I recently heard the founder of Not Impossible Labs speak.  He’s got an impressive and moving story, worth checking out.

The big takeaway for me?  Everything Possible today was Impossible at some point in the past.

Therefore, Impossible is a fallacy or in need of a corollary, it’s only Impossible Today.  Moving from Impossible to Possible requires a rethink or reimagining.

Tagging records in mass with psychological profile data so we can match message to motivation was Impossible a year ago, now it’s Possible.

Want to learn about the Possibilities of tailoring comms by Personality? Join us at our learning session, registration is free.

How did we go from Impossible to Possible?  I’m hopeful this recap will provide product insight but also serve as an Impossible to Possible template of sorts.

• A key new add to our Behavioral Science Team, Stefano, brought subject matter expertise on Personality.  I’m not saying new thinking must come from the outside but often does.

• We had a “burning bush” issue; survey research is mission critical to have any clue about supporter motivation and needs.  But there’s a massive chasm between strategic insight and in-market change.   We lived it and it haunted us.

• We felt a huge source of frustration with the sector’s non-answer on segmentation – one size fits all – and personalization; hardly any to speak of.   Channel is not segmentation nor is donor status, it’s selection.   Dropping name and first gift date into merge fields is not personalization.  We were motivated to feel less frustrated.

• We did scenario planning on the various ways to pull this off and balanced development cost with timeline and complexity.

• This is R&D spend and every organization either grows or dies.  R&D is a must-have for growth.  Elbow grease doesn’t hurt but keeping up with the pace of progress around you and ahead of your competitive set is mandatory and not solved with even copious amount of elbow grease.  This is a % of your revenue, meaning it’s within every organization’s grasp.  It’s must-have spend and it’s relative to where you are.

• Part of the R&D involves testing, both on substance and product positioning.  We’ve done both.

• But our internal processes needed to change.  Culture eats new product for breakfast.  We modified our client onboard to include the tagging process.  This is more than scheduling, it requires socialization and rubber meets the road, in-market execution.

• Now that we’re up and running internally and with all our full service, DV clients for whom we do the strategy and execution the biz question is whether Personality Tags can be a commercial revenue line as a DIY product?

• Can an agency or charity buy Personality Tags and our DIY message and tailoring guides and execute without ever needing to talk to us?

• We have reason to believe it’s possible as charity: water did a winning email test tailoring by Personality with no direct involvement from us.

• But it’s still an open question, is DIY feasible and what’s the market uptake?

Kevin