10,000 Hour Rule: Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 Hours of Practice Theory from Outliers Visualized

The value of expertise is something we spend a lot of time thinking about at Zintro. Having years (and thousands of hours) of dedicated focus and practice within a specific niche is obviously highly valuable and allows a person to have a unique, proprietary perspective on that niche (and usually highly valuable expertise). But how many hours is “enough” to achieve expertise status? One take on the subject we (and many others) found interesting was Malcolm Gladwell’s in the book Outliers where he popularized the theory that 10,000 hours of dedicated practice in a given field or area of expertise allows a person to become truly “expert”. We’ve created the infographic below to take a deeper look at this idea:

Zintro — relevant Experts in 4 easy steps

Describe your need and find relevant Experts in under 90 seconds

MBO Partners and Zintro to Expand Business Development Opportunities for Independent Professionals

MBO Partners, the leader in the $250 billion and growing independent consulting sector in America, announced today a strategic alliance with Zintro, a premier networking service for subject matter experts and the companies that seek them.

As part of its commitment to support and serve the needs of independent professionals, MBO Partners is building strategic partnerships that help to enable the growth of the independent consulting sector. Through its partnership with Zintro, MBO Partners can now bring together independent experts and companies searching for professionals with specific knowledge and unique skill sets. The alliance will also provide the MBO Partners community with enhanced access to the thousands of companies currently working with Zintro to identify the right resource for their specific need.

“Zintro and MBO Partners provide highly complementary services to a common market – the rapidly growing universe of expert independent consultants”,said Stuart Lewtan, Founder and CEO of Zintro. “With Zintro’s front-office lead-generation services model, associates of MBO Partners can now find new avenues to generate lucrative engagements.”

“We are pleased to offer yet another great service option to the network of talented independent consultants who look to us to provide a comprehensive toolkit to run a more productive business,” said Gene Zaino, CEO of MBO Partners. “Zintro has a proven method of matching a company’s unique challenge with the expert who can answer that challenge. Its rank of experts will now be even more robust with the strength of the MBO Partners community and its wealth of industry expertise.”

About MBO Partners

For more than 25 years, MBO Partners has led the $250 billion and growing independent consulting sector in America. Our services make it easy for independent consultants and their clients to do business. For independent consultants, MBO Partners manages their entire business infrastructure. Our platform includes a proprietary process to handle contract administration, business insurances, health and retirement benefits, expense management, tax withholding, and more. We couple this with the benefits of direct vendor access into enterprises and the “white glove” attention of a dedicated business manager for every consultant. For organizations that use contract talent, the MBO Enterprise Solutions team provides a complete independent contractor aggregation and engagement offering, including compliance and payment solutions for 1099s, sole proprietors and micro-businesses. To learn more, visit: http://www.mbopartners.com.

About Zintro

Zintro is a “Search and Connect Engine” that brings together professionals seeking answers to business or technical challenges with subject-matter experts for engagements ranging from brief “micro-consults” (delivered over the phone) to multi-month on-site projects. For the client, Zintro provides, in under 90 seconds, the ability to connect with hundreds of relevant experts, qualify them, and talk with a select group of them. From the subject matter expert’s point of view, Zintro provides lead generation and marketing tools to help convert leads into lucrative engagements. The Zintro platform has more than 15,000 clients and 40,000 subject matter experts across all industry sectors and geographic regions. To learn more, visit http://www.zintro.com.

For Experts (client-seekers): Are you interested in marketing your services to Zintro’s Clients? It takes just a couple of minutes and is free to sign up as a Zintro Expert. Relevant projects will automatically be emailed to you. Click here to sign up.

For Clients (expert-seekers): In under 90 seconds, you can contact hundreds of relevant business or technical experts within any industry sector. Click here to post an Inquiry (free & anonymous).

Or, do you want to learn more about how Zintro works? Click here to view Zintro’s knowledge-base

Zintro has experts in every industry sector, across every job function, in every geographic region. Recently, some of the following topics have seen a inquiry activity:

• Structured finance expert
• M&A experts
• High frequency trading experts
• Brazil expert
• Exporting-experts

Economic Incentives for Affordable And Sustainable Development

Guest post by Zintro user Rick Rybeck

How do we create more jobs?  How do we ensure that housing is affordable?  What can we do to reduce traffic congestion and pollution?  These are important questions facing our communities.  And sometimes, the answer to one question seems to reduce our ability to answer the others.  One reason for this is that we sometimes overlook key economic obstacles.

For example, many cities spend a lot of effort determining which business sectors or ventures are “on the rise,” and then provide subsidies to lure these businesses to locate there.  Few if any economic development experts have consistent and reliable success in predicting which business endeavors will succeed in the long term.  And regardless of our confidence in the success of a business sector, we have even less success predicting which individual businesses will succeed in it.  Therefore, rather than trying to predict the market and provide special tax breaks to a few businesses (be they new or existing), cities would be better off removing existing barriers to productive investments.  Then cities can let the market decide which businesses will succeed, confident that their regulatory and tax systems will not impede whichever businesses have an opportunity to grow.

One of the impediments to affordable and sustainable development is the property tax.  When property owners improve their property (providing housing or jobs), property taxes rise.  However, when owners allow existing buildings to deteriorate, property taxes fall.  These economic incentives are upside-down.

Now a typical property tax is only 1% or 2% of value – so this does not seem like much.  However, unlike a sales tax (which is paid only once), the property tax on building values is paid each and every year that an improvement adds value to a property.  A net present value calculation shows that this stream of tax payments can have the economic impact of a sales tax of between 10% and 20% on construction labor and materials.  That’s a significant cost barrier to property construction, improvement and maintenance.

The tax on building values is a cost of production.  (No building, no tax.)  As we know from fundamental economic theory, increasing the cost of production reduces the quantity and quality of what is produced – and this diminished supply results in higher prices for what’s left.  Little wonder that many developers refuse to embark on major projects unless they first obtain some property tax exemption or abatement.

Fortunately, some jurisdictions have made real progress in this direction — leading to job growth, more affordable housing and more sustainable economic development. They accomplish this by reducing the property tax rate applied to building values while increasing the tax rate applied to land values.

But won’t the higher taxes on land values undermine the benefits of lower taxes on buildings?  No.  Unlike buildings, land is not produced.  Therefore, the tax on land value is not a cost of production.  Most importantly, there will be just as much land after a land tax is imposed as there was before.  Thus consumers will not bid up the price of land due to reduced supply.  Because the price of land is based upon expectations of the benefits of land ownership and because a land tax reduces the benefits of land ownership, taxes on land value tend to reduce the price of land.

Thus, reducing the tax on building values makes buildings cheaper to construct, improve and maintain, while increasing the tax on land values makes land more affordable as well.

There’s even an aspect of this reform that helps reduce sprawl.  Property owners do not determine the value of their land.  (This is determined largely by the community, its vitality, and the proximity of particular sites to public goods and services:  “Location, location, location.”)  Also, owners cannot move their sites to other, lower-tax jurisdictions.  Thus, unlike the tax on buildings (which can be avoided by avoiding building investments or by allowing existing buildings to deteriorate), the tax on land values cannot be avoided:

So landowners are compelled to pay the tax on land values.  Where land values are high (near existing urban amenities like job centers, transit stations, etc.), land taxes will be high and this will compel owners to develop those sites (or sell to someone who will do so).  And these high-value infill sites are generally where we want development to occur in order to reduce sprawl.

As mentioned earlier, land values in an urban setting largely represent access to public goods and services.  Thus, to the extent that public infrastructure (roads, water & sewer, police & fire protection, schools, etc.) creates land value, landowners will pay a land tax in proportion to the public benefits that they receive.  This makes a land value tax more like a “user fee,” making it both comprehensible and equitable.   Essentially, jurisdictions that implement this reform use value capture to transform their property tax into a public services user fee — while giving all property owners a “universal abatement” on productive investments.

Jurisdictions that implement this reform can collect the same property tax revenue as they did before — but the incentives are more favorable for building construction, improvement and maintenance.  If properly designed and implemented, this system creates economic incentives for infill development, which makes better use of existing infrastructure, enhances transportation options and avoids premature development of rural areas that are needed for agricultural, recreation and conservation uses.

For more information, see “Using Value Capture to Finance Infrastructure and Encourage Compact Development.”  This article can be found at

Click to access k15fVl1f20080424150651.pdf

Additional information can be obtained from http://www.justeconomicsllc.com

Do you have a Article to submit?  Click here to send it.
For Experts (client-seekers): Are you interested in marketing your services to Zintro’s Clients? It takes just a couple of minutes and is free to sign up as a Zintro Expert. Relevant projects will automatically be emailed to you. Click here to sign up.

For Clients (expert-seekers): In under 90 seconds, you can contact hundreds of relevant business or technical experts within any industry sector. Click here to post an Inquiry (free & anonymous).

Or, do you want to learn more about how Zintro works? Click here to view Zintro’s knowledge-base.

Zintro has experts in every industry sector, across every job function, in every geographic region. Recently, some of the following topics have seen a inquiry activity:

• Architecture Experts
• Biotech Experts
• Economics Experts
• Bank Compliance Consultants
• MVNO Consulting
• Structured Finance Experts
• Reservoir Management Consultants
• Brazilian Consultants

Talkers, Thinkers or Doers??

Guest post by Zintro Expert Ek-Heng-Ng 

Beyond the qualifications and certifications,Do you make the cut as a talker, thinker or doer?

It is accepted that success at work is predicated partly on a person acquiring qualifications and certifications. So, in today’s context, it is a case of the more, the merrier  – qualifications and certifications, that is.

True enough, some jobs like those in medical field can turn deadly if a practitioner lacks the required knowledge and skill sets. And given the increasing sophistication with some jobs, there is a case for employees in some vocations to demonstrate they have a level of competence in order to do a job well – examples being accounting or engineering careers.

To be sure, at the heart of any successful organization is its cohort of employees. Bereft of their qualifications and certifications, however, employees can simply be grouped into three distinct personality types.  The need for employees with these basic attributes may possibly be taken for granted and buried under ever growing list of demands from employers.

Not giving due emphasis to these basic personality types in their assessment may lead to companies fitting square pegs in round holes.  So what are the intrinsic attributes employees should have to succeed in their careers?  Put simply, do you make a cut as a talker, thinker or doer?

Doer

In just about any successful organization, you will find such a personality. He is that very hardworking person who likes nothing better than to accomplish whatever task he is given. To him, each task is a challenge and he finds satisfaction in completing each assignment to the best of his ability. Because he takes his work seriously and assiduously applies himself to the task, he has a good track record of success. But the fact that he works quietly, uncomplaining, often putting in long hours, means that his hard work and efforts are not given due recognition. Office politics is anathema to him.

Talker

Within the same organization, he has a colleague, dubbed by many as the “talker”. Not a day passes by without him telling everyone he meets of the great opportunities ahead and the objectives he has set himself. He never misses an opportunity to tell everyone in sight about his goals for the day, the week or even the month ahead. Whenever anything favourable and worth noticing happens in the office, he finds an excuse to talk about it, hinting ever so gently that he has had a hand in it, no matter how remote the link is. Not only does he impress his supervisors and bosses, even his customers are impressed, for quite some time, at least.

Thinker

Then, there is this third person in an organization. He is one who is not short of ideas and is seen often to exercises due diligence at work. This person has the ability to think out-of-the-box and is no stranger to thinking strategically. As a result, he tends to weigh the pros and cons carefully before giving his opinion and is well considered by many at the workplace. His ability to paint the big picture may sometimes be construed as a dampener when a gung-ho mentality prevails in an organization.

Metaphorically speaking

The doer behind the scene may well be the roots of a tree, quietly fulfilling a critical role under the radar. He is one who readily puts his shoulders to the grindstone and plods on regardless of circumstances. While at the frontline, a talker is the face of the organization, building on relationships with clients and prospects. He is synonymous with the branches and leaves that are often characteristics from which trees are identified. The trunk that links the roots and branches to make a tree complete is represented by the thinker. It is his ability to have a helicopter view and strategic thinking which can make an organization outstanding, the way some trees are able to rise above others for sunlight.

Essentially, organizations need these three kinds of personalities for back room and front office operations. There is a place career-wise for a person with any of the three personality types. But you are destined for higher calling, if you have the natural ability or the determination to acquire the skill sets associated with two or more of these personality types. Their complementary nature is encapsulated in a saying that ‘thinking and talking are incomplete without doing”.

Do you have a Article to submit?  Click here to send it.

For Experts (client-seekers): Are you interested in marketing your services to Zintro’s Clients? It takes just a couple of minutes and is free to sign up as a Zintro Expert. Relevant projects will automatically be emailed to you. Click here to sign up.

For Clients (expert-seekers): In under 90 seconds, you can contact hundreds of relevant business or technical experts within any industry sector. Click here to post an Inquiry (free & anonymous).

Or, do you want to learn more about how Zintro works? Click here to view Zintro’s knowledge-base.

Zintro has experts in every industry sector, across every job function, in every geographic region. Recently, some of the following topics have seen a inquiry activity:

• Computer science consultants
• Artificial intelligence consultant
• Web usability experts
• IPO experts
• Bank compliance consultants

Saving Money on Marketing Research

Guest post by Zintro Expert Bob-Kaden

You decide to conduct a research study.  With objectives clearly defined you contact three research suppliers to get competitive quotes.  All three come back with roughly the same approach to conducting the research.  And all three quotes make you choke.

You might think your only choices are to pay the going rate, lower your cost by compromising on the quality of the research or forgetting about the research altogether.

But assuming you are intent on conducting the research as planned, the good news is you can save money by either taking a more active role in completing the research or by negotiating with research suppliers.  Here’s how!

Understanding Supplier Pricing

In general, there are two types of research companies.  There are full-service research suppliers that provide research planning services, project execution and control and analytical services.   And there are field-service suppliers whose primary function is to provide the actual data needed to address the research objectives.

Full-service suppliers will give project specifications to a number of field-services.  This includes the type of study they wish to conduct, the anticipated length of the questionnaire, the profile and number of respondents they wish interviewed and the manner in which they want to collect data.

Field-services, in turn, price their data collection services to their full-service supplier clients, who then mark up those services when quoting their price to you.  If you become the direct client of the field-service supplier, you will save this markup.

Saving Money on Focus Groups

When it comes to focus groups, full service research suppliers typically markup field service quotes by 50%.  You can save this markup by contracting directly for focus group field service fees associated with:

• Renting a facility where the focus groups will be conducted

• Recruiting costs associated with screening the right respondents for your study and making sure that they show up at the right time.

• Monetary incentives to respondents for participating

• Refreshments, food, videotaping or other material costs necessary to complete the project

The focus group service will charge both you the full-service supplier the same.  If, for example you want to conduct four focus groups, the field service cost might be £5000.  By contracting for these relatively simple tasks yourself you’ll save £2,500, or the 50% full-service supplier markup.

If you don’t have a moderator you’ve worked with, ask the focus group facility you plan to use for recommendations and get a number of competitive quotes for the professional fee the moderators will charge.

To find a focus group facility in the London area click http://www.greenbook.org/). Otherwise, Google “Focus Group Facilities for whatever city is appropriate.”

Saving Money on Survey Research

In the case of a survey, via telephone, internet, post or personal interview, the full-service supplier will pay field services for:

•    The professional interviewers needed to complete your study
•    Charges associated with using phone, internet, postage, etc. to collect your data
•    Incentives that might be required to ensure respondent cooperation in the research
•    Questionnaire tabulation
•    Any special statistical procedures that might be necessary

If you choose to work directly with field services for your survey, and save the mark up, be prepared to give the field service exact specifications for your survey.  Field service personnel generally lack experience designing or analyzing research data unless you happen to find a service where there is someone on staff with survey design experience.

To find a survey field service Google “Telephone or Internet or Mail research interviewing services in your preferred city.  And if you need a researcher who can help you write your questionnaire and analyze the data, again, ask for referrals from the field service you are using and get several quotes for the professional services you need.

Saving Money When Using Full-Service Supplier

Many companies simply don’t have the expertise, time or desire to work directly with field services.  Their distinct preference is to find a full-service research supplier who can guide them in effectively designing and executing their research studies.

If this is your preference you can still save money by knowing how full-service suppliers price their projects. This is done in essentially two ways:

1.    As a fixed-cost project.  Fixed-cost projects are all-inclusive and the most popular.  That is, the supplier will quote you one cost, which will include all professional fees and field service costs.

2.    As an hourly plus field service costs.  If you ask, most full-service suppliers will give you hourly rates for the various professional services associated with your study.  You should have for the hourly break down for the various professional fees as well as a separate cost for the field services.

You should find several research companies that provide both field service and hourly plus out-of-pocket costs and compare quotes.

Full-Service Suppliers for Focus Groups

The fee a focus group moderator will charge is roughly £1,500 per group, which includes all project planning, moderation, report preparation and recommendations.  That comes to £6,000 for a typical four- group study.  Of course, moderators will take a markup on the field service they use.  To save money on moderator fees, follow these guidelines:

1.    Get a two competitive fixed price costs and ask a third moderator what would be charged by working on an hourly basis.
2.    Don’t contract for a full report. You can usually get 90% of what you need from a summary report and by observing the groups.
3.    Ask the moderator to give you tiered pricing. There could be a substantial savings on the moderator’s fee when going from say two groups to four, six or eight groups.
4.    Determine whether you can conduct your focus groups in smaller, less-expensive markets.  Try to stay out of the very large markets where field service costs tend to be 10% to 20% higher.
5.    Usually audio tapes or CDs are all that are necessary to analyze results and to ensure a record of groups—and are provided free.  Don’t pay for videotaping unless absolutely necessary
6.    Finally, find a moderator who will allow you to contract directly with the field service but will still assist you in working with the field service.

Saving Money on Your Survey

Assuming you have done your due diligence and have found several full-service research suppliers you trust, follow these guidelines:

1.    Always get two or three fixed-cost estimates from full-service suppliers.  The trick is to make sure that all the suppliers are giving you costs for exactly the same project specifications.
2.    Ask another supplier to quote separate field service costs from professional fees.   Here, many suppliers tend to quote lower fees and/or take less of a markup on their field services.
3.    Offer to pay 75% of the cost of the project up front, and ask for a discount. You can often get a lower price by making higher upfront payments.
4.    Find a small research supplier you trust.  Assuming that company is not swamped with projects, there is no question that costs will be lower than what you’d receive from a larger research supplier.
5.    Wait on the project.  Many full-service suppliers cut prices when business is slow.
If you can realize a savings by waiting, lock in a lower price a month or two down the road.
6.    Consider more than one project.   If your supplier is aware that the first project will lead to a second, and you are ready to commit to more than one project, you are likely to get lower costs on both.
7.    Refer the supplier to another client.  Give the supplier a lead that turns into another client and watch what happens with your final invoice.
8.    Research suppliers usually quote their studies plus or minus 10%.  For example, £25,000 +/-10%.     If you’re happy with your completed project and plan to use the supplier again, tell them, and inquire about the possibility of lowering the final invoice by some percentage.
9.    Offer to pay the research supplier’s field services and other out-of-pocket costs directly.  Any financial burden that you will assume might be cause for the research supplier to lower their fees.

By following these guidelines you can save 25% to 50% on the cost of most marketing research studies.  While you must be the final judge as to whether it is time well spent, consider the risk of abandoning the research altogether and making risky business decisions in the dark.

Bob Kaden is the author of Guerrilla Marketing Research, MORE Guerrilla Marketing Research and co-editor of Leading Edge Marketing Research—21st Century Tools and Practices.(www.amazon.com)  Visit http://www.kadencompany.com

Do you have a Article to submit? We would like to hear about it. Email us at  admin@zintro.com

For Experts (client-seekers): Are you interested in marketing your services to Zintro’s Clients? It takes just a couple of minutes and is free to sign up as a Zintro Expert. Relevant projects will automatically be emailed to you. Click here to sign up.

For Clients (expert-seekers): In under 90 seconds, you can contact hundreds of relevant business or technical experts within any industry sector. Click here to post an Inquiry (free & anonymous).

Or, do you want to learn more about how Zintro works? Click here to view Zintro’s knowledge-base.

Zintro has experts in every industry sector, across every job function, in every geographic region. Recently, some of the following topics have seen a inquiry activity:

• Biofuel Consultant
• Alternative Health Expert
• Environmental Expert Witness
• Web usability Experts
• Biosignal Processing Consultant

Leadership Qualities and You

Guest post by Zintro Expert Ek-Heng-Ng 

It has been said that in the presence of a good leader, imagination takes flight and ideas flourish as team members are challenged to give their best. When two or more persons have to collaborate in a work environment, leadership dynamics come into play, whether formally or informally.

Leadership qualities are important at all levels within a company hierarchy from employees in work teams to supervisors, middle and senior managers as well as chief executives. In a big or small way, leadership at different levels helps to shape decisions and contribute to the success of a business. There are always opportunities for employees to show their leadership in any given work situation and this article highlights some of the characteristics.

Open mind

A good leader is secure in the knowledge of his or her worth and does not need to constantly seek assurances from peers or higher-ups. Put simply, this person is a self-assured and is confident about his or her job status. As such, this person recognizes that teamwork is important and is ready to praise others for a job well done, while being comfortable at work to allow others to take center-stage.

A good leader always keeps an open mind. Recognizing that sharing of ideas add value at work is the hallmark of a good leader. Unilateral decision-making is not in the vocabulary of this person and all ideas and feedback are cherished. Before giving opinion to team members, a good leader makes it a point to get inputs from different and even conflicting sources.

Avoiding personal stamp

Having a clear vision, a good leader steers people to mutually-set goals and knows when to engage or disengage, whilst avoiding putting a personal stamp on every decision. Such a person appreciates the dynamism of team work. This person has high emotional quotient to spur team members into giving their best and knows when to draw the line where differences between team members can affect work or the decision-making process.

Another sign is that a good leader does not fear failure as positive lessons can be drawn from such experience. Each failure becomes breeding ground for success in the future, providing a good leader with opportunity to move on and chart a new course for the team.

Knack for team dynamics

Another attribute of a good leader is the ability to know when to listen, when to ask questions, when to talk and when it’s time to be assertive. Such a person intervenes with the objective to put matters-at-hand in the right focus, while another outcome is to improve the decision making process, leading to greater overall team work.

A good leader is able to change mindsets taking the team beyond personal boundaries and motivating members to rise above the mentality of ‘you’ or ‘me’ and see the work or project as ‘our” achievement.

Not everyone is born a leader but if you consistently rise to the occasion to provide value-added inputs at work and demonstrate your leadership capabilities, any employer will recognize that your sterling qualities are good for the organization.

Do you have a Article to submit? We would like to hear about it. Email us at  admin@zintro.com.

For Experts (client-seekers): Are you interested in marketing your services to Zintro’s Clients? It takes just a couple of minutes and is free to sign up as a Zintro Expert. Relevant projects will automatically be emailed to you. Click here to sign up.

For Clients (expert-seekers): In under 90 seconds, you can contact hundreds of relevant business or technical experts within any industry sector. Click here to post an Inquiry (free & anonymous).

Or, do you want to learn more about how Zintro works? Click here to view Zintro’s knowledge-base.

Zintro has experts in every industry sector, across every job function, in every geographic region. Recently, some of the following topics have seen a inquiry activity:

• SBA loan experts
• Computer science consultants
• M&A experts
• Structured finance expert
• Economics expert
• Web usability experts

Leveraging Social Media to Showcase Your Expertise [INFOGRAPHIC]

At Zintro we work to help connect experts with those who can benefit from their expertise both by way of the Zintro network and by creating content to help you get paid for your expertise.

Towards that same end we’ve put together the following infographic to help you understand how you can better showcase your expertise using the leading social media tools – take a look at the graphic and if you find it useful please share it via the share icons below the graphic!

If you’re looking to learn more about Zintro and the expertise of those on the platform you can check out the following links:

• Find Experts by Industry Sector
• Find Experts by Investment Class
• Find Experts by Profession
• Find Experts by Hot Areas
• Find Experts by Academic Discipline
• Find Experts by Area
• Find SBA Loan Experts
• Find Urban Planning Experts
• Find an Environmental Expert
• Find Construction Equipment Consultants
• Find a Sports Licensing Consultant

Expert Networks – Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution?

“Expert Networks” have been receiving a lot of attention lately thanks to allegations that one individual at one such firm was involved in insider trading. Whereas, we appreciate the “free publicity”, I feel it important to share my thoughts about this incident and the industry as a whole. First, I should point out, that Zintro is different than traditional expert networks – most of our business comes from non-institutional investors. Second, I think it is important to remind people not to generalize the alleged offenses of one individual at one firm to the overall industry.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear. In it’s short life, Zintro has never been involved in (or accused of) any illegal or unethical behavior – not even close. We provide a valuable service to companies looking for consultants and consultants seeking to generate leads for their businesses. Yes, a small percentage of our clients are hedge funds and yes they are typically seeking to learn about the industries in which they are investing. But the investors (and everyone else) using Zintro have always acted in a professional, legal, and ethical manner. Not to mention that Zintro’s strict terms & conditions require that they do so and Zintro provides tools to help them ensure compliance.

That said, let’s look at the big picture. Cheaters will cheat. The investment community & regulators should go after the cheaters whether they work at a hedge fund, expert network, investment bank, or anywhere else. In the news, as of late, expert networks have been discussed to be part of the insider-trading problem. I completely disagree. Yes, expert networks bring together investors and experts in the field. But so does LinkedIn or the phonebook for that matter. Blaming expert networks for insider trading is like blaming Ebay for the sale of stolen goods. EBay monitors its network to ensure it does not become an outlet for illegal activity. Expert networks do the same. In fact, not only are expert networks not to blame for insider trading, with proper monitoring and professional management, they can actually be part of the solution!

Look at it this way. People who cheat, don’t want to leave clues of the illicit activity. Expert networks create an audit trail of all communication between users. Moreover, expert networks provide a very clear framework for ensuring compliance. Without expert networks, investors (who have a fiduciary obligation to collect the best information they can legally obtain) will contact industry experts directly without any trail and without any compliance framework. Perhaps the industry should mandate all such calls to go through expert networks?

Zintro.com has over 17,000 experts and over 2,500 clients. Experts are from numerous industries, countries, and professions including physicians, engineers, scientists, mid- and senior-level managers, independent consultants, and business owners, among others. Clients include consulting firms, market researchers, investment firms, private equity firms, venture firms, law firms, recruiters, entrepreneurs, journalists, engineers, and business development executives, among others.

Do you have a question (about Expert Networks or any other topic) you would like to ask Zintro’s experts? Click here. Would you be interested in signing to be a Zintro expert and generate free leads for your business? Click here.

Stuart Lewtan
CEO, Zintro Inc.
http://www.zintro.com/choose?aff=WP

Looking for more information on a specific topic? Here are some of our most popular areas of expertise:

• Biochemistry consultant
• Biofuel consultants
• Brazil experts
• Brazilian consultants
• Computer science consultants
• Economics expert
• EMR expert
• Energy policy consultant
• Environmental expert
• Exporting-experts

Zintro Offers Premium Services!

I am very pleased to announce that Zintro has rolled out two new Premium Services. With over 15,000 subject matter experts and 2,000 clients, Zintro has already established itself as an important player in the space. Zintro’s Premium Services provide frequent users with an even greater feature set and a higher level of service than Zintro’s Basic Services.

Premium Client Service. Zintro connects clients (companies and/or professionals seeking experts) with subject-matter experts for consulting engagements ranging from one half hour phone consults to multi-month on-site engagements. Zintro makes it easy for clients by sourcing the best consultants & experts in the world, organizing them by topic, and allowing clients to send a single inquiry to multiple experts simultaneously. Zintro preserves the client’s anonymity, saves them time, and guarantees quality. With Zintro’s new Premium Client Service, clients can tap deeper into the Zintro expert pool and readily exchange contact information with experts. Premium clients also pay a lower transaction fee than Basic users and the fee is not subject to a minimum. This means that if an expert is willing to waive his/her fee for an initial call (which happens about half the time), the consult is free. Premium clients also are marked with a prominent icon so that experts recognize they are serious & qualified which significantly increases the yield & quality of expert replies. Compare Basic (free) & Premium Client Services.

Premium Expert Service. Zintro provides subject matter experts (whether independent consultants, contractors, experts “moonlighting” to make some extra money, or small, medium, or large consultancies) with free lead-generation. With the Premium Service, experts are able to even more effectively market their services to Zintro clients. Premium expert profiles rank higher on Zintro’s matching engine and Premium experts can freely share contact information, post URLs, and soon will be able to post videos and other reference materials. Premium experts are promptly reviewed by Zintro’s Evaluation Committee for potential promotion (if expert’s credentials warrant it) to Bronze, Silver, or Gold status. Moreover, it is less expensive for Zintro’s clients to contact premium experts (free if expert is willing to waive his/her fee for the initial call). This significantly increases the expert’s chance of being selected for a project. Compare Basic (free) & Premium Expert Services.

Both of Zintro’s Premium Services start at $59.95 per month and drop to $29.95 per month if the client or expert signs up for a year. This price point is intended to be disruptive — a ‘no-brainer’. Generating one solid lead on Zintro can pay for the cost of a subscription hundreds of times over.  Zintro also continues to offer its Basic service free of charge for both clients and experts. Free service for both sides of this market is core to Zintro’s marketing strategy and business philosophy.

Zintro has over 15,000 experts and over 2,000 clients. Experts are from numerous industries, countries, and professions including physicians, engineers, scientists, mid- and senior-level managers, independent consultants, and business owners, among others. Clients include investment firms, private equity firms, venture firms, law firms, market researchers, recruiters, consultants, entrepreneurs, journalists, engineers, and business development executives, among others.

–Stuart

Stuart Lewtan is founder & CEO of Zintro, Inc.  Zintro connects its clients with experts & consultants in the field for brief phone consults and/or longer relationships.