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Shawn FitzGerald
Hello and Welcome to Intentional Change, the podcast for business owners and leaders who want to navigate growth, technology, and transformation, not by accident, but with intention. I'm your host, Shawn FitzGerald. With my co-host, Joshua McNary, we explore practical ideas and share insights to help lead you through change with clarity and confidence. Be sure to follow, share, and subscribe so you don't miss the next insight that could change how you think, lead, or grow your business.
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Shawn FitzGerald
Imagine you're throwing a dart blindfolded at a wall of customer once hoping to hit the bullseye. You think you know what they need. You've heard some feedback. Maybe you've even asked your supportive spouse or your mother who absolutely loves your stuff. But what if your entire business strategy is built on assumptions and not answers? Today on Intentional Change, we're pulling off the blindfold with Veda Grantham, CEO of Revelations Research Solutions, a Des Moines-based firm that helps businesses uncover the insights that truly drive customer behavior. With decades of experience in market research and a deep belief that better questions lead to better outcomes, Veda specializes in helping organizations move beyond surface-level data to make smarter, more human-centered decisions. So if you've ever wondered what your customers really think, why they actually buy, or how to find out without blowing your budget, you're in the right place. Veda, welcome to Intentional Change. I'm so glad to have you here today. Thank you, Shawn.
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Vada Grantham
It's a pleasure being here. Thanks for inviting me.
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Shawn FitzGerald
We've known each other for a real long time. And as long as I've known you, you have always been focused on entrepreneurs, startup business, business success, getting to the root of the problem, all of these things. How did you get started? How did you get to owning your Revelations company?
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Vada Grantham
Well, Shawn, it goes back to, obviously, we knew that there was a market for something which is research. Our first company actually was a food promotion company. When you go to the grocery stores like Hy-Vee, Fairway, and Costco, people handing out food samples in the grocery stores, like taste tests, we saw that happening, a trend happening, and we jumped on it. In fact, we started taste testing for the state of Iowa. In fact, we started in the base of our home. Our first client was Quaker O's, General Mayors, Kiebel and Nabisco, and just blossom from there. And so we sold the company in 1999 to another company out of Portland, Oregon. So we had about 500 employees in eight states, so we kind of followed Hy-Vee. And we felt that we were too young to retire, so we actually was a good consumer research company at that time.
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Shawn FitzGerald
So can you explain for our listeners who have very little or no experience with market research and some of the things that you're doing, what is the process? What do you do? What's the outcome? Why would a company need your services?
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Vada Grantham
Well, that's a good question, Shawn, is that to kind of give you a little history of how it starts? I think it's important to find out why they do it. Obviously, years ago, actually research is actually a very young industry, been around about 35 years. For example, advertising has been around over 100 years. And what happened is executives sit around the table and just say they have an idea for a product and just send it out there. And they spend millions of dollars on this particular product. Well, typically sometimes it fails. And now they got a market that's, it's kind of like saying, "Here it is, take it or leave it." Nowadays, they understand 35 years ago, that's when really traditional research, they started valuing that. So now they are saying, "Okay, I want to find out about my consumer, the insights from the consumer, how they like my product, how the packaging, the pricing, where they'd like to buy it." So now when you do the research, 70% of the chance it's going to be successful because you're talking to your talking market versus me sending it out there, "Here it is, take it or leave it." So that changed the element of everything because they put a lot of budget and a lot of money towards those things initially back in the day. But now because they start losing a lot of money, they say, "We need to really talk to the consumers." And that changed the industry about 35 years ago.
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Shawn FitzGerald
When you talk to a business's customers, their consumers, what are you doing? Are you picking up the phone calling? Are you still going out to the mall, you know, asking people to sample? What are some of the ways that you get in contact or try to identify those consumers?
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Vada Grantham
There are several methodologies, and that's what we have. We use methodologies for research. Traditional would be, for example, surveys, mail surveys, could be telephone surveys, it could be online surveys, but now focus groups are very important. So focus groups and those are the methodologies. Now we also get into something, the non-traditional type of research. You've got Mystery Shop. You've got website analysis. As you know, the website is the face of a company right now. That's a growing industry for us now versus maybe 10, 15 years ago. Mock trials, companies being sued, a big corporation being sued for $10 million. Now because of mock trial, they can get feedback on whether or not they should go to trial or not. For example, they've been sued for $10 million, right? And then they're doing the mock trial just like a real trial. They say, "I want to keep this person, get rid of this person," and they present that as research. And then if the mock jury may say, "Okay, the company is guilty as saying," so now they're going to sell it out of court for maybe $2 million. They just saved themselves $8 million because they would have lost based on the research of the consumer. So this Mystery Shop also, again, mock trials, website analysis, those kind of things are what we call unique types of research. Of course, focus groups are very important today.
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Shawn FitzGerald
It's one thing to know who your right customer is, but then once you know who the right customer is, then there's asking the right question. And in my mind, there's kind of two steps. Is that fair to say or is there something else in the middle?
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Vada Grantham
That is correct. You got to have, if you want to say the right customers and also the right questions, okay? We have what we call the first step, it would be a screener. We screen based on talking to the client. We say that, "Okay, first of all, why do you want to do research? We want to figure that out. We want to know what the end result is. What are you trying to get to? What is your vision? Why are you conducting this research?" And then we just try to find out now, who's your target market? So what we do, we do a screener, demographics, age, income, blah, blah, blah. It could be their political affiliation or the television shows they like. So we actually, anything that clients want based on demographics, the target market they're going after, that's the first step, get the right people in the room. Then the next step is asking the right questions. So we talk to the client, we call that discussion questions. Let's take, for example, a focus group. I think that's the best thing to talk about. Most people understand a focus group, which is different from a mail surveys, online surveys. A focus group is really where you get to the meat and potatoes of the research because you got people in the room dialoging, getting feedback. And so you got to have the right questions in there.
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Shawn FitzGerald
Trevor Burrus Is it common that you use several of those different methodologies while you're doing it to make sure that the information you get from one methodology aligns with the other? Or do you find that maybe if you're doing some sort of a form online,
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Shawn FitzGerald
those customers are completely different in their answers and wants and needs than someone that you might do for a mock trial or anything else. Can you talk a little bit about those different methodologies and which ones are best to use together or not use? What would help one of our listeners understand the methodologies?
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Vada Grantham
Absolutely. When clients come to us, they just want to know they want to do some research, right? And so what we do, we look at, okay, based on what their needs, the industry also has an application to that. So we decide, well, not is a mail surveys practical to do this on. Is it online? Online, you can get millions of people. So we look at the methodologies to apply to that particular industry or the needs of the client. For example, I don't get into policy, but political, we do a lot of political focus groups. That's how we allow. So it doesn't matter whether it's the Democratic Republican, I'm from the Green Party, money. Doesn't matter to me. So they come to us. And so sometimes focus groups are applicable to do that because you want to get the people in the room, you want them to dialogue, you want them to feed off each other, and then you can really get some better, which is better than if you sent out a mail survey, once they get that, you got to expect them to turn it back to you. There's a lot of barriers to different types of research. And so telephone surveys, you know, a little bit different than mail surveys, which you can talk to the person. One thing you can do is that you can determine maybe the emotional side of things versus, you know, focus group setting.
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Shawn FitzGerald
Do you find that the people that you talk to, are they welcoming of that? Because I know I get calls on my phone, I get text messages, all these things. I just feel like I'm inundated with companies and businesses that I don't even know how they got ahold of me. And I'm just like, delete, don't answer, whatever. What sort of, is there a lot of pushback or is that expected to a certain degree? Or do you think you're going to reach 100 people, but really only get two or three answers? I guess, what's that like?
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Vada Grantham
That's an excellent question, meaning this way. For example, a telephone survey, actually, when you do a mail survey, you may send out, let's say you send out 100 mail surveys, you may expect a 15% of return, which is pretty good, but it's really not. 50% of return. So you send out 100 surveys, because you're depending on a lot of things versus of course, a focus group or a telephone surveys is that those elements are very important when it comes to trying to get the right piece of information from them. I just think that, no, when you got them in a room, you can ask certain questions, certain environments are better than others. Every industry you can think about has some potential for research.
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Shawn FitzGerald
If someone's listening to something going, "Oh, okay, well, I've learned a few things already, and I think I can do that. I can go and find some people and get the right questions and call and things of that sort." What's the advantage of using you? What do you bring? I assume there's a couple of them too. I mean, not only just your experience, but what are some of those things that you bring that the business owner is never going to be able to provide to themselves?
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Vada Grantham
Well, first of all, we have a stage of art research facility, so most of them don't have. That helps.
So what happened, sometimes you talk to them, let's say, we go to their site, and sometimes you try to explain to them what it is, but when they come to our site, it's just that the ideas just flow well. Because what happened, for example, let's say we have about five different things within our facility. One is what we call a multi-purpose room. We can go in there and set it up any kind of way you want to. We also have a technology suite, which is related to anything related to technologies, AI, new apps that are coming out, website analysis, those kinds of things. Another one is part of what we call a taste test facility. So we can do any taste test, beer tasting, wine tasting, anything related to recipes, chefs will come in and rent our facilities. So you can cook and you can prepare food right on the spot? Exactly. You've got a chef to maybe have a television show, a video they want to promote, and record it. We do those kinds of things like that. Plus, we also have a smaller room, like more one-on-one versus the bigger room. And then we have what we call a recruiting call center. That call center is where we got thousands and thousands of names in our database. So if a client wants a person that has demographics, incomes, has a tattoo on the left hand, has a peg leg, we can find the person. We got it all in there. And so we have all the platforms for them to get them. So the main thing is that we also have a one-way mirror. So the client can sit on the opposite side of the mirror and observe regarding what the people are saying about their product or their services. So that's amazing right there. And that's when the ideas begin to form.
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Shawn FitzGerald
When you think about those clients that are sitting there observing this, they may see and hear things they've never even thought they were going to see or hear, right? That's fair to say. What are some of the things that when you look back, you're like, wow, I had no idea the impact it was going to have. Or was there a story of one of the clients who you just saw just completely open up because of something that happened?
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Vada Grantham
Yes. Obviously, we always tell our clients that they come in with it, think they know everything about their product, and they have to think about their customer. They know everything already about it. So we tell them, come in with an open mind, because this is where the rubber meets the road. This is where you really peel the onion back and see about your products and services. And don't get frustrated. Don't get upset if they say something bad about your product. This is the place you want to hear it at before you sit it out there or you need to improve something. And so we told us, so once they had an open mind, because it could be behind that mirror, could be an advertising agency, right? With advertising, it could be the owner of that product or services. And so they can't take it personal. So we tell them those kind of things. And sometimes when I trust me, I can see clients sometimes get frustrated when someone says something about they thought it was the best thing to slice bread. And those consumers are very honest about getting feedback. That's what you want, too. And there are times, obviously, where clients may have, we've done hundreds, thousands of consumer research. So it depends on certain industry. But you see clients all the time where they say, wow, I didn't know this about the consumers. What they do then, they go back and say, it helps them really, really package their product or service better or change it or pivot, go a different direction. Or sometimes, now keep in mind, research also tells you maybe this is not a product, it's not as good as you want to. And maybe it shouldn't, it could be a business startup idea. And maybe this tells you, well, there's no market for your idea. So now you save yourself a lot of money. Sure. But you're going to know. Now, once you got the research and you still go forward, it's on you that more than likely you're probably going to fail anyways. If the consumers are telling you that they're not going to buy your product and why they're not going to buy it, you still do it anyways.
[00:15:12:02 - 00:16:04:20]
Shawn FitzGerald
That emotional component that we all have with our own business, on one thing, it can fire you up and give you that fuel to keep you going. But on the other side, that emotion, it can blind you to things too. Things that are obvious, it won't let you see. So you're kind of pulling out that emotional component and adding that objectivity or kind of playing devil's advocate maybe in certain situations. Interesting. If somebody was listening to this and they're like, "I've been thinking about this. I've been trying to do this stuff on my own with mixed results or maybe no good results at all." And they're like, "I'm going to reach out to VEDA." What are some of the things that they need to do to make sure they're ready for you? Because they could just show up and not be ready. But what are some of those things that you find people show up and they're not ready yet or that they could be doing before they call you?
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Vada Grantham
Basically, I could use an example of a client that came to us a few years ago. And nowadays, a little bit more with technology or with Google, they have a little bit more information versus the basic concept is still the same. They don't know until they do it. For example, there was a person that owned a technology company, a computer company at that time, but his parents owned what we call a bowling alley.
And over the years, they had assembled a lot of bowling pins and they had put them in the warehouse and it was just bursting at the seams. So they were trying to determine what can we do with these bowling pins and everything like that because we got to do something with them. So the sons of this family business went out and had some drinks and seemed like the light bulb went off. So they decided to recycle these bowling pins. So I don't know if you know it or not, but on a bowling pin, they cut the skin off. It's all wood, maple wood. And so he was trying to explain to me what he wanted to do with this. And he wanted us to do some research. And so it was in Elgin, Iowa. So we went to Elgin, Iowa in the middle of nowhere.
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Shawn FitzGerald
I'm familiar with Elgin. I'm a Chicago boy.
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Vada Grantham
So he had got a little bit farther than I anticipate they were. They had at that time, we went there, they had this warehouse, right? And they had an engraving machine. And they also had about 20 prongs. So what they do, they drill a hole in the bowling pin, cut the tip of it off, and put those bowling pins on these prongs sticking up and dip it in lacquer. And that lacquer, then they put it in engraving. So for example, what they would do, they were making what we call awards, football awards, made into football awards for high school football teams. So you had the logo of the high school football team, and he put a base under that. So at the end of the year, they give them awards. So that was what it started out to be. And then at the time, we talked about recycling. So recycling at the time was big. And so then they started getting recycling bowling pins, just playing bowling pins from all over the country, because people heard about what they were doing.
[00:18:29:23 - 00:19:49:22]
Vada Grantham
And so not only high school, then the colleges started coming up. So what we did is that we could, okay,
we were at the time, we was in a model setting, right? And we had about four or five different tables, one with our state logo, one of those awards on it, University of Iowa, Drake, and all this. So we asked them, they had different sizes too. We asked them, "What are you willing to pay for something like this?" Because that's what he didn't know. He didn't know what he was willing to pay for it. Also, "What would you like to buy something like this?" The results of that came out of that is that they would like to buy these things, get them as gifts for birthdays or friends that really hawkeye fans or something like that, or a welcome center. So when you're traveling through Iowa, you can get these kinds of things. And so then they have them during a season Christmas time, they have them in the model, they have little pop-up, they could use them there. So all that technology. So now, I remember I was in, after this research, they launched this company, and it blew up. And I remember I was in Ohio at the time, I had a meeting in Ohio, research project in Cincinnati, Ohio, and I was in the model. And this would be done within a year, I saw this product in the model. So it's nice to see from an
[00:20:17:14 - 00:20:50:04]
Shawn FitzGerald
infancy stage to come to full-blown product in the market. Sometimes you see that. Darrell Bock Wow. Interesting. Robert H. It's, you know, there's things like, you know, it's not the yeses, it's the things that you say no to, the distractions and things like that. But, you know, which of course I always thought was hilarious because how do you vet those? You have to pursue those ideas because you never know. And your story is a perfect example of that. So if somebody has an idea, sometimes that research might give them the traction to move forward. So it's not necessarily a product that already is in existence or something like that. It could just be for ideas to help.
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Vada Grantham
Robert H. And it could be that, you know, we do a lot of, for example, commercials. For example, sometimes companies want to do a commercial, and what happens with that there is that before they take it and go national or before they put it in the journal public, they do a design or do storyboards. So storyboards are just like the warning of it before they do a vast mass commercial or some of that. And they would get feedback based on a storyboard or they do some video footage. And for the mass market, they come in and get feedback from the consumers to see to what the product commercial could be like. And sometimes the commercials, obviously, you may see it out there or based on the Senate, let's say they did it initially, and they got some fallback on it. Now they can come back and maybe say, okay, let's get some research on this. And how can we tweak this or something like that? Because sometimes without research, again, you're just sending it out there. Research is the tool to help you make it a better product or service, as simple as that.
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Shawn FitzGerald
So for some of the businesses that are thinking about this and going, yeah, I need to do it, what sort of resources do they need to be willing to commit? Is there kind of some recommendations on like a budget or time or, you know, because right now I'm thinking this could cost me a whole lot or take a lot of my time or whatever. So what are the resources that are kind of at the minimum that someone should be willing to invest?
[00:22:22:01 - 00:23:34:00]
Vada Grantham
Obviously, we have different budgets to meet with. Let's say a category of menus for smaller business versus, you know, big corporation. And with me being an entrepreneur and my passion is entrepreneurship, I really try to help the small business startup, okay? We know they don't have the big budget, so I kind of adjust this right here. For example, at minimum, you got to have $500, up to $10,000. So you can work with something like that. And it depends on how in depth they want to go with this. And sometimes they can get a loan from a bank to do it or whatever, but they need to have a budget for that. And we tell them, depending on the research you're going to do, we have focus groups a little bit more expensive than let's say mail surveys. Because you got to pay the consumers, you got to pay the rental facilities, and, you know, snacks and the whole works. Plus, you got to pay the moderator. And so that's before you're doing research. You got a lot of cost in there before you get to the research. And then you got to, you know, for example, you got to say, okay, based on the research, we have to maybe refine that product or service. You got to be part of the whole process. So they had to come in with a budget, and we help them with that process.
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Shawn FitzGerald
But what about the time commitment? Is it days, weeks, months, years? I mean, what is kind of that entry-level client coming in?
[00:23:43:01 - 00:24:43:12]
Vada Grantham
First thing I would say would then you should have at least a month, just a month, just for a course. Once we visit with them, we get to put together the, again, the screener, the research platform, the methodology we're going to use that takes some time to get feedback from them. And then we send them a draft of the research process. And we get feedback from them because they're, no one knows their product better than them, you know, for the product itself, but how they would like to take this. So we designed the course to get feedback from them. They may tweak it a little bit, but we still have the methodologies and approach and the applications of how we're going to do the research. And so there is somewhat of a determining factor, but we say it could be months just to get going. And depending on, for example, if they're going to do focus groups or what are they going to do with me doing it in one market, then they may go to, let's say they may do something in the Des Moines market, a little bit different than Cedar Rapids market, whatever. And they may want to do it in different markets. So that's what they may want to costly.
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Shawn FitzGerald
Are there tools or are there processes that you see when your clients show up that you go, don't use that. It's not giving you solid information and it's a waste of time, waste of money. Is there any, again, I'm not trying to throw anything under the bus, but are there some mistakes that you see people trying to do it themselves or they think this solution is going to help them, but it really doesn't? Anything come to mind?
[00:25:12:01 - 00:28:56:07]
Vada Grantham
Yeah, the mistakes they made, most of the time I was saying the only mistake they made is that they gone way far and got the product out there. And sometimes it's hard to get it back. But if you, sometimes you use the infancy stage, you can help them design a better research methodology, some research process and give them really feedback. So let's say the product is already out there already. Well, it may have a bad name out there in the marketplace. And once that happens, how can we get feedback consumers? Why they don't like that product? What can they do to change it? So now you can pivot a little bit more. So that's, I think the biggest mistake they make is they've gone too far. Or based on the biggest mistake also is that the data is telling them this and they don't believe it. That's the biggest mistake is that these are your consumers telling you about your product. And you can't just do one or two people. You got to do 10% of the market or whatever percentage of the market in order to obtain the data that you want.
And so I think that's mistaken. They want to do a minimal versus you may have to do 20, 30 people or whatever, or if you do it online, you can do mail surveys. Those are the elements right there.
Have you ever had any surveys or interactions with the customers that you're asking questions of where for whatever reason that information was way off. Maybe something happened in the world that has just skewed people for some reason. It's just short term or whatever. But because what I'm really interested in is you get this information in and how do you vet that to know that it's really good data and actionable that you want to work to solve or whatever versus people that might just be a batch of complainers or something. I mean, how do you go in and balance that? John Deeben That's a good question. I can use an example. I don't want to use anything current, but I can use something that has still application because I don't talk about my client. For example, Justin and them and their lives was called jail. That particular market was going after the younger generation that smoke.
Okay, you can tell right now people don't smoke as much to the younger generation because of research and promotion, advertising, blah, blah, blah. For example, in that market at that time, they wanted to do some research regarding younger people that smoke. And a part of that, so we did research on that, then another part of that was that pregnant women that smoke. Now think about that.
So you got to find that's need and haystack, right? Robert H. Couldn't quit smoking.
And so what we did, we ordered the jail organization wanted to really do some advertisement billboards and stuff like that to kind of get the impact, the emotional. So because it's an emotional thing is that they can't quit. Some of them was in there and said, I don't care. You got those in the group said, I don't care. I want to smoke. I'm going to do my own thing. So you got all that in it, which is good. We need to have those demographics in there. The people that really want to quit, those that want to quit or those that say, I'm not going to quit and don't care what you think. That's part of the population. And so what came out of that is that they had one in there, they had about four or five different hands, right? One was in there that had a person in a casket, a baby in a casket. And they had the baby laying down with the bottle with smoke in it.
[00:28:56:07 - 00:28:57:10]
Shawn FitzGerald
That's a strong visual.
[00:28:57:10 - 00:30:59:05]
Vada Grantham
You looked around the room. I looked around the room crying, you know, just crying. You can see when crying because they saw the really impact of what they were doing with that baby. So those kind of things like that. So you got research that's impactful, emotional, and depending on what you want to do. So they know they wanted something that's kind of a little more graphic to really have the emotional attachment. I think that's another research project we did that we can tell you, which is totally different. I just discussed or focus groups, those kind of things. For example, that's the example you're sitting on watching a movie, right? Movies are two hours and you see a lot of commercials, right? And that's an example you got a one by clowns at a time with General Motors. General Motors really want to find out what consumer behavior, what are they seeing? Because they spend a lot of money on these advertisements. So and what they do, they bring in about 20 people, right? And each one of them, they show commercials and they show them a commercial, probably seven commercials for five seconds each. It could be something like Advil, Holiday Inn, Orange Juice, but there's a car in there, General Motors car in there, right? So you get about seven different ads, five seconds each you go to. And then you ask them, okay, could you tell me what ads you saw? Very few people can remember all seven of them because you show them five, five seconds each of each one of them. And then some people can remember all of them, but I think about native said of them can't. And then if I say, okay, Shawn, can you tell me, do you remember seeing a car? You say, oh yeah, yeah, tell me Shawn, what color was that car? So if a lot of people say, what happened to each of those 20 people, they can show each of them a different color car, right? And so if let's say example, I know those 20 people, let's say 10 of them or 12 of them say, oh, I remember seeing a yellow car or I remember seeing a red car. So now that's the commercial, the one they see the most of because it captured their attention during those, the one they can use in the commercial.
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Shawn FitzGerald
JS When you bring a bunch of people together and you start asking questions and they're hearing the response, what do you do to make sure that one person's response doesn't influence someone else's response?
[00:31:11:17 - 00:32:11:18]
Vada Grantham
JS That's a good question because during the state of research project or the focus, let's say a focus group, for example, we all in there, right? And we always, we tell them that, you know, we want you to be have your own opinion. Just because Shawn feels it this way, it's okay for you to be independent of that because keep in mind, here's the kicker. You're representing 10% of the people that feel the same way you do have the same passion, have the same belief, have the same behavior. So you represent those people. So you want you to, if everybody else in this room feel one way and you don't feel that way, stick to your guns, stay focused on that area. So what it does, it kind of let them know that it's okay to be independent of someone else. And you're right about that. Sometimes they want to go with the herd. And that's why sometimes a diversity actually general questions you throw it out there and sometimes you go in a room and ask them individual person, then you can really peel it a little bit more. To get more information about how the person really feel.
[00:32:11:18 - 00:33:22:14]
Shawn FitzGerald
I would think that'd be a fun part of the job. Getting into the psychology of people and those things that trigger us even to do irrational or to think irrational things. So what, you know, as I just asked that question, I'm thinking now, you know, and not that I want to go political, but we are in a nation that is so heavily divided and the internet allows people just to put their opinion out there to the point where a small percentage could seem like the majority. There's all these things with technology and the way we communicate that I don't personally believe as a society, we really understand and know how to deal with. We're swayed by this stuff all the time. What are some of the biggest, I don't want to say trends, but like things that have impacted the information that you're trying to get, you know, over the last, I don't know, five, 10 years, you know, COVID or technology or I don't know, are there some things that have happened outside of your four walls that you have had to change how you do your business?
[00:33:22:14 - 00:34:12:17]
Vada Grantham
Yes. You brought up a value point, meaning that, you know, when you, when you, when everybody got access to information and it's distorted as well. So you got to, some kind of way you have to get, get rid of, try to get rid of that distortion because you want the core beliefs of that person when it, when it come, come in, you can't ask a lot of yes, no questions. You really got to ask questions that open ended and then you dig a little deeper on that question. So that's what, when you, when you got media or something like that, professional political affiliations, those kinds of things, you want to really get to the core of it by digging a little deeper on that subject matter or that the beliefs right there. And that's when you really separate the, maybe assumptions that they came in with or hear, hearsay, because you get into that person core.
[00:34:12:17 - 00:34:24:16]
Shawn FitzGerald
So it is possible to break down those biases that people bring in in a short time. So, I mean, so it's like those biases are still malleable, I guess, in a way.
[00:34:24:16 - 00:35:09:14]
Vada Grantham
Sometimes when you do research, you want to ask them, you don't want to spoon feed them. You want to ask them the question and let it go. Let them take it the way, wherever they take it. But then also the goals of research is that maybe they, someone's talking about something in left field has nothing to do with the research. So you want to bring that person back. And let's talk about methodologies too. Is there some time you may have someone in there that don't, don't talk very often, you know, and you have someone that's overbearing. And so those dynamics are very important too as a moderator. We talk about research is that you can, and when you get the person overbearing, they're talking all the time, they want to, don't get no one else a chance. So the moderator may say, okay, let me hear from you, John. And so that's, that's, that takes skill sets for the moderator or the research person to make sure they get feedback from everybody, all the participants.
[00:35:09:14 - 00:35:23:13]
Shawn FitzGerald
How do you learn to do that? Do you, do you go to school for that? Is it a school of hard knocks? Is it just being a special type of person that's empathetic and observant and things like that? What are, how do you hone in on that?
[00:35:23:13 - 00:36:04:23]
Vada Grantham
Well, that's a company out of, there's several companies, but the one I went to is called Riva, R-I-V-A, research in values and assumptions. Okay. And they do training on research, really the core data of research, the methodology you should use, the focus groups or mills, what, how to apply that and how to extract information, how to just, like I said, how you minimize a person that's really talking or a person that's not talking very much at all, how do you get that person to interact? All those skills have come from training and as you, and that has nothing better than really doing it. And so our expertise is not in a particular industry. We take our research methodology and apply to any industry.
[00:36:04:23 - 00:36:15:11]
Shawn FitzGerald
How do you find the people that are going to come in or if somebody was listening to this going, "Oh, I would be willing because they're just kind of fascinated with that process or whatever." How could they get involved?
[00:36:15:11 - 00:36:28:22]
Vada Grantham
There are several ways. Obviously, we have on the website, so we tell the people go into the website and sign up. It could be on, for example, we did a beer study, two on some beers, taste test and what happened, it...
[00:36:28:22 - 00:36:31:19]
Shawn FitzGerald
That might be the wrong people that agree or maybe not.
[00:36:31:19 - 00:39:47:22]
Vada Grantham
Maybe not. It could be wine or whatever case it could be, but we do a lot of taste tests. And for example, the beer study was that they come in, they taste the beer, it's about four different beers. And one of this process, they had to have a designated driver. They didn't get drunk, but the companies can protect themselves. So they paid a designated driver like a hundred and some dollars just to drive these people. And so the person come in there and do taste the beer and they have a laptop. Okay. They taste it and go on the laptop and say, "Okay, give us some response to that. Is it tart? Is it tangy or whatever the taste may be?" There's some questions regarding that. So they tasted several different beers. They tasted beer and then after that, they used like a cracker to kind of... Clean the palate. Clean the palate and taste the next beer. So we had two and a half people, not at the same time, they had different assignments. So that's what we do. We have a sign people come in. Or let's say example that one of our clients is Tongue Spices. Now Tongue may want to create a spice for let's say chicken, right? And they bring in the people and they actually have the spice taste test for the chicken, but they also have it on steak or pork. So although they created for chicken, they try and see it doesn't have different applications on other products or services. So now they got about three different products they can put this spice on. So those kind of things like that. And that's what it's all about. You're testing things, trying to get results from your product. I think that one of the bigger mistake that most companies make today, and this is a growing business for us, is website analysis, right? Meaning this right here. I would say 80% of companies create their website, right? And throw it up there, right? And it could be $500 or $50,000. It doesn't matter. They created it and just throw it up there. Well, as you know, the website today is what it is. The marketing department is the service department is the shipping department is the face of the company. And typically what happens and there's certain industry too, that has a lot of technical jargon, financial industries, health insurance, you name it, medical, you name it, they have a lot of jargon on their websites. And so what happens that we bring in the consumers in our technology suite, each one, and we have about probably about 10 computers in there, right? And they sit at these computers and they navigate through those websites to get feedback. Is the font too long? Can you understand the color? Or if you click on something, does it really describe what you thought it would be? So, and now you can find out this website is very user friendly. Otherwise, these companies are losing a lot of money because they think this thing, or lose a lot of customers because they think this thing is the best thing since sliced bread because they haven't tested it. They just threw it up there. And in today's world is that the website has to be functional. And most of the time it's not unless they tested it or you got some website designer internally that designed it, "Oh, this baby is good. I got everything taken care of." Well, you haven't tested it yet. And so what happened, the companies don't even know that these people go in there, they get lost in there, they don't know what to do. So, they don't even know that. So what we do, we test it on behalf of the companies.
[00:39:47:22 - 00:40:07:13]
Shawn FitzGerald
Do you find that companies that go to web companies or agencies or things like that, do they still have those same problems too? Do the professionals that design websites, do they also just because of the work they do tend to understand that or is there still a shortcoming?
[00:40:07:13 - 00:40:16:20]
Vada Grantham
There's still a shortcoming meaning that you can website design it, right? They design the website with the assumption is for a certain market, right?
[00:40:17:20 - 00:40:35:03]
Vada Grantham
What they don't know is if the consumers are getting lost in the website because they design it for their own beliefs that this is getting to the consumer or explains the way they think it should be. So, that designer is trying to do it for the whole company.
[00:40:36:03 - 00:41:14:21]
Vada Grantham
Even most of the time, they don't have a person in charge of their department telling them what should be up there or they don't have them even test it. And I tell website designers too, so we do have a lot of website designers come to us and said, "Okay, I designed this website. Now, I want to make sure that it's functional the way I think it is." So, that's changed from years ago. Now, the website is the way it wanted to be because it's meeting the needs of them, it's describing what they want to do. And sometimes they have a lot of technical jargon with only the people in the industry. So, if I say HVAC, well, not everybody know what HVAC is, but someone in there, so they may have it up there on the website HVAC without explaining what it is.
[00:41:16:00 - 00:41:21:14]
Shawn FitzGerald
What sort of things have you seen with people being able to generate false imagery?
[00:41:22:15 - 00:43:07:23]
Vada Grantham
Yes. AI is really changing everything, both good and bad. And sometimes, again, you don't know who the person is. For example, online, if you're doing online research, is that you don't know who you're talking to. That's the downside of a focus group, you've got a physical person there. Online is that it could be you're doing a survey, right? It could be a 12-year-old, you think you're talking to a 35-year-old completing that survey or what it can be because the parent is too busy or they're getting paid to do it. So, all you get are the results that you need. So, AI changes everything. I mean, I'm a consumer too, right? I was talking to, I got a call, I'm not calling about some services I need for my house, right?
I tell you this right here, that person, there's some things you can tell, because I'm in research, I can tell this has a mechanical aspect of it. 99% of it, it was just all human. It felt like a human that I was talking to. No matter what I was asking, right? They were answering just like a human. They've gotten to that point right now. You don't know if you're talking to a human or a machine versus 10 years ago, you know you're talking to a machine, but now you don't know who you're talking to. And that's good too because keep in mind, you got people complaining from all over the world. Or this could be a small company you have that kind of, they can buy a software as a small company because they have service that they are in the field, they have time to have someone else, so they pay someone to as AI to do that for them. And they can answer any question that you have because of algorithm. Those AI, the AI takes millions of responses to something is already there. It can done in two seconds.
[00:43:07:23 - 00:43:54:03]
Shawn FitzGerald
If I was the business owner and I'd come to you and I said, "Oh yeah, we've created this AI system and we're going to use this avatar online to answer some of these basic questions." Is that something I could hand over to you and say, "Help me vet this to make sure that it's not just a matter of if the information is factual, but is it scaring people off? Do they get the sense that I'm trying to pull the wool over their eyes because I'm giving them an AI avatar when they thought it was supposed to be a human or something like that. Do you find there's a need to do research about the AI, not just what it's saying, but did I use it properly? Is it creating that experience that turns people on instead turns them off?
[00:43:54:03 - 00:46:41:13]
Vada Grantham
Absolutely. And that's what research knows as well is that not everyone believe in AI, the direction it's going. So now you have a barrier up there that you'll believe about AI. If you're doing it from the company's point of view, if they want to do research to find out how people feel about that, that's one thing. But also they can test to see is it doing what we want to do? Does it saying, does it ask the questions, can you tell whether or not this is AI or not? So you can have one mechanical, you have different levels of AI to get research on and to make sure, because you want to make it as human as possible. I think all the AI is in some industries, some sectors is out there already. Well, to us, you and I, AI just barely touched on the surface, so we don't know what AI can do. And we do notice right here is that I can look at you, right now, the physical person, but it's a video image, look, talk just like you, sound like you, facial movements just like you, and you can't even tell that dangerous right there. That's what I mean. That's the danger that's going. It's almost like cloning, if you will. So research allows, that's the barrier to really finding out application research. It's changed his deal, just like anything else. Research has to adapt to that industry. Everything goes in cycles, right? Every 10 years, things change. Think of examples, just a few years ago, when Steve Jobs was learning, he said that we barely touched the surface, what technology is going to be. So they tell you, so what they do to every five, every year, they invite some of the top minds of the company, of Apple, right? So the top minds to do research, to figure out brainstorm regarding new product, what the consumers want, and next, so it's just like winning the Oscar to be a part of. They don't tell you where you're going. They tell you that you got to tell your family, you be gone for a month. They don't tell you what location it is, but you be gone for a month. What they do, they plan the next five years. So it's just brainstorming. That's research right there. And so what they've done, for example, let's say this phone, if I, they've already tested, well, through research, right? Well, not if I, if I, if I leave my phone in my car on 95 degree day, as you know, that phone inside the car, it could be 150 to 200 degrees, will it survive? They've already tested that it will, or in the wintertime, the same thing, but leaving it, so they tested it. Keep in mind, is that back in the day, when you dropped the phone in water, someone came up with ideas, put rice with it, but that phone now, if it's submerged, even can last years. So, so research allows you to test things for longevity, for people, how they use usability of products and services.
[00:46:41:13 - 00:47:07:20]
Shawn FitzGerald
How often, or what are the signs that a business goes, you know what, we now need to get some new research. The information that we knew, maybe we've had great success over the last couple of years with our product services, whatever, but now we're, they're starting to lose touch with what their customers need or the customers are changing. What are some of those signs that say you need to start doing some market research and getting on top of this again?
[00:47:07:20 - 00:47:39:01]
Vada Grantham
That's a good question there. I think that research is ongoing. And so companies that are, that are really doing very well understand that we need to test this again, because trends change, ideas change, new products come into the marketplace, or my product, it could be a product that did very well in the marketplace and said, maybe I can, I can create another product either similar to this and create another product out there. And then now you get two different products, or you can update this product, tweak it, update it, whatever, and make it do better.
[00:47:40:09 - 00:48:04:03]
Shawn FitzGerald
Let me ask you about the data that you were just talking about. And I understand having data is necessary, but what can businesses be doing to be capturing data now, what every day while they're in business. So when they do actually come to you and you say, we need to get some data, they may already have data about their real customers already, instead of you having to go over and start from scratch.
[00:48:04:03 - 00:48:36:11]
Vada Grantham
Yes, data is very important. Data comes in many forms. For example, we all, I think most people have gone to the Des Moines airport, right? 10 years ago, we go to the airport, we're running late, we try to find a parking spot, right? You go there now, and we notice this is data, every spot has a green light or red light. If it's all red down there, you don't go down that lane. Five years ago, 10 years ago, is that you got to go around the whole point, you're running late already.
[00:48:36:11 - 00:48:37:20]
Shawn FitzGerald
Looking for something to park.
[00:48:37:20 - 00:49:01:09]
Vada Grantham
Data told them that we need to find something right there because people complaining that we can't find parking spots, we're wasting our time driving all over there. Data told them that, so now they can use the dataset, what hours, they're using the data too to say what hours people are using, what floor, all that kind of stuff like that. They're using data to determine the results and timing, how long are these people staying at this spot? How is it changing? That's data.
[00:49:04:22 - 00:49:14:03]
Shawn FitzGerald
Is there one thing that stands out in your mind that often holds business owners back from starting the market research process?
[00:49:14:03 - 00:50:05:04]
Vada Grantham
Yes, the only thing is that they don't know the value of it. That's why they know they may want to do something and that's why we educate them on it. I think the main thing is that they don't know the value of research. I tell them is that, along those courses, typically when the industry economy is hit hard, that's when they don't do research because it's not part of the core business. In fact, that's the time we really need to do research because consumers, our minds are changing or you can have a better budget to get information. I will say that don't think of research as an expense. Think of the business just like day-to-day operation meaning to pay your utilities. Once you start budgeting like that, it's part of your day-to-day operation. I think research has to be just like everything else within your business.
[00:50:06:04 - 00:50:11:08]
Shawn FitzGerald
Which one is more important, asking the right questions or reaching the right people?
[00:50:11:08 - 00:50:42:01]
Vada Grantham
Asking the right questions is the most important because that's an example. Let's say we do something on food and you got several people in there. Well, you may not eat that food but you still know that no something about it. If I ask the right question, I still can figure out why don't you like that food? Sometimes you have a person in there, they may say that, "Well, I'm a big user of this product." Well, you come find out while they're in there and they all use it. So that question can you find out who's in there, who's really using that product?
[00:50:42:01 - 00:51:02:15]
Shawn FitzGerald
Thinking about all of your time doing this, is there one human action, mindset, behavior that stands out that surprised you or that you just think of all the things that humans do? This one thing just shocks me, surprises me, makes me giggle.
[00:51:04:00 - 00:51:05:11]
Vada Grantham
Well, nothing shocks me anymore.
[00:51:06:16 - 00:51:50:12]
Vada Grantham
At one time it did. It works out, but nothing anymore. That's the beauty about it. I won't say that, no, even if someone shocks me, it's just a matter of the responses that they giggle because not everybody thinks the same. I like that when people come in with different... Keep in mind that someone says something is that, "Wow, I didn't think about that." So that's the beauty about it, that may say something shocking and say, "Well, I didn't think in those terms. We're all learning." That's what research does. It allows you to learn to see different perspectives on something like that. So nothing really shocks me, so to speak, and I like things when maybe they come up with a different idea than someone else did. That's the beauty about it.
[00:51:50:12 - 00:51:54:14]
Shawn FitzGerald
It helps to stay curious and embrace that curiosity. That's the key.
[00:51:54:14 - 00:51:57:06]
Vada Grantham
That's the key. That's what it is. Research is curiosity.
[00:51:57:06 - 00:52:08:19]
Shawn FitzGerald
Wonderful. Before you get out of here, can you tell the listeners one more time if they wanted to reach you, ask questions, get involved with you, company, whatever, how can they get a hold of you?
[00:52:08:19 - 00:52:20:06]
Vada Grantham
Yeah. Revelation Research Solutions is our website, revelationresearchsolutions.com. And if you want to participate in a research project, just go to the website and put your information in and we can call you.
[00:52:21:09 - 00:52:23:13]
Vada Grantham
Everything we do is paid just to give you opinion.
[00:52:23:13 - 00:53:59:08]
Shawn FitzGerald
Vada Grantham. Wonderful. It's always a pleasure to get a chance to talk to you. And I appreciate you taking some time out of your schedule and coming over and sharing your insight with our listeners. Thanks.
Vada Grantham
It's a pleasure, Shawn. Thank you for having me.
Shawn FitzGerald
Market research has always fascinated me, but I've often found it confusing. Is it just surveys and focus groups? Is it only useful for big companies with even bigger budgets? Honestly, I wasn't sure. But today's conversation with Veda Grantham changed that. Veda opened my eyes to what's really possible when you ask better questions, listen with intention and follow the data and not your assumptions. What struck me most wasn't just his expertise, but his ability to strip emotion out of the decision making process and stay grounded in what customers are actually saying and doing. He's not just crunching numbers. He's interpreting human behavior from emotional triggers to missed messaging. Veda explained how smart research isn't about confirming what you think you know. It's about discovering what you need to know. So together we explored how unchecked assumptions can quietly sabotage great ideas. Why business owners often ignore clear feedback when it doesn't match their expectations. The surprising way research can save you time, money and prevent disaster. Why your website might be losing customers and what you can do about it. And maybe most importantly, we talked about how our own egos, our excitement, our need to be right can blind us to what is really going on. Veda reminded me that research at its best doesn't just validate. It teaches, it challenges and it wakes us up.
[00:54:03:01 - 00:54:37:22]
Shawn FitzGerald
Thanks for listening to Intentional Change. If today's conversation sparks something within you, I hope you will apply it with purpose in your own business. I'd love to hear how our Intentional Change podcast is helping you make a difference in your business. To drop me a note, visit ready2levelup.com. And click on the Let's Talk button in the top right. To contact Joshua McNary, visit McNaryMarketing.com. And one last thing, don't forget to subscribe and share this show with others in your network. Help us bring intentional change to every growing business. Until next time, I'm Shawn FitzGerald. Take care.