• by Kendall Allen , July 6, 2009

Everyone wants a gut as reliable as a GPS. Most of us spend a lifetime getting acquainted with our own gut instinct and assessing how much we should trust it -- or back it up. Back-up comes through trusted friends, peers, mentors, market research, thought leaders, rivals, competitors or whatever real-life analysis and knocks are needed to make us feel sure our decisions and paths are solid. But, outright back-ups aside, we generally realize over time that we all have our own level of instinct vs. external validation. There is no rule on how much a gut should be your guide. Still, market environment counts for a lot.

During tense but opportunistic market times like these, lives are at once industrious and entrepreneurial, corporate and dutiful. This duality is true in a whole range of ways. Every day, we navigate streams of potentially conflicting interests and integrate reams of input. The stakes are higher, and so is our blood pressure. It's clear that, in talking to friends, we more heavily consider the role and reliability of our own instincts in a market like this one. It is interesting, though, that some trust their guts more, while others look entirely to external sources for decision making. The sweet spot is somewhere in between, of course. I think about some very commonplace areas of evaluation in business and how much more weighty decisions within them can seem right now.

1. Choosing Your Management Team and Your Partners

I believe that most of us who take this seriously get better as our years and experience in business build. Most of us learned the lesson on due diligence one, two or three times early in our careers. We know how to evaluate or reality-check the credentials, reputation and general compatibility of teams and partners with whom we align. But the true story of working together is always the one that counts. Principles, integrity, life and business experience in action are everything, when it comes down to it. And, during times like these, there are plenty of distractions from the day to day, but we should always stay lucid on our alliances. Doing our diligence, listening to our own experiences and instincts and the situations at hand is the right mix.

2. Market Research vs. Gut Instinct

There are many aspects to this one. In the agency world alone, you see a lot of variation on how teams use data to create driving insights for campaigns -- or not. You see various forms of insider discussions -- often never facing the market -- where ad hoc groups lock themselves in a room to hash out and self-validate what they feel might resonate with the consumer. I recently attended a talk given by a woman whose company specializes in marketing based on the insights of young girls. They rarely rely on market-facing reconnaissance but almost solely on the points of view and consumer/demographic insights of an in-house group of girls. The inference is that this is sort of a "mini market" in residence, whose collective gut instincts, when harnessed, can guide.

On a more individual basis, while our inner marketer reminds us that data, data integrity and vetted analysis are pre-requisites to sound planning - we of course will rely on our gut, as we sort, apply filters and put our insights, however generated, to use. Our instincts must tell us where data ends and actionable analysis begins. Instinct should always play a part.

3. The Role of Experience and Instinct in Evaluating Creative

These days, we press creative to a higher standard within the mix -- often expecting it to attract, engage and even convert. Some very smart people I know like to say that creative and media must work equally hard. So, during these times of greater total media accountability, we are stricter on the efficiencies of our creative. We expect not only the emotional but tactile engagement of the consumer by our images and animation. The interplay of consumer insights, powerful visuals, animation engineering and paths to conversion is a lot going on. It almost seems the best we can do is have the right balance of interests in the room when we sit down to evaluate, work it out and go to market. One creative director's or one lead client's instinct alone does not a sure-thing make.

4. Extending Your Mix Outside Your Comfort Zone

I was talking to another one of my friends in magazine publishing last week -- about digital methodology. She runs Consumer Marketing for a long-standing, very well regarded group of lifestyle brands, slowly but surely getting to cross-platform planning, content development, multi-media and integrated sales and marketing. She has long been wise enough to be out front on this. Right now, she is grappling with her comfort zone on social media - in a very specific way. She has implemented social media and things like Twitter for the titles she represents and is only now getting acclimated on a very basic brand level.

She questions how far should she take these methodologies with advertisers and partners within integrated programs. And how, in this market, with very tight budgeting, does she allocate resources and staff for this, just enough to show an expansive approach but also to engender confidence with advertisers who are willing to test? Saying she has an instinct for this would be a stretch, given her traditional roots. But, nor does she have the data. So, she is feeling her way and validating based on shared learning across her teams.

Personally, I have always looked to the triumvirate of integrity, experience and follow-through to show me the way. And for my disappointments and surprises -- both in myself in others over the course of my career -- I find that my level of adventure and risk taking require I never stop getting to know my own gut. Or, every day, looking to guideposts I know and trust or have found anew, amid the madness.