Down the Research Rabbit Hole
Depiction of Alice chasing the White Rabbit down the rabbit hole into Wonderland.
During the quiet summer months, I've had two clients ask me to direct my attention to conducting research for them. One, a corporate client, is looking for opportunities to deepen their partnerships and seek to understand what businesses are excelling in adjacent industries. I've been using the GovWinIQ product from Deltek, coupled with a search engine, to generate an actionable list for this client. The second, a nonprofit client, wants help winnowing down a list of more than 200 funders to identify those that are a great or okay fit for one of their programs. I'm using the Foundation Directory search tool within the Candid suite of products, coupled with a search engine, to generate a grants calendar for this client.
I love doing client research, because it is always takes me places I didn't know existed. Of course, I never want to waste a client's time doing work they won't benefit from. And, I never want to leave a stone unturned (if I can help it).
I tend to start big, generating a list of potential leads by exploring news articles, competitor data, and broad Internet searches. From there, I typically scan the list of leads to examine one or two priority features specified by the client (e.g., a corporate finance client might only want to work with U.S.-based partners, a nonprofit may only be looking for funders who accept unsolicited proposals).
I only do deep, actionable research on those leads that meet the client's priority features. And this is where I can easily get lost down the proverbial rabbit hole. For example, while researching leads for my corporate client, I identified a potential collaborator that is growing exponentially. Curious about the trajectory of their growth, I:
Skimmed announcements about two large government contracts the company was recently awarded, to help my client better understand the potential partner's strengths and footprint.
Pulled public records data to find out who the company competed against for these two new contracts, to determine if their competitors in the adjacent space might be potential partners for my client. I quickly did a priority scan of their competitors and was able to add a handful of other leads to the list.
Drilled further into the GovWinIQ product to determine if the company had any city/county contracts that overlapped with those of my client.
Copied the link to the company's "Careers" page and sent it off to half a dozen connections looking for work with a short note explaining why I've sent them the information.
(To be honest, I also spent a little time daydreaming about what my career might have been like had I known about this company when I was finishing my graduate degrees.)
After about two hours of client research, I typically take a step back to examine how many leads I've explored in the previous 120 minutes. And then I make a plan to increase my speed to stay within my client's approved hours and due dates. This forces me to stay close enough to the entrance to the rabbit hole that I don't get too lost, but not wanting to restrict myself so tightly that I don't discover wonderful opportunities and ideas that will benefit my clients.
Please reach out if you have lead, partner, or competitor research you haven't yet had time to get to. I'd be happy to explore your needs and pull together a quick proposal to help you get to that piece of research you've been meaning to do, but haven't yet made time for. Alternatively, I can give you a quick coaching session on how to make time for the work yourself. Whatever you need, I'm here to help, gretchen@gretchenkinder.com and gretchenkinder.com.