Editor’s note: Chris Hauck is owner, HauckEye, a Longmont, Colo.-based research firm.

It’s time to pivot. I had high hopes for the consultancy I started at the beginning of 2020. I saw it as an opportunity to do work I really loved. Work that made me feel good about the learnings I was sharing with my clients and just surreptitious enough to make me feel a little like the James Dean of research, sneaking around and filming life’s little missteps in a way no one noticed. HauckEye was a little inspired by the show Queer Eye and my own in-person qualitative experiences. My work was going to focus on having in-person experiences with consumers to understand their perspectives. But now, I have to pivot. 

It’s going to be a long time before people are comfortable meeting with me in-person, one-on-one or in groups, to talk about their needs. It’s also going to be a long time before people will be willing to join me in restaurants, take trips, experience things or buy stuff while I ask them questions and record their real-time responses. After a 30-year career, these are the projects that I have fallen in love with – the ones where I have an experience with a consumer, and we dissect that experience as they are having it. I’m in the middle of it, recording while the staff has no idea a marketing research project is happening in real time. Those high-touch, in-person interactions are on hold for the foreseeable future. But my desire to learn, understand, teach and grow with my clients will never diminish. 

Pivoting is easier for me than others. I’m a one person show. Even small supplier-side companies are trying to turn a yacht as compared to me on my jet ski. Companies with say, 250,000 workers and a $200 billion annual revenue, are turning a super tanker. 

Like most people, I have some deep-seated fears of change. I am basically an introvert. Change can be scary. As a tiny supplier who really only wanted to do one or two projects at a time for a small handful of clients, a quick pivot – channeling Michael Jordan’s jump shot from the top of the key – makes a lot of sense. 

Researchers have options

Marketing research is a strong, intellectual component of marketing, and therefore provides its practitioners with a wide variety of options. In my case:

  • I could pivot into my original concept, by building experiences with consumers that are completed through their mobile phones. They would become the videographer. I could continue to conduct the interview with them over the phone. Sure, it wouldn’t be exactly the same, but we could do it and I promise we will learn important stuff. 
  • I could pivot away from my original concept and back toward my roots. Away from a focus on qualitative in-person experiences and toward a more full-service freelance researcher, essentially broadening my offering. 

Because of technology, the acceptance of Zoom, remote work and distance learning, the awesome power of the internet and bandwidth that would have made your head spin 10 years ago, our industry is able to make changes more easily. Today, if you imagine it, you can easily communicate a change and make it happen with the push of a button. Technology is the ultimate enabler of business pivots – it allows you to make changes as you go. 

A new normal

As you imagine the new economy after this pandemic, you may not be expecting the new normal to be exactly like the old normal. When people were originally talking about change due to the virus, my mind goes to the ways we greet each other. If you can imagine, we are moving from a big hug and the Euro kisses on the cheek, to the traditional firm handshake, to bumping elbows, to a Japanese deep bow, to not coming within six feet of each other. If you were to open a time capsule from today in a few years you would have the impression of a cold society – one where people are afraid to touch each other. 

Will we go back to bumping elbows? How will society as a whole pivot? Personally? Professionally? How will consumerism change? A lot of people and companies will think about their ability to pivot and do it slowly. I hope all of us – specifically my peers within qualitative research – can come together to pivot, jump, shoot and score. Just like Michael Jordan of the early 90s.