I recall reading Malcom Gladwell’s book, “Blink” circa 2005 and have found myself revisiting its central themes time and time again with respect to the power of first impressions on individuals. Humans have largely come to understand the universal truism of first impressions and their impact on how a person will make decisions, establish connections, and relate to a situation in a favorable or unfavorable manner. Personally, or professionally, we are constantly processing inputs and experiences and classifying them in host of ways. We can try to move past the impression that someone or something engenders within us but that seems a lot to ask for by a brand that didn’t present well.

Bias comes in many forms and it is a huge and likely impossible task to account for the entire spectrum given human diversity. Groups have norms, cultures have commonalities, professions have their own characteristics and individuals have their personal expectations, pressures, beliefs etc., that they apply to their experiences and interactions. Some brands can pull off widespread appeal across various markets and segments whereas other have to extensively target and drill into the characteristics of the audiences they want to market to.

High value concepts, such as analysis, expertise, or consulting, have to convey elements that allow people room to establish the connections necessary to choose to move forward in their journey that starts with discovery and ends with a purchase or signed contract.

Messages:

• Our company provides highly credible, professional products and services
• Companies can trust our research, analysis or expertise
• We employ highly knowledgeable and valuable people to produce our output
• We possess the relevant knowledge and expertise a client requires
• Clients won’t get burned by choosing our firm and our reports, services etc.
• Our offerings are worth what we are expecting people to pay for them

There are other themes that could be presented but the one I want to focus on is the last one, we are worth what we want them to pay us.

If you want people to buy your firm vs the other options and pay the prices you list then there are some important factors to address in how you may appear to them when they encounter you.

Is your branding current or are you still presenting what you did ten years ago? I ask this because I see companies trying to market high priced products and services with a look of a firm that has not kept pace with their markets. How can you claim you are able to look at the future when you seem dated and a bit of a relic from the past? How can you charge premium dollars when you will not invest in your look and presentation? Why should someone pay for data that shows no innovation in the way that it is presented? Putting out basic Excel tables or graphics done in low level programs is bad practice. You may have great analysis, but new customers won’t automatically assume it.

Does your brand look like everyone else out there? I understand that contemporary styling means certain looks, color schemes and design elements will appear across a segment. Being out of alignment can produce a negative impression with some possible buyers but when the branding becomes generic to the point that one firm is indistinguishable from another that is another problem. The commoditization effect inevitably leads customers to have to work harder to connect with a brand and also to an expectation that lower prices are in order.

Does the brand seem active in the customer’s market? The more a firm is engaged in a market means the more content it produces, the more findings it offers and this it likely projects as having more expertise. Can a part time player make a claim they are worth top dollar?

Does the brand have people? Analysts that front their firm and practice make for something more distinguishable than those that do not. The factories that do not have identifiable analysts do not score high on a perceptual basis. When firms present their people, the buyer can more easily connect with the producers and who is doing the work is a key element of research purchase decisions. No practice leads? Bios with no photos or professional background? People without proper experience or history in a sector? Editors who dabble in analysis on the side? Pass.

Do you have a content strategy that engages your possible buyers? When a customer encounters your brand what will they find? Will there be adequate information on products? Clearly expressed and well- articulated findings? Will they find content appropriate for where they are in the buyer journey be that introduction, industry background, archived materials, multi-format for their preference of consumption or something else? Does the firm project themselves as a relationship or a transaction?

Does the offering align with what you are asking people to pay? Aside from the look, image and presentation, the product must reflect the value you are placing on it. Market reports have become commoditized, what do you have that is unique or at least of sufficient quality? Is your process generic or does it reflect standards an excellence? Is your data granular, extensive, and accurate? Do you package appropriately to the segment or buyer? Do you provide too little for the price or try to charge more by adding in things that the buyer does not want or need?

In summation, the various ways in which a provider presents itself will go a long way towards generating revenues. Sure, once in the door a client can be maintained via their experience, how well they account is serviced etc., but acquiring them means establishing connection, trust and moving past their initial objections all in a very short amount of time in order to facilitate business. Someone may buy despite a bad website, old logo, SEO blogs or poorly presented product but how many will not be attracted and screen you out due to better presented choices or perceived value elsewhere?

The good news is that updating your brand and bringing it closer into alignment with your market could be a simple process or achievable based on consideration and some adjustments.

If this article connects with you in some manner, feel free to connect. Discussions always welcome.

Being an independent analyst can be a rewarding career choice but aside from the intellectual rigor and research engagements, there is also the issue of getting paid. Even established practitioners can find the business side of the role to be a distraction or worse.  On a day-to-day basis, do you spend time producing or selling? Do you default to spending your time on spreadsheets, research and writing or do you put the time into networking and developing business?  Are you more of an introvert and a thinker or are you an engagement monster who possesses a tremendous aura that wows people into throwing projects your way?  Most people fall somewhere between the two extremes but no matter where a person resides on that spectrum, the battle between creation and generation remains.

Subcontracting consulting projects from larger firms is one approach and with the right relationships and network it can support your practice. Subcontracting takes away the business development issues leaving you to be the analyst. Perhaps you can command a high enough rate to meet your revenue targets and, if the clients’ pipelines are full then there should be work. 

Is it enough though? Consulting engagements are hit or miss, take time to develop, are subject to client delays and there is the frequent conflict between what they say they want and actually expect. Also, you being a subcontractor means the end client relationship is controlled, usually via contract.  Poaching clients is a bad practice that leads to significant professional and economic repercussions.

Writing industry reports is another strategy that people will pursue and if you do not have other pressing engagements it can help fill time, provide reference work and even some revenue.  Larger firms or companies like BCC Research will act as a publisher which allows the person to focus on content and leave the business to someone else. There are trade-offs which are highlighted below.

The Business of Report Publishing

In report publishing there are multiple payment models;

• Fixed fee where you produce work for contracted payment. Highest guaranteed payment, no upside.
• Fixed plus % of sales is where you are paid a fixed amount plus share in the upside. Lower up-front money but stronger incentive
• Advance against future royalties is where publisher pays you a certain amount and then resumes payments once sales cross a thresh hold
• Straight royalty means when the reports sell then you get paid

On a risk continuum, guarantees benefit the provider, the royalty model is more advantageous to the publisher. That doesn’t mean the publisher has no exposure on a royalty basis though.   Bringing reports to market is a complex process and mastering all the aspects to it takes time and a lot of lessons learned. There are expenses, opportunity costs and other burdens that a publisher will carry. 

There is no escaping the fact though that the publisher is the one who sees the greatest reward on these deals, sometimes paying as little as 25% of total sales (NET) despite the fact the analyst is the one doing the heavy lifting from the intellectual (value) side. Reports can take up to 6 weeks of dedicated labor to produce and it may take up to a year or longer for the full sales cycle to complete. 

Getting into the report writing business via subcontract means you are going to spend at least 6 months living on savings and somewhat meager advances and royalties.  Assuming you can generate 8 reports a year then you may see $60,000 your first year and maybe $100K after that. On the other hand, Indian market researchers are charging firms $3,000-$4,000 a report which makes it hard for independents to compete in that arena.

Some other questions for you to consider if you are going to subcontract a report;

• What is the scale of the publisher? Are they large in your area or looking to use you to enter a market?
• What sort of reputation do they have? Are they seen as a quality provider?
• What type of resources do they have to apply to promoting your report?
• Can they present you a marketing and sales plan that looks credible?
• What types of comps can they show you?
• Are they willing to prove their performance by allowing you to contact other writers they represent?
• What evidence is there of consulting work that may come about from your producing a report under their flag?

There are other questions to ask and learn the answers to but as publishers generally look to minimize the risks and “share” it with the writers it would behoove you to be sure that your upside is protected.

There are other means to publish reports if you are interested in doing so.

Self-publishing can work if you have financial resources or enough consulting work to pay the bills.  Perhaps it might be an element of your revenue plan but not all of what you will do. You may elect to produce a report or three to engage a market, show reference works or leverage them for consulting.  It may be that you have sufficient expertise to churn out some works in short amounts of time so that the production burden and overall risks are reduced. 

There are though certain economic considerations to account for and again there’s that time spent on producing vs selling your output.  Hiring dedicated staff is expensive and unrealistic. I have seen people start up a practice, take on overhead and then wonder why they are in the hole for several tens of thousands of dollars. A measured approach is the more prudent one to pursue.

I have addressed the self-publishing issue in previous articles and will do more in the coming weeks. 

What makes the analyst/market research business so fascinating and yet challenging is how one competes in a space where there are either established firms with solid market positioning, brand name people, scale etc., or a multitude of generic report factories that push out reports via a process of scraping web-based content, applying generic strategic analysis like Michael Porter, and then lowballing on price.

I was having a conversation with someone the other day on ways in which they could get their small firm up over the hump and become a profitable and sustainable business.  They operate in a space populated by established analyst firms in a market segment with a fair amount of media coverage and marketing noise.  My first thought was in how they needed something that would force people to stop and take notice of them.  Was there some set of findings, analysis, or content that the firm could offer that would grab market attention?   Was there a way to drill into a part of the market or subject area that no one else was doing or offer something unique that could be properly messaged?  

New ideas or conceptualizations are hard to come by and it is often painfully obvious when analysts create new categories to get analyst relations departments to throw them some money.  Some markets are simply too well defined to offer a credible new taxonomy.  However, there are times when markets become too myopic, the thinking is too stale or just too noisy.  Herein lies the opportunity.

 It is a mistake to do what everyone else is already doing, even more so if they have greater resources, scale, reputation, or huge digital marketing budget.  Also, to consider was how much of a commitment it requires to win business via engagements, data collection, analysis presentation and requisite personal and firm brand building.  There are often opportunities to carve off pieces of a market as a niche player, but business scalability is extremely challenging. 

 Another consideration was that the market they were in was an analyst-oriented business and not report-focused.  A lot of important differences between these approaches and likely a reason that the offshore factories do not make any major headway.  Analyst oriented markets require identifiable persons that are out in front representing the firm/practice.  The reports business can have value where you are in an early stage of market formulation or in less dynamic environment but there is always the matter of offshore factories and tons of content marketing that is not always low-grade. 

One suggestion was splitting elements of the published works and generating more forecast oriented products.  Take the reports, break them down into product specific categories, pull out the related forecasts and content, add some additional qualitative elements and there are more things to sell.  Does this practice cut into existing product line though or does it open the door to new revenue and customers both inside the target market for the firm’s products or outside of it?  There are all of the various product marketing and sales issues to address here as well.

Financially, the model of niche player can work if the sales requirements are not too onerous.  I have directed and sold reports that generated in the multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales, far more projects in the several tens of thousands and yes, ones that the market simply did not embrace.  There are a host of reasons why reports fail and said reasons/lessons can be addressed ad nauseum in other venues.  

But…..

An independent or start up can do quite a bit to garner some market traction with making connections, doing quality interviews and email check ins.  I recommend the provider target 30 companies that comprise the supply chain and some additional firms that serve as sales channels or end user.  From the supplier side 8-10 interviews with another 12-15 email check ins with 5-6 questions generates 20-25 touches.  Convert 5-6 into sales and your project is viable.  Conversion rate will be influenced by how well the analyst engages the market obviously but also in the go-to-market plan.

• News release
• Talking points to market and industry media
• Infographics
• Product sample
• 3^rd party content placement
• Marketing events
• Sales follow ups, meeting set up and presentations

Final thoughts….

Having analysts that can be presented and promoted in a market are an important component of success but not a sufficient determinant.  Where companies have invested time building expertise and reputation, these serve as powerful barriers to entry thus the differentiation becomes paramount.  Hedging risk by offering lower quality or somewhat indistinguishable content to the market is highly inadvisable.  Capital is important and hard to come by, but I have seen people with wealth assume that what they did in other businesses (or in another era) will apply to current circumstance and that simply is not the case in such an evolving and highly nuanced business.

Being undifferentiated is deadly.  While playing the role of the barking Crank in the public square might garner some notice it will not get someone paid.  The parrot is more pleasing but offers little true value and no one will pay for it especially if the provider has no influence. 

An analyst practice with some chance of success must be founded on data-orientation, being a market influencer, or providing thought leadership.  Some combination is better. Developing that unique brand that makes a market take notice of you is a complicated process but not having some distinguishable characteristics.

• What knowledge, experience and accomplishments can you point to that affords you the foundation as a thought leader?
• Do you have insights that truly resonate with the industry?
• Can you spot what other people are missing?
• Do you have any qualms about being critical of the latest news or marketing pitch by a vendor?
• Can you offer critical commentary with informed basis?
• Can you provide the crucial context that your sector needs to operate?

• How many people do you engage with in a given week?
• Who are they? What do they do to advance your knowledge, network or brand?
• How are you engaging them? Interviews, emails, social media interactions?
• What is the quality of the interactions? What are you providing them?
• Do you give them reason to respect you or consider you as someone they HAVE TO engage?

• How much content do you issue a week/month? And what type?
• How many social media posts do you generate?
• In your public comments, do you talk about companies, technologies or markets?
• Do you leverage other content sources in your activities?
• Are you capable of multi-channel content creation, i.e,. blog, social, video, pod?

• What shows are you attending?
• What events are you speaking at? (You do speak at events, right?)
• What media outlets are quoting you?
• What news releases are you asked to quote for?
• Which investor presentations are citing your data?