It is absolutely astonishing that Romney and the GOP

[Patiod]

29. A good businessperson doesn't do that

A good businessperson wants solid, objective research. If they don't like it, they get the market researcher to come in an explain the decision that were made to do the research that way (sample choice, question choice, weighting and analysis).

I saw a publisher pull a Romney once.

Even though the market researcher had correctly projected market share on past projects, this guy was a "maverick" and chose the reading series that HE preferred, even though it was projected to get only 8% of the market (they normally got something around 20%).

When it got 7.8%, his entire team was fired.

I walked in to do a sales pitch with the guy who projected 8%, and because we were involved with the fiasco they didn't want to hire us. The 8% guy reminded them that he had predicted the disaster within .02%, and we got the job.

(this is not to say that market research is perfect - it often is deeply flawed, but if you have someone who has a good history with past quantitative projects, listen to them)