Why should I hire a consultant?

• Consultants help bring a different set of eyes to a problem, or can help identify areas for improvement.  Often it’s less expensive to hire a consultant to help identify, ask and answer questions than it is to make an error which may be financially or politically costly.  Also, Consultants bring the experience of other clients to your organization.  One of the most important things a consultant can do is to help you avoid the mistakes that other organizations have made.

What types of organizations have you worked with in the past?

• Our consultants have worked with large and small fire departments (including volunteer departments), K12 schools and small businesses.    We have also worked with small non-profits and community sports teams.  Unlike most consulting firms, we are happy to refer you elsewhere if we cannot handle your account or lack experience with similar organizations.

What types of experience do you have?

• The principal consultants that work with Starks-Keys primarily come from protective service backgrounds, but we draw from a variety of experiences and backgrounds including education, public health, public administration, marketing, community organizing, behavioral economics, psychology, and sociology.

How much should I expect to pay for services?

• All of our services start with an analysis of your organization.  Our website doesn’t display any pricing because this analysis can vary drastically by the size of your organization.  We can also focus on single operational units within an organization if requested.  After we have seemed background information about your organization, we can supply you with a price quote.  Public Schools, non-profits, and volunteer fire departments may qualify for special pricing or other payment options.  Contact us for price quotes.

Do all Starks-Keys services require a site visit?

• No.  While every organization is unique, an organizational analysis typically requires a site visit to understand both the organization and local structure. These visits are typically one to two days.  For other services, visits can be flexible, and the length of visit dents on the organization and the service requested.  Conference calls and video conferencing can also be an option for initial conversations, results sharing, and planning.  Complete solution packages typically require multiple visits.

Does Starks-Keys host workshops? Can you facilitate guest speaker requests?

• Workshops, training and requests for speaking engagements can be handled on a case by case basis.  If you attended an event where one of our consultants spoke, it is possible that the presentation you witnesses was a customized for that organization.  While speaking engagements and train-the-trainer courses are not one of our principal services, we will facilitate requests that fit into our schedule and skill set.  To ensure that speaking engagements are appropriate for your organization, an analysis is still recommended, but not necessarily required.  Contact us for more details. 

Can you provide sample materials or examples from past customers?

• Starks-Keys strongly discourages the practice of attempting to copy or transplant the work from other organizations, especially for public agencies.  We may bring these items up during discussions or as anecdotal information, but integrating them into a plan of action only occurs after a thorough analysis.  Differences in your past practices, laws, political structure, financial resources, geography, traditions and even the weather will alter the solutions for your agency.  Attempting to cherry pick the components from another process and adopt them to your can be disastrous if you lack the supporting structure that the source organization had.  Organizations are typically unaware of how these factors affect their daily operations, and often these items do not make it into the final documentation of an organization's plan.