I Don't Believe You

All consultants hear this sentence. There are a thousand reasons why the sentence is issued, no time to go into them here,

When you hear this sentence, think carefully whether the person saying it has a point or not.

Facts represent a classic instance where the person saying "I Don't Believe You" loses credibility. For instance, you execute an email A/B test. Your email list has 1,000,000 addresses. You split the list 500,000 for "A", and 500,000 for "B". You learn that "A" performs 12% better. It's going to be hard for the employee to say "I Don't Believe You". If you had 20,000 customers in each group, sure, there's a lot of variability, the employee isn't necessarily wrong. But at 500,000 / 500,000? The employee isn't saying "I Don't Believe You" as much as the employee is saying "I Refuse To Change".

I frequently get feedback that is similar to "I Don't Believe You" in catalog marketing ... it's the "The Catalog Has Intangible Value That You Cannot Measure" refrain, which is just pure nonsense. Think about it this way. Here are catalog results for a comp segment in five-year increments.

• 2004:  $/Book = $4.00. Profit = $0.90.
• 2009:  $/Book = $3.40. Profit = $0.62.
• 2014:  $/Book = $2.80. Profit = $0.34.
• 2019:  $/Book = $2.20. Profit = $0.06.
• 2024:  $/Book = $1.60. Profit = ($0.22).

Those are facts. Worse, the facts point to the end of an era. When somebody tells you that "The Catalog Has Intangible Value That You Cannot Measure", the person is saying "I Refuse To Believe Reality" and is willing to make up a seductive sounding sentence to continue to view the world the way the professional wants to view the world.

We go through these cycles in business all the time ... we don't have facts so we derive fables ... then we obtain facts and many don't like the facts because facts shift power ... so we create different fables to disregard facts and give us peace.

Fortunately in business there is always the profit and loss statement ... you can't suggest that efforts that are not profitable will escape accountability. The p&l statement demands accountability. It's cold. It's ruthless. It's controlled by the people who give you money.

You might not believe the messenger. That doesn't mean the messenger is wrong. Does the person delivering the message possess facts?