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The 10 Douchiest Job Titles in America

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The 10 Douchiest Job Titles of 2012

For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to keep my business cards free of my title. I feel this way for a couple of reasons: primarily, I don’t want those outside of my company getting hung up on my title; also, I really don’t give a shit what you call me inside the company; so long as the work is challenging and fun – and that my role can somehow influence the company’s results.

Of course, I understand I’m in the minority here. There’s an episode of Cheers that humorously magnifies America’s love for important sounding job titles when Woody, Sam and Carla individually go into Rebecca’s office to demand a raise; only to come out overly satisfied with nothing more than artificial titles.

So, while I get why some people want a title and want to proudly display it on their business cards, I struggle to understand why anyone would want a title that basically screams to the world “Hey, look at me: I’m a major douchebag.”

Do you have a douchie title or do you know someone with a douchie title? If so, please share them here. For now, here is my list of The 10 Douchiest Job Titles of 2012:

10. Lifetime Value Business Leader – This title is douchie for so many reasons, not the least of which is that I have no fucking idea what it means. To me, this title sounds more like something that would be inscribed on a crappy award you get from the Fort Wayne, Indiana, Chamber of Congress than something you would print on a business card. Chances are, if you’re a Lifetime Value Business Leader, you probably can’t lead and likely provide no value to your business (even in the short term).

9. Talent Acquisition Expert – I have two major problems with this total douche bag title: first, if your title shows that you are an “expert” anything it means you are exactly the opposite; and second, the title “Talent Acquisition Expert” springs from the same political correctness that brought us such classic douchebag titles as “Sanitation Engineer” and Subway’s oxymoronic “Sandwich Artist.”

8. Director of Customer Experience – Taking care of customers should be Job One for everyone at your company; but if your business actually names someone their Director of Customer Experience, your front line employees are likely just paying lip service to the actual customer experience. Of course, that’s not what makes this title so douchie. What makes this title really douchie is that the role can only be filled by complete and utter douchebags. Think about it: have you ever met a Director of Customer Experience who didn’t annoy the fuck out of everyone around them? Sickie sweet phoniness does not make for a great customer experience.

7. Chief Motivational Officer – Similarly to the Director of Customer Experience role, if your company needs anyone with any variation of the word “motivation” in their title, then you have a real motivation problem. In fact, your lack of genuinely motivated people will not be solved by giving some made-up title to someone who cannot execute; but he’s really fucking nice so you named him your Chief Motivational Officer. Fire this guy and use the money you save to buy the employees a pool table for the break room and pizza every Friday.

6. Entrepreneur – This title is certainly douchie on the surface: it screams “look at me; I’m a real risk-taking maverick.” Yet these risk-taking mavericks who call themselves entrepreneurs are using the more cultural (mostly incorrect) definition of the word as “someone who starts a business that promises economic gain, but also entails great risk.” In fact, the word actually describes any manager or owner of a business – regardless of actual risk or gain. Putting “entrepreneur” on your card is equivalent to putting the non-descript “manager” as your title; only way more douchie.

5. Company Evangelist – The only people who should be allowed to have “evangelist” on their business cards are those hell-bent on saving our souls and taking our money. (Just taking our money is not enough to make you an evangelist.) In all seriousness, if you don’t spend your Sundays on television speaking to a bunch of sheep and fleecing them of their life savings, then you need to leave this off your business card.

4. Guru – The word is Sanskrit, and if you did not know that, then you’re not a fucking Guru. Moreover, this type of douchebag title is one of the “self-anointed” kinds. This means that no one ever called you a Guru (unless their tongue was firmly planted in their cheek) – you gave yourself this title; and for that, you are a douchebag of the highest order. In fact, you might just be the Guru of douchieness.

3. Mentor – What in the world would prompt someone to put this drivel on their card as their title? It is the job of everyone in your company to mentor to those with less seniority, knowledge or experience than themselves. However, if any douchebag put “Mentor” as their job title on their business card, then they are just announcing to the world that they really value their experience and opinions a whole lot more than the rest of us. I can honestly say that I have not learned a thing from a single person who ever “tried” to be a mentor to me. The true mentors in my life never tried, it just came naturally to them – and they gladly mentored without fanfare or the need to be officially called a mentor.

2. Visionary – Putting this on your card literally screams that what you lack more than anything else is vision. Because… if you had any vision at all, you’d see what a douchebag you look like with this on your card. Let me break this to you gently: being right about a few things does NOT make you a fucking visionary; knowing more than your boss about technology or the Internet does NOT make you a fucking visionary. “Visionary” is a title people bestow upon you at death (think Steve Jobs), not something you call yourself when you’re still alive and annoying the rest of us.

1. Thought Leader – The King of all douchebags, the “Thought Leader,” is another self-anointed position. Those who use this title to describe themselves really see their place in your industry as Socrates meets Einstein. They believe – generally because they have a below-average IQ – that they are both philosopher and genius. While the rest of us see the obvious for what it is, the self-proclaimed “thought leaders” point out the ordinary as if they’ve cracked the genetic code. Deep inside I think many “thought leaders” are truly just “do nothings” who gave themselves the title of “thought leader” because they don’t want to do any real work; they just want to regurgitate what others have published.

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Generally speaking, I think the Internet magnifies the self-importance that the douchebags who proudly display any of my Top Ten douchie titles tends to feel and feed upon. Make no mistake, I get that many of you who read this think I’m a douchebag for my often ranting style of writing. The difference between me and the douchebags that might desire one of the above as their titles is that I know whatever I write will be douchie to someone.

Of course, if you happen to be one who thinks my writing is douchie, then I feel good that I could help you feel superior to someone; even if it is just some douchebag who rants when he writes…

How TrueCar.com Caught Car Dealers Off Guard

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The Internet is (finally) introducing progress to the car business… whether automotive retailers like it or not.

While the Internet itself has so far been little more than an evolution of how car dealers do business (think about it: dealers have been receiving and responding to sales leads from Internet customers for more than fifteen years, yet most dealerships still see less than thirty percent of their sales coming from these online customer inquiries), what TrueCar will bring to dealers is nothing short of a revolution… and most dealerships aren’t prepared.

TrueCar’s business model is designed to eventually eliminate car dealers. For now, they seem content with just getting rid of the pesky commissioned car salespeople. If TrueCar gets their way, every car dealer in the country will provide the actual selling prices of their vehicles up-front; with no haggling. This, it seems, has gotten some in the industry a bit peeved.

“It’s not too late to put this beast down,” commented one such peeved industry veteran about TrueCar on one of the leading automotive dealership forums, DealerElite.net. Others on the site are calling for government investigations and dealer boycotts of TrueCar.

Can they put the beast down?

Forget for a moment how good their model of showing a guaranteed selling price is for consumers, TrueCar still needs car dealers to pay them $299 to $399 per vehicle sold or TrueCar will simply go away. If dealers truly abandon TrueCar, then what?

Unfortunately for the TrueCar detractors, there are two unstoppable forces at work that guarantee that even if TrueCar crashes and burns, the TrueCar business model will not only survive, but eventually become the industry norm. These forces are competition and consumers.

While there have probably been hundreds of dealers who have dumped TrueCar as a provider of sales leads since the industry call-to-arms officially began in November, there have likely been hundreds more who’ve signed on. Dealers, you see, want to sell cars; TrueCar, it seems, actually helps them do that. The competitive nature of car dealers simply won’t allow them to leave these sales leads to their competitors.

From a consumer perspective, one might ask “what took so long?” Why is it we can discover the actual selling price of everything from iodine to iPads before we ever leave for the store, but with cars we still have to haggle as if we’re walking through the Istanbul Grand Bazaar? With or without TrueCar, consumers were already moving toward no-haggle pricing for their vehicle purchases. TrueCar accomplished just one thing that had not been successfully deployed before: displaying the final selling prices of identical vehicles from competing dealers… and this, you see, removed the dealers’ greatest advantage in the car deal.

Why would dealers ever knowingly give up their advantage?

It only took a few car dealer indiscretions to allow TrueCar to get into the position of radically reforming the way new cars are sold to the public; and nearly all of these are examples of failed leadership at the dealer level.

Because most managers of car dealerships got to their level without the assistance of a solid training program or a heavy focus on process or process improvement, it’s no surprise that they “lead” with virtually no focus on these, as well.

Automotive retail provides some of the best examples of bad leadership, likely due to its history (“no one trained me, why should I train anyone?”) and its unbelievably high turnover rate (“why train my salespeople, when they’ll just end up working for someone else in a year?”). Additionally, car dealers have survived for years without the need for formal training programs or progressive leadership; why should anyone think they need these today?

With no focus on training or continuous process improvement, most dealership Internet sales managers – the ones who should have seen TrueCar coming and warned the others – were so busy playing with Facebook and Twitter; so busy thinking they were in the technology business that they never even realized they were in the business of selling cars at a profit. Of course, for most Internet managers, it didn’t help that since they receive almost no respect or support from the other managers in their store – including their direct supervisors – it is doubtful anyone would have listened to them about TrueCar anyway.

Interestingly, the dealerships that wasted (and continue to waste) countless hours and dollars to perfect some social media identity generally feel that social media is a revolution in the auto industry – while missing the true revolution: transaction price transparency and the guaranteeing of transaction prices via the Internet.

Not all dealerships want to put the beast down…

The dealership owners and general managers who never fully embraced the idea of selling cars online are the ones that are the most annoyed by TrueCar. They are the ones rallying their local state associations and regulatory agencies to protect them from themselves. Progressive dealerships – those organizations where everyone is pulling toward the same goal; and where the future brings opportunity, not uncertainty – are comfortable with the move to TrueCar. Many of them got rid of commissioned salespeople years ago.

In his book, Adapt Or Die: How The Internet Is Destroying Dealer Profits And What To Do About It, Kurt Baumberger warned of this phenomenon three years ago. Did any dealers listen? Perhaps a few, but for the most part, dealers continued to run things as they always had: heavy on telling and yelling; light on teaching and improving.

What is most surprising to me is that anyone is surprised. There has been a race to the bottom in automotive retail since the first online listing of vehicles became available. I think what is also surprising is that it’s taken until 2012 for this to become a reality in automotive retail.

Progress happens…

TrueCar is merely the first. Soon, industry leaders like Cars.com and AutoTrader.com will have to insist that dealers post guaranteed pricing on their new vehicles or consumers will simply flock to TrueCar (and the soon-to-emerge clones) to avoid the hassles of negotiating.

To those outside of automotive retail, the TrueCar detractors are probably starting to resemble what the horse-drawn carriage makers, smithies and groomsmen must have looked like as the first automobiles started rolling off assembly lines over 100 years ago. Cursing progress does nothing but make those doing the cursing seem small-minded and naïve.

The thing about progress is that it progresses – whether those in the way of progress like it or not. The progress that is radically changing the car business today has been moving like the lava flows of Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano. It has been slow and deliberate, but it’s gaining strength. You can try to divert it; but you cannot stop it. It is steady and it is devouring everything in its path.

So is TrueCar a consumer’s best friend?

I think there might be genuine concerns over how TrueCar acquires and manages private customer data; but I think the real threat they hold over car dealers is their guaranteed up-front pricing. They could get rid of their silly bell curve and no longer aggregate sales transaction data; and their effect on the industry would remain unchanged. They could also stop telling consumers what dealers paid for their cars, as this information is irrelevant in the transaction and has been available online for years, anyway.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I was first exposed to the TrueCar bell curve in 2009 – which showed what consumers had paid for similar vehicles – and I was impressed. Back then, I felt it would be a game-changer for TrueCar.com. Since then, TrueCar has expanded their online offering to include certificates guaranteeing what consumers would pay from member-dealers for a given vehicle. This innovation, coupled with pitting dealers against each other on a single webpage, made the bell curve unnecessary. Now the TrueCar bell curve is nothing more than worthless eye candy.)

With some in the industry mad as hell about TrueCar’s use of data, it is interesting that as recently as this past weekend, TrueCar CEO Scott Painter was quoted bragging in a New York Post article about the plethora of data sources his company employs to produce their useless bell curve. “We collect information from consumer reports, insurers, lenders, government records and other industry sources in addition to what the 5,400 US dealers provide so we can decipher the true cost of a new car,” said Painter; clearly oblivious to the government’s and the public’s feelings about data privacy.

Everyone is missing the point…

Consumers, if asked, would likely tell you that they don’t care how much dealers paid for a car; “just tell me how much I’m going to pay.” Dealers, because they hid even the latter information from their buyers until they’d successfully worn them down in the dealership for a few hours, have no one to blame but themselves for the growth of TrueCar.

When we buy a book on Amazon.com, we don’t care how much Amazon paid for the book or how much profit they make from the sale. We only care about the transaction price, the delivery terms and the service before and after the sale. The same is true of buying a car. Why should I care if the dealer who sold me my last car made $5 or $5,000? All that mattered to me was the price I paid, the delivery terms and the service before and after the sale.

If TrueCar wasn’t so busy trying to get every scrap of data from every consumer vehicle transaction, they might realize that the TrueGold they provide to consumers occurs when they pit dealers against each other to post guaranteed selling prices. Of course, just as car dealers suffer great leadership voids, so does TrueCar, it seems. CEO Painter comes across as an egomaniacal prick (which, more often than not, means he probably is an egomaniacal prick to everyone around him); he also seems to truly relish his role as the villain to his paying customers: the car dealers. (Not a smart move, if you plan to withstand the inevitable competition for the long term.)

Sincerely, TrueCar Dealer Development Team…

To their dealer-customers, TrueCar behaves more like a government agency than a trusted partner; and their customer communications are signed by divisions and not people. It will be easy for dealers to dump them once real competition emerges or the major online classified websites begin posting guaranteed prices for new and used cars (and thus start driving leads and sales, instead of just expensive branding).

What won’t be easy for dealers is to get this horse back in the barn. If comparison shopping is a way of life for consumer seeking a $500 HP, what makes anyone think it won’t quickly become the norm for someone considering a $30,000 Honda? The leaders in the automotive space understand this, because leaders understand progress and they take advantage of it – even if it means destroying a business model that works today.

The leadership lesson in all this for those in and out of automotive retail is two-fold: First, business owners and their senior leaders must take a stake in the innovations brought on by technology (and not leave this to some “Internet manager”); and these same leaders need to find ways to leverage the inevitable change to their advantage (or they need to be ready to do something else with their lives).

Like it or not, progress has come to automotive retail; and it’s not going away.

 

Madoff Accountant Friehling Could Be More Culpable Than Madoff

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If You Want the Swindlers, Get Their Accountants

“If you want the Mafia, get their lawyers,” explains Mitchell McDeere, formerly of Bendini, Lambert and Locke.

I think we’re missing the real villains in the Bernard Madoff affair. Madoff, in case you’ve been under a rock for the last few months, is the 70-year old investment fund head who just pled guilty to bilking investors out of $65 billion. (In reality, Madoff only bilked them out of the $17 billion they invested with him, not the $48 billion in imaginary profits.)

Without rehashing all of the details, suffice it to say that Bernard Madoff will be spending the rest of his life in prison – right where he belongs.

Let’s Not Stop at People Named Madoff

The swindled investors, understandably, want to squeeze the life out of everyone remotely related to Madoff. Besides Bernard Madoff, they want Ruth Madoff (Bernie’s wife and former employee). They want Mark and Andrew Madoff (Bernie’s sons and former employees). They want their pound of flesh from anyone whose name rhymes with Madoff. Though they’re missing the real villains.

The criminals they should be most angry with include the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the SEC employees who failed to investigate reports of the fraud… and Madoff’s accountant. (We’ll save our contempt for the SEC’s handling of this mess for a later post; today we’re focused on the accountant.)

No one seemed to care this past week when David G. Friehling, Madoff’s 49-year old accountant, turned himself in to authorities to face criminal charges for his role in helping Madoff get away with the biggest investment fraud in history.




If the allegations against Friehling are true, in many ways his activity is even more vile and despicable than Madoff’s. If the charges are true, he is the most culpable of all in my opinion. Friehling, you see, was tasked with auditing Madoff’s business dealings and certifying the results. Specifically, Friehling has been charged with falsely certifying that he had prepared Madoff’s audit statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Those statements were sent to the SEC and to Madoff’s clients.

Friehling Could Be Twice the Criminal Madoff Is

We know Madoff is a criminal; and we hate him because he violated a fiduciary duty he had to his clients. He is a disgusting human being who should feel the full force of the law against him. However, if Friehling is found guilty, he deserves more punishment than Madoff for two reasons: 1) He violated not only a fiduciary duty to Madoff’s victims, but a regulatory duty as well; and 2) We need to do whatever we can to prevent another Madoff situation in the future.

Friehling’s firm was Madoff’s accountant and sole auditor for at least 17 years. In that time, Madoff made billions, while Friehling merely made millions. The kind of greed that drove Madoff will not be easily swayed by a few perp walks and 10 years in jail. (As I mentioned, Madoff is 70 years old, so he’s probably got ten years left.) Anyone wishing to follow in Madoff’s footsteps might be willing to trade billions today for a possible, though not probable, jail sentence down the road.

If You Want the Swindlers, Get Their Accountants

We’re back to the concept introduced by Mitch McDeere… Without a CPA to certify the fraud, you cannot defraud at the level of Bernard Madoff; although the government doesn’t seem to understand this. (Much like FBI Agent Wayne Tarrance had trouble understanding the concept when McDeere first introduced it to him.)

Friehling is the only person besides Madoff to be charged in the fraud so far; though he was released after his arraignment on bail of $2.5 million. At 49 years old, he poses a much greater flight risk than Madoff… Friehling, you see, has something to lose: The rest of his adult life. He faces a maximum sentence of 105 years in prison if convicted on all counts. Not enough, I say, if the charges are true.

Friehling has been charged with securities fraud, aiding and abetting investment adviser fraud, and four counts of filing false audit reports with the SEC. And while both Madoff and Friehling deserve to spend the rest of their lives in prison (if the allegations against Friehling are true), a greater example should be made of Friehling. His perp walks should be longer, his prison cell should be scarier and more bleak, and his name should become as well known as Madoff or Ponzi.

The same government that was asleep at the wheel during Madoff’s rise, should do everything in it’s power to prevent future Madoffs – and this means getting their accountants, and getting them good.

 

The Ten Best Decision Making Books of All Time

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The Ten Best Business Decision Making Books Ever Written

Gaining insight into how the editors of AskTheManager.com chose the Ten Best Decision Making Books Ever can itself be a lesson in decision making. While the list of qualified books on this subject is quite long, we decided early on to exclude any and all that read like an encyclopedia, dictionary or college textbook. While many of these types of books do provide useful decision making information, we decided we wouldn’t feel right sending our readers in search of dull or boring reads.

And just as we did with our popular Ten Best Leadership Books Ever, we struggled more with where to place each of the Top Ten on our list than we did deciding which titles actually made our Top Ten. After several heated discussions and lots of backroom deal making, we decided on the following order for the terrific tomes topping our list of The Ten Best Business Decision Making Books Ever Written:

10. Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions; by Dan Ariely – A mostly fun read that details why we decide what we decide and when, Predictably Irrational immediately grabs your attention through a very strong and entertaining start. While this tome won’t necessarily turn you into a top decision maker overnight, it does offer insight into some of the most common and odd choices we make. From a purely social or behavioral economics standpoint, this book is nowhere near the read of Freakonomics, though its explanation and application of these economic principles detailing why people make irrational decisions easily earns it a spot on our Top Ten.


9. How We Decide; by Jonah Lehrer – Very much like Number 10 on our list, How We Decide introduces the reader to many concepts surrounding behavioral psychology and economics, and how these affect our decision making. Also like Number 10, this tome is loaded with entertaining information that will stimulate your thoughts about how we think and make decisions in response to the complex situations we face. While slightly more enjoyable than Predictably Irrational, this book still falls a little short at helping the reader uncover clear rules for making better decisions; and although both are very, very good and deserve their mention on this list, you only need to read one (you make the decision).

8. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People; by Stephen R. Covey – Number One on our list of the Ten Best Leadership Books of All Time, Covey’s coverage of Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind, earns him the right to crack this Top Ten list, as well. While not a primer on avoiding analysis paralysis or helping teams makes better decisions, the chapters covering Habit 2 in this book do provide a great lesson for anyone who’s known for making bad decisions. The best part about this title is it also provides the reader with a clear plan of attack for making and executing better decisions.

7. Blunder: Why Smart People Make Bad Decisions; by Zachary Shore – Using examples of some of the biggest blunders in history, Shore provides an entertaining, historical and hard-hitting examination of bad decisions. Probably due to Shore’s fantastic ability to tell a story, we fear we may have been too easily swayed by style and not substance in including this title in our Top Ten. That said, Shore provides enough practical thought (and some very concise causation theories) to carry this read.

6. Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions; by John S. Hammond, Ralph L. Keeney, and Howard Raiffa – One of the truest books ever to its title, Smart Choices is indeed a practical guide to making better decisions. Unlike some of the novel-like reads on this list, this book clearly outlines steps readers can take when faced with both minor and major decisions in their work and personal lives – and because the authors do so without sounding like academicians, it was an easy decision to add this to our Top Ten list. 

5. Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average; by Joseph T. Hallinan – As much as a title this long may make you want to skip to the last page just see how it ends, we advise against this because you’d miss a great read. Although Why We Make Mistakes takes us in a slightly different direction than many of the books on this list, it strikes a cord with us by proving that we are flawed and that internal changes aren’t enough to repair these flaws. (If nothing else, this read provides a classic example as to why so many books published in the last two years made this list: We are just now becoming aware of how we make decisions and what we can do to improve them.)

4. Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior; by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman – Probably the quickest 224 pages you’ll ever read, Brothers Brafman deliver some very compelling arguments regarding our innate irrationality. Though very similar in content to Predictably Irrational, Sway stands on its own by never bogging the reader down in too much detail (while delivering enjoyable detailed analysis throughout). Overall, Sway does an excellent job of showing us how to make better decisions by understanding the irrational forces that want to sway us otherwise.

3. The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement; by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox – A business classroom classic that was originally published in 1984 as part organizational management and part production operations management; this novel was one of the very first to use fiction to illustrate a business point. While the decision making lessons delivered here are often veiled in other concepts, the fictional factory turnaround that is engineered by the book’s protagonist provides a step-by-step plan for managers in crisis to follow when faced with difficult decisions. A must read for anyone in business. (Editor’s Note: We’re often asked which book would rank at Number 11 on our list of the best leadership books ever, and The Goal is clearly the favorite for that spot.)

2. Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Field Guide for Leaders, Managers, and Facilitators; by Patrick M. Lencioni – It’s one thing to rant about what’s wrong, it’s quite another to detail how to make things right. In Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, the master at team dynamics Lencioni offers specific, practical advice for overcoming the five dysfunctions he details in his earlier book. And while many will argue this is strictly a book about leadership or team dynamics, we say then you’ve never really read it. Among other things, Lencioni’s advice expertly helps teams become more effective by making better decisions. Clearly the best book for improving team decision making and effectiveness ever published; earning it our Number 2 spot.

1. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking; by Malcolm Gladwell – You either love this book or you hate it; there is no middle ground with Blink. By naming this the Best Decision Making Book Ever, we know we’ve probably lost half our readership – of course, had we not named it Number One, we would have lost the other half. (Because we read Blink, we went with our gut and named it Number One.) On a serious note, Blink is one of those “must reads” for anyone in business… end of story. Not only because it explains the power and accuracy of first impressions, but because it also provides data and examples to prove that over-thinking our problems is often the problem. Analysis paralysis and self doubt are the greatest enemies of management decision making today and Gladwell cuts to the quick better than anyone ever has (or likely ever will). Read Blink, it will be the best decision you ever made.

…

On the bubble: Tipping Point; Freakonomics; Execution; and Gut Feelings.

Never even in the consideration set: Nudge and The Paradox of Choice.

The Death of Data-Based Decision Making

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Why Does My Industry Refuse to Use Data?

True story – of course, whenever anyone says or writes this it generally means that everything else they’ve ever told you is BS – anyway, true story: a highly compensated colleague wrote to a group of fellow highly compensated colleagues and asked “does anyone have any data on whether this widget produces results?”

The emailed responses from two of his highly compensated colleagues were shocking:

  • “I understand they’ve shown good results in Orlando and Tampa.”
  • “This widget really moves the needle in Dallas.”

These were their complete responses. Did I miss something? Where is the data?

This brief exchange of emails is merely a sample of what’s happening in my industry (and probably happening in other industries, though I don’t have any data to back up this claim): We’ve decided that actual data is unimportant.

This is sad, especially as technology has provided us easy, quick and painless avenues to gather data about nearly every aspect of our business. Gathering data and making data-based decisions (AKA: using business intelligence reports) should be one of the greatest benefits of technology we enjoy, yet we still rely heavily on gut feelings and opinions to determine where we spend our money, whom we hire, and what initiatives we pursue.

Data vs. Opinion

Having had my fill of opinion-based decision making where good data is available, I challenged the two highly compensated colleagues to send me some proof to back up their claims about the effectiveness of this particular widget:

“Sounds great, can you send me the data to back this up?” I replied, and waited.

And waited, and waited, and waited. After two days of waiting, I sent a follow-up email copying their direct supervisors:

“I know the Northeast Region really wants to get moving on this widget, and they’re excited to hear about the results you’re seeing in your markets. Can you send me some data that can prove the ROI? We’re struggling to show good numbers everywhere else with this widget and some good results would help save the project.” I wrote, and waited.

Amazingly, with their bosses copied and everyone on high alert to justify expenses, I received the following two messages from the highly compensated colleagues within 30 minutes:

  • “When we looked at the data, it seems it was inconclusive in Dallas. We’re thinking of canceling it.”
  • “Nobody in Orlando or Tampa could prove it works, but they’re sure it was helping sales. They’re going to measure the results this month and then make a decision.”




One claimed they examined the data (Dallas) and one still relied on opinion for now (Tampa/Orlando), but promised to examine the data next month. In the meantime, we’ve potentially wasted more than $100,000 over the past year because no one bothered to look at the data. This was just one product covering a small part of our business. What would we find if we stopped allowing opinions and held everyone to a “just the facts” dictum? Scary…

Data-Based Decisions are Easy

Our industry is one that has had to be pulled (kicking and screaming) into accepting that the Web is an important marketing channel. Now that we’re there, we refuse to demand data, information or business intelligence to help us make decisions. We rely on our collective gut, because our gut was good enough ten years ago, so it’s good enough today.

It’s a shame, really, because using only your gut to make decisions might appear to save you time. While using your gut to make a decision keeps you from having to gather data, it also requires that you continually reconsider the decision: using additional time to determine if you made the correct assessment. When you use your gut, you spend additional time second-, third- and fourth-guessing yourself. You are never certain you made the best decision.

When you use data, like an ROI report, you can quickly and easily decide to eliminate the low ROI widgets and increase your usage of the high ROI widgets. Then, you can put the data away until the next set of numbers (quarterly, monthly, weekly) becomes available. Give these new numbers a “once over” to validate you made a great decision last time or use these numbers to tweak your earlier decision, and move on. Nothing could be easier.

You Were Hired for Your Gut

The best part about using data to help you make decisions is that the data will never care if you also sneak in your opinion here and there. In fact, if not for your gut, your company could just hire a computer to do your job. It is precisely your experiences, history and opinions that make you a valuable commodity. You begin to lose your value, however, as soon as you fail to utilize all the tools (including data) made available to you to do your job.