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In the previous article, I finished with the claim that, like the sharks on Shark Tank, a pro-life philanthropist who saw a typical PHC’s “sales” results, would say to a PHC board of directors and its executives, “I’m out, until you fix this.”
 
In their competition against Planned Parenthood, the vast majority of PHCs in the U.S. cannot bring forward a data-centric analysis that proves to a prospective pro-life philanthropist that there is significant demand for the PHC’s “choose life” product offering, as measured by market share.
 
In one respect, PHCs are fortunate that most pro-life philanthropists are not any where near as demanding as the sharks on Shark Tank.
 
In another respect, however, it is exactly because pro-life philanthropists are not as demanding as the sharks on Shark Tank that the PHCs achieve such low market share against Planned Parenthood.
 
 
Measuring Feelings
 
Going back to the Shark Tank show for a second, I would like you to imagine how dramatically different the show would be if the sharks were not allowed to ask presenting entrepreneurs about “their numbers.”
 
The sharks would not be allowed to ask about sales results, profit margins, or anything data related.
 
Then imagine that the sharks still had to make investments based only on the strength of each entrepreneur’s presentation.
 
How would the sharks make their decisions?
 
Without access to any objective measurable data, a shark’s “analysis” of an investment opportunity wouldn’t really be an analysis at all.
 
A decision to invest, or not invest, will now become completely subjective – based on emotions and gut instinct.
 
Put yourself inside the head of one of the sharks in this situation.
 
Your decision-making process to invest, or not invest, would be based on things like how much you personally were attracted to the product being presented; how creatively and professionally the entrepreneur’s presentation was executed; and how charismatic the the entrepreneur was (such a nice guy!).
 
In other words, your investment criteria will now be completely based on your feelings.
 
 
All Hat, No Cattle
 
The imaginary Shark Tank scenario I just described to you is not imaginary in the world of pro-life philanthropy.
 
If you have ever attended a PHC’s fundraising event, you will recall the presentation was filled with a lot of emotion, and likely zero analysis, before they asked you to invest at the end of the event.
 
Do you see the problem here?
 
Just like in our imaginary shark tank example, without any objective basis upon which to make your investment decision, you are likely to make a 100% emotionally based decision about how much you will invest in the PHC.
 
As a result, it is possible that you are investing your hard-earned money in an organization that is more skilled at delivering style than delivering substance.
 
As an investor, you want an objective measurable return on your investment, not a feel-good story devoid of real substance.
 
You don’t want to feel like you’re winning, you want to know that you’re winning.
 
More tomorrow…
 
Regards,
 
Brett

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