'll therefore admit it quickly, and try to suggest alternative
solutions.
We're not trying to sell our time to executives,
even though we obviously welcome any contributions by satisfied participants to
help us grow our support capabilities.
|
In e-business jargon, GDI
Solutions is creating a virtual community or marketplace by linking
three related networks of
people who share a common interest in direct investment projects and can
create higher value by working together more efficiently.
This is achieved through the development and sharing of
growing networks of professional relationships and specialized knowledge,
and through shared investment in the improvement of such capabilities.
Internet technology may support some aspects of that
process for efficiency, but the fundamental nature of this business is to
personally, independently, and confidentially introduce top corporate executives for free to the specialists and
information sources which are relevant to their investment project needs.
This website is just one tool to support that work,
mainly to make it easier for executives to meet routine needs quickly at any
time, while we focus on more complicated requirements. |
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