3 REASONS RESEARCH & INSIGHTS INITIATIVES FAIL

1) INSUFFICIENT PLANNING

Guarding against this means answering these questions: Are there disconnects in the goals various stakeholders have for the initiative? Do people even agree on who the stakeholders and end-audiences are? Are goals realistic given the available budget and internal resources needed to go from planning → execution → implementation → socialization? Are there competing projects and initiatives that will compromise the value of the initiative at hand?

2) INADEQUATE "HANDS-ON-DECK

I am a firm believer that when one-too-many meatballs get placed on top of a pile of spaghetti, it’s inevitable that at least one meatball, if not an avalanche of meatballs, is going to roll off, hit the floor, get stepped on or eaten by the dog (maybe both!). Yet all too often, projects suffer when a staff member leaves and work gets distributed, when management adds a host of internal tasks (aka: more meatballs) to the workday, or you know, something like a global pandemic hits, adding strain and impacting company productivity. Short cuts and skipped steps on the way to a project milestone are always risky, yet are all too common. Don’t let your meatballs hit the floor. Instead, send them my way.

3) A LIMITED VISION OF "DATA"

No one loves survey data more than me. Less than one year into my market research career, I found myself literally surrounded by 16,000 Yankelovich Monitor completed mail-in survey booklets. I loved every minute of it: troubleshooting when respondent-level data contradicted itself, figuring out when things might have gone wrong in data entry, exploring how to present the data in ways that made it easy for analysts to use. But quant data isn’t the end-all-be-all. Observational, secondary, social and qualitative research findings are all data – and when used together, the sum of the whole is—or at least should be—greater than the sum of its parts.

If you see your organization in any one or more of the above scenarios, reach out and let’s talk. I bring a consultative approach to the work that I do and have been rewarded with long-lasting, meaningful client relationships. In fact, I measure my success through the strength of my client relationships:

• Do clients come back to me for advice and project work, big or small?
• Have I made my client look good for their internal (and external) stakeholders?
• Do I see my client’s company or brand act on what was learned from a project I ran or contributed to?
• Is the work cited in conversations that are had six months, one-year, five-years after the project has been completed?
• Do clients trust me to embark on something new with them? Whether it’s a new idea, a new type of research initiative, a new type of research methodology?
• Are clients generous in sharing their and their team’s challenges and struggles with me?

My fee structures include hourly rate, project-based fee, or retainer agreements. Phone and zoom calls to explore whether we’d make a good team are always free. Project to employment work is welcomed. I hope to hear from you soon!