Steve Phillips - GETTING NOTICED IN THE BOARDROOM BY DOING GREAT WORK

Our guest on this episode is Steve Phillips, CEO of Zappi and Chair of the MRS Sustainability Council. Steve joins us on the Room 101 podcast to share what things in the industry he’d like to see banished in Room 101 forever. The main pet hates Steve describes are: researchers trying to get into the board room; conjoint analysis; and focus groups. Steve provides meaningful criticism during our conversation, and we hope you enjoy it.

Key Quotes:

“I don’t know if you’ve been in a board room, but they’re aptly named. They’re highly financial, sometimes occasionally strategic. Yes, empowered by data, but they’re not where major decisions are made.” (7:08)“Forget the hierarchy. Forget who it is who you’re trying to impress. Instead, help the people who are making new things. That’s where we should be.” (10:20)“How you make it clear that you’re important: I think you make it clear that you’re important by doing great work that makes great products and services.” (13:39)“Conjoint is a very interesting method. I’ve used it multiple times before. It creates this wonderful output, which is really fun. It’s a sort of game of fun output, which means you can increase something over here, and it reduces something over here. You can add in a new feature, and you get the market share and all that sort of stuff.  I think it appeals to researchers.” (15:46)“It (conjoint) is fundamentally inaccurate. The only product or service that is sold in a conjoint way is something like a comparison website.” (18:06)“They (focus groups) were a compromise to begin with. So, first of all, the name ‘focus group.’ Really? You’re going to get a bunch of people in the room and focus them?” (24:14)“A lot more asynchronous qualitative work. The perfect qualitative work for me is in home or accompanying shopping with individuals where you just get a genuine, deep understanding knowledge of a person and their approaches to things. It is the most expensive.” (28:54)

Key Topics: 

Steve describes winning the MSR award (2:11)Steve tells his history with market research (4:12)First nomination for Room 101: researchers trying to get into board room  (6:51)Obsessed with hierarchy. Need to get into rooms with people (8:20)Instead help people who are making new things (10:18)You can do great work through great work (11:17)Prove our case, and clients will put money into market research (12:20)Make great products and services. Then you’ll get a bigger budget (13:31)Creators will want data researchers in the room (14:29)Second nomination for Room 101: conjoint market research (15:34)Conjoint market research is fundamentally wrong (18:03)Replace conjoint with qualitative work (20:20)Third nomination: focus groups (23:53)Sometimes focus groups work for new ideas only if they’re well run (27:05)Instead of focus groups, asynchronous qualitative work (28:52)On occasion can get some in depth research but it’s rare (30:44)One-page focus guide can help but usually focus groups are useless (32:34)Steve agrees with Hannah that researchers trying to get into the board room should be placed in Room 101 (33:34)Steve doesn’t have anything additional for Room 101. He says the focus should be on being creative (34:28)

About - Steve Phillips:

Steve is the CEO of Zappi and Chair of the MRS Sustainability Council. He leverages technology to automate market research. A pioneering technology company in the Insights world, Zappi empowers creators globally with the data and insight to inspire and validate their ideas. Steve is also passionate about helping to move the world of insights onto a fully sustainable pathway.

Relevant Links:

Steve’s LinkedInSteve's TwitterZappi - https://www.zappi.io/ Day 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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