The Indiefield Blog

The Journal of Media Psychology found that people watch scary films for three main reasons: tension, relevance, and unrealism. Those who like horror due to its "unrealism" enjoy it because they know for a fact that it is all fake anyway. For them, it is just pure entertainment and fun. In reality enjoyment and fear do not go together. You cannot get "in the zone" and do your best work when you are operating through fear. Everything great that has ever been invented or developed was done so by someone who was really enjoying it. By someone who was fully immersed in a feeling of energised focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. Someone who was in the zone and completely connected. That doesn't happen when you are fearful.

1. Do exactly what your boss tells you.
2. Ask your boss difficult questions.
3. Show your boss why you are the best one for the promotion.
4. Invite your colleagues and boss to ask you difficult questions.
5. Create a brilliant and new way of doing something (something unplanned).
6. Help everyone around you to do the best work they have ever done.
7. Demand that the people around you push you to succeed.

Years ago, when Indiefield started out, all we wanted to do was win huge projects worth millions and be a big hit. Then, a decade later, a strange thing happened. What happened? In short, recommendations. Our clients suggested to their friends in the business and their colleagues in the office that they call Indiefield whenever they need recruitment and fieldwork. People took the suggestion, agreed wholeheartedly, and subsequently recommended their friends and colleagues. More sales, more recommendations, and the positive feedback loop kicked in. And we realised that real success relies on a long tail. It relies on people talking to people and word of mouth and great fieldwork and recruitment for big and broad clients.

(This isn't about my hair!) It is possible to be straight and curly at the same time. Straight is the tough thing to improve once the processes are in place. After all it is hard to get straighter than straight. Good processes keep the business running smoothly, create order that is valued, but improving them gets more difficult as well. Trying to make the organised more organised is a pain in the proverbial. But within your work you can find something liberating - something wild even! You can create productive chaos, you can interrupt, re-create, produce, invent, and redefine. There you go, now everything is bouncy and curly. And you just made the straight ruler even straighter.

Tell people exactly what you are doing and make sure they know it will happen. "I've got this and I'm on it" "You will have it today" No-one wants an automated reply that says "up to 5 working days". Clients want to know that you care more about their projects than that.

What a poetic phrase! It literally means that you have spent or lost all your money and are broken. And for a company to "go bust" it must be "declared insolvent". Not saying it or announcing it or admitting it but DECLARING IT! All the headlines for business look so awful during the Covid-19 crisis. Companies collapsing into administration; businesses closing their doors; dreams broken into tiny pieces. Maybe there is another side to all this. Maybe people are sick of fighting and maybe declaring is actually a relief. Bankruptcy is never fun. I just hope that for everyone fighting, those that do declare discover a future better than they ever imagined.

...people that do fieldwork. It does not matter what the subject is. It could be with high net worth individuals regarding their future car buying intentions. Or low-income families about how they manage their household budget. What matters, what makes it fieldwork, is that the person who delivers it engaged the respondent, overcame the resistance, ignored the voice of doubt, and did an interview worth doing. Something good. Something human. Something that will make the world a better place.

You would probably be shocked at the amount of planning and preparation that goes on behind the scenes to make the perfect market research event. Beyond making a list (and checking it twice) it means recruiting respondents, liaising with the venue, lighting, installations, filming, deliveries, catering - depending on the research this list can seem never ending. And you need to have an eye on every single detail so that all the elements are perfect. But above all else you need to create an environment where a respondent can make a powerful exchange with a client. No matter how large the project is, it needs to be intimate enough to generate conversations that matter.

Otherwise why plan at all? And be sure to write down your plans and make them known. Pick out a team of people that can help you deliver the plan. Shake off people that think your plan is stupid. They will not support your plan so you may as well ignore them. You know that if you make a big plan the chances are something will happen. Are you doubting that you can do any of what you do? Good. Then make the big plan.

If, in the work you do, there are people out there that cost less than you and are offering a product or service that is a reasonable comparison for your work then you are probably not going to get the work you want because you are, on balance, not worth it. And then you end up having to chase the cheaper prices which we all know is ultimately a race to the bottom. So how about instead of being cheaper you become incomparable, crucial, and invaluable? Obviously that's the troubled track to take because it means you have to become really, really good at what you do, you must totally specialise, be a risk taker, create brilliant art, deliver the science, make sure that everything you do leaves a positive impact on everyone you touch. It is either that or be cheap. I think I prefer the troubled track.