If we contacted you, here’s why.
TCE is an expert network. Our clients (consulting firms, corporate strategy teams, PE funds, and hedge funds) task us with recruiting operators who can answer a specific question on a paid 1-hour call. You’re hearing from us because something in your background matched a real client search. Not a job pitch.
What is an expert network?
The Continental Exchange is a primary research firm, or an expert network, and what that means is that we are research partners to:
Investors
PE funds, hedge funds, mutual funds, institutional investors, etc.
Management consulting firms
Corporations
Series A, B, C, Fortune 500, startups, mid-size, etc.
When they are looking to learn more about a specific market, they’ll ask us to recruit and track down experts from within those markets that can speak to the topics that they want to learn more about. From there we connect them for compensated phone based consultations.
Onboarding as an Industry Expert
The onboarding process begins with a mandatory introductory (intro) call scheduled via phone, WhatsApp, Google Meets, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, (etc.). We mandate an initial call for quality control purposes, to establish rapport with each expert we work with, and to answer questions for experts about the process and purposes of the research.
Anatomy of an Intro Call
- 1. Introduction - exchanging pleasantries and developing rapport.
- 2. The Continental Exchange Pitch - explanation of what we do and value add.
- 3. Pre qualifying/screening questions.
- 4. Determining hourly bill rate and introducing Terms of Engagement.
- 5. Gathering availability for scheduling.
- 6. Closing and ending well.
How engagements run.
- 1
Project brief
The client shares a brief outlining the research goals
- 2
Expert search
We identify and reach out to subject matter experts
- 3
Screening and submission
Qualified profiles shared with the client
- 4
Scheduling
Client books a 1-hour slot with the expert directly
- 5
Confirmation
Calendar invite + consultation details
- 6
Consultation and payment
Call happens, payment processed cleanly
What is an expert?
Most of the people we recruit don’t think of themselves as experts. They think of themselves as people who happened to spend five to twenty years doing a specific job. That’s exactly who we’re looking for.
An expert, in this context, is someone with first-hand operational experience inside a market our client wants to understand. Not a thought-leader. Not a credentialed advisor. Not someone with a content channel. Someone who has done the actual work.
If you’ve run a P&L, sourced a category, managed a function, sat on a deal team, sold into a vertical, or built a product in a specific industry, and you can speak to what you saw, you’re the kind of person our clients want to talk to. Tenure matters less than relevance to the question we’re asking.
The fastest way to know: ask whether the question we sent makes sense to you. If it does, you’re probably the right person to answer it.