Commercial Services are services that are independent of the consulting arrangement and usually include referrals, introductions, deal-making/brokering, etc. Our fees for commercial services are below:
Summarized Fees for Commercial Services
| Milestone | Payment |
| At the time of signing of the Referral Agreement | 25% of the Quoted Fees* |
| At the time successful completion of Due Diligence by the Solution Provider. | 25% of the Quoted Fees* |
| At the time of signing the commercial contract with Solution Provider | 50% of the Quoted Fees |
*Refundable. Subject to the following Refund Policy.
A question usually asked is How does your fee work? Here is the straight forward and candid answer.
Package Upgrading
If you have signed up for a lower priced referral fee package and want to upgrade to a higher priced package within one year of your first signup, you will have to bear the cost of the difference.
How We Used to Charge:
Usually, we worked on a success-based model. This means we put in a relatively high number of hours, for free, into a project to ascertain the probability of success. This also means talking to you, briefly consulting, advising, data gathering, formatting the opportunity resume and then distributing the same to my solution providers, having multiple calls with them and then arriving at a decision.
All this is time. Our time.
Time = money!
In most cases, all this comes at NO charge to you. Not even a penny! (there are exceptions, see below)
Once we are confident that a solution provider is reasonably eager to work with you, we would then have you draw out a referral agreement with us.
The referral agreement makes it a point that we would get a certain, mutually agreed referral fee, ‘should’ you decide to sign-up with the service provider we introduced you to. Once you sign the referral agreement, we will introduce you to the provider. It is now up to you and the provider directly to assess each other and see if there is a business fit.
If you sign up with the service provider, then we deem the project to be successful and the referral fees are due to us.
Sadly, people started to abuse this too much. Once a provider(s) was known to them, many would approach the provider directly through alternative means and set up new companies and refuse to pay. Many would just be window-shopping or be lingering on with no need of ever signing up. All this has caused a lot of our time to be wasted and go uncompensated.
So we have decided to change the rules.
How We Charge Now:
Starting from the 1st of January 2020, here is how we would charge/bill.
Application assessment fees are non-refundable and are pre-paid.
After a referral agreement is signed, 25% of the amount is due. This is refundable (as per the refund policy).
Once your due diligence is completed, an additional 25% of the total amount is due. This too is refundable as per the refund policy.
Once you sign the commercial contract with the solution provider, the balance payment of 50% is then due.
This separates the free-loaders and window-shoppers from who are serious and value the information & services being provided to them.
As stated above, starting from 1st of January 2020, we will be phasing out the 100% success-based model, with the more practical, deposit-first, milestone led billing model.
The seriousness comes at a price and requires that clients pay a partial amount up-front so we know that they are serious.
If you have any questions/comments about this. Please feel free to ask.
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This page was last updated on September 15, 2022.
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