The Curse of the Independent Service Provider

from Cool Cleveland columnist Andy Birol http://www.AndyBirol.com

If life’s tough for all NEO entrepreneurs and even large businesses bemoan our community’s lack of support for taking risks, consider the burden of the Independent Service Provider (ISP). Copywriters, engineers, consultants, appraisers, artists, inspectors and planners are all examples of ISPs who have plunged into the brave new world and set up their shingle. While these companies who sell their expertise comprise the majority of our region’s and nation’s startups and successful businesses, why do local metal-bending, plastic-melting, rubber-molding folks still get more respect? I see two reasons:

• Large employers and factories are nostalgically perceived as examples of real, traditional Cleveland businesses.
• ISPs are not looked upon as adding value, creating jobs, or buying much from others.

Why should ISPs get more respect?

• In the most innovative and growing knowledge economy, ISPs are the seedlings from which big trees grow.
• If creativity is our nation’s best defense against losing jobs to low wage countries, it starts with ISPs.
• ISPs are much like bumblebees, cross-pollinating their unique expertise across larger, manufacturing businesses whose Best and Highest Use® is standardizing, not innovating.

What kind of challenges do ISPs really face in growing their businesses here in NEO?

• Our hard-earned intellectual property is undervalued by our customers, and often under protected by ourselves.
• Branding ourselves, which is the key to charging premium prices, is difficult and looked down upon as shameless-self promotion.
• From networking groups, to local awards, to membership in clubs and organizations, it is often tough to get an equal seat at the table.

What does this mean? Whether you are an artist, a computer guru, a home-based insurance agent or a massotherapist, you are not alone. Consider yourself part of the future of the local economy and just as important as your peers with buildings, machines, and people. Remember to respect yourself so that others will too.

So as an ISP you should:

• Brand, price, and market yourself no differently than any larger company.
• Never compromise your intellectual property and protect it through all your actions.
• Approach every bigger company as a peer and walk away from those who don’t reciprocate.

And NEO in general, and large companies and organizations in particular, what can you do?

• Respect and honor ISPs for the value they provide and especially the intellectual property they have created.
• Don’t encourage them to join your larger companies and abandon their unique, fledgling brands or harvest their Rolodex of contacts to sell your mature products or services.
• Consider them for the same awards and recognition afforded large companies and don’t create awards with strings attached like the COSE Ten Under Ten award, where joining the association is a requirement for winning.

Being an Independent Service Provider is very social but intellectually and physically very lonely. You may be surrounded by thousands of people but every day you must find the resolve, energy, and tenacity to go on. As a region, one way we can nurture our desperately needed economic growth is right under our noses. If we were to treat ISPs the same way they do in Seattle, the Research Triangle, or Route 128, namely, as invaluable peers, we might look a bit more like those regions we admire so much.
from Cool Cleveland contributor Andy Birol abirol@andybirol.com

 (:divend:)