Core Solutions “ISO Under $5,000” Claim Begs Scrutiny

At the risk of opening yet another front in the struggle to improve ISO 9001, I am breaking a long standing rule against challenging other consultants. To date, my philosophy has been that there’s plenty of work for everyone, so there’s no reason to get mucked up by wrangling with competitors.

But Scott Dawson’s claims for his company Core Solution need some critical analysis, if only to ensure companies know what questions to ask before signing up.

Full disclosure: Dawson runs the “ISO 9001 for Small Business” forum on LinkedIn, where he actively bans those people who don’t agree with him, including competitors. An open apologist for the US TAG and Jack West / Lorri Hunt crowd, he also won’t tolerate any questions about the US TAG that aren’t flattering. (He doesn’t call the TC 176 the “authors” of ISO 9001, he calls them the “framers” — as if they wore powdered wigs, had slaves and debated amendments to the Constitution of the United States.) Yes, I’ve been banned at his group, so I’m not enamored of the guy, but I was already underway with an article on Core Solution weeks before I knew it was run by Dawson.

I since contacted Dawson to address the points made herein, and he has declined to respond.

Fast and Cheap, Like Lola on the Corner

The Core Solution page makes some pretty wild claims about Dawson’s ability to deliver consulting services. They’re also grossly inconsistent. First comes his claim that if you hire him, you can “get ISO 9001 certified in four months for under $5,000.” That’s a lot to parse.

Let’s clear the elephant from the room. I’m the guy who invented “Rapid 40-Day ISO 9001 Implementation” which ramps up companies in two months, not four. So I am not challenging his speed, since he’s basically two times slower than I am. Instead, it’s the language.

No, Scott Dawson cannot get you “ISO 9001 certified in four months” since he doesn’t get you certified in anything. He can get you ready for certification in four months, but you don’t have your certificate at the end of it, because Core Solution isn’t a certification body. Instead, the registrar will come in after Dawson is finished, and that can take another few months. So already, the claim that Core Solution will “get you ISO 9001 certified in four months” is misleading.

Next comes that curious dollar figure. A careful analysis of Dawson’s services finds that one of his services — the one that delivers something like those ISO templates I warn people about — can in fact be delivered at that $5,000 price point. The rest is up to you, and whether you can use the templates to get yourself “certified in four months” isn’t a guarantee.  Instead, Dawson offers other service offerings, including a “Full Service” program which relies on the traditional on-site approach, and which doesn’t come near to costing $5,000, but which is the approach most likely to achieve a rapid result. But you wouldn’t know that until you contacted Dawson and subjugated yourself to his sales pitch.

Wait, I Said What Now?

Next, even Dawson isn’t sure about that dollar figure, because previously he had been advertising “Get ISO 9001 certified in four months for under $7,500.” Here’s an ad for one of his YouTube videos that still includes the old tagline:

So either he’s perfected his “templates” to such a degree he was able to shave off $2,500, or he didn’t get the response he wanted at that price point, and dropped the price. Whatever, but it’s never a good sign when your marketing disagrees with, you know… your marketing.

The dollar figure is also troubling because Dawson doesn’t say that the $7,500 $5,000 will just pay for the consulting services, he just says that is what it costs to “get ISO 9001 certified.” Again, since he doesn’t do the certification, he’s failing to alert readers that they are going to have to add on at least another $10K – 20K for the three-year contract with their registrar. This is why I’ve always been careful to indicate that my implementations take 40 days, not the certification. No consultant can control the registrar’s speed, unless you have a shady deal with one of them.

Oh, and Core Business Solutions itself  is certified itself to ISO 9001 by the registrar ABS-QE. Just saying.

What’s a Few Hundred Between Friends?

Anyway, another dubious claim is that Dawson has served “150 businesses each year.” Any consultant knows that’s a staggering number, even if you factor in companies buying cheap-o template kits:

But again, his own site doesn’t agree with the marketing. Elsewhere, he claims the number is only “100” per year:

So if Dawson’s been in business since 2000, that’s 150 clients per year, for 15 years, which means he’s taken 2,250 companies through to certification. And somehow for most of those years, the US has been losing thousands of certificates, not gaining them. Odd.

Then there’s the fact that he runs a press release for every client that gets certified using his service, and for the entire history of the site, he’s got less than fifty such press releases. If he truly had thousands of clients, one would expect to see thousands of press releases.

But it’s probably not what he means. After all, the same page also makes the claim that in the past decade Core Solution has “worked with hundreds” of companies.  That’s entirely different than 150 each year… maybe not a big deal, but it’s in the biggest font on his site. It’s more likely that Dawson has a few hundred clients in all, which would be on par for a relatively successful, healthy consulting firm run by a single person. There would be no shame in saying that, rather than claiming to have that many every 12 months.

But bathing in inconsistencies is apparently nothing unusual for Dawson. After all, here’s his LinkedIn group’s home page graphic:

Caveat Emptor in Excelsis

The real dirty part of all this is that Dawson’s targets his services to “small businesses,” which are the companies most vulnerable to this kind of marketing. They don’t have the resources to do thorough investigations of ISO consultants, and tend to be over trustworthy, so they sign up for things like this. But worse still is that these companies often don’t have the cash to recover after discovering they really didn’t “get ISO 9001 certified in four months” or that it cost more like $30,000, and not the $5,000 promised.

So, summing up, Scott Dawson can’t get you “certified” in four months, nor will it cost you under $5,000 to get “certified.” He offers a range of services that can help prepare you for certification (by someone else) and your final certification costs will exceed $5,000, since he has no control over what the third party registrar charges. It’s also highly likely he doesn’t have the number of clients he claims.

The thing is, his “Full Service” consulting program appears to work just fine; companies are opting for it, and he’s getting them certified. It’s probably a very competent service, so why not just market on the success of it? Why stretch the truth?

A reasonable response to this might be to tweak your marketing a bit. Let’s see if Dawson — who is pals with both the US TAG and certification body crowds, neither of whom are known for taking criticism well — responds reasonably. Until then, perhaps a name change is in order… instead of Core Solution, perhaps “Coarse Allusion?”