How to Fix Bad Research Reports
Last week I learned about a surprising niche of marketing specialists that I never knew existed: Consultants who fix terrible reports written by market research vendors. Not to toot our horn too loudly, but I received this note from Gary Schmidt, Chief Catalyst of West End Consulting, who does just this type of consulting:
Joe, I just had the pleasure of seeing the report you prepared for [client]. Absolute best report I’ve EVER seen prepared by a research supplier.
This made me feel great, of course. I think we do good work. We invest huge efforts to make every study and every report the best we can. And I was glad to learn that our report was not one of those that needed to be fixed! But I also wanted to know exactly what we had done that worked and that showed itself so clearly. “What made it good?” I asked. His answer:
- It was brief
- It was focused
- It was rich with powerful, easy-to-grasp insights
- It reflected careful listening to the client and delivered exactly what was asked for
Of course, the high quality of the report wasn’t all our doing—it was a shared effort with our client. She knew what she wanted and needed for her leadership team. She explained her needs clearly and directly to us. She gave us great feedback. We adapted our work to her needs. We turned data into a story that she could use and share with her research team and with her non-research business partners.
Gary continued: “We work with a lot of supplier research reports. As far as we can tell, it seems most are sold by weight. Pages and pages of mice type and research gibberish. Which means the client has to re-write the whole report (or have us re-write it) to make it suitable for an intelligent and focused discussion with their business partners. Yours was a refreshing exception. . . . The unwillingness (or inability) of most research suppliers to provide their clients with “management-ready” reports is what keeps us so busy.”
Tired of fixing bad research reports from your vendors? Reach out to Gary at West End Consulting Group at (626) 200-6525. He’s an expert who can re-work those reports to make them more useful. Even better, next time you start a research project, give us a call at (312) 348-6089. We’ll help you with great research, powerful insights, and a report that is exactly what you need the first time around.