Sebastian (00:02):

You are listening to the Insightful Connections podcast. Our guest today is Susan Fader. Susan is an award-winning qualitative researcher and business strategist. Her consultancy. Fader Focus is a business transformation catalyst that challenges baseline assumptions and inspires businesses to act and think differently about the most mission critical challenges that are impacting their business health. They offer a range of services that leverage familiar research techniques and revolutionary approaches that challenge belief systems and open new windows for understanding consumer behaviors. Reframing client hypotheses into evidence-based paths for strategic action. Susan is a legend in the market research industry and a personal inspiration. She's the kind of person who will bookend dozens of focus groups with a trip to Burning Man and be right back in action. She's moderated focus groups in Steve Schlesinger's childhood bedroom back when Sago operated out of his mom's house. It's a pleasure and an honor to have her on today. Susan, thanks for being here.

Susan (00:56):

Thank you for inviting me.

Sebastian (00:59):

So Susan, before we get into it, and I'm gonna get to my usual question, we went on a bit of a digression really before we started talking about tandem cycling. I'm wondering if you can tell me a little bit more about tandem cycling and and what it means to you.

Susan (01:34):

So generally, um, my husband and I like active vacations and he was a cyclist and I like cycling as a kid and we figured why don't we go on a cycling vacation? And my husband correctly pointed out he was a much stronger a cyclist and if we went, we were gonna spend most of the day completely far apart. So he came up with the idea that we should do tandem and we did it in the south of France. The only trouble is it was the most bizarre bike you've ever seen. The controls were in the back where I was sitting, so he had to verbally instruct me what to do. Coming to Hill, doing all this, we survived. The first day we actually rode 80 miles, that's a long story. We ended up on a super highway but we survived. We came back and he said, okay, we need our own bike. And he found a place that makes coupled tandems, which is a tandem that can come apart and fits into two suitcases. You can check on board. And since then we've been tandem cycling and camping. We carry all the equipment with us for up to 10 days and we're still married. So it's an amazing, you know, you have to kind of work together. We have totally different styles of riding. I actually am the stronger cyclist now.

Sebastian (02:49):

And I think you mentioned it's a bit of a litmus test, right? For partnership as if you can tandem cycle with anybody.

Susan (02:55):

Right. People have this misnomer that you don't have to pedal together, you have to pedal together, you have to have the same cadence, but people don't have the same styling. I attack a hill, my husband is more gradual. It took us like two years before we understood and were had a thing where there's certain parts of a ride. He rides my style than I ride his style. He knows I like to stop and read every historical marker there is. So he stops. He, he doesn't care less, but you work it out. But also we're together, we can talk, we can have a conversation and he's done playlists. He knows we're gonna be at an overlook. So he has a playlist for that. But the fact that we could have a conversation while we're doing this is what really makes this wonderful.

Sebastian (03:42):

Do you think it would make sense to do a kickoff with a client on a tandem?

Susan (03:46):

You know, when they do these group things, team building? Yeah, this is the best way because you really have to listen to each other. You have to observe each other, you have to see what the other person's needs are. You have to pay attention to things that could be in the road on the tandem. We have had three accidents where I have cracked my helmet. Geez. So once in Ireland we were going downhill and the front tire popped and you would think the bike would keep going. It literally went like this. And because I was in the back and it split second, I lay there on the road with blood coming out with a truck coming. Oh my goodness. And my husband picked me up and threw me into the thistles. He's a keeper, but yes, he's a keeper. He, he figured truck thistle and uh, we were very, very lucky 'cause it was a desolate stretch, but there was a gift shop down the road and they cleaned me up. I, my whole face was black and blue. We had to figure out how to not make him look like a white beater when we went into town. <laugh>.

Sebastian (04:51):

Okay. So we should at some point talk about market research. Sure. So Susan, I'd like to get this context from everybody who's on the show. I'm wondering if you can tell me a little bit about how you initially got into market research and how that's accounted for where you've ended up in the year since. So

Susan (05:07):

I don't think anyone, when they're little says I'm gonna go into market research. But I love stories. I love reading, I love stories. I love narratives and just being transported. And so when I started my career, I started marketing. I was on client side, I was in product management. I worked on alphabet cereal and uh, since it was uh, kids cereal, our agency Ogilvy was out of la I was based in New York and I got to go to LA five times a year to work on the creative and choose the commercial. And my uh, agency people were having a lot more fun 'cause they worked on many, many different accounts. I was just gonna work on serial for like the next eight years on different serials. So I went to the advertising side of the business and I worked in new business. So I worked in new business and new projects and part of that it introduced me to the world of research and just the fact that you could listen to people hear stories and things. And then my husband got transferred to Tokyo on two weeks notice. We had two little kids and then I ended up doing consulting work in Japan. Came back, my husband said, you're doing this already, why don't you try to do it on your own? And that's how I got into, uh, having my own consultancy and research and strategy.

Sebastian (06:28):

I'm curious what the role of research was in, in new business for advertising. So

Susan (06:33):

When I worked for Interpublic, it wasn't just advertising like they would special projects. So Koch had a food division and we worked on development of new food products for them. So it was not just advertising, it was marketing. It was understanding what people would be interested in. So I had a lot of uh, research imbued in that.

Sebastian (06:56):

So Susan, you've been talking lately about the idea of wide open listening. Most general level, what is wide open listening?

Susan (07:04):

Wide open listening is standing back at actually listening to what people are saying. And it's also giving them the opportunity to tell you something in a narrative. What we are focused on in this industry with the acceleration of technology is gathering data, scraping data, looking for aggregation. Now technology is wonderful. I first started using AI in 2014 in the work I did. I did my first remote focus group in the last century. So I, I am an early adapter and I'm not against it. But what gets lost is the person's voice. You can have 50 interviews and it can be one person saying one thing who turns on the light. There's that classic example from World War II where the RAF was having the planes come back all shot up and they're trying to figure out how to prevent planes from being shot down. So they looked for all the bullet holes were and that's where they were gonna put the armor. However, the answer was the planes that didn't come back and they thought they didn't have the data. Well it was where these planes weren't shot was the data they didn't have. So if you're just relying on data scraping, you miss things that aren't said. And I just had a project where literally the whole insight was, wow, we didn't hear this. And that was the insight. It wasn't the aggregation. So listening is really giving people a framework. They can share something in the story.

Sebastian (08:40):

Tell me a little bit more about that part of it.

Susan (08:42):

So what happens in research is we don't have time, we don't have the money, we just have to get it. But you have to make baseline assumptions to get started. You have to about how you're gonna ask the first question what they know. So if you're doing concept development, usually what happens and you recruit people and I have my classic sample of fabric softeners, we heavy use of fabric softeners that were gonna come out with new line extensions. So let's just ask them what they like and don't like about fabric softeners and then go into it. I said no, you have to think about people's lives. Lives are, they don't live in the world fabric softener. They live in the world of laundry. So have the people self observe themselves before they come in and have them create a story. Three things they like, three things they don't like about laundry. And then have them present that story well. A third of the people who are heavy users of fabric softeners and have been recruited that way didn't mention fabric softener. Now if you start from a place and you kind of ask them why it's a different framework as opposed to what do you like what you don't like? Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. So you get a much better read and it's they, you've brought them into their world but you're also listening to them and then they can evaluate things better

Sebastian (10:00):

Riffing on that it, it's almost like you're asking them to think about fabric softener and not giving them space to show you that they don't think about fabric softener.

Susan (10:12):

So that's starting in the wrong place and that's what happens a lot in research is I have this analogy that research is like uh, running a race you have the starting line where you make the baseline assumptions. You have the race where you're gathering and then you have the analytics and they kind of rush into the a second and third and it's a given, but change is constantly happening. And we saw it very fast during covid how things changed very quickly. But in real time we don't. So if you don't do a check-in on who can competition is and you don't do a check-in, are you asking the right question? Has language changed? Has the use of the jargon that you're using still valid or is there new jargon that you have to be using and how you frame the questions?

Sebastian (10:57):

You know, baseline assumptions are, I think as you pointed out, something that we can never really get away from. They're always necessary to start the process. How do you make sure that you're making the right ones?

Susan (11:09):

So there are a couple of things. When you're dealing in a marketing research or business exploration situation, people tend to say, I want these questions answered. And they give you a list. And the reason is they think those questions are going to get the answer they want. So you have to kind of step back and say, help me understand what is it the output? What are you looking for? Why do you think these are the people you need to talk to? And you kind of dissect that you spent a little time upfront. And then what happens a lot of times is the objective has changed. They have changed who they're gonna speak with. And also this whole thing about we already know that you're constantly hearing, we've done the research, we already know that. Well you might think you know it, but change happens. And the other thing is the people you're having a conversation with, you have to bring them up to that space the way I did with that fabric softener start in their world.

Susan (12:10):

And I have another classic example I've come up with that research is like a hallway and you have lots of different doors and the doors are numbered and there's questions and information behind it. We kind of take people by the hand go to door one, door two, door three, but what if their story starts at door five, then they go to door three. That's a very different way of how we're gonna listen and hear because if we start them at door one, it's like putting horse blinders on them and saying this is how you have to share. And they go, okay, they don't wanna know about this.

Sebastian (12:45):

It almost sounds like the idea is is letting the respondent lead,

Susan (12:49):

Letting the person lead <laugh>, letting the person lead. I it's, that's

Sebastian (12:53):

My inner recruiter

Susan (12:54):

Coming out. I'm sorry I No, no, no it's fine. It's just, it's people, it's conversation. We want information, we want information and there are constraints on how we can get it. But we've lost sight of conversation Stories is how people share and what they leave out and where they start that their story and the descriptors they use give you tremendous insight.

Sebastian (13:21):

How do you personally balance the desire for information is often very powerful from clients and obviously you know, clients have a lot of influence on the process with the desire to make room for the people you're talking to to lead the discussion. Because it strikes me that there's a bit of a tension there between the desire to maybe ask a lot of questions and the desire to make space for the people you're talking to.

Susan (13:49):

So there's tension the first time I'm working with a client and suggest it and then afterwards they say, wow, we've even gotten more information. I use human transcribers, that's a whole nother thing. But my transcribers tell me, my interviews are generally double the pages of what other people's interviews are because people give me paragraphs which means I don't need to ask lots of follow-up questions. And if you start unaided, I could get 80% of what I need to cover in that unaided heart. And then it's kind of like cleanup with all the aided and different things. But I'm referencing, I'm having a conversation with them, I'm referencing things that they have said and if there's a dis The other thing is sometimes you know how you have research results and someone said something here and then the group said something here and it doesn't make any sense to you. And you as the client and the research try to figure it out. Well I asked them to give me the bridge and 90% of the time the bridge they give me makes total sense to them and to us 'cause we've had that conversation. So having that unaided upfront doesn't cause you to have less, it actually gives you more time to discuss. What's

Sebastian (15:07):

One thing you think we can all do to be better listeners in, in life outside of research?

Susan (15:13):

Just be interested. Just be interested. You never know where a story's gonna go. Give people space if they need space.

Sebastian (15:22):

And how do we resist the impulse to not listen? Because I think sometimes that's there and, and it happens just sort of naturally, especially when there's so much going on. What are some strategies that you use to stay present with the things that people are telling you?

Susan (15:37):

What you have to do is try to not let your mind wander. Try not to say, okay this is how I'm gonna respond. Just kind of go with the flow. Especially in the beginning of conversation. What I do do, if I'm starting, I might say in two or three sentences, can you tell me X? They might give me five, but I've kind of outlined, I want it short. You can give people feedback. Oh that's really interested. Can you tell me in a just very quickly why you think that way? One of the things I do, which is kind of crazy is I start my quant surveys with an open end. And it's not an open end that is to gather information, it's to help put the person into the mindset of the topic. 'cause if you go dive right in, like if it's on cooking, you know it could be tell me about your favorite meal or tell me what you like, you know three words about what you feel about cooking. 'cause you wanna transport people in and it makes it more interesting for them. Have you ever been in a situation where you don't know what the other person wanted and it kind of get a little defensive and you know, am I doing something wrong And you never wanna create that situation for anyone? Yeah.

Sebastian (16:49):

Yeah. That's so interesting. Can you give me an example of where adding an open end to the start of a quant surveys has sort of enriched what you were able to glean for the client?

Susan (16:59):

What it did is we had a lot more completes. You know how some, when you have like in a very long survey, like a 15 to 18 minute survey and you have all those dropouts, we actually, by putting that open-end in the front have had a lot less dropouts. 'cause people get into it, but they also feel that we really wanna know what they are thinking.

Sebastian (17:22):

You're giving them room, letting them lead almost.

Susan (17:25):

Yes. Yes.

Sebastian (17:26):

Last question from me, Susan. What keeps you motivated?

Susan (17:29):

What keeps uh, people are interesting. Life is interesting and just doing lots of different things. You have all different parts of your life. Just keeps them full.

Sebastian (17:39):

All right. Well thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us today, Susan. Where can people go to learn more about FaderFocus?

Susan (17:44):

They can go to faderfocus.com. Or they can reach out to me on LinkedIn with an invite and a question. We can go from there.

Sebastian (17:58):

Super. Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us today, Susan. It was a lot of fun.

Susan (18:03):

All right, I enjoyed it. Thanks. Thanks.

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