Winning strategies start with your customer

Research and Strategy Partner for Marketers and Innovators

Teams struggle when they don't have a deep enough understanding of the people they're talking to.

Product, sales and marketing aren't aligned on what's important to prospects and customers.You're guessing about what problems your customers have, what their lives are like, and what needs they have for products like yours.You can't figure out why people aren't buying, and your messaging isn’t selling your value.You're leveraging your data, but it tells you the "what" and the "how," not the "why."You’re wasting time and resources on initiatives that end up falling flat.

The solution: talk to your customers.

Talk to prospects. Talk users. And talk to stakeholders. Get insights that go deep, and you can understand their goals so you can support them. Understand the problems they face so you can solve them. See the value they need from you.

How I Can Help:

Strategic Insights Projects

B2B and B2C Customer Research and User Research, specializing in qualitative research, interview and focus group moderation, and insights communities.

  • Marketing and Sales Strategy: win/loss analysis, personas, positioning and messaging strategy, uncovering roadblocks to sales, customer retention strategy

  • Customer Experience Strategy: path-to-purchase journey, onboarding experience, and service experience

  • Product/ Service Innovation: discovery, ideation, co-creation, concept testing and refinement

Fractional Insights Director

My role flexes based on your needs.

  • Lead special initiatives to evangelize the voice of the customer

  • Act as extension of your team, leading strategic customer and prospect research

  • Build processes to accelerate getting insights to stakeholders faster

  • Serve as senior-level team member

  • Short-term or long-term basis

Training Your Team to DIY

Hire me to teach your marketing or insights teams to do your own interviews and research. CMO's hire me to help their teams:

  • Coach how to do win/loss interviews and develop strategic insights

  • Workshop ways you can leverage the voice of your customer and build a more customer-centric organization

  • Do DIY research internally

  • Get more value out of your Insights Community

Our outcome: actionable strategies that propel your business forward.

More than just understanding, I focus on action – helping you apply what we learn to win customers and drive revenue for your business.Identify what motivates and engages your ideal buyers and users, their thoughts, attitudes, and how they make decisions.Get aligned on the problems they actually have, and which ones you’re uniquely positioned to solve.Get inspired with fresh ideas for your marketing, content, and product strategies.

Your goals are my goals

Shaina Forman

After spending the first part of my career in marketing, I noticed a pattern. Businesses can have an incredible product and care about doing something meaningful for their customers. But if they don't really understand the people they want to reach -- what's important to them, their fears, their dreams, and how they make decisions -- then their efforts can fall flat, time gets wasted due to lack of alignment, and they miss out on opportunities that could have made them win.My goal: bring humanity back into business.I made my way into the world of customer insights and strategy and never looked back. No more random acts of marketing, chasing guesses about customers' needs that aren't validated, or innovating based on "shiny object syndrome." I help companies deeply understand the people they serve so they can be more relevant, focused, and effective.When you work with me, you'll get:

  • 15 years of experience in marketing, brand, and product strategy

  • Experience collaborating with CMOs and exec leaders of Fortune 50 companies, household names, B2B giants, and startups ready to scale

  • Actionable insights that drive your business outcomes -- I spend time getting to know your business, your goals, your stakeholders, and your priorities. No 50-page decks of diagrams and generic stats that lack real insights.

  • A senior-level research moderator who has interviewed 600+ customers, prospects, users, and stakeholders.

  • A flexible collaborator -- one dedicated consultant who's as effective as an agency, focused on you... no inflexible processes, huge teams, overly complex systems, and paying for agency overhead here.

  • An outside expert who will help you push beyond your internal beliefs and hypotheses, and bring in new ways of thinking.

Companies I've led work with on my own or on behalf of agencies include:

B2B Tech+Services

  • Dell EMC

  • FedEx

  • Nuance

  • Flex

  • SourceDay

  • Siemens

Consumer Products

  • L'Oréal

  • Kendra Scott

  • Behr

  • Delta Faucet

  • PepsiCo

  • Reynolds Consumer Products

Consumer Tech+Services

  • Pinterest

  • Coursera

  • Meta

  • Live Nation

  • The University of Texas

  • Arizona State University

Now let's talk about you

Located in Austin, Texas + virtually anywhere

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