How to Be a Pioneer in Market Research with Shelley Zalis, CEO of The Female Quotient

[00:00:00] MRII Announcer: Welcome to the Insights Innovators podcast from Market Research Institute International, where top research professionals share practical insights and innovation strategies to help researchers deliver more business impact and earn their strategic seat at the table. Today’s episode is sponsored by Sports Leisure Research Group.

[00:00:18] MRII Announcer: Sports Leisure Research Group provides leading sports, travel, and media brands with actionable, customized, marketing research driven insights. Now, here’s your host for today’s episode. I’m Katie Gross,

[00:00:31] Katie Gross: president of SUSI. On today’s episode, we will talk to Shelley Zalas, founder and CEO of The Female Quotient.

[00:00:40] Katie Gross: Shelley is the godmother and founder of online market research. She became the first female chief executive ranked in the research industry’s top 25. She was founder and CEO of research firm OTX, later acquired by Ipsos. And she’s been a mentor to so many. [00:01:00] We’re going to answer the question, what does it take to be a pioneer in market research?

[00:01:05] Katie Gross: Shelley disrupted the industry once, moving us from traditional to online survey research. Now with the advent of AI and Gen AI, so much is changing again. So I’d love to kind of hear from you. Tell a story about how you pioneered online market research in those early years.

[00:01:24] Shelly Zalis: Oh God. Well, first of all, there’s a lot of people that have been in.

[00:01:29] Shelly Zalis: I mean, I, I have Shelly at AOL. com, so that might be saying something. So I’m probably older than all of you here. I’ve been around the block for quite some time, but you know, it was one of those moments where I think people always tell you that it’s not the right time. I mean, when I migrated research from offline to online, people were on.

[00:01:51] Shelly Zalis: 14 four modems. So it was really slow. And if you think about testing video, which now that’s [00:02:00] just like mainstream or watching video, it would stop and start. So imagine going on a freeway that’s really crowded, which was the analogy that we used at the time. If there’s traffic, you’re not going to move.

[00:02:13] Shelly Zalis: And if there’s no traffic, you could go quickly. So if you are on a very slow modem, you’re not going to be able to watch video. And everyone at the time had very different levels of modems, 28A then those with T1 lines, if anyone even knows what I’m talking about, because at the time, only wealthy old men with broadband connections actually Was enjoying internet and we actually would go around teaching people what, um, H.

[00:02:49] Shelly Zalis: T. T. P. Was. I mean, we did like internet one on one training and actually one C. M. O. Said to me, Well, how do you get online? Is it in the yellow pages? I mean, [00:03:00] that’s how long ago this was. And so when I went to my bosses, I was at ASI at the time, and ASI was later acquired by Ipsos. I said, let’s migrate research from offline, mall intercept, and, and telephone research, which is really what, what we were doing at the time.

[00:03:19] Shelly Zalis: And they said, well, it’s not the right time because nobody’s online. So how do you really have a representative population? And so I remember this must have been in about 19. 98 maybe ish. And I was sitting on a panel with, um, Larry mock. So my bosses, Bob, Jerry, Peter, Paul Ringo star all said to me, um, well, you’re going to be on stage with Larry, our most important clients stick to the script.

[00:03:57] Shelly Zalis: And anyone that knows me at least today knows [00:04:00] I don’t stick to any script. And so how do you miss? This really important moment when I wanted to migrate research from offline to online. But my boss is all told me I have to wait for the right time. So here I am with Larry Mach. And I’m whispering to him and I come off the stage and my bosses are all very anxious.

[00:04:21] Shelly Zalis: And they said to me, what did you say? What did you say to him? What’d you whisper? I said, I just asked him when is the right time for ASI to come to Procter and Gamble and talk about migrating research from offline to online. And they said, well, what did he say? And I said, he said, come next week. And let’s talk about it.

[00:04:42] Shelly Zalis: And I said, great. And my boss has said, great. Paul will go, Peter will go, Ringo will go, and Star will go. And I said, but what about Shelly? I’m the one that got the meeting. And they said, well, it’s a boys club. And that’s the right team to go. And I said, well, if I’m not going, I’m going to [00:05:00] cancel the meeting, and you can all wait for the right time.

[00:05:04] Shelly Zalis: And that was that. And Shelly left and started her own company. And it was called Online Testing Exchange. And there was no one online, and I had to build an ecosystem. And that was how it started. And they all told me it wasn’t the right time, it was impossible, and I was gonna fail, and I wasn’t the right person.

[00:05:29] Shelly Zalis: And, you know, it’s how much risk are you willing to take? And I was willing to take it all, because I never wanted to look back and say, shoulda, woulda, coulda. Because had I waited for that right moment, I wouldn’t be where I am today, and I would not have been the mother of that invention. And so for all your entrepreneurs out there, I just want you to know, it’s why I come up with the concept that you need to be the first, which is the innovator.

[00:05:56] Shelly Zalis: I had no clue what I was doing and you’re going to make your [00:06:00] mistakes. The second is the copycat and there’s plenty of them. They will copy everything you do, but no one will know what’s under the hood. The third is the sweeper. They will ride in on that white horse. The ecosystem was built and they will win the game.

[00:06:23] Shelly Zalis: The money will be there. So you all have to be the first, then you got to copy yourself. And then you got to be the third, beat your own beat yourself so that nobody will beat you at your own game. First, second, third, boom. That’s how I started.

[00:06:40] Katie Gross: I love that. And I love that you didn’t let somebody else be the second and the third, but you kept reinventing yourself.

[00:06:46] Katie Gross: It wasn’t easy. Coming from that second act. But it was fun. I’m sure it was. Absolutely. So you kind of pioneered in a, in a fairly traditional industry, market research, insights has always been kind of fairly traditional. This is the way we’ve done it. This way we’ll do it again. And [00:07:00] of course, now with the advent of AI and Gen AI, we’re in that place again.

[00:07:03] Katie Gross: So what advice do you have for us today on how we can be those pioneers and trailblazers? In what is a fairly traditional industry.

[00:07:12] Shelly Zalis: Well, there’s always a solution and you’re always going to get people telling you why not what’s wrong versus what’s right. So don’t listen to all the naysayers because there’s going to be plenty of them.

[00:07:26] Shelly Zalis: And how do they know what’s not going to work? Because they never did it by the way. So they’re going to be the first to tell you what you can’t do, but they never did it. So, and there’s always a solution. You just got to find it. So when I started online, I was doing CPG market research my whole career. I knew everything from womb to tomb package testing and, and cereals and, and drinks and, you know, all of that.

[00:07:57] Shelly Zalis: But I was never in the entertainment business. [00:08:00] And so I decided I was going to start in the hardest thing ever in an industry I knew nothing about, which was entertainment, the movie business. There was only one research company called NRG, Joe Farrell, dominated and owned, actually it was a monopoly.

[00:08:21] Shelly Zalis: Nobody was ever able to break in to movie research because he was the godfather. of movie research. And he did mall intercept, mall testing. So I don’t know if anyone knows that company, but he was God, and actually genius. So I decided I was going to go into movie research, and break the monopoly. No idea how, because I knew nothing about movie testing.

[00:08:46] Shelly Zalis: And so I went to Warner Brothers, and knocked on the door of the chief research officer, Dan Rosen, and Richard DeBelso. And I said, I’m Shelley Zalas. I have this crazy idea to pioneer online research. I know nothing about movie [00:09:00] research. I know everything about packaged goods. Nothing about movie research.

[00:09:04] Shelly Zalis: But I have a proposition for you. I said, are you perfectly satisfied with how you do movie research today? And he said, how is anyone perfectly satisfied? That was my opening. And I said, great, here’s my deal. I’m going to test every spot, every trailer, which was two and a half minutes long. And remember, doing online was really hard, 14 4 modems, remember that.

[00:09:31] Shelly Zalis: And I need a DRM solution, which I had built to protect the property. I said, give me everything you’ve tested with NRG, I’m going to parallel test it for free to calibrate your scores. And that’s that, that’s the deal. And he said, okay. And he said, we have one problem. I have a contract with NRG, and it’s an exclusive contract.

[00:09:59] Shelly Zalis: And [00:10:00] so, and he’s the godfather. And if he finds out we’re testing with you, he’s gonna have a problem with us. I said, let me see the contract. And I see the contract, and in the contract, it said, exclusivity for mall testing. I said, I’m online! He said, you’re right. And I said, I’ll sign in as Jane Doe. And that’s, that was that.

[00:10:24] Shelly Zalis: And so, there’s always a yes. You just have to find it. But you gotta believe in yourself. You gotta be resilient. You gotta have thick skin. And you gotta love what you do. And so I would say when purpose meets passion, you’re unstoppable. I was unstoppable. And, there were a lot of kinks. I got to tell you, but it was just, it was, it was, it was, it was a wow.

[00:10:52] Shelly Zalis: You know, we just excited and delighted people. And whenever I would deliver the results, [00:11:00] what I said to the client was keep giving the Joe Farrell results of the top lines. Cause I could not match that for two years, but what our online scores did, that was Wow. Factor was the verbatim testimony. So anyone that was in the early days of online, the wow was the open ended responses.

[00:11:20] Shelly Zalis: It was bold exclamations. Nicole, you know this so well it was that I said, just supplement those. And all of a sudden the producers and the directors were saying, Where did these verbatims come in? Tom Hanks, oh my God, he was amazing! Wow, wow, wow! Exclamation, exclamation! And they loved that. And then the, the researchers would say, Oh, that came from online.

[00:11:46] Shelly Zalis: I want more online. I want more online. And I always delivered the results with homemade chocolate chip cookies. I make, I don’t know how to cook, but I can bake great chocolate chip cookies and milk. And so they would read the results. And [00:12:00] that’s, I mean, then it, and then one studio after the next started hearing about it.

[00:12:04] Shelly Zalis: And then that was that. And then once I could calibrate the norms, we replaced offline. And then Joe Farrell was like, who is she? Who is she? And then if you work with her, then I became, she became her. If you work with her, and all of a sudden her became, The thing, and that was that, and if we could do two and a half minute videos, we could do 30 second spots.

[00:12:38] Shelly Zalis: And then I had 30 categories at Proctor and I mean doing CPG, which 30 days, you know, I had to deliver movie testing 30 spots in a weekend. If you could do the hardest thing, you could do the easiest thing. So I always did the hardest thing to do to do the easiest thing.

[00:12:56] Katie Gross: Yeah, yeah, sure. Thank you so much because my entire [00:13:00] career has been in online market research and you really pioneered the way and such a hero of mine.

[00:13:05] Katie Gross: I’d love to hear a little bit more, which obviously brings us into the kind of second half of your career around kind of gender equality. How did that experience then shape? What you went on to build, um, with the female,

[00:13:15] Shelly Zalis: I mean, I was the only female CEO, top 25 in market research, and that that was never an issue for me.

[00:13:20] Shelly Zalis: I, you know, wasn’t a big deal, even though I’m sure I’m paid a shitload of money. I’m sure I was always paid less than men, but I never really thought about that. So I should really go back and look at my pay stubs. That’d be pretty interesting. Um, yeah. not, although, you know, I always had food and flowers and things in my office.

[00:13:38] Shelly Zalis: And, you know, we had a, a life stage accommodation culture. Um, you know, I, I created the uncorporate rules in my company and I built the company around what I always wish I had in the corporate world. So if you build around the caregiver, it’s going to work for everybody. So, I mean, that was always. you know, a given for me.

[00:13:58] Shelly Zalis: Tell me what you

[00:13:59] Katie Gross: [00:14:00] really think about titles.

[00:14:01] Shelly Zalis: We could talk about a million examples, but I don’t believe in titles. You know, I think titles are dumb, which is why I gave myself chief troublemaker, give myself permission to break every rule that makes no sense. And, you know, I, I would not invite people by. I don’t think that defines anybody.

[00:14:21] Shelly Zalis: I would invite people by name to meetings and then say, if you want to come to a meeting that you’re not invited to, you’re welcome to come. But if you come to too many meetings that you’re not invited to, you don’t have enough on your plate. Like, you know, like open culture and no offices and no, you know, sit where you want and listen to other people and shift.

[00:14:40] Shelly Zalis: Accordingly, because I think everyone should understand what everyone else is doing. That makes you a better employee and a better coworker. Or if you’re done with what you’re doing, get out of the office. Like no one is tracking time, but if you’re leaving too early all the time, you don’t have enough to do and cover each other’s asses.

[00:14:58] Shelly Zalis: Like, you know, and don’t [00:15:00] hide, like go pick up your kids. And we did have bring your pets to work, but then the dogs kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and the bowls became beds and this and that. So that had to stop. But, you know, when we had 250 employees, you know, and if you’re having a bad day, go home or go in a little room that we had and we talked about it.

[00:15:26] Shelly Zalis: You know, but don’t hide things because it’s going to, we’re going to find it. So share it and find a solution. Right? Like it was just an open and we shared the good, bad and the ugly. I shared results all the time and we talked about them. If they were bad, they were bad. If they were good, they were good.

[00:15:43] Shelly Zalis: And we, we were a big family, you know, there was no secrets. We were fully transparent. We had basketball court, play basketball, then we play volleyball. And, you know, life stage accommodation, take the time you need, you know, I don’t, I’m not someone that [00:16:00] believes in, in parental leave is not maternity or paternity.

[00:16:03] Shelly Zalis: It was because that’s how my husband and I would share responsibility at home and at work or I don’t believe in a three month off you’re, you’re always on. So take the time you need when you need it, like take three months or take every day for four hours a day. I mean, it’s one life with five dimensions.

[00:16:25] Shelly Zalis: Yeah. Your career, your family, your community, your friends and yourself. They’re not even pods. So adjust. Yeah. It’s life stage accommodation. And, you know, I want everyone to stay forever.

[00:16:38] Katie Gross: You were really inspiring. You created the algorithm of equality framework. So I’d love for you to explain to the audience a little bit about what that is and how companies should be adopting it.

[00:16:47] Shelly Zalis: Yeah. So I sold my company three times and so it was three different iterations. And then after I sold to Ipsos, Um, you know, so O. T. X. Was, um, 250 [00:17:00] employees operating in six cities, two countries and generating probably 60 million in revenue when we sold. And this is a long time ago. Well, you know, my, my days better than I do these days, but it was you know, a long, long time ago and it was always, as I said, 10 years ahead of itself.

[00:17:18] Shelly Zalis: So someone else sold it for, I sold it for 80 million. Someone sold it for a billion, you know, sold the router for a lot more money than I did. Good for him. You probably all know him, trained and coached him. Yeah, I’m so proud of him, too. Like, I love that. And I stayed at Ipsos for five years running global innovation in 83 countries.

[00:17:42] Shelly Zalis: So I sold an 80 million company to a company with 16, 000 employees doing 2. 6 billion in revenue. And I knew once you sell a boutique y wow, Company to a big giant steamship. I was like a little [00:18:00] motorboat. It’s not as exciting. Um, but as a mother of the company, you want it to grow and blossom and, and scale and it’s where it needed to be.

[00:18:13] Shelly Zalis: And, um, While I was there, once again, I was one of two women on a board, a public board now, of 26 people. I remember sitting at the table, and they were moving my employees around like chess pieces. And tears came down my eyes. And I was pulled aside after the meeting, and I was told that there was no room for a motion in the boardroom.

[00:18:42] Shelly Zalis: And I always talk about heartbeat moments. There’s your head, which is cognitive. And then there’s your heart, which is the emotion, but boom, but boom, but boom. You can’t ignore your heart. It’s going to go where it’s going to go. And [00:19:00] I remember thinking at that moment, I had a speech for thousands and my speech was called bring emotion to the boardroom exclamation point.

[00:19:11] Shelly Zalis: And that was that, you know, I was a very well known CEO. And it was going to go my way. And I started talking about empathy and compassion and human centric leadership. And that’s the best CEOs. that I knew the most essential skills were compassion, empathy, passion, purpose driven leadership, listening, and leading with your heart.

[00:19:40] Shelly Zalis: And that’s when I then created the Girls Lounge and I decided it was time to give back with generosity what I wish I had my entire career, which was girlfriends in business. I am 62 years old. I never had girlfriends in business. I had friends, [00:20:00] but not at my level that actually supported one another as competitors and helped each other rise.

[00:20:08] Shelly Zalis: There was such a scarcity of jobs at the top that you would dig your heels down, not intentionally, but that’s just how we were set up. But why? That is dumb. And so I started the girls lounge while I was at Ipsos. I was bad ass at Ipsos. I had permission without apology, without permission. I just took it.

[00:20:31] Shelly Zalis: And I started the girls lounge. These spaces at industry conferences. for women to support other women. And then, at the end of my five years, I decided that either Ipsos is going to fully support it, because I was having a side hustle job to pay the bills. I had my day job, which was global innovation, and then my side hustle job while I was at Ipsos, doing all this big innovation that I was [00:21:00] selling while I was at Ipsos for Ipsos, but to pay the bills for the Girls Lounge, because it was getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

[00:21:05] Shelly Zalis: And my five year contract ended, and they wanted me to renew. And I said, I will renew with the condition that you put the girls ends in my contract, that you will support it. And they said, we’ll support it, but we can’t write it into the contract, which you know what that means. And so I left. And I said, I’m not, I’m not resigning, but I’m not renewing.

[00:21:26] Shelly Zalis: I’m going to take the girls ends with me. And that was that. And that was my moment of truth. And that became the female quotient. And ten years later You know, we have a largest global community of women in business, over 5. 5 million across 100 countries and 30 industries. And my mission is to change the equation and close the gender gap in the workplace.

[00:21:49] Katie Gross: That’s phenomenal. And it’s so refreshing to kind of hear that you, you heard no so many times and you said, I’m going to do it anyway. And it’s so great for us all to kind of hear that. Um, the kind [00:22:00] of other key area, and I know that the world’s economic forum stated, it’s going to take us about 134 years to close the gender pay gap and not on my watch, not on your watch.

[00:22:10] Katie Gross: What do you think we can do? And what does the female quotient doing to really kind of drive that forward and get there much faster? Okay.

[00:22:16] Shelly Zalis: Well, you know, so we now have probably over 50 to 60 lounges a year all over the world. And um, then now we’re entering into the media space as well, creating content and you know, all of that with our audience.

[00:22:28] Shelly Zalis: But I, I was invited to the world economic forum 10 years ago with the invitation. We want you to come, but you might not feel welcome. Head said, don’t go. Heart said, you must. So of course we went and you know, now 10 years later, we are the number one destination at the world economic forum, trending probably top five with a two story glass house, which is pretty remarkable.

[00:22:52] Shelly Zalis: And it’s. 134 years to close the gender gap,[00:23:00]

[00:23:02] Shelly Zalis: 237 years to close the pay gap, which is probably the most ridiculous thing you can ever possibly imagine. And no one even questions it. So you have the world economic forum with world leaders sitting at the table. And they have 17 sustainable goals. Gender equality is global goal five. So two years ago, I was just at the ESPYs, the sports awards, and they just celebrated title nine, which is 50 year anniversary of title nine.

[00:23:26] Shelly Zalis: And I’m at the ESPYs sitting with legends surrounding me. And I come home that night and I get this report. It was 131 years, two years ago, now it’s 134 years. And tears came to my eyes and I started to cry. And I was so angry about it, but more importantly, I was disappointed in myself that here I have walked away from a huge career to leave a legacy of change in the lifetime of my leadership to close the gender gap.

[00:23:54] Shelly Zalis: And I see this report that says it’s going to take 131 years. Shame on me. [00:24:00] Shame on me. And all these world leaders sitting around a table and nobody gives a shit about the fact that it’s going to take 131 years. Where will you be? Where will your children be? Where will your grandchildren be in 131 years?

[00:24:18] Shelly Zalis: That means nothing will change. So I wrote an op ed for the New York Times. And I said, why should it take 131 years to close the gender gap? When we sent men to the moon in 10, we created the internet in 25. Chat GPT now in two weeks and a vaccine for a deadly disease in one year. Shame on us, not on my watch.

[00:24:54] Shelly Zalis: And then I said, we will flip it in five. [00:25:00] All I’m looking for is 10 fortune 500 CEOs, one in every category that is bold, brave, Conscious leader with intentional action for change that wants to leave a legacy of changing the lifetime of their leadership. Step up to the plate because the only global goal out of 17 that a CEO can actually activate and close in the lifetime of their leadership is Global Goal 5.

[00:25:34] Shelly Zalis: It is actually a man made problem. Pay gap. We have the data sitting in front of our face. Why should Sally get paid less than Peter for the same goddamn job? Why? Procurement is supply chain. Less than 1 percent of supply chain goes to women owned businesses. Why? 99 1. Uh, [00:26:00] I don’t think so. I don’t get it.

[00:26:02] Shelly Zalis: Workforce? I don’t get it. Care? Fixable. All these things are fixable problems. But a CEO cannot fix climate by themselves. They cannot fix education by themselves. They cannot fix hunger by themselves. But the only one they can fix is Global Goal 5. Choose it if you want to leave Alexei. And all of a sudden, they said, You’re right!

[00:26:32] Shelly Zalis: And that was that. So we have 10 and we only launched it like a month ago. Phenomenal.

[00:26:45] Katie Gross: Charlotte, one last question for you before we wrap up. What can we look forward to seeing from you next?

[00:26:49] Shelly Zalis: Uh, well, F1, look at our car. We got a great car that is a rose gold car. It, it, it, it like shines bright, glitters in the sunshine. So watch our little car going [00:27:00] all over the place.

[00:27:00] Katie Gross: So exciting. All right.

[00:27:01] Katie Gross: Well, thank you so much, everybody. Thank you, Shelly. It’s absolutely wonderful.

[00:27:06] MRII Announcer: Thanks for joining the Insights and Innovators podcast for Market Research Institute International. Click subscribe to never miss an episode and visit us at MRII. org for more market research insights.