In Cameron Crowe’s movie Jerry McGuire, the lead character Jerry (Tom Cruise) is a sports agent. In one of the more memorable scenes from the movie, his client Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) informs Jerry that he is not pleased with his performance as his agent. He wants Jerry to convince him to stay on as his client and he has a simple condition for Jerry. Rod want Jerry to “Show me the Money”. In truth its 95% about Jerry showing him the money and 5% about making Jerry prove that he will do whatever Rod tells him to do. Desperate to retain his client, the scene ends with Jerry yelling “show me the money” so loudly back through the phone to Rod that everyone in the agency’s office clearly hears Jerry.
When pitching an idea(s) for change in a business or seeking approval for investment in a new product, service or program it’s always a best practice to show what the potential impact to the business will be. The detail and vigor behind the impact assessment will depend upon where you are in the process of development. At the earlier stages this is likely to take the form of a potential impact or opportunity calculation vs. a full-blown ROI model with risks and sensitivity analysis incorporated. Regardless of level of detail you need to “show me the money” in order to get approval.
In a prior blog post I introduced our online Customer Centric Assessment which provides current state assessment or your organization’s customer centricity through Q&A and also provides some recommendations for moving forward based on the outcome. As a follow-up we’ve created a Customer Centricity Opportunity Calculator which you can download here. Whether you are just looking at starting your Customer Centricity journey as an organization or looking to restart a journey that has stalled, the calculator is designed to provide an initial high level assessment of the impact of using customer data to inform and improve upon your acquisition, retention, up-sell and cross-sell and cost avoidance efforts.
This “show me the money” tool is a starting point to gain attention of key decision makers and to gain buy-in for moving forward. Its not intended to be the final assessment but rather a starting point. You will find areas that you will need to invest more time in to verify the opportunity and to assess the associated costs. But this should provide you with a sense for where the greatest opportunity lies in order to prioritize your efforts as well as to identify the biggest unknowns/greatest assumptions that you need to verify further.
Once you have had a chance to download and input your details please reach out with questions or feedback.
As always, we are here to help you in any way we can.