Where Did The Money Go?

Something is going on ... (click here).

Speaking of private equity, I worked a lot of projects from 2012 - 2018 with private equity folks. They wanted to understand how much business would still happen if catalogs were scaled back or didn't exist. It was always interesting that they wanted the answer but actual catalogers didn't want the answer.

Post-COVID, those projects ended. Once you know the answer, no need to pay to get similar intelligence.

Worse (for me, for monetization purposes), you quickly learn a secret, a hack, one that allows outside investors to avoid me altogether.

• If a business is still generating 15% or more of sales via a call center (i.e. customers phoning in an order, talking to a live voice), the business will have a challenge escaping catalog marketing.
• If a business generates 20% or more of sales via email marketing, the business can escape catalog marketing.

Once you see that pattern repeat, no need to keep paying for knowledge.

Also interesting - you have to be all over the finance folks. In my client work, it's common for Finance folks to be great business partners. Very common. But every once in awhile you run across a situation where things just don't seem right. Those would be cases where, if private equity is involved, private equity needs to provide adequate oversight, so nobody ever has to ask "where did the money go?".