How to be the professional & the partner

Ryan Barry:

Hi, everybody. Ryan Barry here. I'm joined by my cohost Patricia Montesdeoca. This is Inside Insights, a podcast powered by Zappi. Patricia, how's it going?

Patricia Montesdeoca:

It's going really well. 

Ryan:

It's a vaccination day for you, Patricia.

Patricia:

The second dose vaccination day for me. It's a little bit gray and a little bit wet, but it's warm, so I'm not going to complain at all. So spring is absolutely here. When I walk my grandson, a dog, by the way, I see those shoots coming up and the flowers, I'm just excited. I love spring.

Ryan:

I love spring too, new beginnings. And it was a super long winter, so it's nice. So yeah, this episode will come out probably in a few days, but yesterday, it was in the 70s in Boston. I wore shorts. I got a sunburn on my face.

Patricia:

Damn.

Ryan:

Yep. And I'm excited about that. And as you know, I'm in the midst of... maybe you don't know this about me, I'm in the midst of boycotting Zoom wherever possible, so I've been switching as many of my meetings as possible (of course when I don't need to look at somebody or read something) to walks, and it's been great. So I recommend everybody take a walk today.

I'm really excited for today's episode. We are going to be interviewing Karen Kraft, who is the senior insights manager at Johnsonville. I've actually known Karen for pretty much the whole time Zappi's been in existence. I met her over mojitos at a WPP event in Miami. I want to meet more people over mojitos, by the way. Because I remember we had a lot of fun talking about where this industry was going, and the truth is, I never knew if we would end up partnering with Karen and if I would really get to know her beyond that dinner, and I'm glad that that's not the case and that Karen's worked with us in a couple of companies and I've gotten to know her.

What I like about Karen is she's got no ego, but she's so confident. She's so talented at getting into the details, but also translating consumer feedback into something that business people can understand. And she operates with just such humility that I'm just always impressed by her, and the reason I focus in on no ego and humility with Karen is, she's really badass. She's really good at her work. She just won't be the first one to tell you about it, and so for me, studying how she works in this episode is going to be a treat because we're going to get a glimpse into somebody who's just navigating business really well and actually integrating consumers into the process.

Patricia:

I haven't known her as long as you have, but I'm impressed by... going back to what we're doing here today, you and I, we're helping people get shit done.

Ryan:

Yes, ma'am.

Patricia:

She just gets it done. She gets it done, and she's done it. You know when people think, "Oh, they did it in that company because X," she's done it in two companies that I'm aware of, and I'm sure if I go and see her other examples, they're even better, but she's just kind of smoothly gotten it done and then repeated the success. So this is not a fluke, she's got it to take it.

Ryan:

She's got it going on. So let's talk to Karen, what do you think?

Patricia:

Let's do it.

Ryan:

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of Inside Insights. Today I have the pleasure of talking with Karen Kraft, somebody who I actually met over a dinner with way too many mojitos in Miami and I've come to work with and know very well over the course of the last couple years. Hi, Karen.

Karen Kraft:

Hi, Ryan. How are you?

Ryan:

I'm doing great. Thanks. So rather than me introduce you by your job title, I wanted to ask you a question which will allow you to back into your own introduction. I'm always astounded, Karen, by corporate insights people who started their career on the agency side. I've known you for a while, but I didn't know you used to work for Jerry at Decision Analyst, who's somebody who I respect a lot. So I'd love you to contrast your early days in your career in insights, how you got to them, and what eventually led you to go to the corporate side of things. That will serve as your intro versus reading your job title for everybody.

Karen:

Okay. My insights career started extremely young. My mom started as a bookkeeper at a market research firm in Los Angeles when I was six.

Ryan:

Oh, cool.

Karen:

So I literally grew up coloring on the back of unused questionnaires. My older siblings used to do movie exit interviews, and by about age eight, they would bring home boxes of unused questionnaires that were a cardstock with golf pencils taped to the paper. They would leave it on the living room floor, and on Saturday morning, I'd wake up and they'd pay me a little bit each weekend to take all the pencils back off and put them back in the box so they could be used the next weekend.

So by the time I was in high school, I'd go in, help my mom in the office, and just kind of did everything. My first job was helping type up on a typewriter invoices for market research studies. Then I worked in the copy room with my brother, and it became a job that I worked my way through college. So then when I went to college, I had a degree in social studies, and I added a major of anthropology. I remember when I got the major sheet, the sheet that describes what you can do with your major, market research was on there, and I laughed. I was like, "No way. Not going to do it. I've done this all my life. I'm going to go be an anthropologist, live out in the wild with somebody, and study people."

A few years later, when I graduated, I realized, "Hey, wait, I can just go to grad school," and it takes seven years to get a doctorate. That's what you need to do anything in anthropology, or I could stay in market research. So I chose to, did that for a couple more years at the same firm, got a little restless, went and worked on a cruise ship in Hawaii for a couple years, met my husband, and then, after that, we moved to Texas, because we needed to make sure we liked each other on land.

Ryan:

Yeah. On a cruise is different than on land, right?

Karen:

Yeah. Then that's when it turned out my first apartment was about a mile from Decision Analyst, which Jerry Thomas owns, and I decided, "Well, I could stay in hospitality or go back to market research." I thought, "Oh, probably as a career, market research is better." So I did that, and I worked in client service for them for about 11 years. I really appreciate having all the vendor experience. All told, I counted about a total of 16 years experience. Really appreciate it because it really gives me perspective of what I can and can't do, and it gave me a great foundation of just the basics of market research. What is good research? I found that a lot of corporate researchers that haven't worked on the vendor side don't have those building blocks. Now, yes, you can take master's of market research classes and things to learn those things. But there's a lot of people that don't have that basic knowledge. 

So then when I did decide to make the move and become a market research client, it gave me all kinds of tools that I knew how to make sure I could identify what was good research, not that I was having to do it myself anymore, but that I could recognize when someone was BSing me in a proposal or when somebody was introducing a new technique that the foundation of it was really sound and I wanted to try it out. So that's when I got into the food industry. I worked for Hormel for seven years, and then I've been at Johnsonville for the last two, leading consumer insights. Staying in the food industry, I know way more than the average person about meat and especially now about sausage.

Ryan:

I told you this not before this interview, but many months ago. I remember that at the early onset of the pandemic, all you could find was bratwurst. I think I bought more Johnsonville sausage in that month than ever, and it was just funny, because I always would just think of you at the shelf, like, "Well, one business is doing just fine right now." 

There's something about your background that I find fascinating, obviously your family roots, but I find, Karen, every time I see a corporate insights person that I really admire in terms of pragmatism, technical understanding, the ability to work with partners, not vendors, and also people who get promoted and grow their departments, there is a strong correlation with used to work on the vendor side. It's not to say that people who haven't aren't also awesome, but it's very rare that I see somebody who has a vendor side experience, has gone to the client side, and has struggled.

So I think you unpacked some of it, right? So there's a technical orientation. There's an empathy that you have to generate. There's probably juggling a lot of different balls, and I'm sure at your time at Hormel and Johnsonville, you've interacted with or led insights people who haven't had the benefit. So for the folks on the phone listening who are like, "Okay, I started on a brand manager rotation and fell into insights," what are some pieces of advice that you might have of, "Hey, here's some ways you can actually create that empathy and technical understanding," because, to your point, not everybody's going to have the head space to go do an MMR online certification program. 

Karen:

I think the one thing that being on the vendor side really taught me was to learn how to be a consultant and to learn how to develop relationships, because when you're on the vendor side, you're having to sell. You are maintaining a client relationship, and you're having to understand, what does your client need? When you go to the client side, you still have lots of internal clients, lots of internal customers that you're not doing research just for the sake of yourself. You're doing it on behalf of other marketers, other senior leaders in the company, and you have to be able to identify and understand what are they trying to learn? What are they trying to decide?

I think that's something that when you're on the vendor side, that comes naturally, because you have to do it, you're taking something that you have no background on and having to take it and own it and then deliver a product. When you have that consultative mindset as a corporate researcher, then it makes sure that you're doing what you need to do to get the business question answered. I think it helps you make sure that you're not being an order taker. If someone's saying, "Hey, I want this copy test done," it's, "No, what are you trying to learn? What do you want to know about the ad? Then I'll recommend the right type of test."

So I think for someone who's never worked on the vendor side to really think of how do you improve your consulting skills is probably one of the most valuable skills, because it's that identifying what's the problem that you're trying to solve, what's the business question you're trying to answer, and then coming up with the solution for it, and if you don't have a lot of personal experience in methodology and different study designs, also taking the time to create really trusted relationships with vendors so that you can have some vendors that even if you're not going to use them, you can call them and say, "Hey, I'm trying to solve this problem. How do you think it would be solved?" A good vendor will say, "You need to do this kind of research, and we're not the experts." 

It's creating those relationships. A lot of it, I would say 90% of success has to do with relationship-building, whether it's building relationships with your vendors so they can give you good advice and they can do something for you in a pinch when you need it, as well as creating relationships with your internal customers so that you can understand what are they needing and they can rely on you to be a trusted consultant. 

Ryan:

I love that point, and I feel like there's a benefit for people if they're listening to your advice even if they didn't have the classical training, because if you can have a consultative relationship with your stakeholders, you can have a macro level understanding of the types of things that they need, and content marketing's real. So if you understand your business needs, it's actually quite easy to get educated right now, various different platforms, websites, and, to your point, the trusted relationships that you form. I think a lot of times people struggle with the trusted advice, because they haven't connected those relationships enough internally so that when they go externally, they're like, "Please just fill out my order, vendor. I don't have time to deal with this." So the vendor on the other side pulls back and is like, "Okay, I don't know enough to help you," right? So it is sort of a two-way street.

So the next question I have for you, it strikes me that you're somebody who has a growth mindset. To me, a growth mindset is somebody who's always looking to improve, is always looking to learn and unlearn new behaviors and sort of challenge the status quo. I don't think I've got this wrong about you, but if I have, please let me know. I've been inspired by how quickly you've learned and unlearned tools, technologies, behaviors, ways of working, etc. How do you go about that in your day-to-day, and what are some of the, I guess, practices or hacks that you have, or if nothing else, if you haven't even thought of hacks, how do you just go about that constant evolution of Karen, the professional and the partner?

Karen:

I think a lot of it just has to do with being naturally curious. Consumer insights professionals, a good one, and that's something when I'm looking to hire someone I have to understand. Are they a curious person? When you're looking for someone that their job is to study people and study behavior and look for trends, those people are naturally curious, and that's a type of learning mindset that you're in every day for your job. So to me, it almost is a natural extension, and it's hard to say how I do it. Because I'm curious about why consumers do what they do or why trends are happening or what things take off and what they don't, it makes me curious about my own job and what's the latest technologies in the industry or what's the latest methods and using that same curious mindset of paying attention to what is going on in the industry. If I just stayed in a box and did the same thing over and over, frankly, it would be really boring.

So I think a lot of it has to do with just a desire to learn, because that's kind of what my job is. I'm a bit of a detective, anyway, so I'm also curious about my job. Again, having that great filter from my background of being able to sniff out good research versus hokey stuff, I can put everything through that filter and decide what I'm going to take in and what I'm not. I never really unlearn anything. I just kind of put it on the back burner and you never know when some skill that you learned 20 years ago is going to come in handy for some random project. It's there. It's back there. It just doesn't get used every day.

Ryan:

I really like your answer. I mean, I've been thinking about this with my own work of recruitment, and a friend of mine who's built and sold many companies, I had this discussion with him of, "Hey, how do you hire people who care, who are coachable, who have a growth mindset?" It's really hard to actually instill that in somebody. So what I learned over the years is if somebody doesn't have that natural curiosity or desire to learn and unlearn, it doesn't mean that they don't have it. It just means that they're perhaps not in the role that they were meant to be in. They're not doing something that their superpowers are grounded in.

Let's take the other side of this. Market research as a trade has gotten I don't think unfairly branded risk-averse, overly academic, averse to change in years prior. Now, I'm personally of the opinion that that is an outdated moniker for us as an industry. I feel like this industry's gone from talking about change to changing pretty quickly. We could talk about that for an hour. How have you gone about socializing change, bringing an organization along with you in a world where there's trend lines and models that are built up over long years of trendlines, attribution that potentially was done at a point in time that is no longer relevant? How do you go about that? Because there's a lot of organizational inertia that even somebody with a growth mind and a curious mind like yours I'm sure faces on a day-to-day basis when you're trying new approaches or trying to change the way an organization works or does things.

Karen:

Probably two different ways. The first is start small. Whenever I want to try something new, different, that I know will raise eyebrows, I look for a small, low-risk opportunity when possible. Oftentimes I partner with vendors on pilots to try out a new technology where I know I might get a bargain basement price or even some free research, just to try it out. Then I can then use some of my budget, or I can have the luxury of testing something I've already done in a method that has already been tried and true and is believed by my internal stakeholders. So then I can compare and contrast, what did we learn with this method versus what we didn't? Should we include this in our toolbox, moving forward?

The other way is to recognize when you just need to cut the cord, when something just needs to change. To me, that reminds me of back when I was still on the vendor side and companies were hesitant to move their tracking studies from the phone to the internet. People were like, "How are we going to trend the data?" We just got to the point where, as a company, we were recommending, "You're not going to trend it. You're going to cut the cord. We're going to look... Are the number one brands still number one? Does it pass the sniff test in terms of the absolute rank?"

But here are all the reasons this old methodology isn't working anymore. People aren't answering the phone. People don't even have phones anymore. They're using their cell phone, and we can't call cell phones versus, at that point, 60% of Americans were on the internet. So it's just you have to recognize when times have changed and things are outdated. 

So there are times when you can do it in baby steps, but there are times where you just have to do it in leaps and bounds and you just have to really prove why the old method isn't viable anymore, because times have changed and consumers have changed. I think when you can create that and you can put it in the context of where you get everyone nodding, "Yeah, I don't answer the phone anymore, and I'd want myself to be included in a tracking study," once you can get people nodding their head, then change isn't as hard, especially when you have to make those huge changes. 

Ryan:

I love the last bit, right? So you're making it real for people, like, "When's the last time you picked up the phone and took the survey, fictitious trendline example that I'm sure has never happened, Karen, in real life?" We're just making this up, because people do... I mean, there's old, old books that I read about human behavior that are still relevant, and people respond more to stories in many cases than facts. I mean, I love the qual and quant debates and how one video excerpt from a survey of 1,000 people can change the whole direction of a company. It's just nice that you have some data nowadays to back it up. But that storytelling component's really cool.

I think the other profound insight that you share is that low-risk calibration side-by-side, whatever you want to call it, to say, "This is the currency we've been using, and here's how it compares to the thing we should be using." I think that that's a low-risk way to socialize change. I know it's something you've done quite a bit. So when you make those two proof points, is your experience that it's been easy to get the stakeholders, your brand managers, your innovation teams, at that point to then come along for the ride?

Karen:

Yeah, and the other way I reduce the barriers is if I have any budget of my own to try it so that it doesn't hit their personal budget, that's even the easiest sell of all. It doesn't always happen, and I know a lot of corporate researchers don't have their own budgets, but there have been times where I've gotten a little bit of money of my own that I could spend at my own discretion. I can say, "Hey, we can try this, and I'm going to give it to you for free." Then that really reduces all of the barriers.

But in general, I've found that it works, because then if we try it and I don't agree with it, I don't think it worked, then I can say, "Hey, we need to not do this again, and this is why." Pretty much everyone, we all come to agreement, like, "Yeah, that just wasn't for us." So we tried it. No one's really worse for the wear. We got what we needed to know, but it just didn't work for us as well as it did, so we're going to move on.

Ryan:

That's another important insight, Karen. You're not afraid to fail, but you're limiting your exposure on these failures. I mean, I'm sure for every new thing you've found that you are now integrating, there's probably 3-4x as many that didn't make sense. I think that's something that particularly big companies need to learn, is that embracing of failure, because failure is a form of learning. I love that that's kind of how you've gone about that. That's really fascinating.

Let me ask you another question. So I also am struck by your ability to learn new software. We have an industry that historically wasn't as hands-on as it now is. I think the latest ESOMAR data suggests that over 50% of projects in 2020 were insourced in some capacity, right? So it means a lot of different things, depending on the methodology. How have you maintained an ability to use software to do your job? Because you use probably more software platforms than the average person does to do your job, but you don't strike me as somebody who programs surveys all day. You strike me as somebody who's integrated with your business teams. So it's a two-part question, Karen. How have you learned to use software to do your job, and how do you make that not prohibitive to you being an impactful business partner?

Karen:

A lot of that comes from my roots of I've held jobs that work in the mail room. I can still un-jam a copy machine super fast, because I've had to run big copiers, having done a lot of secretarial work early in my career that you had to learn software very quickly, especially at one point in my career. I was a temp, and just being comfortable and knowing that especially most market research software is pretty idiot-proof, so I'm not going to break it. If I do, then there's a serious problem there. But a lot of people's problem with technology is they're afraid to try it.

But just yesterday, I was in Excel, and a vendor had sent me some data. I was going to be using it for a different reason. I just made a copy of the original sheet to another sheet so that I could mess with it and be free if I screwed it up to the point where I didn't feel comfortable, I couldn't find the formula that I put in that was wrong, I could scrap it and start over. So I think it's just I feel like when I'm working with new software, I have an inherent safety net, and I'm not afraid to go out and walk that tightrope and see how far I can get on my own. It's just literally, I think, more kind of an adventurous mindset of, "Oh, let's see what we can do with this," rather than, "Oh my gosh. It's a new software." I think a lot of it is just a personality trait of not being afraid to try.

Ryan:

That's part of your kind of experimental process. So I want to go back to that experimentation process for a second. Then I want to come back to stakeholder engagement. So you said to me, "Okay, if I have some budget, I will use some of it." I think budgeting for insights is a fascinating dynamic, because I've heard some departments tell me that 80% of what they spend isn't their budget. It comes from somewhere else. Some departments, as you say, don't even have a budget. So let's just say you have a budget of 100 rubies, and that could be coming from marketing or innovation, but also your insights budget. Do you have a general best practice of how much you would carve out for experimentation purposes, or do you kind of view that year-to-year? How do you think about that?

Karen:

Well, personally, I kind of manage two different research budgets, the general consumer insights budget and then the innovation insights budget, both of which are developed from the bottom up every year. Pretty much every penny is accounted for, although naturally built in, especially in the innovation side, some slush funds for things that, "Hey, we probably have X number of studies that are going to need focus groups. So we'll just put in a slush fund for that"-

Ryan:

Right.

Karen:

Or "We have X number of studies that are going to need this kind of followup, but we don't know exactly how many, so we'll just put in a slush fund." So a lot of the experimentation comes in identifying low-risk studies where we can experiment and you only need a few thousand dollars, and you know that it's going to be kind of a rounding error in the overall budget, that some things that you thought... If you have something that you put in $60,000, you know that sometimes it's going to come in at 65. Sometimes it's going to come in at 55. Enough of that comes out in the wash that you can do a little bit of experimentation throughout the year. But I don't have a fund that I get to play with. I don't have a $10 or $20,000 line item in my budget that is Karen's learning new techniques method.

Additionally, there are times where if we find something new and I need funds and I can't squeeze it out of one of our existing budgets, I go to the brand marketer that I'm working with and say, "Hey, I think this is the way that we can answer the question, but I need to your budget to fund it," and then they'll do it, too. But a lot of those little trial-type error things are just rounding errors, where I know that the budget was put together, but some things are going to come over, some things are going to come under, so we can squeeze this in.

Ryan:

Got it. It's an important lesson for prospective vendor partners to also understand that dynamic, because I can't imagine you're alone in this and understand that, "Hey, you've got to make it easy for me if you're supplemental and you're new.” If you don't mind, I want to unpack the budgeting process a bit, because I think it's useful for people to learn how it is. You said it so easily, but I imagine a lot of people struggle with it.

But it strikes me that your budgeting process works for you because of what you said at the beginning of the meeting, which is, "Hey, I focus on relationships with these people. I'm understanding them." So it makes that conversation with the marketing person easy, like, "Hey, I think this is a good way, but I actually need 2X the investment, because I'm not sure, and I also want our basic max diff or whatever." So take us through process. So when in the year do you do it, and are you using historicals? Are you doing discovery with innovation teams, brand teams to understand their learning? How does it all come together in your world?

Karen:

It's funny, because we're on the calendar year, so typically my budget is, quote unquote, "due in August." But obviously, brand planning starts much earlier than that, usually sometime in the spring. As soon as the brand managers start outlining what their brand plans are for the next year is when me and my team start kind of just keeping track of, "Hey, this is what's going on. Do we know what is going to happen?" or "Hey, are they going to need to track that program?" and just kind of start keeping it in the back of our heads of what might be pressing or what might be interesting and also keeping in mind, "What are the big issues that we don't have information on that are pet projects of leadership?" and the more foundational stuff that we look and say, "When's the last time we did an R&D on this type of product, we did an A&U on this type of product?" and try to cycle those in naturally into the plan.

Then usually by summer, once the brand plans really start gelling, that's when we can sit down with each of the brand marketing teams and say, "Okay, what are you thinking in terms of your insights needs? And really start outlining, "Here's the initiatives that they're going to need funding for," and then on the same side, on the innovation side, doing the same thing with the innovation team in terms of... That's actually usually probably easier, because we know where things are in the pipeline and we know, "Okay, that there's so many things that are still in the fuzzy front end. There's so many things that are in the concept phase. So these things are the things that are likely going to become projects. Here's the potential test launches," and being able to outline it that way. So I really think it is just really being integrated in the overall brand planning helps our budget come together.

Ryan:

So I'm somebody who does budgeting here at Zappi, and it's so different, but so similar, because there's data. There's discovery. There's big corporate projects. There's, "Hey, we probably will need anticipation," as you said. So, as like with many things, it's an art and a science.

Karen:

Yes.

Ryan:

But it does strike me that it works well for you, because I've seen you now work in two different companies, and you've had a pretty thorough pulse on your calendar, from what I've seen, in both. So it brings me back to how connected you are in the business. So you've said a lot in this meeting. We're running out of time. I want to ask you two more questions, if you don't mind.

Karen:

Sure.

Ryan:

How do you go about building really productive cross-functional relationships as an insights partner? What are some of the things that you do to make it so that you're welcomed into those brand planning sessions and that when you challenge the brand teams with a cool story or a data point or what have you, it's met with open ears? Because I think, Karen, you've probably had a few chats with other insights people who were really struggling to integrate with... and I pick on marketing, but it could equally be R&D or finance or what have you. So let's just say tomorrow that you're starting a new job at company X. What's your process of really getting around the tables that you need to be?

Karen:

Probably the first thing I do is I try to set up in-person consumer research that I invite them to.

Ryan:

Smart.

Karen:

That's probably the worst part so far right now of COVID, is not traveling for research, because that time traveling together and whether you're going to in-homes or spending hours behind the glass at focus groups, those are great times to build relationships. Not only are you learning about the consumer, you're learning about each other. You're going to dinner late after an exhausting day and talking about random, crazy stuff. You're really creating that personal relationship. Again, it comes back to that selling and consulting, that it's much easier to work with someone professionally when you know them a little bit personally. I think that creating those personal relationships is important.

So one thing I had the benefit of is we did this in this huge project related to occasions, related to breakfast and dinner, that required in-home immersions in multiple cities over my first year at Johnsonville. During that time, that project, we intentionally wanted it to be very cross-functional. So not only did we have marketers, we had people from R&D that came and participated and were part of that effort I was giving them the gift of, "Hey, I want you to listen to the consumer firsthand. Take a step out of your product developer life or take a step out of your sensory life and come into mine for a moment" and inviting people into my world. Then they understand the value of that so that when they want something or I want something from them, it works much easier.

Additionally, when I can't create that situation, like for example, the past year, whenever there's new marketers or new people in key cross-functional team roles, whether they're from internally, from just a different part of the company, or an external hire, I really reach out to them and I spend time to say, "Hey, here's the consumer insights information I have that I'm thinking you need to know. This will help you do your job. It'll help you get up to speed and give you some knowledge that you don't have right now that you need to know so that when you go into that meeting" ... and really helping them understand and helping onboard them. Then that again creates that relationship that they can see me as a trusted partner that really cares about their success as well.

Ryan:

I love it. So number one, don't underestimate building relationships and their importance. It's increasingly hard to do now. So you don't get to do shop-alongs, so how do you do that? Number two, find ways to create empathy. These are my takeaways from this, because I'm loving this. Then number three, you're providing proactive value. So in the cases where you're bringing this data, they're not asking you. You're like, "Hey, I'd like to share this with you." I mean, all three really resonate with me.

All right, last question. We have an unfortunate economic dynamic in the world, where there's far too many great, talented, incredible people looking for jobs. Let's just say all of a sudden, you have a few open headcount, or if somebody was calling you for advice, what is some advice you would give to people who are looking to enter into a corporate insights role in terms of how to stand out and some of the skills that they should be building while they're looking for jobs so that when they get in an interview room and ultimately, even more importantly, when they get that next opportunity that they're successful?

Karen:

Do your homework. That's just basic job advice, but it's surprising the amount of people that you see come into an interview and you can tell they haven't gotten to know what they can know from just reading my company website. And use that knowledge to... If you're asked to share an example, even if you're in a completely different industry, think of a relevant example from your past of a company going through a similar type of change that you think this company is going through. Ask good questions, because especially insights people are detectives. We have to understand, and if you don't show that you can ask good questions and you aren't comfortable being the interviewer and providing good answers as well.

Be honest. If an interviewer asks you a question that you don't know the answer to, don't dance around it, because insights professionals, our currency is the truth. Our currency is facts, and we have to be able to present ugly facts, as well as beautiful facts. We can't be salespeople. In an interview, you're selling yourself. But at the same time, being able to show that you're at the limit of your information, if someone asks you something or if you don't have experience, and you can honestly say that, that's important for me, because I've worked in situations where I've had people that can't say, "I don't know." You can't put that person in front of stakeholders, because we have to be able to deal in the truth, and people have to know that we're not selling. We are the advocate for the consumer.

Being able to show that you can say, "I don't know" in an interview is, I think, critical because I've been asked interview questions when I've interviewed, and I'm like, "No, actually, I don't have any experience in that, but I'd love to learn about it." So you don't have to just leave it at, "Oh, I don't know." You can still say that you'd be interested, but you need to admit when you don't know, because that's something that we as professionals have to be able to do.

Ryan:

I love that part of the advice, because I've been on this journey to bring a lot more DE&I into how we recruit. What I've noticed is people who are naturally more introverted are at a disadvantage from the linear interview processes, because you have your polished extrovert who has a really good boilerplate answer for everything. I think that advice creates space for the introvert and I believe everybody should be more comfortable being more vulnerable. But, "Hey, you know what? I don't know the answer," or, to your point, "I'm curious to learn," or, "It's actually a really great question. Can I ask you another question?" or, "How about I sleep on it and get back to you?" because not everybody is going to be able to shoot from the hip, nor should they be able to, nor should we be building teams that have that. So I'm glad that you shared that perspective, because not everybody's the alpha that we are taught to be on professional networking sites. I think it's a bit of BS.

On the exact opposite of a bit of BS, you've dropped some knowledge in this interview, Karen. I can't thank you enough for your time. When I was thinking about season two being all about education, you were one of the first people I thought of, because I knew without trying, you would be bringing the heat for people. So on behalf of everybody who's going to get smarter from listening to this, Karen, I want to thank you. I appreciate you. You're a wonderful friend and a great advocate for consumer empathy in the world. So keep kicking ass, Karen, and thank you for your time today.

Karen:

Thank you, Ryan. I look forward to someday maybe having a mojito with you in Miami again.

Ryan:

Oh my gosh. Doesn't that sound so nice?

Ryan:

So Patricia, what'd you think?

Patricia:

She's just amazing. It’s always such a pleasure just to listen to her and how easy she makes it, and then when you asked her the really pointed questions, how she was able to summarize and kind of let people know her secrets and just share with that. That's one of the things I love about these conversations, how these insights gurus are just sharing with us their inside secrets.

Ryan:

Yeah. I love it. And I think what struck me with Karen too, Patricia, is stuff that comes easy to her is something that maybe a peer of hers in another company just is struggling with. It was funny, because I felt like she was so matter-of-fact about things that were like "boom” to a lot of others.

Patricia:

Yeah, exactly.

Ryan:

So let's distill it down. What were some of your key takeaways?

Patricia:

I've got this one. I listened and I paid really close attention because I'm always wanting to learn, but you know how usually I make a name for the people that we're interviewing? Well, she's got two names. I couldn't settle on one. She's the curious consultant and the intrepid detective. That's exactly who she is.

Ryan:

I love that.

Patricia:

So she's got four areas of her life that she shared with us all about navigating change. The first one was about how to maintain a growth mindset and how to learn new skills in that growth mindset, which is something that we all need because we all have to keep reinventing ourselves in order to be fresh. She had four points on that. The first one was, keep your natural curiosity. Be a detective. She says that. And she talks about the questions to ask when you're a natural detective, but if you just put your Sherlock Holmes hat on, immediately, your brain changes.

Number two is, know when to learn and know when to unlearn. Some things you've got to keep and some things you've just got to cut. The third one is, don't be afraid to try. I love it when she said, "It shouldn't break. And if it does, it's not your fault, it's its fault. So don't worry about it." I love that. And the fourth one, which she sprinkled throughout her conversation with us, is get creative about funding. She's amazing. She either budgets for it creatively, she rounds up, let's just put it that way. She also makes the vendors partners, and so she helps them and she's an alpha or a beta tester. And the third one, she has some stakeholders that she knows will partner with her to help her with budgeting. So that was the first bucket, growth mindset and learning new skills.

Second was, she had very pointed advice for insights professionals that want to change from vendor to corporate research, because she's got amazing experience and she bucketed it into two simple topics. Simple. One, develop a relationship with your stakeholders. Oh, okay. I'll do that. Why? Well, because with the stakeholders, you have to have a consultative mindset, you have to identify what they really need, not be an order taker. Three, you have to create empathy. Invite them into your kitchen, invite them into your world, give them firsthand access to the consumer. And four, gift them proactively. Show them you're invested in their success and give them value, even without them asking.

And then the second part of this one was, partner with your vendors. They're not vendors, they're your partners. Use them to help you problem-solve, use them to help you teach you new technologies, use them for funding. They're amazing. So she has those two simple things-

Ryan:

Super simple.

Patricia:

Relationship with stakeholders, relationship with vendors. Third one, get creative and change your approach to the budgeting process. Now, she's got a specific fiscal year that she referred to, but let's not worry about fiscal year. She basically said, "Start your budgeting process at the end of Q1, polish it in Q2, and make sure it's finalized by Q3." So she starts early. And how does she start? She starts thinking about brand plans, big issues, pet projects, foundationals, all those things that she has going on.

And the second part is, she looks at the four Ys, which are not really four, they're like five or six, who, what, when, where, why, how? So she thinks about those things, brand plans, issues, projects, and then she thinks about what she needs to learn about them, and that's how she plans.

Ryan:

I love it.

Patricia:

Simple, right?

Ryan:

It is simple. I think the growth mindset thing, it's really on my mind. And for me personally, I'm trying to find a way to balance our commitment as a company to recruiting for diverse, inclusive audiences, but I actually think... the tension that I'm about to bring up is, how do we do that, but also hire people who have a growth mindset? What are questions you can get at to interview? Because learning and unlearning, I don't care if you're an insights manager, I don't care if you're an R&D person, I don't care if you're a marketer, an executive, an assistant-

Patricia:

Exactly.

Ryan:

I don't give a shit what you're doing, you have to be able to learn and unlearn, or you're screwed today.

Patricia:

Yeah, totally.

Ryan:

And I think she really struck that. Some of her preconceptions 10 years ago she had to challenge, and then she's able to iterate through those. Anyways, it just really resonates with me because I think people have that innate in them, and I'm actually struggling in my day to day for people who don't naturally have those skills to help them see that as a thing that they need to be able to do.

I really liked when she talked about being a detective or being a curious consultant. She talked about words that we use in kindergarten, we learn in kindergarten and elementary school, curiosity, investigate, detective, skills. Those are all games we can play. And we're able to pull that back. Now, to that point, there's one more section that she talked about that's going to feed directly into this tension that you brought up, which is how to change your interview approach, but let me back up into what she talked about specifically on the growth mindset and learning new things and inserting change into a risk-averse world. And that's something that it's not easy to do. Maybe I have a growth mindset, but the people around me maybe don't.

Ryan:

Good point.

Patricia:

Exactly. If we start with baby steps, she talked about baby steps, which I love. And I have to admit, I love it because I love that term.

Ryan:

Me too.

Patricia:

When I interview, I interview for four year olds. I want to know how big the four year old inside of you is, because at four is when we're so focused on the word why. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why do the planes not fall? Why do the ships don't sink? So she is so focused on that and then she takes that and she expands it into her world, and she helps people go about getting change. Go to risk-averse people and show them how to change. And she does that by linking with people who perhaps are less risk-averse than others. She starts with low risk, low opportunity situations. And then when it happens, whatever finds out, she decides right away, keep it or lose it.

Ryan:

I love that.

Patricia:

So she does that. And then the other thing is, she is really brave. She seems really calm, but she's amazingly brave. She goes, "And sometimes you just have to cut the cord all at once." That's scary. And sometimes you do, she brought up the topic of tracking, and I think that there are probably very few companies in the world that don't have a tracker of some sort, and changing your tracking is very difficult. So sometimes you can go baby steps and do overlap or whatever, sometimes you've just got to cut the cord. "No, we're not doing telephone interviews anymore because nobody has a telephone. We're going to cell phones or online.

Ryan:

Yeah.

Patricia:

We're not going to have a trend, so what do you do before the trend? You find out, what are the key metrics you want to analyze? Keep those two or three, and then go for broke. Just go for it. That was amazing.

Ryan:

It reminds me, I was having a discussion with Mike McCune yesterday, do you know who Mike McCune is?

Patricia:

The name rings a bell, but I don't.

Ryan:

So Mike ran global insights at Kellogg's for a very long time, and he's in semi-retirement/his second career, so he's teaching and he's doing some consulting work. Anyways, he exposed me to this person named BJ Fogg-

Patricia:

I love that name.

Ryan:

... who's an expert in change management. And there's a book, I just ordered it on Amazon, I can't wait to read it, called Tiny Habits, and it's all about those incremental baby steps. But one of the examples that came up in our discussion was, we can say that insights people need to be strategic advisors, but somebody who's been in an environment of, "Do the research project and shut up" for 20 years is going to look at a big, big word like that and go, "Okay, I have to nod my head in this meeting, but what do they actually mean?"

And so the conversation got to actually getting people to write down what they think it means so that they can internalize that, but also take incremental steps, as you're talking about. And it's something that, at least since you've been at Zappi, you've really brought into my thinking in terms of how we change our clients, because for a company of our size, it's easy to turn on a dime because change is built into how we're built, but we can move way faster than a matrixed global seven category CPG company.

Patricia:

My Queen Elizabeth ships that I always talk to you about.

Ryan:

Yes.

Patricia:

This is the way we go.

Ryan:

Yes, exactly. Exactly. Awesome. I really enjoyed this interview. As always, your synthesis is amazing.

Patricia:

Do you want me to tell you what she talked about in the changing the interview approach before we leave?

Ryan:

Yes, let's talk about that.

Patricia:

That's what she left us with, and I thought it was a brilliant way to close the episode. She told people, she said, you'd be surprised how many people don't do this. It may seem natural, but number one, do your homework on the company. Find everything you can read because you want to be successful in this interview, so you want to come prepared. Number two, share relevant examples from your past. So what does that mean? Look at the role you're interviewing for, look at the company you're interviewing with, and find examples from your past that will be relevant to the interviewer.

Number three, ask good questions. You cannot enter the insights world if you don't prove to the person interviewing you that you're really good at asking questions because that's our job, asking questions. I love number four. Be honest. Sometimes you don't know.

Ryan:

Yes.

Patricia:

Sometimes you just don't know, or sometimes you say, "That's a really good question. Can I come back to you?" Or, "Let me think about that," because not all of us can think on our feet that fast, and it's okay to say, "I don't know," or, "Can I come back to you?" That's a perfectly valid answer. It's much better than lying. And the last one, which seems as if it should be the first, but I love it to be the closing: Be the advocate for the consumer. You can't be in research, you can't be in insights if you're not the advocate for the consumer. And I thought that was a beautiful way for her to end the interview.

Ryan:

And I think advocate is such a better word than the owner of the consumer, which I think is a problem for us as an industry if we think about the tension of democratization of insights.

Patricia:

Yes.

Ryan:

It's not our job to own it, it's our job to curate it and synthesize it and advocate for it, and I think she's-

Patricia:

Make it available.

Ryan:

Make it available. What you reflect on in terms of not having all the answers, it really resonates with me. We just made a very senior executive hire, and it was funny because one of the pieces of feedback that came through in the interview process was, "Oh, maybe so-and-so didn't have all the answers," and I was like, "Oh, but wait till you see her follow-up email and she has a chance to think about it overnight." And so, I actually think it's important that hiring managers and people in any type of role are comfortable acknowledging what they don't know, and if the organization isn't willing to give you a chance because you're honest, introspective, and need time to think, you shouldn't work for them. They don't deserve you.

Patricia:

Don't go there.

Ryan:

Don't go there, homie. Patricia, I miss you. I can't wait to see you in person soon. Now that you're about to get this second vaccination, the sky's the limit.

Patricia:

I'm ready, dude. I'm ready. Bring it on. Bring the walks on.

Ryan:

So we've said it all, our next episode will come in a few weeks, and it is with Jess Southard from Mars, who I won't even tell you anything other than make sure you don't miss it.

Patricia:

Yep.

Ryan:

If you haven't subscribed to Inside Insights, please do. That actually helps us spread the word to get this insight to other folks. Algorithms, they're tricky, Patricia. If you have any feedback, we would love to hear it. We're trying to make this series as valuable for you as possible. If you know somebody who's doing incredible things, we want to hear from them. Please engage with Patricia or myself, or email us at insideinsights@zappistore.com, and like us on LinkedIn. We have an Inside Insights page so you can help us spread the word, and also share ideas with a community just like you, who are interested in learning how to do our jobs better. Patricia, pleasure as always. Thank you so much.

Patricia:

Love you. Bye.

Ryan:

Bye, everybody.