The Difference Between Thinking You Know Something And Actually Knowing It
In any successful Toy company or kids entertainment business, matters relating to products, advertising and brands are discussed and debated with a great degree of vigor, opinion and counter argument.
Many times we see groups of people sitting in a meeting room discussing something and reaching very strong and wide reaching conclusions based on either a prevailing opinion, highly subjective feedback from ever opinionated retail buyers or an unshaekable presumption from senior management.
The reality is though that in most of these circumstances, we think we know – we don’t actually know for sure.
There are 2 implications of this:
1. We might be wrong, and therefore might make costly mistakes as a result.
2. Dissent based on lack of agreement leads to paralysis, failure to follow through and other negative implications.
Again, it’s really easy to brush these matters under the carpet…or to let things drift while ‘fire fighting’ today’s urgent issues/problems in the business.
But often we find the way companies can move closer to knowing for sure versus thinking they know based on their own opinions alone is via outside, objective input – based on consumer feedback or consultancy advice from those with broader experience and no vested interest.
Outside input of this kind normally allows us to reach clear conclusions and make decisive decisions.
We’re not suggesting that this method is used to solve all disputes/arguments about direction, but in key instances, this can be the right way to go about things.
So the question is do you have any of those lingering issues/directional questions which outside consultancy or consumer insight can help you to solve?
