As we want the collective to be an open community, there are no fees to join.
Once you have filled in the ‘Join Us’ form and we take you through our evaluation process, if you meet our criteria around experience and expertise, we ask you to join The Menagerie, our virtual network. The community acts as a support network, an opportunity to feel part of something bigger and to share ideas and projects within the TheZoo.London collective.
Further to this, we also provide consulting support and materials (feedback on proposal templates, for example), as well as access to high-value support, such as coaching and accountancy advice. We believe in the power of meeting in person and will use this network to provide free tickets and access to events, and our weekly ‘real world’ hangout.
Consulting is inspirational, it can allow you to work only on the projects you enjoy, or those that play to your strengths. It’s what we describe as ‘having your cake and eating it’.
Despite those benefits, we also recognise that many people can find the route to finding projects, and the consulting life in general, can be a little lonely at times, and you can lack that sense of team. Our strong belief is that ‘we’ is better than ‘me’, hence we created this community to help with those aspects of starting out and beyond.
Both founders of TheZoo.London have both led large and diverse teams and have hired at senior levels and built high performing teams. Marco has won multiple team awards and Rachel was recognised as CEO of the Year. Our thorough evaluation process mirrors this level of expectation, as both Founders are focused on delivering the highest quality of service and expertise through the consultants within the collective.
Our focus is on senior and experienced talent. There is so much exceptional senior talent who choose not to work in traditional full-time roles and our ambition is to harness that skill and bring those people into the Collective, and –ultimately – to connect them with clients in order to solve their challenges.
In difficult economic times, most businesses face hiring challenges but still require access to specialist expertise. That’s where TheZoo.London comes in.
Our Collective is open to all as long as they have relevant specialisms and experience, so there are no barriers. We intentionally and proactively seek diverse experts to join our Collective, as we know that diversity of experience, identity and thought are an indispensable winning quality in business.
Our inclusive Collective will be more representative as it does not function as a ‘who you know’ introduction service. Through our Partner relationships, marketing, intentional efforts and positive word of mouth we will be welcoming senior diverse talent into the collective that may not be marketing themselves on Linkedin or be someone who is ‘known’, but they are no less experienced.
No, we are a people focused company.
Rachel and Marco have spent their careers building teams and feeding off the strength that a healthy and positive team spirit can create. Both believe strongly that a ‘people first’ approach at a senior level is vital. We will be answering to challenges from AI and Automation through to becoming B Corp certified and everything in between. These meaty challenges need a team at the centre to interrogate the brief fully and be able to conjure the absolute best experts to answer them.
As a consultant, once you have registered on the ‘Join Us’ form on the site, we will be in touch to talk through your experience and skills and take you through our evaluation process.
If successful, you will be welcomed into The Menagerie and then be available to work on projects. As projects come in, we will create shortlists, follow our consultant protocol (including an NDA, to protect all parties’ confidentiality) through to the final selection made by the end client. The consultant will agree a Statement of Work (SOW) and establish deliverables (the Consulting Agreement) with the client. TheZoo.London will attend the kick-off meeting and conduct project check-ins. Once the project ends, there is an internal feedback and review process.
On receipt of a brief or opening discussion, we will discuss your challenge, budget and timing.
We will return with some options on types of experts we believe can help solve your challenge. With the Consultants’agreement, we will follow our consultant protocol (inc NDA) and work through the process to get to a final decision on appropriate consultant(s). At this stage we agree a written Statement of Work (SOW) and deliverables (the Consulting Agreement). Once the project commences, TheZoo.London will attend the kick off meeting and conduct project check-ins. Once the project ends, there is an internal feedback and review process.
We believe ‘we’ is better than ‘me’. A consultant is always free to generate their own independent business opportunities, and we in no way want to take away from that. We will bring them additional opportunities that add to their own businesses and brands. We also understand that not all consultants can afford or feel comfortable marketing themselves, and TheZoo.London does that on their behalf, to generate leads and projects. We do the heavy lifting for the consultant and help them create the freedom to design their own work life balance.
We also believe the community aspect is hugely important, and have heard this loudly and clearly from everyone we speak to. Not just the hard benefits but the soft benefits too which comes from belonging to something bigger.
TheZoo.London will streamline and professionalise the independent sector. We wish to embrace all the amazing contract talent and make them available to our clients.
Today so much of the consultancy process is a case of ‘who you know’, and that works to a point, but it represents access to a limited pool of expertise, and it means clients are missing out on talent they would never have heard of or dreamed of tapping into. At TheZoo.London we unearth this talent.
Finally if you have multiple challenges or briefs, you will have to repeat the process multiple times. With our services, a business can access a myriad of areas of expertise and support through just one brief and talent marketplace. TheZoo.London is the one-stop-shop for expertise, offering great efficiencies to clients.
We like to keep it simple.
And we will always have your back.
