“People always say, ‘Be careful working with your best friend,’ but we’ve never had those negative experiences. Our relationship and the way we know each other has been such a strength,” says Lisa Mills, a psychologist, and co-founder of research consultancy Sprout Insight, of her 22-year friendship with co-founder Kathy Burklow.
Mills and Burklow became friends as graduate students in psychology, working together first at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. In 2006, frustrated by the disconnect between scientific advancement and community engagement, they left Children’s to launch Harmony Garden, a nonprofit community research center focused on improving the health of Cincinnati girls.
Building on the idea of helping community members be heard and understood, the duo pivoted last February, launching
Sprout Insight, a market research and insight consultancy. These days, the leverage decades of clinical and research experience while work closely with companies, hospitals, nonprofits and branding firms that target African American, Latino and Asian shoppers.
“Unless [companies] get better at collecting information about racial and ethnic minorities, they’re going to continue to miss opportunities in their industries,” Mills says. “There are a lot of consumer insight and market research companies, but very few are looking at consulting with businesses and corporations about gathering insights from racially and ethnically diverse populations.”
Accordingly, the women help organizations identify what types of data they need and how to gather it, both quantitatively through customized surveys and qualitatively, often through focus groups that allow the pair to gain deeper insight into consumers.
In practice, that might look like tweaking an existing survey to avoid leading questions or to gather more specific data. It could also mean setting up focus groups at a church or recreation center (rather than the typical observation room) to allow meaningful feedback and insight to flow. “Taking [people] out of their community, you may get answers, but they may not be relevant answers,” Mills says.
And so Mills and Burklow keep bringing new voices to the conversation between companies and consumers, hoping for the same goal sparked their friendship decades ago. “Kathy and I are really about the bridging of the gaps,” Mills explains.
“For our society to work together, everybody needs to be knowledgeable on some level so that they can sit at the table, and communicate.”
By Robin Donovan
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