In Spite of Our Business Model

One of the problems we have when we approach new clients or attend conferences is that a lot of people do not know who we are. This applies to all of our services. This is because of our business model that can be traced back to the beginning of my start as a sole consultant: we ‘white label’ for bigger companies.

This means that we conduct multi-country studies like Linguistic Validation or readability testing with a partner organisation. In other words, they have won the sale for a given project, they have cultivated the relationship with the end-client, and they have engaged us as experts to undertake these projects. In turn, we suppress our branding, get on with the work and have little-to-no interactions with the end-client. Then we are usually promptly paid. It’s uncomplicated and this business model suits us. We are used to it. To be honest, we are more hooked on the adrenaline of doing the work than seeking recognition. For some partners, we are their exclusive providers of specific services. I often liken us to East Asian footwear manufacturers who provide slight variations of the same sneaker to multiple, rival household brands.

Consequently, nobody knows who we are. We could be having a 20-minute conversation at a conference with an employee from an Outcomes, RWE or HEOR team and they usually would have no idea we have completed, for example, 40 studies for them or their entire IMP labelling portfolio or all their human-factor testing for the past four years.

Yet, we have amassed deep and broad experience, equal to or beyond that of a considerably bigger company. This is accrued knowledge that extends beyond the scope of any one of our service offerings. And it is brimming over. And we need to share it.

Therefore, we communicate because of - in spite of - this business model.