March 7, 2023 • 28 mins
On this episode of Give it to the People LIVE host Chisa Pennix-Brown, MBA has a fun conversation with Teneka Steed, PhD regarding Customer Surveys and how they can be used to grow your business.
Give it to the People Live is a visual and audio podcast which provides our listeners with an opportunity to meet and greet BIPOC and Women entrepreneurs and business owners, partners, and service providers. Each episode features a great conversation and insight into intriguing businesses, programs, and organizations focused on building a Growth Mindset and Mental Wealth.
Dr. Steed is the CEO and Founder of the Willene Agency. Dr. Steed is Research Data Scientist that has worked in various industries from education to health providing her expertise in scientific research, statistical analysis and program evaluation. With over 10 years of experience in applied research, Dr. Steed and her team continues to provide data driven solutions for clients in excellence, proficiency and integrity.
Find out more about her at https://www.willeneagency.com.
Give it to the People Live is a visual and audio podcast which provides our listeners with an opportunity to meet and greet BIPOC and Women entrepreneurs and business owners, partners, and service providers. Each episode features a great conversation and insight into intriguing businesses, programs, and organizations focused on building a Growth Mindset and Mental Wealth.
Dr. Steed is the CEO and Founder of the Willene Agency. Dr. Steed is Research Data Scientist that has worked in various industries from education to health providing her expertise in scientific research, statistical analysis and program evaluation. With over 10 years of experience in applied research, Dr. Steed and her team continues to provide data driven solutions for clients in excellence, proficiency and integrity.
Find out more about her at https://www.willeneagency.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. When you're tuned in,
you're with Lady Business and give it to the people
Radio where you're going to get enlightened, enhanced, empowered, and enriched.
Make sure that you always two men to give it
to the people Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Hello, beautiful people, how are you today? I hope you
guys are having a great day because I am having
a great day. And today we are out here doing
what we are giving it to the people. So I
just want you to know that Business is a show
where we focus on bipop businesses whose black, Indigenous, and
people just color men. Today, I have from a bipop
business that's out there that is wonderful and I'm just
(00:47):
so happy to know her and I need you to
know her too. So what we do is highlight the
stories of women, We highlight the stories of black people,
and we highlight the stories of organizations that also help
these businesses to be successful. So today I get the
opportunity to interview doctor to dukas Stein. Give it up
(01:07):
for doctor Kastee. Oh oh look, I got my yes.
All right, So how are you today? I am doing good?
How are you? I am wonderful. I am wonderful and
you know what, I was very excited about this interview.
And you know, the one thing that I could say
is everybody loved you. Now let me explain why I
(01:30):
say that, because we did the Small Best Summit, right
and this was Tanika's first time like teaching in front
of people, and I was like, you're gonna do wonderful
and put you in the big room. It's gonna be
really great. And everybody was like, oh my god. She
was so engaging, she was so enthralling. And so for me,
I think that that is a wonderful compliment for people
(01:50):
to give you, especially when they come to, you know,
a session that you're doing. So even before we find
out about you, what type of feedback did you get
from people when you came when you taught at the
Small Business Summit? What do they say to you? The
most common thing that I got is they wanted more
and it wasn't enough time, all right, So they definitely
(02:11):
love the engagement piece. They also love how I started
the presentation and actually got to them thinking about, you know,
what data is, how they can use it in their business.
And then the cool thing that we also got to do,
which someone also love, was the hot seats. I did
hot seats for their businesses so they can get feedback
(02:34):
not only to take what they learned inside the session,
but take it back from what we saw, you know,
from their websites and their ideas to grow their business.
And that makes a difference. I think whenever you do
presentations sometimes a lot of people want to just talk
at you, right, like what I have in my mind,
So this is what we're going to do. And when
(02:54):
it comes to really being able to engage people and
to get them to really understand how things can be
used for them, you got to ask some questions, right,
and you have to actually bring them into what you're
talking about. So that does play a role in how
successful it is now with your company, WI Lean Agency.
I want to just know, like, how did you get
started in the first place, and give us a little
bit on your background. Okay, So I started back in
(03:18):
undergrad I went to Norkona Central University. I majored in psychology,
so I thought I wanted to be a psychologist. Fast forward,
I did an internship at Duke University with doctor Edwards.
He was amazing and he gave me a lot of
leadership in my internship and I had to go in
and I had my own patients. I had to go
in diagnose them and all those good things. And we
(03:42):
did like a round table with the doctors and some
of the practical students there, and he relied on me
to diagnose a patient at that time, and I felt
like there was a lot of responsibility. I left that day.
I never forget I left that day. I was like,
I don't want to do this. I don't want to
label people. I just want to help people. Part that
I loved about the internship was the actual assessment side,
(04:04):
and so when I got into the assessment side of it,
I was like, maybe there's something over here I could do.
So I did some research because I'm a natural researcher,
and I found out that I could be a psychometrician.
So with psychometrician, all that is is just taking the
metrics of assessments and making sure that they are fair
to test takers. Fast forward from there, I went to
(04:27):
U ANDCG. I majored in Educational Research Methods, which focused
on assessment and measurement, statistics and program evaluation. And that's
how I got into the field. From the short story,
and I worked with different federal organizations and state organizations.
Had a couple of internships with college Board, who actually
(04:49):
makes the SAT. So that's how I got here. Yeah, okay,
And you know what, I think that that is a
unique story because you have to love numbers and you
have to an and your profession. I would imagine love
being able to explain why something is a certain way, right. Yes, yes,
you know, there's always the phrase that I love when
(05:10):
it says men. I mean, what is it? Men live?
Women live, but numbers don't. Numbers don't lie. I also
know that you can take numbers and manipulate them to,
you know, whichever way you need people to go. So
it's so funny, like you say the thing of like okay,
and I tell people, listen, sometimes people don't need to
know all of your business. Right, So if you say, okay,
well look I got one brand new client and you
(05:31):
went from zero to one. That was one hundred percent increase, right,
because you even though you're using the numbers, you know,
use them to make it make sense for you. So
I think that you know, when you're talking about this
and just your path and your trajectory, knowing that you
didn't want to do something that was an important thing.
So with that internship and you know, just being able
(05:53):
to be in there, I want you to just touch
a little bit more on when you said you don't
want to label people, because I would think that people
feel in order for them to get as much from
you with their customers, at some point in time, they
need to kind of figure out the type of customer
that they want. But when you said you don't want
to label people, give me a little bit more on that,
because I think that that's interesting. Uh So, in the
(06:16):
field of health, there's a whole nother story. I just
think it's a stigmatism. You know, people are diagnosed with
these certain disorders or symptoms or whatever, and it sticks
with them. And I didn't want to be responsible for that.
And I'll be transparent. When you're studying like psychology or
(06:37):
whatever you're and when you were in the field of health,
you're kind of just taking. You know, you're guessing and
you can mislabel someone. And I know people have had
their experience of heart that, like, you can mislabel someone.
And the other thing behind that is when you actually
in a practice, you have to label someone in order
(06:59):
to get paid insurance. So I didn't want to go
into the politics, so that so that's that's why. Yeah,
well I think that's a great reason and I understand that,
and it is something that's a big responsibility. Won't you
do that right and then making sure that this way
then they follow a course of care that's necessary. So
but you know, not doing that and then transition into
doing what you do. Can you share some of the
(07:20):
services that you provide in your business, because you talked
about working with government agencies and schools and colleges and
things of that nature. But if a person says, well, look,
how can you help me, doctor sneaker, Like, what is
it that you do for if it is for a
government agency, but also for the person that's like, listen,
you know, I want to learn more about my customers.
Give us some of that information. Yes, So what I
(07:42):
really specialize in and what I love is the whole
survey and question their development. My dissertation was involved around that.
Just to go out for a tangent. My dissertation was
developing a survey for a superwoman's schema and for black
women to measure stress coping. And so I love to
(08:03):
develop surveys, come up with questions and you know, see
how that impacts not only on the health field or
like communities or whatever or businesses. So that's what I
specialize in. We actually, you know, help you develop a survey.
If you need a survey developed or questionnaire developed, we
help you collect that data. We also help analyze the
(08:26):
data and do the reporting for you and in addition
to that, provide recommendations based off what the outcomes are
from the survey of questionnaire. So that's our specialty. Yeah, yeah,
and that's really helpful because you have a lot of
people that are just guessing, you know, they're just like,
let me throw a dart on the board and see,
you know. And I think that when you look at
the fact of sometimes just ask people what they want.
(08:50):
Like it's such a simple concept. But you know, now,
do you think that your surveys tend to and I'm
going to use this word kind of you know, gingerly,
but lead people to a certain way, because I would
imagine that if I'm trying to do a survey, I
want to know the answers to certain things because maybe
in my mind I've already kind of configured that I
want to go in direction A. B, or C. But
(09:12):
maybe my questions, you know, will help to lead people
to one of these types of answers. Right, So this
way I know what next product to put out, or
when to host something, or you know what a person
didn't like as opposed to what they did to do.
The surveys in some way kind of lead people in
a direction that you've already predetermined. It can. It can
(09:34):
because I highly suggest when you're doing surveys to have
an intention on what you want it to be, Like
you just don't want to start with anything. You want
to know what your intentions are. So it's sort of
like doing a research study, like you have your questions,
so what are your questions or your intentions? So the
survey will give you exactly what you're looking for. Now,
(09:55):
that could be open ended questions, meaning that they are
a question people have ask like what do you think
about our services? What do you think about X y
Z product? But you also can have the multiple choice
questions where those are more direct, like how do you
feel about I serm? Is it the greatest, is it poor?
Is it neutral? Or whatever? So that's more direct, so
(10:17):
you can make it where you can get the questions
that you do want, but I do also advise kind
of leaving kind of open and given that open feedback, Yeah,
because I was definitely going to ask that, do you
suggest more of an open ended or do you suggest
something where it's more pointed, because I would imagine you
always get somebody that's a little bit lazy, that doesn't
really want to answer the whole thing, so they might
(10:39):
put something you know, real shorty and it's like you know,
but you know that they may have more information now
with your surveys when people take them as everything online
or is this something your service in person? Also, now
that everything is digital, everything is more online. It's easier
because the easier process from creating it and then and
(11:00):
giving it out and then actually receiving the information. Now
it's easier for the business owner or the analysts who's
doing it. Back in the day, when I started, it
was paper pencil, but it can be both. You have
to be very mindful of doing paper and pencil because
if people are writing in you may not understand what
(11:23):
they have written. And yeah, huge problem when it comes
to doing like in like the actual paper pencil surveys,
but now people are doing more the digital surveys We
may have where some people do paper and pencil, but
it's very rare, but most everything is online now. Are
any of the surveys like where you're talking to a
(11:44):
person like similar to what we're doing, so you ask
them a question and then you get the feedback. Do
you do any of those types of surveys because I
would imagine those, even being open ended, might still be
even more information because a person might feel more comfortable
sharing more. Do you do anything like that too? Yes,
So we have done focused groups where there are a
small group of people, but also one on ones like this.
(12:05):
So with technology now you can do the zooms and
the Google meets and stuff Microsoft teams, so you're able
to go in and do the interviews one on one,
and these types of interviews are actually more enrich for
the information you're trying to collect from my experience and expertise,
it's great to have, you know, this type of interview,
(12:26):
one on one focused groups in combination with the survey,
because it just makes your data, your information richer. Yeah,
a little more well rounded now if there is, you know,
I guess the biggest thing would be what type of
companies would this be good for? Because they're trying to
find the answers to certain questions, or maybe they didn't
(12:47):
even know that they needed to do a survey. What
type of companies would you recommend that utilize your service?
Definitely all businesses, but it's very great for e commerce, business,
service based businesses, coaches, and consultants right now. I know
they're trying they've been trying to regulate the coaching consulting
businesses that are online right now and doing surveys and
(13:10):
collecting that information with actually help regulate some of those
things and make it valid in a sense, you know,
because like how do we make you know, coaching and
consulting balent? What makes you the expert? How you do
you know what you're providing is making an impact, you
know on your clients and customers. So definitely, you know, coaches, consultants,
(13:31):
and definitely e commerce that when e commerce is great
because not only do you have the data that's collected
now on the back end like shopify, a lot of
business use Shopify. You have that data coming in. You
can also use that data and mess it with the
surveys or whatever and collect that information on Okay, how's
my products doing? Is I shipping doing well, is our
(13:53):
products doing well? Is our customer service doing well? So yeah,
I like that now when we're looking at this because
I'm just just thinking about different ways because you know,
it's okay, So doctor Sneaker just had a baby not
too long ago. How old is a baby now? She'll
be two weeks? Uh? Very first? No, not two weeks?
Two months? First? Just want to say, first of all, ma'am,
(14:14):
you did not She's like, how old a baby was?
Two months? So listen, this is the thing. We love
a good mompreneur. So if you hear that in the background,
that is her work assistant that is helping out. Okay.
I don't know. She may be asking a question in
baby language and we just don't know what it is,
but it's okay, that's an assistant. Okay. So the thing
(14:35):
is when we kind of look at this and we say, okay,
I see you know, why do you recommend that a
business use it before or a person that's thinking about
starting a business before they even start the business, Because
I would imagine that you have some people that are like, well,
I'm thinking about it. I don't know who my customers are,
and you know, I want to kind of find out
and you know, what would you say to a person
(14:55):
who's thinking about starting and they haven't fully you know,
got everything together. They have the idea, but for them
to use surveys, what are some of the things that
you would say that they might need to ask people?
Not only using surveys, but I would start with the
market research, like what's already out there? Doing some of
that market research is already out there. This is like
(15:15):
secondary data. This is data that's already collected. There's tons
of information on Google. You can find out about your business,
like you know, what are the trends in the market,
where are my customers at? Even Facebook ads, so going
back into the Facebook Manager, like you don't have to
go and do an ad. You can go and Facebook
(15:36):
Manager and get some of that data already that's collected,
you know, across you know the globe pretty much and
you could see exactly you know, what what customers want,
what customers don't want, where are the customers at, you know,
where do the customers hang out? Starting there is very
very important. Also doing focused groups, a small focused group.
(15:58):
It doesn't have to be a huge focused grow It
could be four or five people that you can get
together and ask them about, you know, the products you
want to provide or the customer service or services that
you want to provide. So that is very, very important
because being entrepreneurs starting a business, especially if it's small,
(16:20):
you know, it takes time and it takes a lot
of money, and you don't want to waste a lot
of money. So you know, going in and doing that research,
that market research, doing your focused groups do on those
surveys in the beginning is definitely going to save you
time and going to save you money. But at the
same time, you actually know, you know, is this product
worth you know, putting out to the marketplace, is this
(16:41):
service you know work not in to the marketplace? Do
they even need it? Or should I you know, go
and pivot off into another direction because you just don't know, yeah,
don't know. Yeah, And that makes sense because sometimes I
always tell people listen, you know, when you break it
down and you say, how do I do this business?
You can look at ten different people and they can
have the same business and they could do it totally
(17:02):
completely differently. And it's a lot of it has to
do with experience. It could be location, it could be
who knows, who you know, that connectivity. It could be certifications, education,
it could be a lot of things that lead a
person to look at the same exact business and do
it differently. But when you survey and you really then
take the time to kind of get to know who
are your people and what do they want, then that
(17:24):
can lead your business. Now, I just want to get
your take on this because there's been a lot of
trends now that and this was one of the things
that was said at the Small Business Summit. That was
Carl Robinson who owns R and R Truck and he
was basically saying, the companies now are having to bend
to the will of their employees and to their customers
(17:47):
for what they want. Right. So, I just saw this
video where they have a topo bell that is fully
completely automated. Now, I'm sure there are probably some humans somewhere,
but you know, you type in your thing, you know
what I'm saying, You put your order, it drops your
order down from this thing it's in the bag, and
you swivel it just like if you were at a
bank teller. Right now, you know, when you think about this,
(18:10):
somebody had to do a survey to say people don't
want to deal with people. They want to have this
automated service. Right. And even if you notice now if
you may have seen that taco bell, because it wasn't
in this side. I think it was like in California
when you go into McDonald's. Now McDonald's has it. Right.
When I go into the Walmart, which I do not
like to have to always bag my groceries, so I
(18:30):
don't like going in and I have no choice but
to bag my own groceries option. So when you look
at that and you look at how companies are changing
and shifting, what would you say as far as like
what are they doing to see if this is what
customers really want? Are they just assuming it or do
you think that they actually did some research to say,
you know what, people want to bag their own groceries.
(18:54):
They actually did some research. Big companies they always are
collecting data. They actually have huge research and development teams.
They do not go into business unless they know exactly
who that customer is, what that customer wants. And even
after they start the business with this huge research and
(19:15):
development team, they're always collecting data, always going out doing
focused groups. I had a friend who worked at c
prop and Gamble, So she worked in prop and Gamble
and they did a lot of focus groups for Walmart.
So they are actually continuously doing research and development understanding
(19:38):
who their customer is. Actually bringing a customer in and
asking them, do you love gang, do you love gain
on this oul? Does it make sense to be on
this oul? Should we add in detergent for moms and babies?
How do you feel about you know whatever in relation
to less? They like detergent. So they're always doing research.
(19:59):
They're just not want anything out there and just okay,
if this works, gonna pray and hope it work. No,
they're asking the customer all the time. I love Nike.
So every time Orlando will go to the Nike outlet.
So when you go to the Nike outlet, and I
think even that Nike dig on their receipt, it will
say they want your feedback, and it's changed for the
(20:21):
feedback you get like twenty dollars off. That's research. So
they're asking you, Okay, did you find what you're looking for?
How was the sales rep? Did the sales rep help you?
Do you want to provide additional information? Would you like
to see more of this type of shoe in the store.
So if you pay, people don't pay attention. But if
you pay attention, these companies are always collecting information and
(20:45):
then it's changed for them getting the information from you,
they're giving you something else in return. Now, why do
you think that some of our smaller businesses don't do that? Now?
I mean, one thing that I would say is sometimes
they just don't think about it, you know, like that
would be the first. But why do you think that
some of our smaller businesses are not taking the time
to invest in you know, following up with their customers
(21:07):
and researching what their customers want. Hmm. This is just
my personal opinion. I just think that our industry has
not done enough of educating and informing even the public
on you know, how important research and information is, and
(21:29):
so you just think that you know, I don't need it,
or I don't even know what it is. Most people
don't even know what it is. I always tell people
every day they're collecting data every day. They've been doing
this for years. That's exactly how they know how to
build homes. How to you know why Walmart has to
self check out? And actually, speaking of that, they said
(21:52):
that customers wanted that so anyway. But so you know,
I think it is informing the public on how important
research is. And when it comes to business, you always
hear about marketing, and then inside of marketing you hear
a little bit of the research, like what's my customer
avatar whatever, but not really, you know, how do I
(22:14):
incorporate this into my business? Was long term, like a
bigger business where I can grow it or I can
satisfy my customers, you know, and continue to strive. So yeah, yeah, no,
and I like that. And you know, honestly, I was
excited for this interview because I said to myself, you
know what, I have some new things that I do
want to do, and I think that's starting from a
(22:37):
research perspective in surveying people. Like what you're talking about
makes sense because I think sometimes we're so busy trying
to get to the dollar that maybe we don't spend
as much time in that research area. And so when
I'm teaching people, always tell them, look, you know, do
that focused group, send that survey, ask people what they
think before you start. But you know what what I
don't do as much is say continuously survey them, like
(23:01):
keep it up, like do that on a regular basis
to see it. And I know that a lot of
people do, and they do like an annual survey, but
maybe an annual survey isn't enough. You know what I'm saying,
how much? If you're talking about like, if you were
looking at your average business, how many times a year
would you say that you think that they should survey
their people. I would say starting out quarterly, four times
a year. And in addition to that, creating a budget.
(23:25):
It doesn't have to be a huge budget, but a
budget could be one hundred dollars, could be five hundred
dollars and putting that into you know, that budget could
be hiring an analyst, also putting it into building out
your survey and the platform that you're going to use
for the survey, and you know, using it to actually
(23:47):
get an entice, an incentive for people to complete your
survey or participate in your focus groups. So yeah, yeah,
so starting out like that, I mean I like that
because okay, quarterly, and I think that makes sense. Now
when your person is talking about and just because you
touched on investment, what should they expect to spend Like
(24:07):
let's say they say, well, look, you know doctor Tinika.
I love what you're saying. I would love to get
your services on a low end and a high end.
What would you say would be something that a person
is looking at if they're you know, coming to you
for me to do the surveys, or just because they
don't want it. Okay, okay, listen. I'm trying to tell you.
(24:31):
My people. They're like, listen, how much is doctor Tanika.
They want to know, like low end, high end so
they can put it into their budget. Yeah. Well, first
I'd like to do consultations just to figure out exactly
what they need. But if you're going to do something
really small, I would say something around like five hundred
dollars starting out, that gets you, you know, the survey
(24:53):
piece developed, maybe some recruiting for how to recruit, you know,
people to take your survey. A you provide an incentive
at the end for the people to take the survey.
So five hundred dollars, I would say, starting out, something
really really small. You want to get done fast and quick.
All the way in to the high end, I would say,
(25:14):
I mean it could go to five thousand or more
one million dollars, go up to one fig you one billion, dollars,
but no, yeah, I mean, but that's a good thing.
So that this way a person kind of has a
range and then you know they can go ahead. So
where can they contact you to get that consultation? Well, definitely,
(25:34):
my website will lead agency dot com and that's w
I L L E n E Agency dot com and
you can also find me on LinkedIn at Tanika Steed. Yes, definitely. Now,
if you had any advice to like leave our business
owners with that would allow them to just be more
successful in relation to what you do and how you
(25:57):
help people, what would that piece of advice be. I
would say, don't be afraid of data. Don't be afraid
of numbers because at the end of the day, it's
just information. All we do is analysts, is take that
information and change it into numbers so that we can
analyze it and get some type of trend or outcome
that you're looking for and get back to you so
(26:18):
you can use that to impact your business, impact your
customers and clients, and continue to grow your business. So
don't be afraid of data at our you know you
can start doing you know, you're on data collection, you're
on surveys or whatever. In a small portion, you know,
start with a focus for start with an interview like this,
select a couple of customers to ask them, you know,
(26:40):
feedback about your business or your product. So start there.
Don't be afraid of data, it's just information. Yeah, No,
I mean, I think that's great advice because sometimes people
don't want to know the numbers, they just want to
keep going blindly. But knowing it then put you in
a better position where now you can do something about it.
Because what if you thought something was really good and
people weren't really attention to that, and that means hey,
(27:02):
stop doing that thing, right, and so now now do
more of this because this is really where people are
paying attention and I think, okay, so yeah, I think
that can be something beneficial to everybody, and that to
me is great advice. All right, well, doctor, you so
much from being on today and being able to just
(27:24):
help us to understand, you know, what you do, how
important those numbers are, and why we should definitely use
surveys in our business, and you know now how to
contact DOTA. It'll also be listed below. If you are
watching this on the replay, then feel free to share
it and you can still leave comments We love comments
afterwards because we use those and we share them, you know,
with other people, to let people know people were watching
(27:45):
and they were paying attention. And you know, it's really
a great thing to be able to introduce, you know,
all these great businesses to you. So thank you so
much for being on today. You and your assistant is
because you must need time. She's like, listen, Okay, this
interview is over, so we want to make sure she
gets her time too, so this way she doesn't have
(28:06):
to file a complain against you. All right, thank you
so much, and everybody else as usual, make sure that
you always show up and show out and you continue
to give it to the people.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Bye, guys, thank you so much for listening to give
it to the people radio. Make sure that you follow
us online at the Ladybusiness dot com l A D
Y B I Z n E s S. We look
forward to helping you grow, sustain, and maintain your business.
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. When you're tuned in,
you're with Lady Business and give it to the people
Radio where you're going to get enlightened, enhanced, empowered, and enriched.
Make sure that you always two men to give it
to the people Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Hello, beautiful people, how are you today? I hope you
guys are having a great day because I am having
a great day. And today we are out here doing
what we are giving it to the people. So I
just want you to know that Business is a show
where we focus on bipop businesses whose black, Indigenous, and
people just color men. Today, I have from a bipop
business that's out there that is wonderful and I'm just
(00:47):
so happy to know her and I need you to
know her too. So what we do is highlight the
stories of women, We highlight the stories of black people,
and we highlight the stories of organizations that also help
these businesses to be successful. So today I get the
opportunity to interview doctor to dukas Stein. Give it up
(01:07):
for doctor Kastee. Oh oh look, I got my yes.
All right, So how are you today? I am doing good?
How are you? I am wonderful. I am wonderful and
you know what, I was very excited about this interview.
And you know, the one thing that I could say
is everybody loved you. Now let me explain why I
(01:30):
say that, because we did the Small Best Summit, right
and this was Tanika's first time like teaching in front
of people, and I was like, you're gonna do wonderful
and put you in the big room. It's gonna be
really great. And everybody was like, oh my god. She
was so engaging, she was so enthralling. And so for me,
I think that that is a wonderful compliment for people
(01:50):
to give you, especially when they come to, you know,
a session that you're doing. So even before we find
out about you, what type of feedback did you get
from people when you came when you taught at the
Small Business Summit? What do they say to you? The
most common thing that I got is they wanted more
and it wasn't enough time, all right, So they definitely
(02:11):
love the engagement piece. They also love how I started
the presentation and actually got to them thinking about, you know,
what data is, how they can use it in their business.
And then the cool thing that we also got to do,
which someone also love, was the hot seats. I did
hot seats for their businesses so they can get feedback
(02:34):
not only to take what they learned inside the session,
but take it back from what we saw, you know,
from their websites and their ideas to grow their business.
And that makes a difference. I think whenever you do
presentations sometimes a lot of people want to just talk
at you, right, like what I have in my mind,
So this is what we're going to do. And when
(02:54):
it comes to really being able to engage people and
to get them to really understand how things can be
used for them, you got to ask some questions, right,
and you have to actually bring them into what you're
talking about. So that does play a role in how
successful it is now with your company, WI Lean Agency.
I want to just know, like, how did you get
started in the first place, and give us a little
bit on your background. Okay, So I started back in
(03:18):
undergrad I went to Norkona Central University. I majored in psychology,
so I thought I wanted to be a psychologist. Fast forward,
I did an internship at Duke University with doctor Edwards.
He was amazing and he gave me a lot of
leadership in my internship and I had to go in
and I had my own patients. I had to go
in diagnose them and all those good things. And we
(03:42):
did like a round table with the doctors and some
of the practical students there, and he relied on me
to diagnose a patient at that time, and I felt
like there was a lot of responsibility. I left that day.
I never forget I left that day. I was like,
I don't want to do this. I don't want to
label people. I just want to help people. Part that
I loved about the internship was the actual assessment side,
(04:04):
and so when I got into the assessment side of it,
I was like, maybe there's something over here I could do.
So I did some research because I'm a natural researcher,
and I found out that I could be a psychometrician.
So with psychometrician, all that is is just taking the
metrics of assessments and making sure that they are fair
to test takers. Fast forward from there, I went to
(04:27):
U ANDCG. I majored in Educational Research Methods, which focused
on assessment and measurement, statistics and program evaluation. And that's
how I got into the field. From the short story,
and I worked with different federal organizations and state organizations.
Had a couple of internships with college Board, who actually
(04:49):
makes the SAT. So that's how I got here. Yeah, okay,
And you know what, I think that that is a
unique story because you have to love numbers and you
have to an and your profession. I would imagine love
being able to explain why something is a certain way, right. Yes, yes,
you know, there's always the phrase that I love when
(05:10):
it says men. I mean, what is it? Men live?
Women live, but numbers don't. Numbers don't lie. I also
know that you can take numbers and manipulate them to,
you know, whichever way you need people to go. So
it's so funny, like you say the thing of like okay,
and I tell people, listen, sometimes people don't need to
know all of your business. Right, So if you say, okay,
well look I got one brand new client and you
(05:31):
went from zero to one. That was one hundred percent increase, right,
because you even though you're using the numbers, you know,
use them to make it make sense for you. So
I think that you know, when you're talking about this
and just your path and your trajectory, knowing that you
didn't want to do something that was an important thing.
So with that internship and you know, just being able
(05:53):
to be in there, I want you to just touch
a little bit more on when you said you don't
want to label people, because I would think that people
feel in order for them to get as much from
you with their customers, at some point in time, they
need to kind of figure out the type of customer
that they want. But when you said you don't want
to label people, give me a little bit more on that,
because I think that that's interesting. Uh So, in the
(06:16):
field of health, there's a whole nother story. I just
think it's a stigmatism. You know, people are diagnosed with
these certain disorders or symptoms or whatever, and it sticks
with them. And I didn't want to be responsible for that.
And I'll be transparent. When you're studying like psychology or
(06:37):
whatever you're and when you were in the field of health,
you're kind of just taking. You know, you're guessing and
you can mislabel someone. And I know people have had
their experience of heart that, like, you can mislabel someone.
And the other thing behind that is when you actually
in a practice, you have to label someone in order
(06:59):
to get paid insurance. So I didn't want to go
into the politics, so that so that's that's why. Yeah,
well I think that's a great reason and I understand that,
and it is something that's a big responsibility. Won't you
do that right and then making sure that this way
then they follow a course of care that's necessary. So
but you know, not doing that and then transition into
doing what you do. Can you share some of the
(07:20):
services that you provide in your business, because you talked
about working with government agencies and schools and colleges and
things of that nature. But if a person says, well, look,
how can you help me, doctor sneaker, Like, what is
it that you do for if it is for a
government agency, but also for the person that's like, listen,
you know, I want to learn more about my customers.
Give us some of that information. Yes, So what I
(07:42):
really specialize in and what I love is the whole
survey and question their development. My dissertation was involved around that.
Just to go out for a tangent. My dissertation was
developing a survey for a superwoman's schema and for black
women to measure stress coping. And so I love to
(08:03):
develop surveys, come up with questions and you know, see
how that impacts not only on the health field or
like communities or whatever or businesses. So that's what I
specialize in. We actually, you know, help you develop a survey.
If you need a survey developed or questionnaire developed, we
help you collect that data. We also help analyze the
(08:26):
data and do the reporting for you and in addition
to that, provide recommendations based off what the outcomes are
from the survey of questionnaire. So that's our specialty. Yeah, yeah,
and that's really helpful because you have a lot of
people that are just guessing, you know, they're just like,
let me throw a dart on the board and see,
you know. And I think that when you look at
the fact of sometimes just ask people what they want.
(08:50):
Like it's such a simple concept. But you know, now,
do you think that your surveys tend to and I'm
going to use this word kind of you know, gingerly,
but lead people to a certain way, because I would
imagine that if I'm trying to do a survey, I
want to know the answers to certain things because maybe
in my mind I've already kind of configured that I
want to go in direction A. B, or C. But
(09:12):
maybe my questions, you know, will help to lead people
to one of these types of answers. Right, So this
way I know what next product to put out, or
when to host something, or you know what a person
didn't like as opposed to what they did to do.
The surveys in some way kind of lead people in
a direction that you've already predetermined. It can. It can
(09:34):
because I highly suggest when you're doing surveys to have
an intention on what you want it to be, Like
you just don't want to start with anything. You want
to know what your intentions are. So it's sort of
like doing a research study, like you have your questions,
so what are your questions or your intentions? So the
survey will give you exactly what you're looking for. Now,
(09:55):
that could be open ended questions, meaning that they are
a question people have ask like what do you think
about our services? What do you think about X y
Z product? But you also can have the multiple choice
questions where those are more direct, like how do you
feel about I serm? Is it the greatest, is it poor?
Is it neutral? Or whatever? So that's more direct, so
(10:17):
you can make it where you can get the questions
that you do want, but I do also advise kind
of leaving kind of open and given that open feedback, Yeah,
because I was definitely going to ask that, do you
suggest more of an open ended or do you suggest
something where it's more pointed, because I would imagine you
always get somebody that's a little bit lazy, that doesn't
really want to answer the whole thing, so they might
(10:39):
put something you know, real shorty and it's like you know,
but you know that they may have more information now
with your surveys when people take them as everything online
or is this something your service in person? Also, now
that everything is digital, everything is more online. It's easier
because the easier process from creating it and then and
(11:00):
giving it out and then actually receiving the information. Now
it's easier for the business owner or the analysts who's
doing it. Back in the day, when I started, it
was paper pencil, but it can be both. You have
to be very mindful of doing paper and pencil because
if people are writing in you may not understand what
(11:23):
they have written. And yeah, huge problem when it comes
to doing like in like the actual paper pencil surveys,
but now people are doing more the digital surveys We
may have where some people do paper and pencil, but
it's very rare, but most everything is online now. Are
any of the surveys like where you're talking to a
(11:44):
person like similar to what we're doing, so you ask
them a question and then you get the feedback. Do
you do any of those types of surveys because I
would imagine those, even being open ended, might still be
even more information because a person might feel more comfortable
sharing more. Do you do anything like that too? Yes,
So we have done focused groups where there are a
small group of people, but also one on ones like this.
(12:05):
So with technology now you can do the zooms and
the Google meets and stuff Microsoft teams, so you're able
to go in and do the interviews one on one,
and these types of interviews are actually more enrich for
the information you're trying to collect from my experience and expertise,
it's great to have, you know, this type of interview,
(12:26):
one on one focused groups in combination with the survey,
because it just makes your data, your information richer. Yeah,
a little more well rounded now if there is, you know,
I guess the biggest thing would be what type of
companies would this be good for? Because they're trying to
find the answers to certain questions, or maybe they didn't
(12:47):
even know that they needed to do a survey. What
type of companies would you recommend that utilize your service?
Definitely all businesses, but it's very great for e commerce, business,
service based businesses, coaches, and consultants right now. I know
they're trying they've been trying to regulate the coaching consulting
businesses that are online right now and doing surveys and
(13:10):
collecting that information with actually help regulate some of those
things and make it valid in a sense, you know,
because like how do we make you know, coaching and
consulting balent? What makes you the expert? How you do
you know what you're providing is making an impact, you
know on your clients and customers. So definitely, you know, coaches, consultants,
(13:31):
and definitely e commerce that when e commerce is great
because not only do you have the data that's collected
now on the back end like shopify, a lot of
business use Shopify. You have that data coming in. You
can also use that data and mess it with the
surveys or whatever and collect that information on Okay, how's
my products doing? Is I shipping doing well, is our
(13:53):
products doing well? Is our customer service doing well? So yeah,
I like that now when we're looking at this because
I'm just just thinking about different ways because you know,
it's okay, So doctor Sneaker just had a baby not
too long ago. How old is a baby now? She'll
be two weeks? Uh? Very first? No, not two weeks?
Two months? First? Just want to say, first of all, ma'am,
(14:14):
you did not She's like, how old a baby was?
Two months? So listen, this is the thing. We love
a good mompreneur. So if you hear that in the background,
that is her work assistant that is helping out. Okay.
I don't know. She may be asking a question in
baby language and we just don't know what it is,
but it's okay, that's an assistant. Okay. So the thing
(14:35):
is when we kind of look at this and we say, okay,
I see you know, why do you recommend that a
business use it before or a person that's thinking about
starting a business before they even start the business, Because
I would imagine that you have some people that are like, well,
I'm thinking about it. I don't know who my customers are,
and you know, I want to kind of find out
and you know, what would you say to a person
(14:55):
who's thinking about starting and they haven't fully you know,
got everything together. They have the idea, but for them
to use surveys, what are some of the things that
you would say that they might need to ask people?
Not only using surveys, but I would start with the
market research, like what's already out there? Doing some of
that market research is already out there. This is like
(15:15):
secondary data. This is data that's already collected. There's tons
of information on Google. You can find out about your business,
like you know, what are the trends in the market,
where are my customers at? Even Facebook ads, so going
back into the Facebook Manager, like you don't have to
go and do an ad. You can go and Facebook
(15:36):
Manager and get some of that data already that's collected,
you know, across you know the globe pretty much and
you could see exactly you know, what what customers want,
what customers don't want, where are the customers at, you know,
where do the customers hang out? Starting there is very
very important. Also doing focused groups, a small focused group.
(15:58):
It doesn't have to be a huge focused grow It
could be four or five people that you can get
together and ask them about, you know, the products you
want to provide or the customer service or services that
you want to provide. So that is very, very important
because being entrepreneurs starting a business, especially if it's small,
(16:20):
you know, it takes time and it takes a lot
of money, and you don't want to waste a lot
of money. So you know, going in and doing that research,
that market research, doing your focused groups do on those
surveys in the beginning is definitely going to save you
time and going to save you money. But at the
same time, you actually know, you know, is this product
worth you know, putting out to the marketplace, is this
(16:41):
service you know work not in to the marketplace? Do
they even need it? Or should I you know, go
and pivot off into another direction because you just don't know, yeah,
don't know. Yeah, And that makes sense because sometimes I
always tell people listen, you know, when you break it
down and you say, how do I do this business?
You can look at ten different people and they can
have the same business and they could do it totally
(17:02):
completely differently. And it's a lot of it has to
do with experience. It could be location, it could be
who knows, who you know, that connectivity. It could be certifications, education,
it could be a lot of things that lead a
person to look at the same exact business and do
it differently. But when you survey and you really then
take the time to kind of get to know who
are your people and what do they want, then that
(17:24):
can lead your business. Now, I just want to get
your take on this because there's been a lot of
trends now that and this was one of the things
that was said at the Small Business Summit. That was
Carl Robinson who owns R and R Truck and he
was basically saying, the companies now are having to bend
to the will of their employees and to their customers
(17:47):
for what they want. Right. So, I just saw this
video where they have a topo bell that is fully
completely automated. Now, I'm sure there are probably some humans somewhere,
but you know, you type in your thing, you know
what I'm saying, You put your order, it drops your
order down from this thing it's in the bag, and
you swivel it just like if you were at a
bank teller. Right now, you know, when you think about this,
(18:10):
somebody had to do a survey to say people don't
want to deal with people. They want to have this
automated service. Right. And even if you notice now if
you may have seen that taco bell, because it wasn't
in this side. I think it was like in California
when you go into McDonald's. Now McDonald's has it. Right.
When I go into the Walmart, which I do not
like to have to always bag my groceries, so I
(18:30):
don't like going in and I have no choice but
to bag my own groceries option. So when you look
at that and you look at how companies are changing
and shifting, what would you say as far as like
what are they doing to see if this is what
customers really want? Are they just assuming it or do
you think that they actually did some research to say,
you know what, people want to bag their own groceries.
(18:54):
They actually did some research. Big companies they always are
collecting data. They actually have huge research and development teams.
They do not go into business unless they know exactly
who that customer is, what that customer wants. And even
after they start the business with this huge research and
(19:15):
development team, they're always collecting data, always going out doing
focused groups. I had a friend who worked at c
prop and Gamble, So she worked in prop and Gamble
and they did a lot of focus groups for Walmart.
So they are actually continuously doing research and development understanding
(19:38):
who their customer is. Actually bringing a customer in and
asking them, do you love gang, do you love gain
on this oul? Does it make sense to be on
this oul? Should we add in detergent for moms and babies?
How do you feel about you know whatever in relation
to less? They like detergent. So they're always doing research.
(19:59):
They're just not want anything out there and just okay,
if this works, gonna pray and hope it work. No,
they're asking the customer all the time. I love Nike.
So every time Orlando will go to the Nike outlet.
So when you go to the Nike outlet, and I
think even that Nike dig on their receipt, it will
say they want your feedback, and it's changed for the
(20:21):
feedback you get like twenty dollars off. That's research. So
they're asking you, Okay, did you find what you're looking for?
How was the sales rep? Did the sales rep help you?
Do you want to provide additional information? Would you like
to see more of this type of shoe in the store.
So if you pay, people don't pay attention. But if
you pay attention, these companies are always collecting information and
(20:45):
then it's changed for them getting the information from you,
they're giving you something else in return. Now, why do
you think that some of our smaller businesses don't do that? Now?
I mean, one thing that I would say is sometimes
they just don't think about it, you know, like that
would be the first. But why do you think that
some of our smaller businesses are not taking the time
to invest in you know, following up with their customers
(21:07):
and researching what their customers want. Hmm. This is just
my personal opinion. I just think that our industry has
not done enough of educating and informing even the public
on you know, how important research and information is, and
(21:29):
so you just think that you know, I don't need it,
or I don't even know what it is. Most people
don't even know what it is. I always tell people
every day they're collecting data every day. They've been doing
this for years. That's exactly how they know how to
build homes. How to you know why Walmart has to
self check out? And actually, speaking of that, they said
(21:52):
that customers wanted that so anyway. But so you know,
I think it is informing the public on how important
research is. And when it comes to business, you always
hear about marketing, and then inside of marketing you hear
a little bit of the research, like what's my customer
avatar whatever, but not really, you know, how do I
(22:14):
incorporate this into my business? Was long term, like a
bigger business where I can grow it or I can
satisfy my customers, you know, and continue to strive. So yeah, yeah, no,
and I like that. And you know, honestly, I was
excited for this interview because I said to myself, you
know what, I have some new things that I do
want to do, and I think that's starting from a
(22:37):
research perspective in surveying people. Like what you're talking about
makes sense because I think sometimes we're so busy trying
to get to the dollar that maybe we don't spend
as much time in that research area. And so when
I'm teaching people, always tell them, look, you know, do
that focused group, send that survey, ask people what they
think before you start. But you know what what I
don't do as much is say continuously survey them, like
(23:01):
keep it up, like do that on a regular basis
to see it. And I know that a lot of
people do, and they do like an annual survey, but
maybe an annual survey isn't enough. You know what I'm saying,
how much? If you're talking about like, if you were
looking at your average business, how many times a year
would you say that you think that they should survey
their people. I would say starting out quarterly, four times
a year. And in addition to that, creating a budget.
(23:25):
It doesn't have to be a huge budget, but a
budget could be one hundred dollars, could be five hundred
dollars and putting that into you know, that budget could
be hiring an analyst, also putting it into building out
your survey and the platform that you're going to use
for the survey, and you know, using it to actually
(23:47):
get an entice, an incentive for people to complete your
survey or participate in your focus groups. So yeah, yeah,
so starting out like that, I mean I like that
because okay, quarterly, and I think that makes sense. Now
when your person is talking about and just because you
touched on investment, what should they expect to spend Like
(24:07):
let's say they say, well, look, you know doctor Tinika.
I love what you're saying. I would love to get
your services on a low end and a high end.
What would you say would be something that a person
is looking at if they're you know, coming to you
for me to do the surveys, or just because they
don't want it. Okay, okay, listen. I'm trying to tell you.
(24:31):
My people. They're like, listen, how much is doctor Tanika.
They want to know, like low end, high end so
they can put it into their budget. Yeah. Well, first
I'd like to do consultations just to figure out exactly
what they need. But if you're going to do something
really small, I would say something around like five hundred
dollars starting out, that gets you, you know, the survey
(24:53):
piece developed, maybe some recruiting for how to recruit, you know,
people to take your survey. A you provide an incentive
at the end for the people to take the survey.
So five hundred dollars, I would say, starting out, something
really really small. You want to get done fast and quick.
All the way in to the high end, I would say,
(25:14):
I mean it could go to five thousand or more
one million dollars, go up to one fig you one billion, dollars,
but no, yeah, I mean, but that's a good thing.
So that this way a person kind of has a
range and then you know they can go ahead. So
where can they contact you to get that consultation? Well, definitely,
(25:34):
my website will lead agency dot com and that's w
I L L E n E Agency dot com and
you can also find me on LinkedIn at Tanika Steed. Yes, definitely. Now,
if you had any advice to like leave our business
owners with that would allow them to just be more
successful in relation to what you do and how you
(25:57):
help people, what would that piece of advice be. I
would say, don't be afraid of data. Don't be afraid
of numbers because at the end of the day, it's
just information. All we do is analysts, is take that
information and change it into numbers so that we can
analyze it and get some type of trend or outcome
that you're looking for and get back to you so
(26:18):
you can use that to impact your business, impact your
customers and clients, and continue to grow your business. So
don't be afraid of data at our you know you
can start doing you know, you're on data collection, you're
on surveys or whatever. In a small portion, you know,
start with a focus for start with an interview like this,
select a couple of customers to ask them, you know,
(26:40):
feedback about your business or your product. So start there.
Don't be afraid of data, it's just information. Yeah, No,
I mean, I think that's great advice because sometimes people
don't want to know the numbers, they just want to
keep going blindly. But knowing it then put you in
a better position where now you can do something about it.
Because what if you thought something was really good and
people weren't really attention to that, and that means hey,
(27:02):
stop doing that thing, right, and so now now do
more of this because this is really where people are
paying attention and I think, okay, so yeah, I think
that can be something beneficial to everybody, and that to
me is great advice. All right, well, doctor, you so
much from being on today and being able to just
(27:24):
help us to understand, you know, what you do, how
important those numbers are, and why we should definitely use
surveys in our business, and you know now how to
contact DOTA. It'll also be listed below. If you are
watching this on the replay, then feel free to share
it and you can still leave comments We love comments
afterwards because we use those and we share them, you know,
with other people, to let people know people were watching
(27:45):
and they were paying attention. And you know, it's really
a great thing to be able to introduce, you know,
all these great businesses to you. So thank you so
much for being on today. You and your assistant is
because you must need time. She's like, listen, Okay, this
interview is over, so we want to make sure she
gets her time too, so this way she doesn't have
(28:06):
to file a complain against you. All right, thank you
so much, and everybody else as usual, make sure that
you always show up and show out and you continue
to give it to the people.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Bye, guys, thank you so much for listening to give
it to the people radio. Make sure that you follow
us online at the Ladybusiness dot com l A D
Y B I Z n E s S. We look
forward to helping you grow, sustain, and maintain your business.
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