FAQs

The simple answer is neither. Choix is a pure aggregator of real-time independent talent. We facilitate introductions between the buyers and sellers of professional services. We provide the software and methodology to manage the successful completion of projects, either as individuals or teams. And we maintain a platform for our community to listen, learn and market themselves to a huge audience of buyers and consultants alike.

We provide choice to the marketplace. Choice of supplier, team, working hours, cost, and opportunity. There’s a reason we’re called Choix!

But buyers and sellers can’t simply join the platform, they have to apply. This ensures the quality on both sides of the equation. We also have our own bespoke software to track and manage the health of a project, ensuring that any issues are highlighted early and are dealt with swiftly. Once a project is complete, our sophisticated scoring system will ensure your skills and strengths are highlighted to buyers for future opportunities. 

We’re here simply to make the buying and selling of professional services fairer and more transparent for all and all through choice.

As a buyer, you can get in touch via the platform and it’s a quick and simple process of identification before you can join and enter the platform.

As an independent consultant we’ve also kept it as simple as possible whilst ensuring we maintain quality within the community. To apply you simply need to complete your bio, provide a minimum of 2 verifiable references and conduct an interview with one of our team (if you’re lucky you will no doubt meet our CEO and founder, Rollo, who loves to meet our community!). Once everything has been verified your profile will go live.

Anyone can apply but not everyone can join. 

We know everyone is different and we certainly don’t believe in putting people into boxes but a general rule is that you must have at least 3 years’ experience of consulting or 5 years in industry before joining. We’ve got a very broad church in our community, from young, driven consultants that have come straight from industry to senior ex-partners from the Big 4.

The one thing that connects them all…they’re brilliant at what they do!

We have created our own bespoke Quality Control Framework software that allows the buyers to check on the health of a project at any time. At the outset of a project the buyer will create a role within a project and then set a number of objectives against the role that the consultants have to report back on weekly. 

This ensures buyers can maintain control of a project and address any issues that are raised, quickly. It also protects the consultants from buyers moving goal posts mid-project and so it's a win-win for all. 

Like our community of consultants, our clients are also varied. We’ve got clients form the very large (FTSE100 size) to SME businesses. Their requirements do differ of course; some are after volume, some are after security cleared consultants for Government work, others are looking for consultants that fit very specific roles. No one job is the same as another but the important thing is that it is the consultant’s choice who they work with and the buyers choice of who they contact.

Choix operates 2 models to help with the buying of professional services.

The first is a resourcing model, to help buyers looking for individuals to supplement an existing internal team, lead on their own specific project or have multiple consultants working on several different projects at one time. Buyers apply to join (with early adopters paying a very simple subscription) and then once accepted are ready to go.

Today, buyers can go to recruitment agents or to other marketplace platforms but you still have no choice about who you see. They provide you with what they think is right for you. Choix is different. You and your team know who and what you need and Choix puts you, the buyer, back in control.

Create a project, lay out your requirements and set objectives for the team or individual. The algorithms we have created will then provide you with a choice of best matched individuals. You can then create saved lists of potential consultants that you believe match your requirements, check their references and Choix score and then contact them directly through the platform. It’s that simple.

Gone is the need for recruiters. The power of choice is back in your hands.

The second model is Teaming. Corporates are increasingly frustrated with the ever increasing cost of going with traditional providers. Choix’s solution? Empower teams of independent consultants, that have had successful careers at some of the world’s best consulting firms, to work on larger projects you'd normally pass onto traditional suppliers but at a fraction of the cost.

As a buyer, you can apply to bring a known and trusted independent onto your buying subscription who can then enter the database and build specific teams for you. You get quality consultants, free from the bureaucratic burden of traditional suppliers, faster and in a far more cost effective manner.

By offering you a new way of buying professional services we empower you, like our consultants, through choice.

We’ve built Choix with the consultant in mind. We know that other marketplaces will charge you a subscription whilst promising you the earth. We know others will add a 50% margin onto your day rate or even take a percentage from your day rate. We don’t believe in this model.

It’s you who has taken the leap into independence. It’s your expertise, experience and time. As such, we will not charge you to join or work.

Apply to join and once accepted you’ll get work through two different methods. Either a buyer will contact you directly for a project or you can lead or join a team of independents to go after much bigger bits of work and compete with some of the traditional providers. Indeed, if you bring in a client to us (and we've already got consultants working for organisations bring their existing clients in to use the Teaming tool) we'll give you a percentage of the buyers subscription straight back to you. 

We’ll provide you with the opportunities, the teams, contracts and the software to ensure you’re project goals aren’t being changed. All you have to do is join!

However, we are also aware that you’ll have other jobs on, and you won’t always be working on an opportunity through us. This is why we’ve worked hard to build a real community area for independents. We provide you with a space to talk, listen and learn from each other as well as a platform to market yourself to the community and buyers alike. If you have a piece of thought leadership or podcast, let us know and we’ll push it for you through our social media channels and market you, as an individual to a huge market place. 

Choix empowers you by enabling you to communicate and collaborate like never before.
 

No. We don’t want to tell you how to work. However, what we will do is provide you with the software to ensure a project runs smoothly. Our bespoke Quality Control Framework enables buyers to set objectives either against a project or different objectives against individuals within a project that can be tracked on a weekly basis.

As a buyer, your personal dashboard will show you every live project you have and how the consultants are performing against the objectives you have set. This ensures that should any issues start to arise, they are caught early and dealt with.

At the same time, the framework protects the consultant from goal posts being changed mid-project. It’s a win-win solution that has proved extremely popular.

Consultants cannot simply join Choix, they must apply. We take the quality of our consultants very seriously and as such the everyone who applies to join will have their experience verified, provide a minimum of 2 verifiable references and will have been met by one of our team. 

However, it doesn’t stop there. Whenever a consultant does a piece of work through Choix, the buyer (or in the case of large projects, their teammates) will be able to provide feedback through our sophisticated scoring system. This in turn will show future buyers or teammates not only hard skills such as sector knowledge or quality of written work but also softer skills that are becoming more and more important in our modern world.
 

We can’t make the decision for you but what we can be is an extra string to your bow for new business pipeline when you do decide. Not only that, unlike other marketplaces, we’re building a real community of consultants that can listen and learn from each other. We’ll also help market you as a consultant. If you’ve got some thought leadership you want to share, have written a white paper or even if you want to organise an online meet up, we’ll help promote this for you to our community of buyers and sellers.

We can also help with your career and earnings potential. Every consultant, when they join, will set a minimum day rate. Over time, and as they use the platform more and more, our scoring system will record all of your activity and once you’ve met some clear milestones on the platform we will allow them to apply to ‘move up’ a level. This will enable the consultant to raise their day rate in line with their experience and it allows Choix to let the world know about your success. This way, and for the first time ever, independent consultants can genuinely grow their career and earning potential digitally and remotely. 

However, it must also be noted that we always want to be better, which is why we conduct consistent feedback reviews with our community to see what is and what isn’t working and will amend the platform accordingly to the needs of the community.

Absolutely not! We don’t believe in it. Our consultants are the experts, they’re the ones taking a risk.

In fact, as a consultant you can earn money through us. You'll have a book of existing clients that will know and trust you. Instead of going to larger, more traditional suppliers, you can bring them to Choix and join their buying subscription, allowing you to build teams and go after much bigger projects but at a fraction of the price to your client. If you bring them in, we'll give you a percentage back of their subscription fee.
 

For our early adopters, we will charge a very simple (and reasonable!) subscription for access to everything on the platform. The size of your organisation and your anticipated needs will depend on which subscription we will charge. In the future this will turn into a volume-based subscription.

Quality is everything to Choix. All our consultants are interviewed and verified. Our sophisticated scoring system also allows buyers and the community to have a snapshot of what kind of consultant they are.

But we also help with the quality control of projects on the platform. Our Quality Control Framework software allows buyers to see how consultants are performing against objectives you have set on a weekly basis. This ensures buyers are full on top of how a project is performing and highlights any issues early, so that they can be addressed.