Returning to our Shark Tank example from yesterday’s article, once the sharks pivot from their emotional reaction to a product investment opportunity to an analysis based on data, what questions do they ask?
First, they want some evidence that there is actual demand for the product under consideration.
Assessing that typically comes from one of the sharks in the form of the question, “So, tell us about your sales numbers.”
Sales results are a measurable piece of data that the sharks can use to begin assessing the worthiness of a potential investment.
Before asking about any other important business metrics, the sharks simply want to know if there is actual measurable demand for what you’re offering?
Sometimes, the sales numbers of the presenters are so low, that the sharks go no further and “they’re out” because the uncertainty about actual demand for the product indicates that the risk of an investment is too high.
The PHC Shark Tank
I would like you to imagine what would happen if there were a Shark Tank for Pregnancy Help Centers (PHCs).
The “sharks” in this case, would be five passionately pro-life philanthropists of major financial capacity who want to invest in PHCs that show great potential to provide the sharks with the return on investment that they are seeking: as many babies’ lives saved from abortion as possible.
Just like on the real Shark Tank show, the leaders of each PHC come in to the PHC “shark tank” and present their case for support.
You can be sure that each case for support presented would be very emotionally powerful, including one amazing story of a woman who was intent on getting an abortion, but after encountering the love and compassion of the staff at the PHC, changed her mind and chose life for her baby.
Each PHC would then show pictures of that baby, and everyone present, including the sharks, would know that that baby would have been lost to abortion if not for the services offered by the PHC.
I can assure you, the five sharks would be very moved by all of these save stories, and grateful to the team at the PHC for saving that baby’s life.
And then…
Tell Us More About Your Sales Numbers
As the sharks pivot from the emotional plane to the analytical plane, things are about to get interesting.
At the emotional level, our sharks are interested in each PHC because the save stories are evidence that the PHC has a product that at least one woman “purchased,” so to speak.
To the sharks, there appears to be demand for the PHC’s services.
But one “sale” does not a successful business make.
So just like on the real Shark Tank show, our PHC shark tank philanthropists ask each PHC about their “sales” numbers.
For the PHC world, that question would be something like, “How many babies did your PHC save last year?”
What Is a Good “Sales” Number?
Many of these PHCs would report that their “saves” were below 100, for the entire previous year.
Now, we don’t know necessarily if that is a “good” result, or a “bad” result.
It depends on what the aggregate demand was for both abortion services and choose life services in the geographic market where a PHC offers its services in competition with abortion providers.
Aggregate demand can be calculated by adding total abortion “sales” in the market plus total choose life “sales.”
To give one simple example of a PHC I work with, the number was 100 “sales” for the PHC versus 10,000 “sales” for the nearest abortion provider.
Assuming that our sharks had that data at hand, the subsequent discussion in the PHC Shark Tank could get tense very quickly.
It’s Not Good Enough, Yet…
Now imagine if the benefactors financially investing in each PHC were present in the audience watching our PHC sharks ask hard questions to the leadership team of each PHC.
Do you think those benefactors would be motivated to invest even more?
Probably not.
I want to make clear here that my motivations for bringing this to light are NOT to steer benefactors of PHCs to “take their investments elsewhere.”
On the contrary, the Pro-Life Business Industry desperately needs increased investment in order to take down the Abortion Industry.
My point is that there is no mechanism currently that reveals to benefactors of PHCs that the PHCs they invest in are dramatically underperforming, as measured by market share.
Imagine if each PHC was required to present to its benefactors every week a graph charting the number of abortion “sales” Planned Parenthood made the week before versus the number of choose life “sales” the PHC made.
Believe me, for the vast majority of PHCs across our country, the graph would not tell a pretty picture, and would cause many philanthropists to say to the PHC board and its staff, “I’m out, until you fix this.”
More tomorrow…
Regards,
Brett