But First, 2021

Let's just use a simple example.

You'll have to forecast where 2021 is headed. It's probably not wise to forecast productivity gains (yet) until the customer proves that the customer spends more in January/February ... probably best to forecast 2019 performance.

But you have all these 2020 customers ... and they need to be forecast properly ... meaning that the QUANTITY of those customers needs to be forecast properly, but potentially using 2019 productivity.

Simple example.

• 2019 = 10,000 good customers spending $30.00 average in 2019. Value = 10,000*30 = $300,000 actual.
• 2020 = 10,000 good customers spending $45.00 average in 2020.  Value = 10,000*45 = $450,000 actual.
• 2021 = 15,000 good customers.

You have choices:

• 2021 = 15,000 customers * $30.00 spending average from 2019 = $450,000 forecast.
• 2021 = 15,000 customers * $45.00 spending average from 2020 = $675,000 forecast.
• 2021 = 15,000 customers * $XX.XX spending guesstimate = ????.

If it's me, I'm going with somewhere between $30.00 and $XX.XX. I'd probably sandbag my forecast and start with $30.00 until somebody in Finance / Merchandising screamed at me in-person or typed a message IN ALL CAPS ... and then I'd budge toward $XX.XX in a begrudging manner, clearly stating what my hesitancy was(is).

A Preview of What Will Be Needed to Be Successful in 2022.

Watch the entire 15 minutes here.

And if you don't have 15 minutes, then watch the final 1-2 minutes, because the punchline is offered there.

COVID is going to convince us that sales gains are easy for some brands for the next year. They're not easy. It's darn hard outside of a pandemic. The merchandising / creative factor is so important, so overlooked, so under-analyzed.

This (the video) is what it will take to win in 2022. Passion and Creativity and Attention to Detail. It was the path we were already headed down before a pandemic handed so many companies cement mixers full of money while forcing so many others out of business.

P.S.:  You'll be able to win in 2021. Realistically, we inherit the "new world" we'll live in going forward in 2022. We can't see it, yet, but once there is a vaccine we'll begin getting glimpses ... then we'll see it clearly, and Passion / Creativity / Attention to Detail / Merchandise take hold based on the rules of the "new world".

Interpreting Data

In sports, each team has an analytics department. They analyze data "their" way, as it relates to "their" system. Via this style of analysis, two department can use completely different analytics to evaluate two similar players in very different ways.

Modern analytics/marketing is framed by the concept of "best practices" ... you use Google Analytics or Adobe or Tableau (yes, I'm exaggerating here) and you analyze customers they way they tell you to analyze customers, end of story (yes, I'm exaggerating again).

The secret to success, of course, is to do something wholly different. Different software, different reporting, different modeling, different application of tactics.

If your goal is to find a case study of how "Brand X" leveraged Tableau to create a life-altering graph of data by zip code, you can go ahead and do that.

In this COVID-infused marketing world, interpreting data is darn important. Given that a significant fraction of companies are posting +40% gains without doing anything special to generate the gains, one can easily misinterpret the findings and attribute success to marketing and/or merchandising. Or, one could play the role of Virtual Chief Performance Officer, and figure out what might be happening behind the scenes. Interpreting data becomes more important when the herd all moves in one direction, wouldn't you agree?

Percolating

From startups looking to grow even faster to old-school catalog brands seeing sales double for the first time since the 1980s, as long as you aren't a retail brand or apparel seller there is a good chance that COVID is causing something to happen that many never expected.

For many, business is percolating.

And Professionals are playing offense.

You're being told that business won't revert to normal for maybe a year, maybe more.

It is possible that business will be percolating for another year.

Capitalize now. Change things now. Take advantage now. A year from now, the world is going to be different, and you may as well determine what "different" will be instead of letting others determine what "different" will be while you react to what they do.

Go ... take advantage right now.

P.S.:  I realize this stuff is really hard. It's a pandemic ... and we're ... well, you know what we "are". To cope, customers are choosing you. Or you sell something the customer absolutely needs at this awful point in time. Either way, your business is being fundamentally changed, so take advantage of your opportunity right now. Ethically. Honestly. With Kindness.

Case Studies

The Executive offered one of those salty, Zoom-based comments designed to "put you in your place":

• "If you the kind of Consultant you say you are, you'd have two dozen case studies on your website. You don't have any. You must not have any customers and you don't want anybody to know you don't have any customers. Interesting, don't you think?"

Yeah, interesting.

Here's the thing. Vendors lie. All the time. They lie to get business, they lie to sound important, they lie because they're generally honest but they hired a lying public relations professional.

When I worked at Nordstrom, we had a line in our NDA saying that vendors could not use our logo, period. Not on websites, not on external communications. No case studies. In fact, the vendor could not ever mention that the vendor worked with Nordstrom. I arrived at Nordstrom in January 2001 knowing this fact. So when a vendor called me (a warehouse / operations vendor) to "congratulate me for starting my tenure at Nordstrom", I found it interesting that the next day the Nordstrom logo appeared on their website. I called the vendor, and asked why our logo was on their website when we hadn't worked together ... ever?

• "Because we had a conversation yesterday, so we consider that 'working together', and as you can see, the text says 'brands we've worked with'".

A phone call is not "working together".

Furthermore, because we hadn't signed an NDA (there was just a phone call, that's all), the vendor wasn't subject to the Nordstrom rule of not disclosing the relationship.

In other words, the vendor found a loophole in the system, and used the loophole to their advantage ... misleading every visitor to their website into thinking they provided services to the brand logos displayed on the page.

Vendors lie about case studies. When I worked at Eddie Bauer, a statistical software provider asked me to offer a few quotes about our relationship. Then they showed me their "case study" ... full of misleading statements. I asked to have the statements corrected, and the vendor obliged. A month later, I left Eddie Bauer. Two months later, I noticed that all of the lies had been republished, attributed to "me". I called the company, telling them that while I no longer worked at Eddie Bauer, I didn't want lies attributed to me. The software company did two things.

1. They instead attributed the lies to my boss.
2. They published a version of the case study / lies attributed to my name in Japan, thinking I'd never see that version (Narrator:  He saw that version).

To this day, I can perform a Google search and find versions of the lies.

There are reasons you won't find Case Studies and References on my website.

1. Most NDAs (especially with large brands) require that I keep the working relationship quiet.
2. Most of my Clients don't want you to know that we worked on a specific project, because knowledge of that fact means the Client loses their competitive advantage. If JCP knew that I worked with Macy's to improve profitability by $10,000,000, JCP could hire me to perform the same work. Why would Macy's ever want that to happen? Discuss.

I spent nine months working at an internet startup that later became known as the "retargeting industry". I was part of a team of five ... we had a Product Manager who repeatedly told our team ...

• "It's my job to lie. It's your job to make my lies come true."

Be careful when asking for Case Studies or asking for References. Lies have become a best practice, as we see each and every day. But that doesn't mean that everybody lies.

Amazon Prime Day

The Virtual Chief Performance Officer quickly shifts the focus on Amazon Prime Day away from "pop retail" concepts.

• "How much business will Amazon do?"
• "How will 3rd party sellers perform?"
• "Can the last mile delivery system handle all the packages?"
• "How will Walmart and Target respond?"
• "Will this impact Black Friday?"

All of that is utter nonsense, and if you're having discussions about those topics, please stop now. That's what lesser-skilled professionals focus on. You are NOT a lesser-skilled professional. You possess gifts. Not one of those issues above impact you. Not one. They're noise designed to make trade journalists $$$ ... not you.

What should you be focused on?

• What is our special annual event?
  
• If we don't have a special annual event, what in the name of all that is good are we doing?
• How do we generate A TON of attention for our special / annual event without spending any money whatsoever? (because as you know, that's how you generate A TON of profit).

If you don't have answers to the three bullet points above, why not spend Amazon Prime Day in your War Room coming up with answers to the three bullet points above?

Secret Shopper / Competitive Research

Early in my career when I worked at Lands' End we focused on stuff that was within our control. We'd analyze each catalog spread like our lives depended upon it (and while our lives didn't depend on it our careers kind of did depend upon it). Our circulation director micro-managed circulation managers to the point of exasperation ... "find out from Finance if your assumption of a 59% gross margin is 59% or 59.5% and if it is 59.5% redo the entire seasonal plan by Monday morning". There was a lot of work being done, and it was all based on how "we" performed. We responded to ourselves.

Then I arrived at Eddie Bauer.

There was a team at Eddie Bauer responsible for our Secret Shopper program and Competitive Research program. We had a younger employee ... and this poor guy ... it was his job to go into Gap and J. Jill and J. Crew and take pictures of the assortment without being noticed. He'd occasionally buy merchandise so that we could analyze it and figure out how we stacked up against Gap on the exact same item. He'd occasionally be chased out of the store by a wily store manager who "knew" who he was and what he was up to.

Assuming this poor guy didn't end up in jail, he'd put together presentations showcasing how our competitors presented the same merchandise we sold ... he'd analyze price points and presentation style, setting off an in-house firestorm of criticism ... "just because they sell that item at $49.99 doesn't mean our $59.99 price point is wrong, it just means we know how to bundle more value out of the item than they bundle." Those meetings were a real treat ... as opinions crashed up against opinions. Not enough data to conclude anything, just enough data to rile up everybody. We'd be at $59.99 and 20% off (meaning we were really at $47.99), they'd be at $49.99 at full price. Who was "right"?

Our Market Research Team would combine secret shopper data with competitive research / surveys. They'd ask me to link PRIZM Cluster data to this information. We had personas ... and wait for it ... wait for it ... the best persona was a woman named "Karen" ... and they'd convert all findings into what Karen believed. You can only imagine what this was like in a meeting ... "How do you know that Karen feels this way, how could you possibly know?"

Where am I going with this?

All data / information has two components.

1. Weight / Importance.
2. Half-Life.

Making a decision based on how a person feels about a visit to your website has minimal importance and virtually no half-life.

Making a decision based on the fact that first-time buyers are always responsive in the first 0-3 months following a first order has high importance and a long half-life. In other words, you can make your company a fortune here, even if the work isn't glamorous or popular or isn't something that your "competitors" are doing.

Focus on important stuff with a long half-life. Seductive analytics based on weak information gets you nowhere.