Why you get ignored, and how to change it

You spend weeks:

• Gathering data
• Analysing trends
• Thinking about your narrative

Only for your report to sit unopened in an inbox.

C-Suite and your stakeholders nod along in meetings but never act on your findings.

Your research makes sense, yet, your stakeholders make gut-based decisions.

Why?

Most research teams focus on the data, but decision-makers care about the impact.
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‍The cost of Inaction

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When insights go ignored:

❌ Marketing launches campaigns that miss the mark.

❌ Product teams build features no one asked for.

❌ Companies waste millions chasing the wrong priorities.

And for you as an Insight professional:

🚨 Your team gets labeled as a “nice-to-have” instead of a strategic asset.

🚨 Budgets shrink because research is seen as a cost center, not a growth driver.

🚨 You feel frustrated and undervalued, even though you KNOW your work could make a difference.

If this continues, insights teams risk becoming irrelevant.

A few years ago, I worked with an insights team at a fast-growing consumer brand.

They delivered deep, well-researched reports.

But leadership didn't take onboard their recommendations.
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Then, they made one simple change:

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Instead of leading with data, they led with the commercial impact.

For example:

Instead of “Customer satisfaction has dropped by 15%,”

‍They said: “At this rate, we’ll lose $4.2M in annual revenue by Q3.”

‍Executives immediately paid attention, and the team became a must have department, rather than nice to have.

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‍How to make Insights Impossible to Ignore

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‍If you want your research to drive action, follow this simple shift:

‍Start with the business impact, not the data

‍→ Instead of “80% of customers prefer X,”

Try “This could increase conversions by 30%.”

‍Frame insights in the language of decision-makers

‍→ Executives don’t think in data points, they think in risk, revenue, and strategy.

‍End every insight with ‘So what? Now what?’

‍→ “Here’s what this means, and here’s what we should do next.”

‍When positioning research as a growth driver, you move from being a report creator to a strategic advisor.

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Your next step

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‍If you want more strategies to not feel frustrated or undervalued as a market research, I break them down every week in my newsletter

📩 Next week, I’ll cover "the one question every researcher should ask in budget meetings" so don’t miss it.
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