It’s not the data, it’s the people

[00:00:00] Steve Phillips: Welcome to Inside Insights, where marketing strategy meets consumer truth with your host, Steve Phillips.

[00:00:06] Steve Phillips: We get into consumer insights because we're curious about people, about the why behind the choices they make. And the good news: most of us genuinely love this work. According to the Client Side 2025 study, 83% of client side insight professionals enjoy their jobs and three quarters expect to stay in the field. But there's a catch.

[00:00:28] Steve Phillips: And only 28% say they feel really strongly valued by their organizations. Too often, insights are still treated as ad hoc projects, arriving late in the process to validate ideas built on assumptions. They're not always fast, affordable, or embedded enough to guide decisions in real time. That's starting to change. Zappi's own research shows that teams using connected insights, where data flows continuously and links directly to marketing decisions, report satisfaction scores up to 24% higher and relationship scores with marketing that are 32 points higher.

[00:01:09] Steve Phillips: So the challenge isn't whether the data exists; it's whether organizations structure themselves to put insights at the point of decision making. Tech can help, but culture and process make it stick. I'm Steve Phillips and this is Inside Insights. Today, I'm joined by Sinead Jeffries, SVP of Professional Services at Zappi, to talk about how insight teams can elevate their impact not by gathering more data, but by embedding insight where decisions get made. So, hi Sinead, welcome to Inside Insights.

[00:01:44] Sinead Jeffries: I'm excited to have you on the show. Can you start by telling the listeners about yourself and, because we're going to be talking about consumer insights and market research interchangeably, what is the distinction between them?

[00:01:57] Sinead Jeffries: Hi Steve, and thank you. I'm very happy to be here chatting to you. So I'll start with your second question. I think the way I see it is market research is a series of tools, so kind of well thought-through, structured approaches to getting learnings from consumers. And when we do that, that's what helps us get insight into consumers. So I sort of, maybe it's an oversimplification, but I see it as market research is one of a suite of tools that allows us to get consumer insights. So consumer insights is very much the outcome and the impact that we want those learnings to have within organizations.

[00:02:37] Sinead Jeffries: So then to me, I guess I started my career in which was probably then definitely market research rather than consumer insights as a graduate, so class of '99 at BMRB, where I learned all about all of the techniques, the statistics, the structured everything to kind of really understand research properly. And since then, I've had a variety of different jobs. So I've had a couple of client side roles. I've been MD of a smaller agency, I've worked as an independent consultant. So I've seen quite a lot of different roles. And then for the last three years, I've been here at Zappi. But I'm also very healthily involved in the sector, particularly in the UK. So I've been on the MRS main board, I've served a term as chair of the MRS, and I still do a lot with MRS in the areas of people, culture, and talent. So I guess very pertinent to the conversation we're going to be having today.

[00:03:25] Steve Phillips: Great. And tell us a little bit more about your client side roles and the agency side roles and the difference between them. How did that work for you?

[00:03:36] Sinead Jeffries: Yeah, it's really interesting. I actually think, looking at it now, I think client side roles are some of the toughest within the sector because the range of skills and capabilities you need to have is massive, I think. So I started obviously agency side and kind of grew up as a graduate within the sector, learning all about methodologies, looking at data, charting, all of those things. And then I spent time working both within London Underground, so Transport for London, perhaps Post Office and Royal Mail, where I kind of, you know, gradually ended up kind of leading an insight team at Royal Mail.

[00:04:14] Sinead Jeffries: And I think the big thing for me was, while it was always really, really important to have those proper skills and understand what we are doing because a lot of the time it's scientific and it's got kind of robust underpinnings, within the client side teams it's so much about relationships and influence and being able to engage with stakeholders in the right way, in a way that's meaningful for them. And you have to, certainly at kind of senior levels, you have to have impact as an individual. You have to be able to kind of get in a room and make sure people are listening to you or buying into what you're saying.

[00:04:50] Sinead Jeffries: So it's, it all comes from really the same foundations, but the way it manifests itself in a client side role is often more political, it's more nuanced, it's very based on relationships and influence, I think.

[00:05:07] Steve Phillips: That's great. And you've read the Client Side 2025 report. What stood out to you most about the state of client side insight teams today and maybe look back in earlier stages of your career and compared to where they have been in the past.

[00:05:22] Sinead Jeffries: Yeah, so it's, I mean, it's a really interesting piece of work. So it's a collaboration between MRS, the Aura, which is the client side insights organization in the UK, and the IMA, I think. And again, I think you alluded to this a little bit in your introduction. I think so many of us in the sector are here because we want to make a difference. We want to change something, whether that's somebody working in public policy research or somebody working in a kind of brand insights team.

[00:05:47] Sinead Jeffries: We actually want to feel that what we're doing is having some impact. And I think what I find most interesting by the findings is the key satisfaction driver for people working in client side insight teams is that if their business motivates them to really feel like they're making a difference and actually that business is listening to what they say and they really feel that there's, there's an opportunity for them to drive that change, that is a really big driver satisfaction. However, only 16% strongly agree that's the case for their job. And I'd rather see that as a kind of opportunity gap rather than a kind of challenge or frustration. I think, I think again, we're very good in this sector at beating ourselves up and going well.

[00:06:31] Sinead Jeffries: We don't have a place at the top table. Our voices aren't loud enough. But I think it's all about saying actually there's a real opportunity here for a lot of people who are very talented, very committed, very driven by what they do and really understand the value that insights can bring to an organization. It's all about that unlock. So obviously we want to keep great people motivated and feeling they're doing a good job.

[00:06:53] Sinead Jeffries: So it's important from that perspective. But I think we also, we all know that actually businesses that properly look at kind of what consumers are saying and tie that into how they're driving growth and what their plans are, are more successful as businesses. You don't, you don't get to be a successful business in a sustainable long-term way without actually doing it in a way that's meaningful for your consumers. So I think it's, it's a real fundamental business growth driver and I think for me that's where that opportunity comes, is to make sure that insights are being used to fuel growth, not just, hey, isn't this fun? We did some focus groups and we listened to some people.

[00:07:31] Sinead Jeffries: And again, not to be patronizing or not to demean things, but actually it's all about that articulation of how it's fed into the business and how the business sees, uses, gets their hands on consumer data. That is really critically important.

[00:07:46] Steve Phillips: So we know consumer insights helps companies make smarter decisions. It helps them grow, it helps them innovate. But respect from senior leadership came through as the top priority and you've talked about it being missing in many organizations. What practical steps can insight leaders do to build credibility and influence with the C-suite and senior people within the marketing and other departments?

[00:08:09] Sinead Jeffries: Well, I think firstly, and again, we all know this because we tell our clients this all the time: know your audience. You have to understand what is motivating the people you are trying to influence. So really get to know them, understand their priorities, what's in their agenda, what their key challenges are, what the blockers are.

[00:08:28] Sinead Jeffries: You know, if you've got a CMO who's facing challenges because they're not getting the ROI they need in their advertising, or you've got a product lead who's not seeing the growth from a particular new product line, what's behind that and how can we use insights to kind of fuel that? So I think really make sure you're speaking their language, understand the priorities, I think. And part of that is actually understand how business works. You need to understand what the model is that your business is operating and what are the cost drivers, what are the efficiencies your business is looking for. If you speak that language, or at least you've got a foundational understanding of it, then you can speak and have these conversations in the right way.

[00:09:06] Sinead Jeffries: And I was, there's a report last week from GreenBook, so MRIA kind of, you know, Executive Insights, which talks about this idea of business-aligned storytelling. So yes, be an influencer and yes, bring it to life. You don't have to go back to, kind of, everything's on a spreadsheet and it's all about numbers. You can be a storyteller and you need to be, but you need to do it in a way that actually is going to have resonance with the people that you want to influence. They don't just come and go, we've done this really fascinating new study that's all about these things. We've learned these things about consumers. You say, actually I know you've got a challenge with this particular product line and where we're seeing the data come through is actually that X, Y, and Z might be causing that and if you change Y then you might get a 20% growth. You know, use that language, talk to people and really frame what you're doing in that kind of financial business strategy area, because, you know, what do they want to be, what do they need to be successful? And how can you use insights to help them achieve that goal?

[00:10:09] Sinead Jeffries: And I think that's, that's the real key thing is kind of, you know, know your audience and speak to them in their language.

[00:10:18] Steve Phillips: And if you were giving advice to maybe people starting out early in their career in the client side and consumer insights, you are saying, and I think I completely agree, you have to talk the language of business. That may be finance for the CFO, it may be strategy for the CMO. How did they learn those things? How did they go from, you know, they need to understand about how to write a questionnaire and do some data analysis and get a report done, all of the nuts and bolts of the consumer insight world. How do they learn the language of business, as you say, and how do they get to the point where they can have those conversations with the senior people?

[00:10:57] Sinead Jeffries: It's incumbent on people leading those teams to actually think differently now about what those junior researchers or junior people in those teams need. There was an event last week, kind of for business leaders, which was more on the agency supply side, but we had a panel of young researchers talking about how are things like AI changing the game? And I think there was kind of realization that maybe didn't need to happen, but actually did happen, which was, oh, you know what? Juniors don't spend their time checking tables and putting data into charts anymore. And they talked about how the need for things like storytelling and influencing come way earlier in your career than I did when I was a junior researcher, you know, I did my share of literally checking data tables, ticking it off with a pencil, all of those things. And I think there's probably still a sense with business leaders who are more in that generation to go, you kind of have to serve your time. You have to work through those basics before you get to do all the interests. And I think that's totally gone out of the window.

[00:12:03] Sinead Jeffries: I think we really need to reframe what skills are needed. And so I think that's, I think that's part of it is that kind of better understanding around that kind of approach to learning. I think this is slightly on a tangent from your question, but I also think all of us need to be open to constantly learning and constantly thinking about what our skills are. You know, as you know, the world we're working in changes so much.

[00:12:25] Sinead Jeffries: We have to all have an openness to learning. But I think the other thing is, and I think this is one thing that, you know, I see younger researchers coming through now and kind of, you know, meet them when we're talking to clients or kind of in our own teams. I think they have a much more open approach to the world than, you know, and a greater awareness of some of those kind of changing forces and how the economy works and all of those things that maybe I did 20 years ago when I was a junior researcher. So I think it's harnessing that. I think be confident in your own knowledge and your point of view in the world, because again, that's very, very different.

[00:12:57] Sinead Jeffries: And I think there's a huge amount to be gained from giving younger researchers that voice. And I think it's ask for what you need, like understand where your gaps are and lean into that and kind of ask for it. And it might mean that one day you're kind of learning the fundamentals of how to design a quantitative survey and the next you're looking at what a business model looks like. But that's great. And I think, you know, I honestly think this is one of the sectors that has got the most opportunity for learning so many things because there's such a diversity of skill sets you need.

[00:13:28] Sinead Jeffries: So I think harness that and engage with what you're interested in, because I think always if you're passionate about it and interested in it, then you'll do really, really well.

[00:13:39] Steve Phillips: That's great advice. We still unfortunately have many teams on the client side working on a project by project basis. Right. So as those companies evolve and start working in a much more connected, continuous model, how does that change the role of insights and the relationship with marketing if you're genuinely streaming data and insights to them?

[00:14:03] Sinead Jeffries: I think there's two sides to that. I think one is it gives you more time to do more of that business, influencing the impact, being part of the conversations where they need to happen. Because if you're not managing one project followed by another project and 10 projects at once, you're spending less time doing the doing. So actually you've got stuff there more quickly and actually that liberates you to be an influencer, which you absolutely need to be in a client side insight team. I think the second thing, and it's a little bit more nuanced, a bit more subtle, but I think if you have more of a data flow as an insight team and insight professional, it feels like insight becomes more on a kind of, it's another bi-metric into the business.

[00:14:51] Sinead Jeffries: It's another way that kind of decision makers can use it and it kind of, it's no longer, and again not doing down decks and presentations and debriefs. But if that's the only way you're bringing insight to the business, it's maybe seen as kind of a, kind of a bit of a, it's a one-off thing followed by another one-off thing. And actually, if you've got a data flow that sort of puts you on a different perception with the people who are kind of trying to use that data. So I think there's, I think there's both the practical side of giving you more time to do it, and it also, I think, changes the way people see data and insight as not as something you have to kind of order and wait for it to come back.

[00:15:28] Sinead Jeffries: It's there and it's living and breathing within the organization. I think that just changes the perspective, perceptions a little bit as well. But it also, it then becomes much more powerful as well. The more you can kind of look at, you know, what are the themes that are coming through from this data, what are we learning over time and how that's changing and being able to kind of, you know, the kind of visual of a kind of master conductor of lots of data sets, it gives you that power and it allows you to level up the way you're thinking about what your learnings are, what your consumer insights are. How are you driving change, what's evolving over time, it puts you in a completely different driving seat which I think is often kind of feels like you're, you're able to be more at that kind of strategic overall level rather than constantly fighting, you know, and it's just, it's a time thing.

[00:16:17] Sinead Jeffries: Managing projects all of the time takes so much time and so much energy. So actually free yourself up from that. You can, you can do more of that higher level work.

[00:16:26] Steve Phillips: Yeah. Whenever our clients talk about the work before the work, the work and the work after the work, and if you have the right system, you can minimize the time on the actual work and maximize time on the work before— influences, people aligning them and then afterwards. And it feels like a very different skill set to what we both learned when we started off at an agency running projects. Again, how do we help our people level up to that more strategic role, that more consultative role?

[00:16:59] Sinead Jeffries: I think a lot of it is that for me it comes with the partnership. So actually, how do we do our job as a kind of supplier and a kind of feeder of data and a kind of partner and kind of helping people have those insights, whether it's in the model that we've got, which is much more kind of connected and data driven, or kind of more of a full service agency where you're doing maybe more individual projects, I think that flow goes through, back to what I was talking about earlier.

[00:17:29] Sinead Jeffries: So actually, what are the businesses' goals? What are they trying to do? We then look at what the pain and challenge points are for our partners within the insight teams or within the marketing teams and look at how we can support and unblock that. But also thinking, and this is where I love the job that I do, is actually, what are we trying to help unlock for those businesses and for those consumer insights organizations within large companies? What do they need, what are their challenges, what are their gaps and how can we go? Actually, we're not just going to say, oh, you take this from us and good luck. It's actually, okay, how can we help you unlock what you've got? How can we help you understand how to use this more effectively?

[00:18:08] Sinead Jeffries: And I think there's a skills transfer to make sure again, going back to the kind of the work before the work, and the work, that there's not work or effort or friction involved in taking what they're getting from us and using within the organization. So how can we make that as frictionless as possible? How can we empower our partners within client side insight teams to actually know what they're doing with this? How can we be more effective? Where's the value going to come from?

[00:18:34] Sinead Jeffries: And I think the more we can do that again, we can kind of help that ease the friction on their side to unlock more potential for growth.

[00:18:42] Steve Phillips: And there's always been this discussion with the industry about how consultative we should be, how much we should be like management consultants or not like management consultants. So we have a very strong skillset, but also having that consultative behavior change process. Do you think we need to bring in more of those types of skills, those types of people into the industry? Do you think we should be working more closely with those types of providers, those types of companies?

[00:19:09] Sinead Jeffries: I mean, I think we have to be open to everything and I think sometimes we do ourselves a disservice by going, oh, you know, we're better than them. We've got all of these skills and they don't have it, like I don't think we should be siloed in what that approach is. I think we absolutely look at what the problems are and what's the best way to solve those problems and what the best set of skills are to do that. And, you know, as you say, partnership, sometimes with consultants, working more with them. Bring it.

[00:19:31] Sinead Jeffries: And I think the other thing as well, I think there's a really strong group of senior people within a sector who work independently, who've got really, really good skills. I think that's something we've really got as a sector, is a fabulous network of people who kind of work independently and work consultative roles. There's huge benefit in that as well, both from a financial model perspective, but also the skill sets of people who've worked with different brands and different organizations. So I think let's not go, oh, we should be doing this, not management consultants. Let's go, what is needed to unlock here.

[00:20:01] Sinead Jeffries: And I think, you know, you and I have talked before about, you know, you get to a point where actually what you're talking about is not how do we deliver insights, it's actually how do we change business and how do we look at transformation. And let's, you know, if we've got those skills, great, but if we don't, let's not try and force ourselves to be something that we're not. Let's work with the people who've genuinely got those skills. And I think, I think you learn so much and you get a huge amount of value from those types of products, partnerships. We have to talk about it.

[00:20:33] Steve Phillips: AI, machine learning, automation. It's entirely impossible. They were flagged in the survey as very big opportunities, as technical barriers for what skills, behaviors will matter most, do you think, for insight professionals who want to shape that strategy, who really want to play a leading role in their organizations?

And I guess this is coming from my perspective as somebody who's not a strong, technical, literate person, but I love it and I embrace it. And I think, is that, is that openness? I think, again, let's not be snooty about what is and isn't the right way to do things or how research needs to be done and all of that. I think, let's. I've always viewed my strength and research methodology as something that gives me the confidence to maybe sometimes do things differently because actually, you know, where you can flex. So I think let's, let's be open to thinking, okay, this is totally different than anything we've ever done before. It's a totally new way of kind of looking at things.

[00:21:35] Sinead Jeffries: I don't know what. I don't know. So let's, let's try that. Let's experiment. Let's be open to learning.

[00:21:45] Sinead Jeffries: And I think it is one of the, I think it's the one of the things that we need more than ever now. And actually. Oh, what was it? It was at the MRS Conference earlier this year, and Dex Hunter-Torricke was talking about kind of the influence of technological shifts and societal shifts. And one of the things that he talked about really resonated with me, which is the idea of a kind of renaissance talent where it's a multitude of skills that you need to have.

[00:22:14] Sinead Jeffries: And I think that really plays in here because it's how do we embrace learning about things that we don't really know? How can we harness new technologies to unlock creativity somewhere? So I think for me, it's about be open, talk to experts. There are people who have been playing about with this for so many years and actually listen to what they've learned. Don't go, go. Okay, now we're going to start. We're going to frame how AI is going to be used in insights. Let's start from scratch, actually. Where can we look in?

[00:22:44] Sinead Jeffries: Whether it's within our sector or adjacent sectors or completely different places, how do we learn from what's being done already? And how can we just have fun with it and give it a go and try things? Because I think there's so much potential there. There's lots of pitfalls, there are lots of things that go wrong. There are lots of things that maybe aren't right, but actually you're never going to embrace the positives unless you also fail, unless you also do things that don't work, unless you get your hands burned at some point because you're trying something and it's not quite worked out.

[00:23:11] Sinead Jeffries: So I think an openness to learning, again, using some of those younger people who are, you know, practically AI natives now. Right. So I think it's let give people space to grow. But also I think all of us at every level have to be open to kind of doing things differently and learning and trying things. And don't be too quick to go, we can't do this because it's not quite right.

[00:23:34] Sinead Jeffries: And it's, you know, how do we look at the statistical validity of that? Like, let's not do ourselves a disservice. Let's be open and let's be experimental to try and grow.

[00:23:46] Steve Phillips: We do tend to be a curious bunch. So we should be able to do this.

[00:23:50] Sinead Jeffries: We should. We definitely should. And I, you know, and I think there are lots of examples of people doing that, which gives me a lot of hope.

[00:23:57] Steve Phillips: Okay Sinead, now let's move on to the lightning round, where I'm going to ask you a few quick-hitting customer insight related questions. Are you ready?

[00:24:04] Sinead Jeffries: My finger in a buzzer.

[00:24:06] Steve Phillips: Okay, first, what's one human skill insight professionals undervalue but really need to influence skills, decisions?

[00:24:15] Sinead Jeffries: Reading the room, having a certain amount of emotional intelligence. This is, this has always been my number one thing when I'm recruiting people for my teams. Are they going to know when to shut up because the person's not interested anymore or when to keep going? It is such. It's really hard to teach somebody, but it is such an invaluable intangible skill to read the room, understand the mood of the people that you're talking to and engage with them appropriately.

[00:24:46] Steve Phillips: Brilliant. That's very interesting. Okay, next, what cultural habit inside organizations most limits the impact of insights?

[00:24:54] Sinead Jeffries: It comes back to something I said a little bit earlier. I think hierarchy, I think filtering things through multiple levels and getting sign-off and approved by things. I think it stifles so much creativity and new thought and new ideas. So give junior people a voice too. Don't have everything signed off by kind of somebody who's got 20 years of experience. Let people be open and breathe and have their space. I think that's a massive door opener for so much more.

[00:25:18] Steve Phillips: That's brilliant. I completely agree. Third, so what advice do you have for insight professionals that want to build better bridges between marketing and leadership?

[00:25:28] Sinead Jeffries: I think it's understanding each other's priorities. So what are you trying to achieve? What are the key issues on the CMO's agenda, the CEO's agenda? If you're an insights person trying to influence marketing, how is marketing measured? What are the diagnostics and the metrics that they care about? How can you help them do better at those?

[00:25:48] Sinead Jeffries: Understand what the role of marketing is within business, what's it trying to drive? What are their priorities? And then look at kind of what are all the levers that are driving growth. So I think really just focus on people's business priorities. If you do that and you get an understanding of that, then you're away.

[00:26:06] Steve Phillips: Walk a mile in their shoes, I think.

[00:26:09] Sinead Jeffries: Indeed. Indeed. I mean, we say that all the time. Like you need to understand your customers.

[00:26:13] Steve Phillips: So it's the same thing here. That's great. And what's one area where insight teams could innovate right now to add more value?

[00:26:21] Sinead Jeffries: This is not going to be about AI. This isn't about... Again, it comes back to my thing about the whole financial business model. I think you could do an awful lot by doing a job swap between finance and insights. So what does a day look like in the finance team? What are their priorities, what's on their radar and help a finance person understand actually what's going on in insight and how we actually do have quite a lot of rigor and numbers and data. So actually, I think that's a really, really powerful integration. If you can get finance and insight understanding each other, then again, that opens up a lot of opportunities.

[00:26:54] Steve Phillips: That's a great idea. And finally, what's the simplest change marketing and insights teams can make today to work more effectively together?

[00:27:02] Sinead Jeffries: Have empathy for each other. I think often there can sometimes be a frustration because there's sometimes a tension right between that kind of, are we trying to stifle creativity by going, you know what, this isn't as effective as it could be and we're not communicating the way actually, again, to your customer's shoes point, what's keeping them awake at night? What's worrying them? How can we help them? How can we collaborate and just how can, you know, how can we both understand what each other are trying to achieve, what our intentions are? And let's be a bit more collaborative in helping each other out.

[00:27:36] Steve Phillips: Brilliant. Thank you.

[00:27:38] Steve Phillips: Okay, that wraps up this episode of Inside Insights Podcast. Thanks to Sinead Jeffries, SVP of Professional Services at Zappi, for joining us. If you'd like to contact Sinead, you can find a link to her LinkedIn profile in our show notes or at insideinsightspod.com. If you haven't subscribed yet and want a regular stream of research and insights knowledge in your podcast feed, hit that subscribe button in your podcast app or follow us on YouTube. Okay, that's all for today, but until next time, thanks for joining.