executives consultants incorporated

The bid system is a dangerous way to select any kind of professional service.

There's a better way….
….a way to identify your problems, reduce risk and uncertainty, and give you more control over the selection process.

The Association Resource Audit™
Simple. Inexpensive. Invaluable.

The Association Resource Audit™ is a concise and powerful fact-finding process. It was developed out of years of management experience to give your association and Executives Consultants Incorporated (or any management firm) a thorough understanding of your association's problems, resources, and strengths.

It's a probing, analytical tool which, despite its brevity, can give the association and the management firm more vital information, more quickly, than any other fact-finding protocol we've ever encountered ... and we've been in the management business since 1965.

Why an audit?

We want to listen, not sell.

No true professional can or will try to adequately define problems on the basis of a brief conversation with a few association principals or, worse yet, bid specifications. The professional listens instead of talking. The professional digs out facts instead of selling. The bid/proposal system almost always results in one thing: selling the association pre-packaged services — not bringing rigorous, disciplined thought to bear on the association's needs. In essence, it's an attempt to sell solutions to problems that haven't been defined. The Audit, on the other hand, defines your situation without prejudice.

An example:

An association asks for bids from several management firms. The request for bids is based on the belief the association's problem is too few members. The request asks for proposals based on creating a high-powered membership campaign.

  • Firm A responds quickly with a budget based on developing a direct mail campaign.
  • Firm B takes a little longer, studies the logistics of reaching prospective members, and comes back with a more detailed proposal involving direct response, using magazines as well as mail, at a correspondingly higher cost.
  • Firm C doesn't make a proposal based on the bid request. After asking questions and listening, Firm C comes back with a penetrating analysis of the association's real problem: low membership isn't a result of bad campaigns, but of a negative perception of the effectiveness of the association.

Firm C says, in effect, "as it now stands, no membership campaign will solve your problem. What's needed is basic research to find out the nature of that negative perception … and how to change it."

This is the kind of information the Association Resource Audit™ digs out before the association wastes a cent on programs based on incomplete data.

Association Resource Audit™ prepared for your association by Executives Consultants Incorporated

Your association isn't too large or too small to profit
by an ECI Association Resource Audit™

The Audit™ cost is low for two reasons:

(1) with over 50 YEARS of experience, we conduct the Audit™ very efficiently; and

(2) we believe The Audit™ helps us develop a closer relationship, and in case we do business in the future, we have a head start. In that respect, The Audit™ is a prudent investment.

Let's make this abundantly clear, however; there is no obligation to choose ECI as a supplier of professional services after The Audit™.  The Audit™ helps you make the best choice for your association.

The ECI Association Resource Audit™:
a time-saving, money-saving way to gain control of the selection process.

  • Helps all concerned understand association resources, strengths, and problems.
  • Reduces risks in decision-making by clarifying issues.
  • Summarizes alternative solutions; focuses attention on objectives.
  • Reduces misunderstanding; fosters unified action by board, committees, and members.
  • Helps set guidelines for evaluating present and future programs.
  • Helps governing body make program decisions.
  • Provides written record of resources and problems.
  • Promotes common understanding of needs and objectives.
  • Documents resources currently available.
  • Pinpoints resources needed to meet program objectives.

You wouldn't build a house or invite contractors to bid without a blueprint. The ECI Association Resource Audit™ can be an integral part of your association's blueprint.

True professionals consider the bid/proposal selection process inefficient at best ... dangerous at worst.

There's a better way.

The ECI Association Resource Audit™.
Quickly, inexpensively, it gives you facts you need to choose professional services for your association.

It gives you control over the selection process. It defines your association's problems so you can determine whether you're being offered fundamentally sound solutions to your problems, or being sold pre-packaged services. Of over 300 association management firms in the U.S., to our knowledge, only ECI offers the Association Resource Audit™.

Today, call or write our president,
Robert C. LaGasse, for information.
There's no obligation.

Executives Consultants Incorporated
7809 FM 179, Shallowater, TX 79363
T: 806.832.1304 / F: 806.832.5244
E: r.lagasse@assnctr.com