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"Experts" are often dumb and educated, a lot of times overrated.
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I can't believe how annoying it is when people on Reddit say "huh, this guy is not a psychologist" or when somebody talks about war in the news and then people are just like "Is he a researcher who spent 10 years on the matter? No? Invalid."
In my life I have found than a majority of people are simply not impressive and shallow. Even if you tell me after that you are a psychologist bro, if you don't have judgment in your life and you just been to school for a long time, I may not value your opinion more than a wise uneducated man that has common sense.
Sometimes I see really good, down the earth declarations or comments and people are so quick to dismiss because of no expert titles and then go onto freaking crazy dumb idea said by a "titled" person. Like man, did you even READ and THINK what this guy just said? They saw "expert" and stopped thinking for themselves.
Start exercising your critical thinking please.
-Expert in psychology, I know my stuff.
Top Comment: Depending on the context, though experts are not perfect and some might be outright bad, they're still more trustworthy than a non-expert. Ideally you would want to hear from many different experts, not just trust a single person.
Speak With a Reddit Ads Expert
Main Post: Speak With a Reddit Ads Expert
Advice for Experts 2025
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As an EN employee there are some recent trends in the industry that have caused headaches for both experts and ENs. Thought it might be good to share some advice for 2025!
Other EN staff feel free to add to it!
- Don’t list ENs in your LinkedIn. With EN becoming more common, a lot of people have started adding “advisor - Guidepoint” etc to their LinkedIn. At a lot of networks (mine included) this triggers our automatic blocklist/do not contact system, as we do not recruit experts from competitors/clients.
- No frilly language: while opening statements on LinkedIn are nice, they don’t really say much “talented marketing executive with team leadership, drive, blah blah”. Try to be specific about what your experience is in. “Led marketing campaigns for FMCG in UK, DE, and ND using tools like X, Y, and Z”. These trigger keywords that we’re looking for, and also help job recruiters headhunt you for other jobs!
- Be careful what you click. Often times an expert will click our “stop receiving emails” link on a project invitation, as they want to remove one of the 3 emails they have on their profile from the mailing list. However, this blocklists the profile as not wanting to be contacted anymore! It’s better to just email the firms expert relations team and ask them to do it.
- Be nice to associates; I know the industry can be frustrating, however associates that are your POC have very little say in what’s happening. They don’t choose the screening questions, they don’t choose the interviewee, they don’t decide to reschedule etc. and have a lot of pressure to meet certain targets. Most are fresh grads; and being “strict” with an associate is the fastest way to end up on a do not contact list.
- “I know what I’m worth. Pay the $1500 an hour or don’t contact me”. While I completely understand valuing your time; please be reasonable and don’t under estimate the existence of alternatives. (For example one expert told me their rate was $3000/h non negotiable as they know they are a rare expert and we need them. He was a middle manager as a fortune 50 company. I assure you there is an alternative expert for every dollar on that rate haha).
- For the love of all that is holy; unless asked by the client, don’t make political commentary 😂. We’ve had a number of recent incidents (mainly with US experts) making offhand political comments that clients have taken offence to. They clients want to hear about the industry, not how “XX politician is decreasing the number of X nationality coming in and stealing jobs, which is great!”
Top Comment: Thanks for the advice. Do EN companies talk to each other? I ask because of your advice on #1.
How did you become a subject matter expert (serious)
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Looking for actual advice ---
Trying to determine what are the best steps to take if I want to be seen as a subject matter expert. How did you study? What processes did you take up?
Top Comment: I read a 170-page training deck
My First Experience with Expert Network
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A few weeks ago, I was contacted by Dialectica, Coleman, GLG, Guidepoint, and AlphaSights. At first, I was hesitant because I wasn’t sure if these expert networks were legit. But I decided to do some research, and luckily, I came across this Reddit group, which gave me the confidence to give it a try. After all, it’s just an hour of my time.
Here’s what happened: Coleman initially offered me $850/hour, while Dialectica came in with $150/hour. Dialectica was incredibly quick to get back to me, so I decided to negotiate. I mentioned that another network (Coleman) had offered me $850/hour, and to my surprise, Dialectica bumped their offer up to $450/hour.
When Coleman reached out again, they told me that since I’d already accepted another offer, it would be a hassle for their client. They said they’d keep me in mind for future projects and wished I had been offered the same rate with them instead.
In the end, I decided to move forward with Dialectica. I completed the consultation, and guess what? I received the payment today!
I’m so happy I gave this a shot. This experience taught me to not be afraid to negotiate and to trust the process. If you’re considering trying expert networks, do your research, trust your instincts, and go for it. It could definitely be worth it!
Also, if anyone is interested in reaching out to me for future projects, please don’t hesitate to connect. I’d be happy to explore more opportunities!
Top Comment: Congrats on your first call! What made you averse to Coleman? It is a top 5 firm in terms of size, and $850 > $150.
The death of expertise- being an expert doesn't mean much these days, and that sucks
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Carl Sagan warned us with his prescient quote about sliding back into superstition in 1995. Since then, it's become abundantly clear that being a professional expert working in your field, especially a STEM field, basically means nothing to a large portion of the American population. The top scientists and researchers in each field are collaborating globally with hundreds or thousands of colleges, research centers, corporate labs, and many independent wealthy people running their own tests. Despite this, there is a very popular conspiracy theory (especially among the right) that the vast majority of scientists and researchers are either being paid individually to lie and falsify test results, being intentionally miseducated about their field, or are part of a giant organization that exists to trick the general population and hide the truth regarding various scientific subjects.
This is all a load of crap that is destroying the professional institutions of learning, and discrediting the hard work and amazing technology being utilized.
To be clear, I am not suggesting that experts are infallible, or that we should trust experts without question, or that an appeal to authority is always a good thing. I'm not suggesting that experts always tell the whole truth, or that the partial capture of academia by monied interests isn't a problem. We are all humans in the end, we all have a price of corruption. I am suggesting, however, that the vast majority (90% or more) of each field's experts are just regular people doing their job without an ulterior motive. Just like you, reading this right now, probably go to work and do your job to the best of your ability and go home at the end of the day to enjoy family or hobbies or what have you, so do they. If the suggestion that most electricians or plumbers are being paid off by George Soros to sell you lies about the dangers of electricity or sewage sounds stupid to you, then so should the suggestion that most doctors or virologists or economists are being paid off to lie. Conspiracy theorists are happy to link you to studies that seem to prove their side, but when countered with properly peer-reviewed studies they fall back onto the corruption and lying scientists with globalist agendas.
Ultimately, I do not see a return to the respect that being a professional at the top of your field should warrant any time soon. Take Dr. Fauci for example, he has been in charge of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022, almost 40 years of being one of the top experts in his field. Because of Covid and the idea that taking measures to deal with a deadly disease somehow made Trump look bad during an election year, that administration decided to vilify the health experts to score political points. Did Fauci misspeak or fail to elaborate on things like how the guidelines on masking or returning to school were crafted? Sure he did. Does that mean he was not serious about preventing as many people from getting sick as possible? Of course not, what an insult to his profession. In what world does it make sense to vilify health experts during a global pandemic? It's sad how little being highly educated and highly experienced in a specific topic means to somebody, if they happen to be saying something that goes against a political belief or worldview.
I'd be glad to hear your thoughts on this phenomenon or how it could be fixed in the future. Or am I totally off-base with my thinking? Thanks for reading.
Top Comment: I think you are exactly right - in the USA, in any case. This is driven by the Republican political party. It's been going on a long time, but since Trump it's gotten far worse. Most of those people driving it are extremely well educated. They know what they are doing. It's easier to control ignorant, uneducated masses, especially those who are strongly indoctrinated into Christianity. The middle east uses the Muslim religion, USA uses Christianity. This way they can make moral arguments to sway people instead of having to actually use logic, because their positions are not logical. Taking away women's rights isn't logical, but when you frame it as a moral position (women shouldn't murder babies) it suddenly becomes the moral and right thing to do. Trump lies like he breathes, yet Christianity teaches people to be lambs of God and follow, not lead. Makes the whole "sheep" argument the right uses against anyone who doesn't follow rather shallow. Hopefully the US rights itself and this was simply a pendulum swing into a better future where people return to a more centrist position of healthy scepticism paired with an appreciation of expertise.
what is your favourite expert network?
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I've only used Silverlight (and from 2 calls, they only paid one, so if someone works there would love to talk to you). I'm looking for other platforms, particularly those that focus on 1h calls and where one can remain annonymous (rather than having a visible profile on their website). Which one do you recommend?
Top Comment: Third Bridge is my favorite. Decent flow of work and payment in two-three days.
Expert Network Industry: Race to bottom?
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I have been in the industry for a couple of years at a medium sized EN and I can see the management team & employees getting fatigue/close to burnout, as well as in other large ENs. I hope to connect with other employees or experts in the industry to share opinions & experience.
Here are my observations:
- Commoditization of the industry and relationships that become more and more transactional which translates to worse relationships with clients & experts, and lower response rates, except from a small % of experts. Besides, most ENs compete with the same small number of experts on the same projects. Aggregators did sound interesting at first but they actually make the industry become more commoditized (we use them).
- More competitors in the market day after day, and clients who do not mind using 4 to 10 vendors on the same project (or more with aggregators), which makes the above effect worse = snowball effect.
- Clients merely see expert networks/platforms as agents/short term recruiters and do not view them highly (i.e. a client survey from Guidepoint last year shows that investment and consulting client users do not want to meet their expert network providers in person).
- Margins seem high at first but they are not that interesting for a people business. Assuming 50% gross margin & a hourly rate of $1,000, an EN needs to do 100 calls to generate $50k. The work required to set up 100 calls is pretty tedious, and long (it takes an average associate 3 to 5 months to generate this revenue at many ENs). Now compare this to any recruiting company, they take 20% of the yearly salary. Any placement at $100k would net them $20k in commissions, and one recruiter is expected to close 1 such hire per week (hence 80k profit per month)! An expert network associate will never generate this level of profit at an EN, at best 30k per month for high performers. Also, agencies have way less fixed & variable costs (labor, compliance, scheduling, recruiting as employee turnover is very high etc). This business model is not that profitable and is tedious compared to many other service businesses.
- Most of my past colleagues/friends at top 3 ENs or smaller told me they are happier and have better jobs/careers after leaving the industry.
- I have met countless former EN employees and none want to go back. It's incredibly rare for someone to return to the industry, and this is true across all geographies and ENs.
- I am confident this industry was great to be in 10 to 20 years ago when there were only a few players, and differentiation between ENs existed. This industry will be getting worse, and no one has found a practical solution yet, probably because it is too small of a market. Most "tech" companies in the industry have gone bankrupt, and/or talent have left for other industries.
I think that in 5 to 10 years, a large tech company (LinkedIn?) will be developing a separate Upwork-like platform based on their LinkedIn database to automate the process. High value experts/clients will be served by a small number of humans.
They have not done it yet because the expert network market size is insignificant (2B/year), but if this industry actually grows (there are threats for it to decline due to various external factors including how clients access information today) that is something that is likely to happen. What do you think?
Top Comment: Interesting topic. i have been an executive at one of the leading networks and also have my thoughts on the industry. - Overall market: I think for traditional networks, the days of big growth are over. Over the last 10 year, growth in the industry was mostly driven by consultancies starting to use the service. From CDD-only to a much wider application. Now, PE activity is lower than before while the usage of networks on strategy cases is on a mature level. There is not much to expect there. The Investor market (PE...) is anyway covered and relatively stable. At the same time, I dont think Corporate clients will adopt ENS usage that much. - Consolidation: I dont believe in that. Same as in the consulting industry. it has been announced to come for decades but nothing really happening. Why? Over recent years, the share of wallet of the major networks has actually declined, meaning new entrants are still gaining market share. the barriers to enter this market are just too low, while the benefit of taking over another network are low. Any big network already has contracts in place with most key accounts, so you are paying a lot to just get teams that are leaving within 2 years anyway, while other networks wil capture business from those account in the meantime. - Profitability/Margins: This is interesting. I am surprises to see that some networks (even established ones) are not that profitable. My networks was! Gross margin is typically 60-75% or you have serious issues with prices and advisor fees! Depending on the team setup, a PM can generate 50-500 (!) calls per month. At an average call price of $1100 this means the PM is generating ~40k-385k gross margin per month! The actual issue is salary levels as most networks have offices in the most expensive locations which makes absolute no sense for their business. Just to give you an idea: Associate in NYC would be ~$80k, in UK/GER it would be 50-60% of that, in some other countries it would be less than 25% of NYC salary. So where should you have your offices? - Commoditisation: I have observed two opposing trends with consulting clients. Less experienced accounts (and users) were still increasing the number of networks they would use, while more and more mature users and accounts would actually consolidate their portfolio of vendors. (with PE and Corporate clients, this is anyway the case already). On the long run, I assume most consulting firms will focus on 2-3 networks vs 3-16 today. This will make business for many networks even harder, while it will make a smaller number of networks more profitable (it makes a huge difference whether you get 2 out of 10 calls when 5 networks are competing or you are getting 5 out of 10 competing with only one network). - Expert fatigue: This will become a bigger and bigger issue. With too many networks competing, and everyone being fed up with cold mails, endless screening,... I expect that expert responsiveness will go down. - Aggregators: While this is a great idea on paper, it comes with challenges. Reducing the whole admin part of coordinating many networks is a huge benefit. At the same time, using a long list of relatively small networks is a compliance risk and will increase "noises" on sensitive cases in the market. Expert fatigue will increase. So when the aggregator has too many networks, it is bad. but if they reduce it to a rational number, you dont have the benefits. My assumption is, that the best and largest users of networks will rather do their own little aggregator tool inhouse, while sticking to a lower number of trusted networks - Tech developments: No, LinkedIn will not offer sth like this. It makes no sense for them to deal with the many details and nuances the business needs. Very much like Microsoft would never build sth like Think-Cell although it makes total sense for anyone using Powerpoint. What I rather expect it that the help of LLM can totally revolutionise the business. LLM can read the client brief, reach out to the right experts, answer their questions, chat with the client and book calls. In an industry that is so labour intense, this could be a game changer. Especially, LLM could be used to recycle previous screening responses so experts dont have to be screened all the time
What makes the reddit 'expert' and how should I interact with them?
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Hey. Just wondering about some of the functions of reddit and how and why certain individuals on here speak on complex issues with such certainty. Often times it is individuals who are extremely active and are constantly engaging in debates and defending positions / opinions as truths.
If there are any credetialed experts who have interacted with lay people on certain subject matters, could you tell me your experiences and lessons learned by interacting with such individuals? As it's often confusing to me why I hold positions that are 'wrong' due to a different epistemological paradigm some may adhere by.
Top Comment: Arguing with strangers online is futile and a waste of time.