Infoquest

Clients assume expert pricing is fixed across networks and projects, but the reality is that's not entirely the case. The same expert can be priced completely differently across two projects. Sometimes even at the same firm. Why? Because the price you get quoted isn't really just about the expert. It's multiple factors ranging from the associate selling the call, duration of the engagement, how niche the project is, the urgency, etc... Many times its directly tied to how well they were negotiated for your specific engagement. And this is something we focus on a lot at Infoquest, ensuring our clients get the best prices in the market and ones that they deserve.

Most people hear "expert network" and think of an expert database. Describe whom you want; they search a list, and you get names. That's mostly true for legacy networks, but not next generation ones like Infoquest We never relied on a database, and thats what made us stand out. Custom sourcing means finding the expert who hasn't had an expert call before, so they're not in anyone's system yet. Our team has to go find them from scratch, within very tight timelines. The only thing guiding us is the brief from the client. Mostapha Zeort, one of our associate managers and a founding member, describes how the best briefs he sees are long ones, filled with detailed context. Might be a bit more on the client, but knowing every detail allows us to act as an associate in your team and find experts that others couldn't. Full piece in the comments.

A friend at Bain & Company told me something last week. Consultants are scared for the bottom of the consulting pyramid... AI has already resulted in fewer associates at the lower layer, essentially an expectation for higher output from each associate. Which means fewer associates to hire and a smaller pool to promote to the partner level. But the interesting enhanced layer is in the middle... the subject matter experts. The people who actually know what's happening on the ground have become more important than ever as weve seen Infoquest Will we be seeing more people move from Industry into consulting? Is the traditional route from Associate to Partner going to change?

A partner at one of the top global consulting firms told me something that I haven't stopped thinking about. The output of their associates has multiplied massively. They're getting 30, 40 slides in a deck, all look extremely well polished, better than they ever looked before. Of course, AI has helped with that. Problem is, they can't tell what's actually good anymore. A slide can look airtight and still be wrong, and nobody catches it until it's in front of a client. So now they're looping in subject matter experts earlier in the process. Not to build the slides. To validate them before they get in front of a client. That's the shift I keep seeing. You still need someone who's actually lived the subject to tell you if it's true.

Do we need experts more or less with AI? The short and quick answer is more, actually way more. AI made searching for information frictionless; who remembers Google?😆 Any report, any public data point... AI will find it in seconds now. Which means whether you are an investor with billions in AUM or a student on a loan, you can find the same piece of data. The true leverage today is the expert, the information that gives the extra nuance. That only lives in someone's head because they lived it. At Infoquest we are building AI to enhance access to these experts, but never to replace.

Bigger Expert network. Better experts. Right? Wrong... Traditional networks with big databases are more incentivized to sell you someone who already exists in their database. It's cheaper for them. Faster too. You ask for an expert, they send you a shortlist in under 30 minutes, and it costs them almost nothing. Don't get me wrong, this works for almost 80%+ of expert network requests when the profiles needed are somewhat generic or readily available. Now ask for a niche expert. Someone hard to find. Watch what happens... Infoquest has been winning because we're built differently: instead of serving pre-existing profiles from a database, we actively source niche experts. When traditional networks underdeliver on hard-to-find specialized talent, Infoquest goes to market to find the exact expert you need. That's why consultants and investment analysts tackling niche problems with limited public insights choose Infoquest, because when you need specialized experts fast, the expert network that custom-sources every request instead of serving you from a database always wins.