Center for Strategy Research

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• Vol. 11, Issue 6, September 2016

Hello!

It’s September and while summer is undeniably our favorite season, we’re very happy that Fall is here for one reason: Football Season. Read this month’s edition of CSR’s newsletter, Research with a Twist, entitled “Jimmy Who?” to find out… well, who Jimmy is, and what he has to do with research!

— Jennifer

Jimmy Who?

Here in New England, when we’re not picketing the NFL to free Tom Brady, we’re watching the Patriots play football. As some of you may have heard, our superstar quarterback was wrongly banned from playing the first four games of season due to some made-up thing called “Deflategate.”

Meanwhile, the Patriots cannot play without a quarterback. Turns out, our team has a backup! His name is Jimmy Garoppolo, and he, like Tom Brady, knows how to play the position of quarterback. Who knew? (Fox Sports certainly did! If you haven’t seen their satirical video, google “Hamilton parody: Jimmy Garoppolo”.) In fact, Jimmy Garoppolo himself has a backup, named Jacoby Brissett (although, and no insult to Jacoby, we wish we hadn’t had to learn that recently). Apparently, his backup, at least as of today’s writing, is Julian Edelman — that’s a whole different story!

In watching these events evolve over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been struck by the similarities between backup players and market researchers:

1. We also have to introduce ourselves to people who may have no idea we exist, or what we can do

So often, we hear from our clients, and from our B2B research participants, that their organizations are silo-ed. Sales units and product development teams, for example, can be so focused on their own functions that they don’t always leverage the support available to them enterprise-wide. Like Patriots fans’ awareness of backup players before this September, they may have some vague idea that the market research team exists, but have little idea how it might be relevant to them.

The classic example of this is the client who rushes to conduct a product concept test shortly before product launch. The voice of the customer is not built into product development, but a quick study is conducted at the end of the process with the hopes that it will validate the path already chosen.

Unlike Garappolo and Brissett, therefore, we need to make ourselves as researchers widely known within the organization well before we are needed. That way, we can move the proverbial ball forward with screen passes and post routes long before the research study equivalent of the “Hail Mary pass” becomes necessary!

2. Our involvement might cause some degree of stress among those who normally have the job

As researchers, we tend to talk with our organizations’ customers. Who else does that, and likes to think of themselves as the Tom Brady of customer relationships? Salespeople.

If you, as a sales professional, see yourself as the Tom Brady of customer relationships, who do you think is the best person to talk to your clients? Jimmy Garoppolo? Jacoby Brissett? No, Tom Brady, of course! Jimmy or Jacoby might ask awkward or uncomfortable questions, like “Is Belichick actually a robot?” or, “Do these footballs seem soft to you?”

As researchers, it’s our job to ask the tough questions, and to avoid assuming that we know the answers. While we must obviously know the business well enough to reflect well on the rest of our company when talking with customers and clients, it’s our lack of entrenchment and our curiosity about what the customer experience really is that can be of most benefit to the sales staff. Bringing it back to the Patriots example, if Garoppolo or Brissett had asked about the density of the footballs, maybe we wouldn’t be in the Brady-less position that we’re in right now!

3. Someday, we may be the superstar

During the first game and a half of the season, the unknown player, Jimmy Garoppolo, became known. Not only is he stunningly handsome (the Patriots apparently make that a “must have” in the quarterback interviewing process), he is a really good, though perhaps fragile, football player. One day, when someone pries the football out of Tom Brady’s cold, dead hands, the Patriots will need another quarterback, and Garoppolo just might be the guy.

While there’s not a lot of chance that researchers will become the Tom Brady of our organization’s client relationship management, becoming the Tom Brady of internal client relationship management is well within our reach (admit it, we’d all like to be the Tom Brady of something). Once our colleagues get to know our work, and the range of our capabilities, they will be more likely to give us the ball and ask us to join the game. We’ve seen that with many of our clients over the years; as the research department grows and becomes more visible within the organization, demand for research, and a broader range of research approaches, quickly increases.

One lesson from this: To be ready when we get our chance. After all, Tom Brady started his career as a back-up as well (to Drew who?). And look how that turned out!

Here’s the Twist: As our beloved Patriots must somehow sally forth without the greatest quarterback of all time at the beginning of this season, we are struck by the similarities between the role of backup players, like Jimmy Garoppolo, and our role as market researchers. All too often, our colleagues are not fully aware of our capabilities, or are worried about what will happen when we step into their traditional roles of communicating with clients. When they, and the organization as a whole, become familiar with our work, however, suddenly the backup can become a star. So, go Garoppolo! Brissett! And, if it comes to it: Edelman! Who’s up next?