starting a governing body in my industry

[KevinC]

So I work in an industry that has no standard quality measure for the items we sell. They are not a manufacured item but a natural item with different quality levels. Myself and a few like minded people in the industry have started an info site/forum to educate our customers as there is a lot of confusion on the quality standards placed on these items(and people willing to take advantage of this)

We are now at the point were we would like to start a real governing body that could help make a standard grading system in the industry that will help all in the industry. We would like to issue a seal to all dealers that comply with honest grading standards.

I'm not talking about a cheezy meaningless group, but something along the lines of what the American Kennel club is to dog breeders, where all breeders must comply to have credibility.

Has anybody done this? What sort of issues do we need to consider - is it even possible?

Any thoughts at all on this would be greatly appreciated.

[gstick]

I believe that you would get a generally good reception by approaching the officials of existing, non-competitive industry cooperative or standards organizations. My son is a coin collector of many years. He has particular confidence in an industry organization that sets standards and has a grading service. There are many of these organizations.

Before you call or write, however, I believe that you should organize your progress to date. Summarize your purpose and assessment of the need, the typical problems faced by consumers, difficulties in grading or enforcing standards, steps you've taken to date and the levels of support or resistance that you have seen or anticipate.

Put this together in a brief manuscript that you can mail, fax, etc., make some organization contact decisions and start calling or emailing. You should get a lot of good tips and probably reference to relevant literature.

Good luck.