IIeX NA 2019 Conference Series – Laura Drews Freund – Cranbrook Search Consultants

Happy Market Research Podcast

Welcome to the 2019 IIEX North America Conference Series. Recorded live in Austin, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors and speakers at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Laura Drews Freund, CEO and Executive Search Consultant at Cranbrook Search Consultants.

Contact Laura Online:

LinkedIn

Cranbrook Search Consultants

[00:00]

There’s been a ton of consolidation in the market research space over the last year. Dynata has done a number of acquisitions. There’s been quite a few others. Just follow MR web if you don’t know what’s happening. All those individuals that have been displaced need jobs and, at the same time, one of the No. 1 things I hear from insights professionals inside of brands is that they’re looking to hire. Laura with Cranbrook Search Consultants is a really good contact for you to make if you are looking for a job or you’re looking to place somebody. In her interview, we talk about tips and tricks for both finding good talent as well as making yourself very attractive for prospective hires. So, I hope you find value here. As always, you can find her contact information in the show notes.

[00:51]

Cranbrook Search Consultants. I’m here with the CEO, Laura. How are you today?

[00:58]

I’m doing very well. Anxious to get downstairs. It’s actually a pretty good setup this year: there’s multiple, separate rooms; excellent food as usual; some charging stations. So I like the setup so far.

[01:11]

Yeah, I like it too. You know they’ve got just over 100 additional participants in this year’s show versus last year, which was bursting at the seams, which I think is a big deal because it was in Atlanta historically and this is the first year they moved out of that market, which usually you’d see sort of a decrease in attendance, I would think.

[01:28]

Right. I think because they moved it out of that one in Georgia, it probably encouraged people because remember there was just that one hallway that had all the booths.

[01:38]

I do, yeah. You could barely move.

[01:42]

Yes, I thought that was too crowded.

[01:44]

Yeah, it was super... It had the feeling of a house party.

[01:46]

Which isn’t bad.

[01:48]

No, it’s not. I know. I kind of liked it, to be honest, but …

[01:51]

We’re kind of having a party here.

[01:52]

I agree.

[01:53]

This is a party.

[01:54]

Totally. So, you’ve been in the market research space for quite a while.

[01:57]

Yes.

[01:57]

Tell me a little bit about what it is that you guys do.

[02:01]

So, we hire full-time, permanent professionals within the market research space. So it can go pretty much business developers; it can be more C-level; and, generally, I would say director on up. People don’t usually come to us for, say, analyst-level roles unless there’s ten that they need immediately.

[02:25]

So it’s like scale-type thing, right, yeah, totally. There’s a couple of different matchmaker-type service companies inside of our space, as you know. And, of course, you know who all of them are. What is sort of the point of differentiation?

[02:37]

We have a value prop that I think is kind of unique. First of all, my business partner, Matt O’Mara, was a researcher; so, he really talks the talk.

[02:51]

Understands the... yep.

[02:54]

And so, if there’s some probing that we need to do to really qualify the job, he knows how to get there from a research perspective. So, he’s a researcher turned recruiter. I have been a market research recruiter since Day 1. I’ve never recruited for like cell phone sales people or anything like that. So, I started out as an outside recruiter at an external firm. Then I worked for TNS for five years. Then I was recruited by GFK. So, I worked at GFK for a couple years and then back at Kantar for anoth...