This document has detailed information about payment, how to contact us, set up and access appointments, and any other information we need to send to you. A downloadable copy is available on the "Hourly Consulting" page. We use a number of great technologies to help us give you an excellent consulting experience. And since global policy development can be overwhelming enough, we want to ensure that working with us doesn’t add to it.

This document should guide you easily through the various services we use. But if you get stuck at any point, feel free to contact our consulting support at: support@karenjuddsmith.com.

Payment

To begin, please purchase one or more hours of consultation using our secure shopping cart at https://gde.training/hourly-consulting-service. Just click on “Click Here to Purchase” and it will take you directly to the shopping cart. Check out of the shopping cart by paying directly with your credit card or through PayPal.

• When you purchase a block of hours, you are purchasing four hours of consulting. You can use this in a combination of consultation meetings, email questions, or time for your consultant to work out the details of your plans and strategies.

• Although meetings are generally scheduled for an hour, only the time used will be counted against your balance, rounded to the nearest 15 minutes. For example, a meeting that lasts only 20 minutes will be billed for ¼ hour.

• Occasional email questions that are very quick to answer (under 5 minutes) will not count against your balance. Longer or more frequent emails will. This is up to the discretion of your consultant. We’re not in the business of nickel and diming people, but we do need to account for a lot of time put into a project.

• Prepaid blocks of hours can be used for up to one year from the date of payment if prior arrangements are not made. If you find you will need to use remaining time beyond a year, we’re happy to extend that. We just can’t leave accounts open for years. Please let us know if you need to extend the use of your hours beyond one year.

• Prepaid blocks of hours are only refundable if we determine that we are unable to adequately help you. They are not refundable if you find you needed less time than you paid for, so please only purchase as many hours as you are sure you’ll need. You can easily add on time in one-hour increments.

If your department, grant, or institution is paying for your statistical consulting and requires an invoice and/or payment by check, contact us at support@gde.training to make arrangements. All checks must be in US dollars.

We are happy to supply a W9, and invoice, and a CV for your consultant. Some institutions require additional paperwork beyond that. Please understand that we are a small organization, and that this puts quite a burden on us. Therefore, we will need to charge a $25 administration fee for this additional paperwork.

Appointments

Appointments can be made through our online scheduling system. When you purchase a consultation and send in your New Client Questionnaire, you will be sent a link to schedule meetings with your consultant. If you are in a time zone that makes the available consulting time untenable, just let us know and we can arrange specific meeting times that work for you.

We strive to schedule all appointments within a week of request. Our busiest times of year are fall (September-November) and late winter (February-April). During these times, you may need to allow more lead-time to make appointments.

Should you need to cancel an appointment, please notify your consultant as early as possible. If you are late or do not show up for an appointment, we will wait 15 minutes and you will be billed for that time at your regular rate.

If for any reason, you show up for an appointment and your consultant is not there, you should call our office right away. It is rare, but it has happened that the system failed to connect the two waiting parties.

Web Meetings

We use appear.in for our web meetings unless you are expecting more than 8 in each session. Y ou only need one of the supported browsers: Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox or Opera. For you this means no plugins or installation.

Any time we are using new technologies take a little time to familiarize yourself so we suggest you arrive a few minutes early the first time. This service is free for you to use and we will record every session and make it available to you in your members area so you can watch and work through the recommended activities at your own pace at a later date. Having this resource alone is a great advantage for you.

We look forward to working with you to solve any strategic, tactical or funding issue you are facing as you plan to use your expertise to upgrade global policy!