Sarah Jousiffe - BEING INTERESTED IN A VARIETY OF PROJECTS TO BUILD YOUR SKILLS

Our guest on this episode is Sarah Jousiffe, head of insights at SKY. Sarah joins us on the Room 101 podcast to share what things in the industry she’d like to see banished to Room 101 forever. Sarah's main pet peeves are: poor research briefs, qualitative discussion guides, and branded research solutions. Sarah provides meaningful criticism for each of the items and solutions during our conversation, and we hope you enjoy it.

Key Quotes: 

“If you’re considering building an in-house function, have you got the right amount of questions to justify having a team on board. When you’re hiring, you’re hiring researchers that have the experience of running the primary research.” (4:09)“Being embedded in a business and having that commercial link and having insight into what the business is doing as a quali that SKY had in a customer business brand. Try to keep your skillset open and be interested in doing a variety of different projects.” (6:13)“Find where you can get that confidence and find where the people are who are going to back you. Find a confidence buddy who will give you that boost. You have to put yourself out there.” (7:40)“The joy of being client-side is you get to challenge much harder on the briefing than when you’re agency side, and it’s a luxury I never take for granted.” (13:14)“It’s a people-based business, and it’s about building relationships. And once you’ve built up that level of trust, then it’s very telling who needs to go through our discussion guides with a fine-tooth comb and who doesn’t.” (25:39)“You can see through it when it’s more of a way of owning your own approach and having more of a viewpoint versus just trying to get in the door because you think you look clever.” (32:48)“If it’s the first approach that a brand new agency that you’ve never worked with – if they’re really trying to flog a particular branded solution, rather than build a relationship, and you look into it and say, ‘That’s just another telephone interview,’ then that’s what sticks.” (33:15)“You can get a great branded solution if the brief is right and if it fits the questions, so yes, if we could all just educate the people and don’t accept poor briefs. Just try to challenge and get a little bit more clarity, then we’ll all be in a better off place.” (39:24)

Key Topics: 

Sarah describes what she and her team are doing at SKY. Built everything from scratch. Still works with partners. (1:30)Describing DIY tools available, Sarah explains that SKY’s model is massive with a custom request at its core (3:17)Starting at an agency in the world of PR and marketing, Sarah quickly realized market research piqued her interest (5:10)Gives the same advice to females as for anyone starting out in research (7:35)Sarah tells a memorable story about winning over a customer (9:37)Continues to share the uncomfortable moments while working with clients (12:16)Sarah’s first choice for Room 101 is poor research briefs (13:00)Instilled in her from the beginning of her agency-side career, have a conversation about on the phone or in-person to understand in a collaborative way what they’re trying to answer (15:40)Sarah goes in-depth about problematic briefs (18:46)A few pointers on a good brief (20:51)Her second choice for Room 101 is qualitative discussion guides (22:36)Sarah goes into detail about the process of creating discussion guides and the rhythm of asking questions (25:30)Discusses the amount of time it takes to get discussion guides approved (27:40)Sarah’s third item to put in Room 101 is branded research solutions (29:56)Sarah describes the impact of agencies using branded research solutions (33:15)Sarah gives advice to a new agency looking to establish a relationship (34:42)Hannah picks poor research briefs for Room 101 (39:00)

About - Sarah Jousiffe:

Head of research at SKY, Sarah Jousiffe is responsible for building a full-service, in-house research capability where the team now manages a wide range of projects that inform key strategic decisions across departments in printing, marketing, sales, and product innovation. 

Relevant Links:

Sarah’s LinkedIn.SKY - WebsiteDay One - https://www.dayonestrategy.com/Hannah Mann - LinkedIn

 

The Day One podcast is published by the Day One Strategy and produced by Zorbiant.

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