Talking to a COO type recently he asked me how I prove the return on investment if they engage me and my team’s services. We proceeded to talk about his business, and what regard they had for current performance data.

The answer, as in many cases, was a vague “we’re getting there…”

We went further… Talked about historical benchmarking performance, pilot testing, and the efficacy of indirect vs direct sales channels.

Going beyond the anectodal… We proceeded to outline some ways to set in motion how they could implement some test programs to learn within a few months how to validate and track performance of a particular business strategy.

This took all of 20 minutes to provide some direction and what he might do…

But he won’t pursue… Why? Symptomatic of many mid-market size companies with entrepreneurial roots (e.g. revenue of $200MM+), they pride themselves on instincts and strong personalities to guide their early success.

Trouble is the organization grows, and success is less sustainable or repeatable. Then the charismatic Founder/CEO rails against the bureaucracy that has been created, and insists that people have lost faith with the vision of the company.

As an operating executive, it’s very difficult to indicate ROI in me if I don’t know what’s under the hood of the business. Moreover, if a company has no or limited regard for a research discipline, then it’s a fools game to even contemplate suggesting a return.

In such situations my position has been to convince a company to engage me on an extended period to implement, (where I know they won’t on their own), to develop and execute what we discussed in 20 minutes.

Only in this context can business success really be achieved and commonsense has a chance to prevail.