Client Stories
Validating a New Product Release with Research
As Crucial Learning prepared to launch a new product for workplace teams, they wanted to understand the statistical link between relationships among team members and overall team performance. I partnered with them to develop and field an online survey distributed across industries, organization sizes, and team types. The goal was to examine how interpersonal dynamics stack up against other commonly cited factors in influencing team success.
The analysis revealed that nearly half of what makes a team perform well (or poorly) can be attributed to relationship quality. Factors like feeling understood, holding favorable opinions of teammates, and resolving interpersonal conflicts quickly had the strongest ties to team performance. By contrast, team characteristics often assumed to be influential, such as size, function, location, or even diversity, had no measurable impact on performance.
Crucial Learning used these findings to reinforce the value proposition of their new team-focused course and to sharpen research-based product positioning and marketing messaging for the large-scale product launch. They created sales messaging and materials that enable client advisors to position the Crucial Teams course as a learning solution that would drive measurable results and improve team performance.
The research generated 2 high-leverage media placements, including a story on Inc.com.
The research report had 2,400 downloads and generated 120+ marketing qualified leads.
Webinar had 3,500+ registrants and generated 217 marketing qualified leads.
Bringing Clarity to the
State Budget
The Utah Taxpayers Association had previously published an annual report on the state budget but found it didn’t gain much traction. The methodology wasn’t clear, the analysis raised questions, and it lacked a strong message or actionable takeaways.
While the Utah legislature offers excellent transparency around state finances, that information lives in many different places, making it hard to get a clear, high-level view of the most important trends in state spending.
I developed a new budget report for the Association that clearly outlined where money comes from, where it’s spent, what areas are growing, and what priorities are driving the numbers this year. It also provided a platform for the Association’s president to weigh-in on the governor’s new GRIT initiative regarding public spending.
We published the report just ahead of the new fiscal year and shared it with local media, earning coverage in political newsletters and KSL news radio, all of which quoted the Association president. The report made it easier for journalists, Association members, and engaged citizens to quickly understand and reference key budget facts.
The report strengthened the Association’s role as a trusted tax watchdog, providing timely information to advance its mission and enhance transparency and accountability around state spending.
The report earned coverage in political newsletters and KSL news radio, quoting the Association president.
Linking Behavior Change to Business Performance
Crucial Learning, a provider of corporate learning solutions, wanted to understand whether the skills and behaviors taught in their courses could reliably predict organizational performance. The goal was twofold: to have reliable data that would answer client’s questions around the impact of the courses on their bottom-line results, as well as demonstrate how clients could find additional ROI when training more than one Crucial Learning course.
They partnered with me to refine their survey instrument and conduct the statistical analyses needed to test the relationship between key behavioral competencies and organizational outcomes.
Our research uncovered the human behaviors that most enable an organization to both execute on its current mission and innovate to stay relevant.
Crucial Learning used the study results to create sales messaging and materials that enable client advisors to answer client questions around the ROI of the company’s learning solutions, issue a press release, hold a webinar with 3,200 registrants that also generated 200 marketing qualified leads, create a research report of the data, and support an email campaign.
This research gave the organization new evidence to support its value proposition and a data-driven way to guide clients toward high-impact learning solutions.
The research report was shared to 75,000 clients and prospects via an email campaign and generated 75+ marketing qualified leads.
