Market Researcher: Sharing my daily learnings | 🎤 Speaker | ☕️ Coffee and 🍪 fan

Struggling to prove your research team’s value while juggling deadlines, budgets, and skeptical stakeholders?

Here’s the reality: 

Most organisations see research as a cost center. 

That won’t change, unless you do.

After 10+ years leading insight projects across agency, in-house, and SaaS, I’ve learned that real buy-in comes from translating “geek speak” into commercial impact.

What I do:

- Teach market researchers how to become commercially unmissable, not just “the KPI service desk.”

- Share frameworks for defending budgets, influencing decisions, and landing executive buy-in.

- Arm you with tactical playbooks, templates, and ROI scripts to use right away.

I help teams and leaders who want to:

1. Prove ROI to senior stakeholders
2. Get heard by the C-suite
3. Outperform the competition (without more budget)

Seen in: Forbes, Advertising Week, GreenBook, MRS, IBTM
Spoken at: MRS, Advertising Week, IBTM, corporate client offsites

How to connect:

Subscribe to the ResearchGeek Newsletter: 600+ researchers get short, actionable tips every Thursday

Follow for daily posts on LinkedIn (5x/week tactics you won’t see anywhere else)

Message if you want to collaborate or bring me in for your next event

P.S. If coffee is on the agenda… I’m in.

⚡️Jake Pryszlak

FESTIVE ROAD

Fractional Analyst For Amazon

Seedling Strategy, Insights and Research

Founder, Chief Research Strategist

QRCA

Co-Chair Speaker Committee - 2025 QRCA Annual Conference

Marketing Co-Chair 2024 QRCA Annual Conference

Nomination Committee

The Arrangement

Evaluated business needs for inventory and pricing software to support online order-taking for luxury bespoke furniture businesses.  Captured business processes from acquisition to delivery of product and wrote user case stories and data connectivity needs statements, resulting in a reevaluation of primary accounting software and subsequent directional changes in strategy.

Fractional VP of Insights

Synchrony

Synchrony is a financial services company delivering customized financing programs across key industries including retail, health, auto, travel, and home.  

As a contractor for Synchrony, I conduct research across the lines of businesses and industries as well as for the overall enterprise.   Areas of research include web design, product design, product innovation, growth initiatives, and market loss prevention.

T-Mobile

Delivered insights that drove short and long-term market growth strategy by combining primary, secondary and customer data to tell short executive-focused stories.  By delivering multiple points of data and tying them into a presentation of fewer than 20 pages the team penetrated through the information overload and recommend action.

Sr Consumer Strategy Manager 

JCPenney

Consult with business leaders to drive innovation and increase market share with customer-focused, data-driven approach.

Accomplishments: 

Develop decision three methodology prioritizing product attributes by attitudinal segments influencing: online hierarchy, in-store merchandising, packaging, signing and marketing.
  
Implement agile crowd source methodology adding customer input to product design early in the process resulting in faster sell through, higher unit profit (AUR), lower COGS and supporting overall inventory and choice reduction strategy. 

Convert existing qualitative research into quantitative results to refine strategic merchandising initiative (no cost,  short timeline)

Industries/Spaces:
Retail, Marketing, Website Development, Women's Apparel, Men's Apparel, Children's Apparel, Home, Product Development

Corporate Strategy & Transformation Insights Leader

Lead primary insights and data analysis to drive development of strategic initiatives and measure impacts of change.   Develop and communicate purchase funnel analytics for 106 categories across organization.

Customer Insights Leader

Identify through customer and shopper insights opportunities for company growth.  Support home and men’s teams in market changes and product development white space for over 10 private brands.

Manager Primary Research

Ambit Energy

Lead insights and pricing teams during market expansion for the company named America's number one fastest growing private company by Inc Magazine.

Launched 47 new markets across 10 states fostering growth from $1.6M to over $1B in annual revenue by working with regulatory approvals, and directing the pricing operations.

Establish competitive landscape evaluations procedures across electric and gas markets across the US  

Lead, build and mentor top performing team of pricing and insights analysts

Champion and provide thought leadership to rewrite proprietary BlueNet™ system, increasing kilowatt profit and improve customer billing experience based on customer and competitive market insights

Company:  Ambit Energy is an International Direct Sales company that provides electricity and natural gas services in energy markets in the U.S. that have been deregulated.

Pricing and Competitive Analysis Leader

Brink's Inc.

Company Description:  The Brink’s Company (NYSE:BCO) is the global leader in total cash management, route-based secure logistics and payment solutions including cash-in-transit, ATM services, cash management services (including vault outsourcing, money processing and intelligent safe services), and international transportation of valuables. 

Role:  Drive customer focused strategy with voice of the customer, market research and data analytics to support strategic direction for world class armored transport organization.  Conducted presentations delivering research and strategy recommendations to C-level and Board of Directors.

Sr. Strategic Market Research Analyst

Tyson Foods

Consult with business managers across the organization to understand business issues and proactively recommend research and innovation strategies. Conduct research to drive actionable and impactful insights for product innovation.

Developed a concept testing program that would allow for all areas of the organization submit ideas each month and then stage-gate through the concept development process thus filling the innovation pipeline.  By developing a database of ideas and KPIs, the funnel of ideas from various parts of the organization could fill without a prescreening bias from stakeholders. 

Implemented a centralized and accessible database of research that could be searched through keywords, increasing knowledge infusion across marketing and product development teams and reducing repeat research.

Associate Insights Manager

With over 20 years of experience in market research and data insights, I am a creative problem-solver who applies curiosity and strategic thinking to drive business decisions. As a Fractional VP of Insights, I offer flexible and customized solutions for short-term projects or contract work, helping organizations find and tell powerful, people-centric data stories that answer their key questions.

I am passionate and experienced in leading and mentoring teams, managing stakeholders, designing and conducting qualitative and quantitative research methods, analyzing customer data, generating ideas, and consulting on product development and change management. I am also an enthusiastic life learner, currently focusing on psychological theories of neuro-plasticity, influence, change, and growth mindset. As a member of the board of advisors for the MSMR program at The University of Texas at Arlington and volunteer for the Qualitative Researchers Consultants Association, I am also committed to increasing the awareness and impact of the market research field.

taplio

The Battle

⚡️Jake Pryszlak

Cat Maxwell Smith, MSMR

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