Know-How Exchange : Research/Metrics

Hi Will,

Depending upon what you're looking for, a good first try would be the US Census.

https://www.census.gov/

For psychographic information, try Claritas, specifically the PRIZM Clustering system.

https://www.claritas.com/MyBestSegments/Default.jsp

Many people often find that it saves them a lot of time and resources to have a consultant navigate them through the options and data that are available.

Good luck!

You should probably think about exactly what the deliverables are. The consulting fee will depend on what you want and how much time/effort the consultant would expect to put in to deliver against your expectations.

Don't accept an hourly fee. Get a fixed fee quote for exactly what you want. The hourly fee can be very misleading. A real expert can probably deliver more value in less time than a less experienced person who charges less per hour. Usually the person with the HIGHEST hourly rate is the most cost effective solution to the problem ... because they can do the job faster and better than the lower-cost (per hour) alternative.

I agree with mgoodman - I think you need to figure out exactly what you want and find out from some consultants what they would do to approach your problem. Sometimes it's not what they charge that matters as much as whether they understand your problem, have experience finding the solution and "click" with you when you talk to them.

One possible website you might also want to explore is SCORE -

https://www.score.org/index.html

A SCORE volunteer can help you define your problem and what you want to get out of a consulting arrangement so that you can choose the consultant who would be a good fit for you.