Editor’s note: Jim Karrh is director of MarketSearch, a Little Rock, Ark., research firm.
What is your identity as a marketing researcher?
I’ve been engaged in research – and going to cocktail parties – for years, but after reading this article in the Quirk’s e-newsletter, I was surprised by most of the responses marketing researchers offered when asked “What do you do for a living?” They ranged from serious to flippant to outright denial. That’s disappointing; we should all be proud of the work we do. Marketing research is also inherently more interesting than are most other jobs, so you should be well-equipped for any mojito-fueled question that comes your way.
Perhaps I can help. Marketing researcher is one of the professional hats I wear (and with pride). Another is that of a consultant in sales enablement – more precisely, creating conversational tools that help B2B sales teams be more effective.
Here’s the thing: This “short story” (or “elevator pitch” or “positioning statement”) deal gives most professionals a lot of trouble. They tend to err in one of several ways. For some the story sounds rehearsed, as if spat back from a company Web site, brochure or mission statement. Others have a story that sounds like grand-jury testimony – the company name, their title, maybe the number of years they’ve been grinding away, yet without any sense of what they actually do or why. A few others (like several of the researchers quoted in the article) might be flippant, cute or evasive about their jobs – and unintentionally convey a lack of seriousness or security.
So from the front lines of top-company sales messaging practice and coming from a fellow marketing researcher, here is some informed advice about what you should say (or at least how you should consider saying it) when confronted with the question of what you do for a living.
Think of your entire “short story” in five pieces, each of which might be 15-20 seconds in length. The pieces are inherently sequential, so ideally you are interesting enough for your audience to continue to ask follow-up questions. Here is the structure, along with starting-point examples:
• Your identity. “We provide the truth about consumers to companies who can handle it.”
• What you do. “In some ways, we are like a diagnostic lab that provides doctors with expert third-party analyses. But instead of doing tests on fluid or tissue samples, we are finding some bits of insight from consumers that our client companies can use to decide what and how to sell.”
• How you do it. “We typically ask questions in some particular way – through surveys, interviews or focus groups. We also have colleagues trained to just observe people and listen. As you might suspect, these days we are also using social media to learn.”
• What makes you valuable. “We’re almost always able to tell clients something important that they didn’t know already. Clients use the insights we provide to do many things – create advertising, design packaging, provide better service or even decide whether to go ahead with a new product idea.”
• An example success story (or even just a funny, relevant story from your experience).
Try this structure, choose your own language and examples and practice until it flows naturally. And be proud that you’re a researcher.