Adding value
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So how do you add value to the consortium you are packaging. It is a combination of a number of factors, real items such as real estate property, stock etc, intellectual property such as websites, written material, and packaged knowledge, and time shortening the development phase before things start producing income. |
Don't forget the information you have collected or will collect visiting shows and from suppliers, even magazines you have subscribed to over several years when working on the development, and books bought can be a part of a library provided. In some consortiums this can be a considerable resource, not only in its own right but in the saving of time in the future as the consortium can move more rapidly ahead.
Another way to add value is to leave within the consortium sizable funds for them to proceed, or rather to construct the package on offer in such a way that seed funds are available to move the project quickly ahead. This is particularly important if they are going to immediately need to come up with sizable funds, such as investing in land or real estate property.
You can add value by sorting out the identity in some cases, this may involve checking a name does not collide with others, is adaptable, registering companies, web site names etc. While you can see this is not essential at this stage it can cut down time and allow everyone to move forward without wasting energy in searching for trading title, something that many people may be tempted to put a disproportionate amount of time and effort into, when it is what you do with the trading title that counts far more than how catchy the name is.
Commissioning can add value, this is where you negotiate a situation to overcome a need that is to be funded from entry fee to the consortium, a web site is often a good example of this, you might pay for a small web site to be produced to demonstrate the concepts involved but also commission the further work that will be required once the consortium has taken over to make it a full working web site, with shopping carts or whatever and to cover the hosting of the website or sites. Usually the best way to do this is to provide barter units held by a service provider specifically for this function.
You should also probably provide gateway access to some facilities managed by Business Club International (BCI), to enable commissioning by the consortium as well as consortium members, exactly what you need you will have to determine and negotiate a licence for these services with BCI. The alternative to this would be to make it a condition that at least some partners became BCI members, but this would not be as good.
All of these decisions you need to balance, too much commissioning may take away the opportunity to develop in the way they want to, or may even mean that you have contracted out a role that the consortium would have preferred to have recruited partners to perform. It is preferable to do too little than too much, particularly in relation to commissioning and you may like instead of solid commissioning to be prepared with quotes and options, allow the senior partners the choices involved.
The single largest value that you can normally add, is to shorten the time needed to launch and towards this you might like to look at a critical path analysis of what is involved to make the consortium initially active, and to see what along that path you could either take care of in advance, commission or arrange options so as to move the project ahead rapidly.