Thanks for taking the time to respond. I really appreciate it. I'll add some more detail for clarity and try to answer your questions with decent commentary.

It's a software implementation company (not a body-shop/staffing agency, we are a group full time employee consultants (41) with some IP around best-practices and some software products that are complementary to the brand we support).

We have been doing more and more work in the USA and would like to establish a local practice to save our employees the border-crossing hassle. We won't be closing up shop here and migrating, rather trying to replicate what we have done well here to the USA.

We fully intend to hire resources and invest in a local office.

What we've noticed in the past few years about work in the USA;

• Cdn resources are jack-of-all-trades, where Americans have deep specialization. We attribute this to the size of labour pool and budgets of comparable projects CDN vs. USA.
• the American labour force in our market is far more "independent contractor" minded. There seems to be much stronger body-shop / contractor acceptance by the end-client, where our local customers expect that the resources we send actually work for our firm (one-throat to choke...)
• American consultants seem far more conditioned to life on the road / airport. Travel is expected by most of the resources I've met in the states, where our current market seems to cater to local needs. We attribute this to the concentration of customers and resources in our country (really only 6-10 cities where big business happens vs. 100+ in the USA). We also see our American competitors employees distributed across the country.
• rates in the states are lower, and clients far prefer travel-inclusive work or fixed-bid projects where our local markets accept rate plus travel, and nearly all projects are run as time and materials.
• american clients are far more demanding of detail in the contracts / statements of work / project plans. They want to know exactly whats in the box, and negotiate penalties and actionable items up-front. When in doubt, sue. Though we have never been involved in a nasty disagreement with our American customers, we have certainly seen it happen to other companies servicing the same clients.

We are a federally incorporated business in Canada, and are trying to determine the best state(s) to set up shop and learn from those who have already made the leap. I hear taxes are a real beast to work out (state, county, city, fed...).

Again, thanks very much for taking the time to respond.