I used to own a market research firm, and we’d do just about anything for a buck. You need focus groups? No problem. You need a conjoint study? We’re your guys. Mall intercepts? Let me get out my clipboard.
I found by offering such a broad set of services, we never really got good at any one thing. We had consultants doing certain types of projects only once or twice a year, so they lacked experience and got intellectually rusty. We needed all sorts of people to offer such a broad set of services, making the business neither scalable nor sellable. Eventually we decided to change models and offer one set of research papers to all of our clients on a subscription basis.
The subscription business started off well enough, but along the way, someone asked us if we still did focus groups. It was like a recovering addict being offered a fix. We jumped at the opportunity to do the project. The problem was that people noticed the crack in our resolve and burrowed a large hole in our claim of being specialists. Clients realized we weren’t totally committed to the subscription model and started asking for customization to our reports and one-off side projects. My employees noticed we had strayed from our offering and started accepting other projects — much like a child seeing his parents say one thing and do another.
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Author: John Warrillow
