SPEAKERS
Sid Meadows, Host of The Trend Report
Amanda Schneider,  President of ThinkLab

Coach Sid Meadows: Hey, friends, and welcome to the Trend Report podcast, where we have real conversations with real people about all things contract interiors. My name is Sid Meadows, and I'm your host. I'm a business strategist, certified professional coach, and a longtime student of the office furniture industry. 

I'm excited that you're joining us today, and my hope is that you will gain some insights, inspiration, and motivation that will help you and your business grow. So, let's dive into today's conversation. 

The Trend Report is proudly sponsored by the Insider, a weekly newsletter delivering a quick dose of insights to get your Monday off to a well-informed start. The Insider combines meaningful industry perspective with recommended reads and product solutions, offering valuable intelligence and inspiration to anyone working in commercial interiors. To learn more about the insider or to subscribe (for free!), please visit www.indeal.org/theInsider 

Welcome to this week's episode of the Trend Report. I’m glad you're joining us today, and we have another returning guest today, that I am confident is going to drop all types of wisdom and knowledge on us. So be sure you listen in — Amanda Schneider. Hey, Amanda, how are you?

 

Amanda Schneider: Good. Good morning, Sid!

 

Sid: Welcome back! This is number two of you being here on the Trend Report… 

 

Amanda: It is number two, and I was listening to your podcast with Rob Kirkbride the other day — and so I just want to say that if Rob gets a jacket for returning, I want the same!

 

Sid: I think I can make that happen! Hah, Rob did not get a jacket, but I'm gonna have to come up with something like that if we have people coming back over and over again as guests. I do have a sticker to send you though. 

So I made a deal with Rob, and he didn't live up to his end of the deal… Rob, if you're listening, I didn't see the Instagram post, man!

But I do have a sticker that says “I'm a Trend Reporter.” I will mail you a sticker, but here's the deal — you need to post on social media about the podcast, like tag me on Instagram and say that you're a trend reporter! 

It’s all in good fun, Amanda. I'm so glad to have you back, but for people that are listening that haven't met you yet, please take a moment and introduce yourself. Tell us who you are and what you do, please

 

Amanda: So hello, everyone. I'm Amanda Schneider, founder and president at ThinkLab. If you're not familiar, ThinkLab is the research division of Standout Design Group. It’s a sister company to Interior Design (mag), Metropolis locks, and so many other companies. So, basically my job is to leverage the reach of all of these great media brands to research this crazy industry we know and love as Contract Interiors, and then bring you the insights. So we are removing assumptions and replacing them with facts.

 

Sid: You guys have been really busy, because your ThinkLab at Sandow is a young company. What has it been, three or four years?

 

Amanda: It is. We are young as part of Standout. So I founded the company ThinkLab in 2011, we officially incorporated in 2015, and we have effectively doubled our revenue year over year, every year (except one) — until ultimately we were acquired by Sandow in 2018. Based on some of our work that we did with the CBRE furniture forum that many of your listeners may be familiar with. 

We've been part of Sandow Design Group since November 2018, so now it’s been three and a half, almost four years into that acquisition.

 

Sid: That's great. You guys have grown, you've got added lots of team members, and you've expanded as well. We're going to talk about research and all the things that you do… But before we do that, let's talk about your podcast! 

You host an amazing podcast that shares tons of information, and you've completed three seasons, and I have absolutely listened to all of them. I have absolutely loved the third season; it’s been my favorite. So tell us a little bit about how you got started with Designers Anonymous.

 

Amanda: Sure! So we actually started our first season of the podcast in 2020 amidst the lock downs of the pandemic, and our goal was really to start to share some of our insights and research via an audio format. Like you said, I'm a big podcaster. So our tagline for Designers Anonymous is really around the intersection of business and design. We try to create insights that really focus on that — the broader ecosystem around the A&D community. So our target audience includes architects and designers, but also commercial real estate, product manufacturers, and product distributors. 

We are about to launch our fourth season of Designers anonymous. Each of those seasons is now built upon what we call a “hackathon.” For our fourth season that I am beyond excited about, it starts dropping October 6, 2022, and that will cover some insights around the industry's first-ever persona study. 

One of our passions as a research firm is taking things that maybe the consumer realm does, that's kind of “normal business” on that side of the world — and bring them into our industry that’s just not used to having research. So we did that around NeoCon with a secret shopper study, and now this latest hackathon did it with a persona study. So season four, around October 2022, will really be around starting to drip some of these insights from our personas that are specific to our b2b world.

 

Sid: Okay, that is so good. I’ve got some questions about that, but congratulations on completing three seasons and launching season four! The setup of your podcast is a lot different — you launch once or twice a year, but they're like eight episodes at a time that drop eight weeks in a row. Then you hang out, do some more research, and come back later. Whereas with my podcast, it runs all year, because we drop an episode every other week. What I love about podcasting is you get to do it your way.

 

Amanda: Exactly! We actually have three different podcasts now as you know, so we kind of tailor the format to the content and the message. So Designers Anonymous was our inaugural podcast — it’s really 30 minutes of action-packed information. So one of the reasons we do it in short season is to give us the time to really think it through and curate the guests. That typically launches once or twice a year.

We also just launched the industry's first ever CEU podcast, which allows designers to learn on the go. We're all zoom fatigued, yet connection starved. So you can earn microcredits through AIA and IDCEC. So while Designers Anonymous is focused on the whole ecosystem of our industry — the Learning Objective, which is hosted by Meredith Campbell on my team, is actually really focused on those designers and whether they want CEU credits or not.

We actually just launched our third podcast most recently, called M powered. This one is brought to you by Material Bank, and we've partnered with our cousin company. So they're owned by the same parent company, but separate divisions. So it's brought to you by Material Bank, created by ThinkLab. Each of those episodes are very short-form. So that is a weekly podcast, but they're only five minutes long. It's really focused on empowering that b2b rep with ThinkLab insights. Each episode answers one key question with a key ThinkLab stat and three actionable ideas to really change that rep’s behavior. One of the reasons we're so excited about that is, because we believe that as valuable as creating the insights is, we must go beyond to empower those who can leverage those insights to make a real difference. So Erica Weinberg hosts that one on my team and is doing a phenomenal job. Any reps that are listening, and we'd invite you to tune into that one as well.

 

Sid: I'm gonna go check that out, and we're going to make sure that’s in the show notes — we will link all three of your podcasts, so people have a quick access to them. 

In the Designers Anonymous, we will link the most current episode for you there for easy access. 

You said a couple of things that I want to go back to… I love the focus of season four, and I’m excited to listen to it. But for those people that may not understand the terminology that you use, will you define a persona? Can we explain what a persona is for people listening who may not know?

 

Amanda: Absolutely. We actually have a whole episode, the very first one after launch is going to explain what a persona is. There really there's a lot of misperceptions around personas. Some people think a persona is a role, like a facility managers, some people think it's a demographic like Gen Z, or some people think you can create personas around them. But typically, they lack the depth that you need to know about how your client makes decisions. 

So building on our previous hackathons, our previous season of the podcast, this was really around crafting the phygital journey. And for anyone who's not familiar with that term, phygital — it's a really ugly word for the blending of human interaction and digital tools to create an ideal experience with your brand. Our theory going into this most recent hackathon was that phygital journey. That the ideal balance between digital tools and human elements are different for different personas. 

So we started with some interview style research, mapping responses from a lot of our core constituents, including architects, designers, and end users. We really discovered some early-on theories, like for example — some would never give their contact information up to a chatbot, “I don't want my name on those lists, I would never do it, I'm going to pack around a website for hours.” Versus someone like me, that's thinking, “Get my information to that Chatbot, because I want to talk to a human! I'm not wasting my time.” So it was this idea of really personalizing these journeys across human and digital platforms, but also across human remote work. 

We're getting so much more accustomed to remote service and choosing our level of interaction — that could be a FaceTime call, it could be a zoom call, it could be synchronous with a human, but maybe not physically the same place, or it could be digital where someone is really self-serving on your site and finding the information they need.

 

Sid: That's awesome. I'm excited to listen to that as you dive into it and see what all you came up with, as it relates to the personas in our industry. So that's exciting. 

You've said the word probably four times already, so let's go back even a little bit further. Tell us what a “hackathon” is. As you're describing it, I would love to also know how you came up with the concept to use the hackathon as one of the core elements of your research.

 

Amanda: Absolutely. So when we actually started the hackathon, it wasn't even called a hackathon. As I mentioned in my intro, many of your listeners are probably familiar with some of the work that we did around the CBRE furniture forum. So the hackathon term is something that's often used by tech companies (maybe software programmers) to really hack a complex, hairy problem in a short amount of time. 

We adapted that first with a furniture forum, and then when the world fell apart in 2020, we really kind of put that process back on steroids. It was to look at some of these industry problems that we have, some of the biggest challenges, and leverage our reach and influence to bring the right people to the table to help solve those problems. 

So our first hackathon kicked off in 2020, and that was addressing the analog, very face-to-face aspects of our industry. All of a sudden, we couldn’t see people amidst the pandemic. So we did a hackathon about the future of the b2b selling process, and that resulted in 100 ideas for sales reps that are struggling to adjust in this digital era. Not to say we want to stay here, but to say that the future will probably be a balance of the world we knew pre-pandemic. 

Then we experimented with the second hackathon, which was really looking at some of the historical places that manufacturers have invested. I think one of the challenges is that in this increasingly digital era, we can't invest in everything. We can't keep doing binders and samples and all of the physical things all of the time with the reps, and then also invest in all these new digital tools. So how do we help businesses kind of reassess where their investments are? As you know, that resulted in another playbook of 100 different ideas for investing in things like showrooms, samples, events, and kind of what the future of that looks like. 

Then fast forward to this third season, where we were really we started out almost with a different premise than we ended with — which was asking, what's it really going to take to get ahead? How can brands stand out? This digital world is a flattener. It’s leveled the playing field, and it's getting tougher and tougher. In some ways, we have to fight against that commoditization, because our industry is all about creativity (customization). 

And that's what led us to this persona study to really think about the journey of your clients from their point of view, not the point of view of a brand. Our goal was to really help craft these journeys in a very unique light. That's kind of where we started.

 

Sid: Well, I think that's a perfect tease, actually, because we could do a whole episode about the spiel you just gave. 

But I had a follow-up question for you — just to clarify, in your hackathons, you're bringing a diverse group of people together, sometimes in a physical room or on Zoom, and you're posing an industry question or challenge. So basically, it's like a big brainstorm session where you're seeking information from everybody. It's people in all aspects of our industry, not just one specific vertical, if you will.

 

Amanda: Absolutely right. Let me break it down to make it sound a little simpler than I just did. 

1. So phase one is really around exploration. We're looking for problems and challenges from a variety of viewpoints. That initial phase tends to be over zoom. We do a lot of mapping to really identify where there's pain points, because to us where there's pain, there's opportunity. 
2. Phase two, if you will, takes those pain points and validates it with a much broader audience. So, for example, this last season, I think we had about 850 survey responses before it was over. So you know, depending on the topic, the interests of the survey, and things like that phase two is really getting broader data points. 
3. And then phase three is the funnest — what we typically call generative research. That’s where we say, “okay, if these are the problems validated by these theories that came from phase one and this evidence that came from phase two… how do we solve that?” And that's where we get really creative. 

We often mix up the groups to really ask each one, how do we solve these problems? And the result of these hackathons is always an “idea book” of actionable, tangible things. These are not theories. It's to say, “here's what you and your brain can do.”

 

Sid: Okay, that is so cool. And those idea books are available on your website. Correct? 

 

Amanda: Yeah. www.ThinkLab.Design/designhackathon — and you can find out how to join in to our next one that's coming up in 2023 or how to get some of the insights from our past hackathons.

 

Sid: You know, research and data informs decisions moving forward. It really helps businesses, if you're paying attention and listening to people like you that are doing the research. It can help inform decisions, whether it's strategy decisions, product decisions, market decisions, and so many people decisions. 

Out of all these that you've been doing (three of them so far and another one coming up), is there one takeaway that you're like, “Whoa, this was SO good” that it was the top takeaway, or can you even narrow it down that way?

 

Amanda: Well, let me start with just one of my favorite quotes based on what you were just saying. And one of my favorite quotes is this, “It's easy to be surrounded by data, yet starved for insights.” 

I love that quote, because I think that's so common. As a research firm, I can tell you, I've been told not to say this publicly, but you can kind of make research say whatever you want it to say, right? In this day and age, whether we're talking politics or pandemic or whatever else — we know that we don't always trust research today. So I want to take that kind of a step further to say that we want to not only collect that data, translate it to insights — but also give you ideas and let you choose your own adventure for what you want to take and apply to your brand. 

So if I had to say, I think I can I do a favorite from each season. So from the first hackathon, I would say our key discovery was really around this digital journey, that you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. Once we went from almost this wholly analog industry to this temporarily, wholly digital industry — we believe the future is going to be about this digital journey. 

The second season, a key finding was that we mapped all of the traditional places that manufacturers specifically have historically invested pre-pandemic. Then at that time, one of our key insights was that there's almost nothing in this industry that's not going to touch digital in some way. That could be as simple as taking a binder online or a virtual showroom or having QR codes that interact with digital. So it was really looking at how do we stop fighting this and embrace it. Not just taking the things that we would do in person and put them on a digital platform. I often laugh when I remember that we took a book that you would reference, and then we physically put it online and even made that noise when you turn the pages… It was not optimized for a digital platform, so we're gonna have to rethink those things. 

And then for hack three, which has been my favorite so far — we uncovered 10 universal truths across all five personas that said, no matter what these things are true in our industry. Those five personas also want very different digital journeys, and I would estimate today that two of those five are very traditional personas. If I describe them to you right now in our industry, we estimate that those two personas make up about 60% of our sample today. But 40% of us, I would argue, are the other three nontraditional personas — and that’s where / who I think our industry is grossly underserving. Those tend to be the heavier audiences with Gen Z, and Gen Z is going to be 27% of the workforce by 2025, which is not far away. So I think it gives us a lot of clues as to how we can get our brands, our tools, and our reps ready for what's to come.

 

Sid: I certainly love the last point about Gen Z and the changing demographic of the buyer, because they are changing. Every aspect of our industry needs to understand that the buyer is evolving, and the buyer that is in my age bracket or older than me (we won't say what they're called, because that will date myself) — but we do things differently. But those coming right behind us are doing things a lot differently. And then if you watch Gen Z and what Gen Z is doing — they're even crazier and more nontraditional.

 

Amanda: Well, and it's not gonna surprise you that our next Hackathon is actually diving into Gen Z in a big way. This kicks off January 2023, and one of the interesting things as I'm diving into with the broad research that exists around Gen Z, is this: Millennials were the first generation to have skillsets from a technological standpoint that their predecessors in previous generations did not. It's one reason we've heard so much about the millennial generation, and I think a lot of what we heard was portrayed in a negative light. 

The reason their skillsets were so impactful is that they were mentoring, they were teaching and impacting the older generations. There were quite a few in the workforce at that start, more than any other generation before. Gen Z will be the same. 

So we're studying Gen Z, not because we want a profile (and if you read anything about Gen Z, they hate that we put them in a group, and we're trying to describe them with all these labels) — but again, I'm interested in Gen Z, because I want to see this ripple effect that is going to influence everyone in our industry. This isn’t just about what they want, because if you ask a Gen Z how they're different than previous generations, they probably can't tell you because they haven't been in this industry for the number of decades or years that we have. So my interest in Gen Z is looking at that ripple effect, and how they can teach us where the future might head.

 

Sid: So what I think is important about this is understanding how the buyer is changing. And tying that into something you said earlier that we really haven't talked about — which is the customer experience, or the buyer’s journey, and what they go through every time they come in contact with you. When I say touch, I mean when they touch your business. 

Whether you're a small manufacturer or ad firm, or a multimillion dollar A&D firm, or one of the top five furniture or carpet brands — whatever kind of brand you are, the customer is involved in every aspect. They're touching you on social media, and you need to know what that experience is like. They're touching you on your website, and they're touching you in articles and blog posts. They're reading about you, and they're touching you every time they Google something related to you. You’ve got to understand the journey they go on. 

The example that I say to people — I actually said this just this morning — I was in a clubhouse room talking about this very topic of customer experience. I encourage business leaders to go be the customer — go to the website and walk through the process, look for information, try to contact somebody, and think through the lens of the customer. Not looking at how pretty your website is, or how much data is… Look at it from the user experience, because I believe that, to me, the website is the place you want to get them to so that they can engage with you. So many companies in our industry just don't pay enough attention to that.

 

Amanda: I would absolutely agree, and I think you brought up something really important. If I had to pick one insight from what I got it from what you just said — I think the biggest shift that's happened, especially over the last few years, is that we look at past, present, and future. 

So our industry really has historically been built on relationships, and I would argue with relationships as our currency. If you think about why, especially on the rep front, why most people are hired into the industry — because of their relationships. Now, I will never say that's not important or won't be important moving forward, but if you look at what happened during the pandemic, I would argue that information trumped relationships as that currency. 

Think about it, I might love to hang out with you, Sid, and golf or drink beer or whatever it else that we do. But I'm not going to do that with you over zoom. So [it became about] if you had information that helped me do my job, especially amidst so much change. Everyone wanted to know, “what's everybody else doing?” So I think for that temporary period, information, trumped relationships. 

And again, you can't put that toothpaste back in the tube. So I think we've all shared that experience. I think everyone's hoping that things go back to normal, but I believe that the future will be about — exactly what you're talking about, Sid — the customer experience as currency. That experience, to your point, is going to involve everything from social media to customer service, to your reps, and your website. If that information is not consistent across those platforms (especially as we look at Gen Z) that is going to result in a deficit of authenticity from your brand — that makes your brand less trustworthy. So, trust is at the center of all of those things, but how we build trust tomorrow will be different than how we built trust yesterday.

 

Sid: I cannot wait to go back and listen to what you just said because it is gold, what you just walked us through. As an industry, we historically are relationship-built. Then in the early 2020s, we transitioned into information — and let's be clear, information is content. When we say “information”, we mean the content you're putting out there. Whether that is a blog, a video, information on your website, case studies — whatever it is, that's content, which is information. This is how you led us through the experience that people have with us, and I thought you perfectly expressed the flow of what’s really been happening in the world since 2019. 

The problem that I see with the demand is that so many business leaders are resistant to this change. You're interviewing a lot of them; you're seeing a lot of them. Why do you feel they are resistant to this change and evolution that's happening in front of them?

 

Amanda: Well, I want to go back to that idea of authenticity, because I think authenticity requires a certain level of vulnerability that many of us are not comfortable with. I can't tell you how many presentations that I leave with brands or clients that say, “Oh, my God, it's so great, because you just confirmed everything that we're doing.” 

And I feel like when I hear that, that I haven't been heard, because we often joke that we leverage research. Like the friend who tells you have broccoli in your teeth — it doesn't always feel good, sometimes it's a little bit embarrassing, but if we really do our job, you're going to have that vulnerable moment where you find an opportunity. 

We often look for pain points, because those those frustrations mean opportunity for us. It means you can improve something. We fight that improvement today. We often joke that selling research in an industry that’s not used to having a lot of data is often like selling counseling services — if you know you need them, we can help you, but if we try to sell you counseling services when you don't know you need them… It's a little bit offensive, right? 

So I guess I would challenge everyone listening to really think about as you're walking through those customer journeys… When you're going to your website, are you just looking for compliments? Or are you looking for those pain points? Your teams are great, we know that everyone's doing the best that they can — but I think it's going to be those humble companies that look at themselves through the lens of the customer, with an honest view — those are the companies that are going to get ahead in this next era. To be able to say, “I may be great here, but here's where I can improve.”

Especially as we look at the changing client, this younger generation of buyers and that ripple effect — authenticity is going to be more important in the future than ever.

 

Sid: This reminds me of something I heard a guy say this morning, actually, in a clubhouse room that I was in. He's got some kind of A.I. (artificial intelligence) business, where he's bringing solutions together. I don't know exactly what it was, but it has to do with the automobile industry / an automobile dealer. There was a customer in their showroom, and he had them ask, “Hey, listen, we know you're not here right this minute to buy a car, but would you go on our website and go through the process of buying a car, while we observe and the takeaways from all of the challenges at every step of the way?” So they watch the process, you know — join, subscribe, our email box, that email list that takes up the entire screen two seconds after you land on the page… Those are the kinds of frustrations you can observe when you understand the customer’s experience of exploring your website. From the customer’s perspective, not from your perspective.

 

Amanda: Absolutely, and one of my favorite sayings is that, “it's hard to see the label on your own jar.” When you're inside a company, you can't always get that outsider viewpoint. So whether it's going and asking customers yourself — it takes a lot of the research. We call it “validation” — where we'll take your web experience, your product, and we’ll help you be a fly on the wall to hear your core clients, your core constituents really look at it. Whether that’s a product, a service, a website, or an experience from their point of view, because we often say, “they're not going to tell you your baby's ugly, but they'll tell me your baby's ugly.” So it gives you an opportunity to see what others are saying about you anyway, to help you fix it (remember that broccoli in your teeth scenario).

 

Sid: Something you just said is really important to remember — they're not going to come and tell you that they struggled with your website… they're justgoing to bounce. So if you’re paying attention to your bounce rate, for example on Google Analytics — a poor website experience means your bounce rate is gonna go through the roof. Unfortunately, the person they're going to tell is their friend who is shopping for something similar to what they bought, and they're gonna say something about, “oh, I had a great experience at this company, or had a horrible experience at this company.” 

Then guess what's going to happen? They just influenced the decision of that referral, because word of mouth referrals should bring business to you. They influenced that person's decision to either go to your website or not go to your website.

 

Amanda: Absolutely, I 100% agree with that. 

 

Sid: I have no idea how long we've been talking, but I have a couple of more questions. So I talk a lot about challenges in our industry, and I see the industry from a very linear perspective. I see it from the furniture side, because I've always been in the furniture side of the business.

But as you said, as somebody that seeing all aspects of the industry, what do you think our industry's biggest challenge or struggle is at this current moment?

 

Amanda: That's a great question. So first of all, I'll say I come from the contract side. I come from furniture myself, as a founder in the early days of ThinkLab. Since being acquired by Sandow Design Group, we now are working with commercial and residential, we're working with furniture, we're working with flooring, lighting — you name it, pretty much every product category. It's fascinating to expand my personal view into all of these other realms. 

I would say there's certain categories that are ahead on certain pieces of this and behind on other pieces. But if I had to say where everyone is struggling right now, I would say it's really around figuring out where to invest smartest for the future. Everyone's trying to explore these digital tools, but also terribly afraid of losing the human element that has been so instrumental and core to everything that our industry is about. 

I actually want to cite a recent article by McKinsey that I thought was just fascinating. We often love to parallel the stats that we're looking at that are very specific to the industry to outside sources. So the title of the article is, “The future of b2b sales is hybrid.” We actually interview one of the key researchers on this upcoming season of the podcast, so there's even more on that podcast that's not in the article. 

She says some very core things — she says that [our industry is] not shifting, no longer shifting — it shifted. As we look at the future of b2b sales, the future will follow something that they call the rule of thirds. 

So a third of your time face-to-face or in person. I think we all agree that nothing compares to the value of face-to-face, yet today, we're all struggling with less of it. 

The second piece of that is digital service. So still with the human, but like over zoom, phone calls, things that are still less than human service — but something we're a little more comfortable with after coming off the last couple of years of more digital service. So answering quick questions, giving a quick answer, or something I don't have to fly across the country to do. I'm gonna do that remotely. 

Then the final third is completely digital service. So this is maybe asynchronous — maybe a video, maybe something where I can go to your website and find pricing on my own. 

So the rule of thirds — a third human / in-person, a third human-remote, and a third self-serve. One of the other things that that article says is that 91-92% of b2b companies feel that their post-pandemic sales model is more effective than their pre-pandemic model. Or I should say — their current sales model is more effective than their pre-pandemic model. In our measures of this industry, I would say the most positive companies are hovering somewhere in the 50s, saying that 50% of their sellers feel it's more effective. 

Lab data says that while the average rep spent 70 to 80% of their time face-to-face pre-pandemic — today, that number is still around the 30 to 35% range. So it's definitely shifted. If you look at that 30 to 35 range, it's right in that third that McKinsey talks about. 

So our research is paralleling what the rest of the world is saying, yet our industry is struggling much more maybe because of the tactile nature of fabrics, finishes, furniture, kicking the tires, things like that. Or maybe it’s a struggle because we don't have all of those digital tools in place (yet). To sum up the biggest challenge, I think it’s just helping brands figure out where to invest the smartest and how to help our sales reps. Of course, there are things we don't want to change back, that we do want to go “back to normal,” but there are things that we're going to have to rethink for the future.

 

Sid: Where, listeners, do you invest money into your digital journey? That can be a variety of different things. This is a digital journey; a podcast is a digital journey, because you're consuming it either in your ear while you're doing something or you're consuming it on YouTube. It's digital.

So where do you invest? Does a brand need a podcast? Does a brand need some other kind of digital platform? More importantly, how can they empower their people with tools and resources? 

Specifically in regard to LinkedIn — a few weeks ago, I had Joshua B. Lee, who is with the owner of StandOut Authority, and all they do is help businesses with LinkedIn. He talks about the power of LinkedIn and how 4 out of 5 decision makers are on the platform. People on LinkedIn are have higher education rates. They've been through more schooling and tend to have / make more money. They're more knowledgeable and affluent, if you will, and that’s why you need to be there. He shares from the perspective of why you, as the individual, representing your brand, need to be the person creating the content. The brand is not creating all the content. People do business with people; relationships are still important, and people want to know who you are. So brands need to find out how to invest or give their salespeople the tools to go be digital.

 

Amanda: Yes, and I think it really is important to start to customize that journey. Another stat that I heard recently is that the average b2b project has gone from including two decision-makers to as many as 14. Think about it, projects used to be the CEO, CFO, we're talking about the workplace as an example. Now, you've got CEO, CFO, CIO, HR people, all the hybrid remote work, and you've got a ton of other people. 

The day I heard that said, I was on the phone with Nelson, and they were saying, “Oh my god, that's so true.” They had 12 decision-makers on some of these forward thinking trends presentations that they happen to be doing that day. 

So it's not enough to customize for the company, because each of those individuals within that company probably have different ways that they want to interact with your brand. So again, that's why I love this persona research so much, because it really asks the question, “How do we think like five different people think?” I often say, “a fish doesn't know what's in water, they just swim.” It's very easy for us to assume that the way I want to interact is the way that everyone around me wants to interact. 

Not unlike my little boy who wants to buy Pokemon cards for dad for his birthday, because “that's what I would want… of course, that's what he would want.” That's why these personas are so valuable. That’s not to say that because you fit into persona one, you can never interact with the tools for personas 2-3-4, and -5 — but this process helps our marketing teams and our strategy teams that are investing in a lot of these tools, really create the tools for all five different personas. 

Just like you in your life as a consumer — there may be days you're more in a hurry, and you just want to interact on chat while you're on a super boring conference call. Other days, you're going to call customer service directly. Other days, you might have the patience or the time to sift through and find an answer on a website. I think a lot of the answers that I've given are kind of b2c related as well, but I don't think that we can underestimate the impact of our increasingly frictionless buying journeys as consumers when we go to work. 

There's a great little meme that has been shared around our team quite a bit that says, “imagine if b2c companies shared information like the average b2b website.” So imagine you're buying a protein bar, and you get to the website to be told, “do you want to know the calories in this protein bar? Sign up for this webinar to find out!” 

“Does it contain peanuts?” — click here to talk to an expert. 

We laugh at that, but if you look at many of the companies in our industry, this is the way that we still (try to) interact. In the last season of the podcast, we interviewed Carvana, and there was just a wealth of insights that we could take from them that I think do apply to this industry. This season, we've interviewed Zappos, someone who leads their customer service department to just say, “hey, what might we learn from this?” 

I think listeners may say some of those things are not for them, and that's okay. But I will guarantee there's some things that you should be considering that maybe you haven't yet.

 

Sid: So the Carvana episode, it’s probably number three or number four in season three, go listen to it. It is so good to hear them talk about what they're doing, and funnily enough, literally two days ago, I'm driving past a new Carvana being built not too far from me. Basically it's a tall, straight building full of glass, and I literally at the same time I thought about you because of that particular episode. It is so very good and packed with great information. 

To my listeners, I know this chat went long, but I knew it was gonna go long because Amanda is just a walking encyclopedia of information to help our industry, which is great. I appreciate you sharing. 

So before we wrap up, Amanda, tell us a little bit about the future. Give us a glimpse into the future of ThinkLab or maybe your thoughts about the future of the industry.

 

Amanda: Absolutely. I think the thing I’m most excited about is definitely inviting you to listen to the podcasts that we talked about so much, Designers Anonymous. Also, if you want to get more deeply involved in our research, our next hackathon kicks off, technically, in January 2023. Although my team and I are putting all the preparations in place right now, whether you're a designer that wants to take part in that, all are welcome. Any generation, we are not discriminatory, even though we're saying it's focused on Gen Z. Again, it's all around that ripple up effect.

We'll be comparing all generations and leveraging those insights to help us all do better. Or maybe you're a brand that really says, “I want a seat at the table.” This upcoming research will be different than any others and really looking at how we can impact the industry — whether you're an ad firm, commercial real estate manufacturer distributor, whoever — there will be insights in here for you about how to recruit, retain, and connect with the next generation and the influence that generation is going to have on our broader industry. 

So if you're interested in getting involved, I would encourage you to check on our website, thinklab.Design. We'd love to have more involvement at the table, because when we get the collective passion of the industry behind the research that we're doing, it just makes it all the more relevant and impactful.

 

Sid: Awesome. So to everybody listening, that link is in the show notes — click it, and go sign up for the hackathon. At some point in the process, you can be surveyed, you can participate in that. Go sign up! I would actually compel you, each of you to share your voice and to share your thoughts with Amanda and her team to help inform the research and help move our industry forward. That's why I do what I do. That's why Amanda and her team do what they do. We're about moving the industry forward. 

 

Amanda: If I can just add one more thing — it’s that our research is only as good as the questions that we are asking. So, if you do have other questions that Sid and I have not covered today, something you'd love us to dig into — I would encourage anyone listening to reach out to me on LinkedIn. I would love to hear from you, so send me a direct message, and I will always accept because I'd love to hear from you on what the burning issues are. What are the burning questions that you have? Maybe there's something I can send you really quickly that we already have, but if not, I'd love to dig in.

 

Sid: Amanda, perfect way to end the episode. Thank you for the time, the information, the insight you’ve shared — I’m super excited to have you back as a second time guest. We may have to make this an annual event, where you come back once a year and just update us, because of how value-packed this information has been. 

Thank you so much for being here today, and for all of you hanging out with us , thanks for joining us! We'll see you again in a couple of weeks. 

Bye, everyone. Thanks for joining me today on this episode of The Trend Report Podcast. I'm glad that you're here, and I hope that you got some amazing value out of today's conversation. For more information about our podcast, the episode links, and our other episodes — please visit my website at sidmeadows.com 

We look forward to seeing you next week! Now, go out there and make today GREAT.