Recently, Seth Godin had one of his usual “poke in the eye” blog posts. I love how he does such a wonderful job of cutting through clutter. 
The Thomas bottomline out of the post is that many professionals don’t check back to see how things worked out. I have to confess that’s something that bugs me, as well.
Lots of people who do work for NPOs and ministries seem to have the luxury of giving advice or providing services and don’t have to deal with how things worked out.
One of the reasons we love the work we do is that we’re constantly examining, evaluating results. Even our digital/estuff has a direct response loop (I’m always about ROI). “How’d it work out” is also one of the reasons that we offer money-back guarantees on many of our consulting gigs.
So that’s what I think about “how’d it work out.”
Well…one more thing…if you’re on the nonprofit/ministry side of things, do you ever ask donors your version of “how’d it work out?” Wouldn’t that be an interesting conversation?
How was the receipting?… Did you feel appreciated?… Are you thrilled with how your donation was spent?
If you’re not asking those questions you’re missing out.
So, are you asking “how’d it work out?” What are you hearing? And if not, why not? I’d love to hear why you think it can be difficult to ask, “how’d it work out?”
Steve Thomas
Partner, Oneicity
(photo credit: helgabj)
2 thoughts on “how’d it work out?”
Steve—I was struck by the same Seth Godin post. I think many businesses are afraid to ask the question because they may be asked to fix something! Some of my homebuilder clients are very proactive is seeking out customer satisfaction issues, a few like to keep their heads down. As a donor, I DO NOT recall EVER being asked the questions you suggest. I believe that should I be asked, I’d be hooked! We all want to be part of something that is working and doing good. It’s just hard to know what happens after we mailed the check.
@Al– interesting that you’ve never been asked…and I’m glad to hear that if you were you’d be hooked. Sadly, most of us do wonder what happens after we send the check. Great to hear from you.
st