In business, the customer is king.
They are not always right and they are sometimes abrasive but they are always the arbiter of what products, services, and businesses succeed and which do not. Ignore that fact to your peril.
Occasionally, an offering or company comes along that fills needs that customers didn’t even know they had. Think iPhone, Facebook or Tesla.
But, more often than not, companies are trying to generate more sales from existing products or are developing slightly different products that they hope will unseat their competitors’.
Billions of dollars are poured into research and development only to have a product flop almost immediately. How could this have been avoided? By simply asking customers – in person – to share their thoughts and reactions early in the process.
My guest this week, Sage Baker, specializes in what is called Qualitative Research. Through focus groups, in-depth individual conversations and a variety of other tools, Sage finds out what people really think about a given idea, product, or service.
Please join us as Sage shares what she knows about finding out what your customers are really thinking.
Learn more about Sage: https://SageBakerConsulting.com
What follows is a computerized transcription of our entire conversation. Please excuse any typos!
Frank Felker 00:23
Thank you, Dude Walker. Yes, indeed I am Frank Felker. Welcome back to Radio Free Enterprise.
My guest today is Sage Baker. Sage is a qualitative market researcher based in Austin, Texas. Sage, welcome to Radio Free Enterprise.
Sage Baker 00:39
Thanks for having me, Frank.
Frank Felker 00:42
We’re going to talk about something very important today, which is market research. And you probably are not aware Sage, but regular viewers and listeners to Radio Free Enterprise now that I try to speak to both big business owners, little business owners, you name it to the challenges that they have in common. And one of them is understanding their marketplace. And part of that is almost nobody wants to do the market research that they should do. So I want to start by laying a foundation with you have just Can you just give us an idea why what makes market research important?
Sage Baker 01:19
Well, it gives you an understanding of the world in which you’re operating with your competitors, your constituents, your consumers, your whatever the people that are buying your product or service, whether they are people in the world or other businesses. But really, it can give you an understanding of where your strengths are, what your positioning in the marketplace needs to be how your consumers or constituents are experiencing your brand, your product or services. So it’s hard for me to imagine not wanting to be curious about
Frank Felker 01:59
Well, sometimes, I don’t want to know, I don’t want to know what people think about my brand or my product or my service because goodness sakes knows. So many things could go wrong, or if I asked somebody, but we will come back to how to ask and what to ask and all that kind of jazz in a minute. Okay, sorry for the for the little levity there, but I always put myself in the seat of the business owner or the person watching. Now, most people, there’s the opposite or the compliment to qualitative market research, which is what you do is quantitative market research, which I think is what most people think of when they think of market research. Can you tell us what your definition of quantitative market research is?
Sage Baker 02:45
So that, I would say the simplified version, which certainly isn’t the dumbed down version is quantitative is usually represented by the numbers, what we’ll see surveys, a survey says X number of people, you know, x, y, z, so is usually represented by numbers done by asking people questions in in surveys. Qualitative, on the other hand, is conversations with people. So quantitative, the numbers can give you the what, what’s happening, qualitative, talking with other human beings with people will give you the why so often, there’s a really powerful thing that happens when you put the two together. So I don’t think that one is better than the other. They’re just different.
Frank Felker 03:33
I see. Now, they do complement each other? Would you say that maybe if somebody had the budget, and they were going to do both quantitative and qualitative? Should they do the quantitative first? Or is there a pat rule about that?
Sage Baker 03:50
That’s such a great question. And I probably work with my clients. I don’t know that there’s a week that goes by that we aren’t having this conversation of what type of research serves the purpose best? What are our objectives? And often, I will come back to them and say, you know, you really need to do some quantitative first, because the qualitative will be more powerful after we do that. We’ve also designed it the other way where we need to do some qualitative first so that we can design really powerful quantitative. So it really goes back to what do we need to know what are our objectives? And we sort that out accordingly.
Frank Felker 04:31
Well, and you know, that begs the question, what do we need to know Sage? What is it that we need to know about our product or service or brand? how people are interacting with us? I guess, as I’m asking these series of questions, it sounds as though there’s almost an unlimited number of things that we need to know. What are some important things?
Sage Baker 04:53
Well, oh my gosh, I’m with you. The list is endless. I think I also think of it often as you know, the nesting doll. I don’t want to call it, but the nesting doll is or, you know, when you and I have talked before peeling the onion. When you, when you think about one question, it leads to two or three other questions. And I think that is important. So I don’t know that there’s a question that would be, you know, out of out of balance, it’s, it can be about how a customer experiences your brand at retail at a point of sale. Is there a disconnect there? Are there things that that brand is doing that really reinforce brand experience or brand of? Is there a problem with a particular product that we need to find out? So I guess when you ask that question,
Frank Felker 05:52
it’s like, so many questions. That was what we could call them the business and unfair question.
Sage Baker 05:58
Oh, I don’t know about that. It got me to thinking, oh, gosh, I could go on? Yeah.
Frank Felker 06:04
Well, you know, what I think would really help is, if we could go to an example, you mentioned just a moment ago point of sale. And I won’t ask you to name any names if you don’t want to. But I will put you on the spot by saying you told me a story earlier about a company that’s in the food service business that had a question, and you were able to help figure it out the answer using qualitative research. What can you tell us about that?
Sage Baker 06:31
Yeah, that was, this is one of my favorite stories, because in some ways, when we discovered what was happening, it was a little bit of a date myself a VA moment, like, Oh, well, of course why, you know, that’s interesting. So this is actually a good example of where quantitative and qualitative were used together. So quantitative data from this particular client was saying, We’re not selling these amazing what we think are these amazing breakfast sandwiches. Why is that? So? But they couldn’t tell that from the data.
So myself and some partners were engaged, to speak with customers, to have them go into these stores these retail locations, and report back to us via I believe we did focus groups, pre COVID. And this was many years ago. And what we discovered in their sharing back to us about their experience of being in this retail location was that the food was not presented in an appetizing way. And what this client ended up doing was completely rethinking how their breakfast foods are displayed at the case. So as you’re standing at the counter, ordering your beverage of choice, the way these breakfast items and other pastries are displayed was changed by this research. Think I’ll leave the client undisclosed, but that’s what customers were able to tell us is I don’t want to buy that sandwich because it doesn’t look appetizing.
Frank Felker 08:07
It doesn’t look like something I’d like to eat.
Sage Baker 08:10
You know the other thing, Frank that because I was thinking about this story. The other aspect of this was this customer or this client’s business was changing rapidly, and they were adding drive throughs. So the other thing that was layered on to this were customers who used to come into the store to get their beverage of choice. We’re now driving through so they were missing any kind of visual about these pastry and pastry products and breakfast items. So you also had this situation of literally a change in the way their customers were experiencing the brand, not just the product.
Frank Felker 08:48
You know, it’s funny and McDonald’s was not your client. But I’ve noticed because I’m you know, Johnny digital, that even it of course, not that I ever patronize McDonald’s, but their digital signage is amazing. There’s like steam coming off of the food. And it’s like the food photography, product photography taken to the ultimate level. And I’m sure it does influence people’s purchasing decisions.
Sage Baker 09:18
Absolutely, nobody wants to eat anything that doesn’t look appetizing.
Sage Baker 09:23
The Art of display whether it’s digital, or you know, in a in a pastry case, when you’re standing, their point of sale is really important. Well,
Frank Felker 09:33
Let’s talk about different ways that qualitative research is done, how it actually looks when the rubber meets the road. You mentioned focus groups and I throughout my career, but at various points probably once every 10 years or something like that have been a part of an industry focus group. This was early on it was in the printing industry and this was all b2b, but tell us what How do you gather a focus group? What I’m driving at here is, if somebody is watching and thinking that they might want to do some qualitative research for their company, what are the challenges? And what are some best practices? One pulling together a focus group?
Sage Baker 10:15
Well, I would say, you know, there’s probably 20 sitcoms that we could refer to where focus groups have been much maligned. And you know, I mean, they can be a topic of great funniness and mockery. Here’s, this is what I’ve come to in my, it comes down to my recruiting partners. So really having recruiters who can find the people that I want to talk to whether it’s a focus group conversation, whether it’s a shop along whether, you know, pre COVID times, I might go into people’s homes, I might shop with them, I might run errands with them, you name it, I’ve done it.
And I can’t say enough for how important it is to have really wonderful recruiting partners, who are willing to not only maintain a database of respondents who are qualified, engaged, but who are willing to make use of all the different resources now for which we can, we can find people who, who aren’t professional respondents. I mean, you know, that’s been a concern in the industry for a very long time, and rightly so. But with all the things that our fingertips now in ways in which we can connect with people, and in find people in their levels of interest.
Frank Felker 11:34
Recruiting is the key. So are you saying that there are companies that specialize in recruiting individuals to be brought to qualitative researchers like yourself?
Sage Baker 11:46
Correct. So that’s what I rely on those recruiting partners. I mean, without going into, you know, specific detail about how projects are put together, which would probably not be very exciting for people I understand that counts. Number two. Yeah, I have to rely on those partners to bring into the conversation, the very people that I want to talk to, and if you, we all know this in business, if you don’t have great partners that you trust that you’ve developed long relationships with, you know, my work isn’t very good.
Frank Felker 12:19
So, you know, something just occurred to me Sage. And I think this is a critical element for people to consider, which is having a third party, do the interviews, do the focus groups. In other words, if I run a printing business, and I gather all my clients together for a dinner, and then I asked them, you know, so how am I doing? I’m likely not to get the information that I really need, they’re probably going to tell me what I think I want to hear what you say that’s a critical aspect.
Sage Baker 12:50
Absolutely. And when I start conversations, when I’m doing when I’m actually doing the field work, that’s the way I set up the conversation I might be having with somebody, which is, I’m a neutral third party. I don’t I’m not emotionally invested or married to a specific outcome, and that I invite them to be honest and open with me. And it really is about ideas, opinions, preferences. It’s really hard for somebody who is invested in a certain product or service to have an unattached conversation. And I get to play I say, passionate, investigative reporter.
Frank Felker 13:29
I like that. Now, you mentioned shop along. And again, I guess that’s primarily pre COVID. Or let’s Oh, post COVID as well. How does that look? Are you going into your client’s store? Or are you going along with the person just to judge their shopping hat habits in general? What How does that work? And what are you looking for?
Sage Baker 13:53
I’ll give you an example from a recent study, and this was pre COVID. And this one was absolutely one of the funnest things I’ve worked on where it doesn’t ever feel like work for a beer brand. And we did I mean, we went into grocery stores with people just to ask them what they were noticing on the beer aisle in terms of packaging, just what design was interesting to them. What did they notice? What are they looking for? We bought beer, and we went back to their house, I did not have any because I was on the clock.
But really just being in the aisle with them and having them narrate what as I say to them, whatever. Whatever voice in your head you’re thinking about I want you to articulate that for me bring it bring it out externally. And what I’ve found is that if you are open and you come to it with a sense of curiosity and fun energy people do open up to you and they know that it’s research, but they are given an opportunity to really share, as I said, That voice in their head, which is I hate orange, I don’t like that label. Here’s why. You know, I’m so I don’t know if that’s helpful to understand the shop along part.
Frank Felker 15:13
Well, you know, what it makes me think of is that, because you’re asking open ended questions and asking them to tell you whatever’s on the top of their mind. Does it ever feel like you’re just either getting too much information or random bits of information that how do you correlate and correlate this data that you’re gathering? How do you how do you put it to work?
Sage Baker 15:37
Oh, my gosh, that’s such a good question. Because now you’re asking me to externalize my own process.
Frank Felker 15:43
Just let me let me just cut that in half and just ask how do you know what’s BS? Or what’s important? How do you separate the wheat from the chaff?
Sage Baker 15:54
Some of it is just a certain amount of experience in the field that you just have a have a gut sense of, of when people are being authentic, and real. You know, when to ask a follow up question. The other part is you try to do enough interviews that you can recognize patterns, recognize themes that might be occurring. And so that’s always a balance, right? Of how many interviews? How many focus groups, how many shop-alongs? Can you do with the resources at hand, which, as I always say, our time and money so that you can decipher? Is this something I would continue to hear? Or is this a Is this a one off? I would say a lot of it is just hard-won experience in the field of being with lots of other people. And I don’t know, do you get that sense, though, Frank, when you’re talking to people, if somebody is like, okay, and that really feels true?
Frank Felker 17:04
Well, yeah, I mean, you can definitely tell if somebody’s being genuine or not. But I guess what I’m saying is, like you mentioned the orange label. And, and it’s funny, because, and you were talking about beer. And so my mind immediately went to something called orange smash, which is a new kind of cider and a can. That’s very popular among my group of friends.
And, and so, and I was thinking, Well, you know, they use a very soft color of orange is more of a pastel doesn’t really snap me across the face. And I’m just thinking at one point, you know, because I come from the printing industry, the graphic arts, at what point do you like, Oh, I got to tweak that orange. You know, I just, it just makes me wonder. Where’s the meat? You know, remember the old commercial? That that you can read what? Well, let’s talk about that, then. What are some examples of important insights or inferences that you’ve been able to draw from client?
Sage Baker 18:00
Wow, that’s a that’s a big question. I think one of the things that you’re asking about is, there’s a fine line between going out into the world. And literally letting 10 consumers tell you what to do. So you could take something like that on face value, which is they hate orange. You could also see that within the context of all the other questions that you asked, and all the other conversations you had with people, which might be something like, Orange is really noticed in the beer case, because everyone else is blue and silver.
Frank Felker 18:43
That’s great.
Sage Baker 18:44
Just because just because someone says, ooh, that orange, I don’t know about that. What might also be a dimension of that is they noticed it, and it made them look twice. So it’s, it’s a little more nuanced than that. And I think that is where when you have the great fortune ability to have enough of those qualitative conversations to understand that there might be another side of that coin. And that’s where I think the experience comes in. And then and working with the client team. Because what if they say, I mean, McDonald’s is not going to get rid of yellow arches. Right. But it was not everybody’s color. Okay. Well, they put some equity into that. So I don’t know if that’s a that’s an iconic brand example. But in the orange VR case, that’s how I would interpret that.
Frank Felker 19:40
Well, that was the perspective you gave them. That was perfect. Because it yeah, it they noticed it. That’s an important insight. people notice the color in the beer case, I particularly this one because it’s different. And so that’s exactly what I was searching for, and I appreciate you sharing that. Now, let’s say that somebody who’s watching Seeing or listening is second. Yeah, you know how to do some of this myself, at any sort of just general, again, we made it clear you can’t do it yourself, you’ve got to either bring in a professional or certainly a third party, who is going to interact with your clients or your prospective clients. But outside of that, what I mean, what would be the best first step for somebody to do? Would it be planning ahead of time deciding what you don’t you tell me? What, what, where should they start?
Sage Baker 20:32
Well, I’ll even back up one, you know, I have a lot of clients, one of the things that I love about working for myself is I can take on lots of different projects and work with lots of different types of clients in teams. And, and that kind of variety really fuels me and engages me, it also keeps me on my on my toes, because not every client has a big budget. And there are times where clients come to me and say, Sage, we know we can’t afford to have you and your team work on this. Could you? Could you educate us if we had to do some of our own research? How can we do that? How can we do that effectively? Can you spend some time with us in terms of moderation? How should we set up that research?
And I love those types of questions. Because the truth is not everybody has big budgets and can do everything externally. Is that ideal? Absolutely. But so I just come back to let’s get clear on what the objectives are, what are you trying to do? What do you need to know? What are your resources at hand again, time, money, manpower? Let’s design something, it may not be the perfect research. But it could be the best research that you can do with those resources at hand. And I would say any project big or small, clarity and alignment in terms of objectives is absolutely key, it seems silly, and maybe assumptive. But you got to go back to the basics.
Frank Felker 22:04
So with that in mind, and understanding that everybody has different objectives and different budgets, and so forth, let’s say somebody watching or listening is thinking, hey, you that Sage seems to know what she’s talking about? And maybe she could help us? What’s the best way for them to connect with you?
Sage Baker 22:22
Well, obviously, I’m on LinkedIn. Only as far as I know, Sage maker.com. I have to laugh because when I when I left the agency, I was working for in 2007, I had this moment of Oh, I’ve got to buy a domain name, what do I call myself. And I just I just pick Sage Baker consulting, calm on a bit of a whim, and thought I’ll get to all that branding stuff later, which the irony of that coming out of branding makes me makes me laugh. And so Sage Baker consulting, calm Sage at Sage Baker consulting, it’s a little long, but it’s pretty straightforward.
Frank Felker 23:03
And it may well be that LinkedIn is the easiest way, send you a little LinkedIn message. And if someone were to reach out to you what happens next? What do you need to know from them? What sort of initial discovery call the?
Sage Baker 23:20
That’s exactly what I do is that let’s set up a call let me understand from your point of view, what are the as I say, what are the head scratchers? What are the things that are, you know, keeping you up at night? Tell me what those questions are? Often, I’ll find that. I would say client partners sometimes feel like they have to have a certain amount of clarity before they come and talk to me. I don’t necessarily believe that to be true. Because often in our conversations, that clarity will come, or I’ll have questions for them.
And sometimes we find out that they’re really not at a place where they need me. I mean, maybe they need to go do quantitative first. And I certainly say, you know, it sounds like where you are, this is the type of research that best serves you that’s not in my wheelhouse. Here’s a partner that can help you. So it really does just start with a conversation so that we can get clear. And again, I might pose questions back to them that will help clarify things on their side.
Frank Felker 24:26
And do you assist at charge or initial discovery calls complimentary? How do you work that?
Sage Baker 24:32
I’m, I’m always willing to talk to potential clients. I think what it?
Sage Baker 24:37
Well, I mean, one of the things that excites me is that one, I think it’s a gut check of Do we have good chemistry together? Because that’s just as important as whether or not somebody meets your quote unquote, skill set. Do we are we are repaired well, and I think that’s a good question for potential. clients to ask themselves as well. I mean, they have to have partners that that they feel aligned with. And there is that chemistry. So, no, I always, the discovery call is always wonderful. And as I’ve said, if it turns out that we’re not a good fit, and they need something other than what I provide, there’s tremendous satisfaction for me in helping connect them to a potential partner that can help them. So if I’m not the quote, unquote, end all be all, which I don’t necessarily have to be. I really tried to connect them to a partner who can help them.
Frank Felker 25:38
And I know you truly believe that Sage, and it’s one of the things I really enjoy about you is, you are sort of the epitome of what previous guests to mine, Bob Burg has written a book called The go giver. And you’re like, hey, how can I help you? And obviously, you can help in a lot of ways. Now, we’re just about out of time. But I always like to close by asking my guest. Is there a question that I haven’t asked you or something that’s come to mind that you wanted to share before we sign off? Well, that’s
Sage Baker 26:10
a great question. So glad you didn’t ask me what I want to be when I grow up.
Sage Baker 26:16
I don’t know. I mean, I really can’t think of anything, mine would just be questions for you. Because I’m so curious about how you’ve come to do that, I’m not going to turn the tables on you. That’s not okay.
Frank Felker 26:30
Well, we’ll do that on the Sage Baker podcast at some point. And that’s at least until you turn into that law firm. It just is so funny. When I first saw your name, I thought it was too last name. And I thought it was a law firm. Clearly, you’re not a law firm. And oh, sorry. Go ahead.
Sage Baker 26:52
I was going to go to law school. That was what I wanted to do with my English major. And I deferred my acceptance to law school and took a total left turn into creative writing. And, and then the only I say the only people that would hire me was an ad agency who thought that going to get an MFA in poetry was worthwhile. So I say thank you. Thank you. Thank you, def Stewart and GSD and M for seeing value in that. But there’s always this part of me that I think I might be the 80-year-old who just decides to go to law school. I have no desire to practice law, but law school. Yeah.
Frank Felker 27:33
Sage Baker, thank you so much for joining me today.
Sage Baker 27:37
Thanks for having me, Frank. It was really fun.
Frank Felker 27:40
Thanks again to Sage and thank you for joining us. Until next time, I’m Frank Felker saying I’ll see you on the radio.
Dude Walker 27:49
Forgiving your entrepreneurial sins with a gentle wave of his microphone, here’s Frank Felker.
