This week, Bill talks with Colson Steber, co-CEO and founder of Qlarity Access, a market research consulting firm guiding companies through high-stakes decisions with clarity and confidence. With experience leading five acquisitions and supporting organizations across agriculture, SaaS, private equity, and more, Colson brings a refreshing perspective on how research truly shapes strategic direction.

Bill and Colson unpack why many mid-market B2B and manufacturing companies skip research too early, and the costly risks that follow. From pricing strategy and product-market fit to private equity due diligence and AI’s impact on SaaS value, this conversation provides insights for leaders who need better information to guide growth. Colson also shares memorable examples where research fundamentally changed a company’s trajectory and offers first steps for organizations considering market research for the first time.

Bill: Thank you for joining the Missing Half podcast where we're discovering what's missing today in marketing research. Today we're joined by Colson Steber, co-CEO and founder of Qlarity Access, a market research consulting firm that helps companies make confident decisions on major strategic initiatives. Colson has led Qlarity through five acquisitions, building a team that works across agriculture, SaaS, and private equity-backed businesses. Colson, thank you for joining us today.

Colson: Thank you for having me.

Bill: So Colson, when you think about what Qlarity Access does, maybe give us a quick overview and not only what you do, but what makes you different from other consulting firms.

Colson: Well, we exist to empower confident decisions, which requires a point of view as to how we can uniquely deliver that. That point of view is very much built upon a deep study and understanding and our own self-funded research to put a model back to understanding and meeting human needs of the people that are buying from us and being able to apply that back in what is a very intentional and the strategic market research process, right? So market research certainly is an art and a science unto itself. And we've worked to step through and say, well, what are the first principles of like building and process to build confidence in a decision? And then how do you apply that back to like the science of market research and methodology and really simplify back to designing to the objective, like having the courage to go through that learning and engagement process that it's going to take to understand what you're seeking to make decisions on in the market and synthesize and get to that insight and inspire the decisions that need made. And then fundamentally, right, as a professional services organization, like where we see ourselves as unique as both in knowing that and then in being great teammates and you're great teammates by like, literally have it above my desk, right? Cause it's listed in our core values as necessary, that we show up on time, do what we say, finish what we start, say please and thank you, and strive to be interested.

Bill: Awesome.

Colson: And that's like what's under, you know, what it means to truly care in how we're going to make decisions. And what we, you know, that's how we then act as a team with the customer company that we're doing work for.

Bill: How essential is that last principle of striving to be interested in the research? Because when we think about studying for a lot of these companies, right? And a lot of the studies that they're going to employ you in, if you are not vested in the research, if you are not inquisitive and really seeking to like figure that puzzle out and gather the right information, and it's just really a process of, you know, A to B process. My guess is that over the course of your career, you've seen that if you strive to be interested, you're going to get a much better and more thorough result than if you just punch in that day, run the research, go through the process, and kind of like push the paper from left to right and push it down the line.

Colson: Yep. I mean, as in any industry, market research being a relatively small and people talk about being commoditized and then in market research to talk about like, well, it's just research to like validate or like, you know, confirm the thing that we're already decided to do. And I just have a belief that like, that's just not the work to ever hire us to do. And I don't want to do it. And therefore like that's not our customer. And I often say like I didn't set out to be a researcher, but very much like wanted to be an entrepreneur and find my space. And then I was like, wait, and then realized because like one of the first very large projects that I was on was to do a international project on the research and development behind mowers, like lawnmower blades, right? And you need to do interviews across all these countries to like dive into like, extremely technical detail of the cut of grass and what that means back to an engineering team and informing business decisions. And like, our researcher is curious. Like you have to be, once you realize that you have that curiosity that I, wait, we get paid money to learn ridiculously too much about whatever obscure topic needs to be decided on extremely well. Like that's got to be exciting. I always say like it's free to care. And so like we're going to create an environment and culture in the business where we're going to care about every single decision that's going to get made based on the work that we do. And like I think we do a good job delivering on it. Like that's why I live by it.

Bill: One of the things we see, and I would like to get your perspective on this, is that the small to mid-market companies tend to skip research early and they go straight into selling and development and they almost like they want their idea or their product or service to work so bad that they want to impose it on the market as opposed to see if there's fit. Why is that such a dangerous gap and why should companies be more aggressive in doing good research earlier in the process?

Colson: If you really reflect on it, it's and how dynamic and large the market is, it's absolutely ridiculous to think that you actually know better than anyone else that's already done the thing as to how to solve the problems. And fundamentally like the understanding and meeting that customer need is the only time that they're going to actually pay you. So whether that, so the successful entrepreneur that does that early on oftentimes has some sort of unique industry experience, has played a role, sees a need in the market and creates a solution to solve it. Now there's this, you know, entrepreneurial culture of like, well, I can build this great thing and then find a use case. And that's just not a business model that's focused on how do I meet the needs of the market in a way that the market is willing to understand, buy in the channel, understand, get the value and like part ways with their money? And so there's like, it's like best laid business plan as to we have this great thing, but it's complete… And then the problem is, is let's say then you've got some customers and invariably have you really done the work to understand the 80-20 of the 20% of activities that are really driving 80% of the impact of the decision. And if you're not understanding that from the customer's perspective and not what you think, and that's many of the companies that are at the point of even considering, we might invest in market research for the first time, they go, why the heck would I pay these independent research people $50,000 to tell me something that like clearly our organization should already have the knowledge of because we've got salespeople, we've got customers, we've got like, it like, there's a, like there's often, sometimes there's almost like, I like want to like find who that person is that is really going to be critical, which oftentimes is the CEO and like grab them for 30 minutes and be like, I get that you know your business. I get that you know your customer because when this company was founded, you literally gutted out winning every one. But your products evolved, your customers evolved, the markets evolved. You're not as in touch as you once were. And you need like independent input into like fundamentally just having the confidence in what it is you're going to decide on and invest in over the next 18 months, two years, that's going to set a standard that you can hit this crazy growth goal. Like you're not going to hit 100% growth, set your 10X if you can't, if you don't connect to that in a different way than what you're able to see it from the seat that you're in now. And it takes like, it takes the humble different leader to say we're going to invest in that. It's one of the things that PE firms turn around and unlock for businesses, right? Like because PE comes in and says, just fundamentally, we don't care where like kind of where it's been and what the founder is. We're going to assess this business model. We're going to assess the market need and we're going to bring them back into alignment in an exact right way for it to the next.

Bill: So I love that. I think one of the challenges I think that your industry faces and we face in the marketing services industry is when I remember my business school classes and we looked at market research, the examples were always and the case studies were always about consumer products and these huge studies that cost millions of dollars and took forever. And like, I mean, just something that let's be honest, most B2B companies are not going to invest in and certainly not middle or lower middle market. They're just not going to do. But when you talk about, let's level set for the audience about how cost effective research studies can be, and obviously there's tiers that depends, but like we don't have to have a million dollar price tag to validate a thesis or to really involve our group in understanding third party research on a product or service. Maybe talk about those tiers and how cost effective they can get started. And not that this is a pitch, but just so they can understand from a budgeting standpoint, how what what that's going to cost.

Colson: So entry level in my mind is I'm going to make a critical decision. Be that about like, let's say, let's say I've got a team of 20 developers and therefore I'm going to be investing a couple million dollars of capital over the next 18 months into, and like, I've got all of these things, but I need to be focused on like, what's going to one, create, bring CAC down and actually get the users in, what's going to truly affect reducing churn. Like where is the value really being seen among that paid user and, and the, what is that premium user really willing to pay for a premium option on like, right? If I can spend 20 to $30,000 to name that let's say, and that then tells me where I can just put in the pricing tier of one of those questions, all of a sudden, like, you know, the incremental margin of that price increase on that user is massive. And therefore, investing in answering that question is worth it. And then if I'm, you know, example of what we just did for a company that is really only roughly a hundred million in revenue, but they are going to make a just over $20 million capital investment that requires physical construction. And therefore, like if they don't, if they don't build out the facility that actually is what their business is going to want to be doing three years from now, because it'll take two years to build it after they've permitted and everything else, then it's like they're placing a huge bet and they've got to do it right. You can look at that as I'm going to buy, I'm going to build out, make a capital investment into building out infrastructure, or it could be that I'm going to make a capital investment into buying a company, right? And I need a targeted decision. And then let's say it's more on the, I always look at like mid level, what gets into like the 50 to 70, maybe $100,000 project is often like go to market strategy, product market fit, strategic direction that is going to scale. And then my, like the higher level and bigger project one, it's because the business has such a critical mass that it's, to optimize something is incredibly worth it, right? So like our biggest customers are investing millions of dollars in research a year like at a base level because like they're affecting hundreds of millions of dollars of market outcome. And when I make that decision, a few percentage points better either because of like, you know, pricing research and algorithms being built that really identify where I can set that tier or how do I, or, or whatever it is, you're, you're not going to sit there at the end of the day and go boy it's because of that research. Unfortunately for me right? You're not going to look at the ROI and be like it was because of them it's going to be because of the thousands of decisions but that's why we add value right, it’s because you're going to one have the confidence that you like narrow down and select the priority and then to have the context of kind of this is what we value and how we're gonna make all the subsequent decisions so that you have the courage to follow through on that big choice that you made to invest in research.

Bill: So whenever you're doing these research projects and you're dealing with, let's say, some mid-market manufacturers or SaaS companies and you do the research and the leaders, you're fighting the leader, in this case, most likely a CEO or founder’s intuition, and the data comes back as contrary to what they expected, how do you bring them along or help present it in a way that allows them to see the clarity with a path to move forward?

Colson: The right company and customer, it will almost seem elementary, they will have had, while it will seem very minimal to them, they will have answered some questions for us that gives us clarity as to like what they think they already know and what confidence they have, what level of confidence they have in that. And then what they think the answers might be. Right. And that's what designing to the objective is, like us as trained professional researchers, then with people that have been doing this for decades, then can pull that back into like no fluff. This is exactly what, like kind of the through line of what is going to answer to those objectives. And the analytics that are going to be done on the data that we collect that are going to provide direct answers, right? And that going to, like, that value is going to be innately, like, baked into what is delivered back out. Then, like, where we have to be unique is because you can hire a market researcher that again, could likely follow if they brought the right time and attention to it, could likely do that methodology and get themselves 80% of the way there. And so then does our point of view and our ability to relate it back to our understanding of like our model around how to meet human needs and what does that like contextualize it in such a way that like the story comes through. I now know what I'm going to do. And I would say, like I invest a lot as an entrepreneur into like coaching programs and things for my own self, right? I always say like the masters, they tell you what they're going to do and you're like, oh yeah, that's easy. And then they do it and it works exactly like they said it would. And then you're like, my God, that was amazing. And that's hopefully what we invoke along that process, right?

Bill: Love it. Whenever you think about whether it's giving input or doing research around B2B SaaS pricing or product market fit, what is a memorable example of like research changing the direction of a company's strategy around a product or service without obviously naming names?

Colson: Yeah, I have two in my mind. One would be like very big company and one would be small company, which one would be of most interest?

Bill: Fire away.

Colson: All right, so I'll go small company thinking of kind of the technology company that created a solution and then through a myriad of kind of like work on how to reach product market fit ends up landing on, well, we're going to service the agriculture sector, right? And this is going to transform farming forever because it's going to fix this, that and the other thing that are fundamentally wrong about how the supply chain works. And like they've gotten seed in series A investment such that like there's a sophisticated board of directors involved. And now that board of directors is going, you know, we have like, we, they have a lot of the time at that point, there's efficacy to the solution. Right? They have brought in technical experts that can tell them that they're functionally better than the alternative solutions that are in the market. But like fundamentally it's at that point of like, who cares? Like is the, is the, is there going to be adoption of the, by the potential customer, in this case, the farmer? And the farmer is not comparing you against a what you think of as your competitors, they're comparing you based upon like the deluge of daily information that they're dealing with, all of the, you know, their own thoughts and managerial practices and leadership of what they believe it looks like to be a sort of their land and, uh, and grow these crops for the last 30 plus years. And they've got relationships built up that you're now going to have to change the relationship with if they're going to engage with your technology. You know, so going in and doing in-depth interviewing with a select group and then overall taking that and applying it back out says, well, which of these features are what would be the decision point? Where is there really potential value add outside of the few kind of obviously innovative, you know, lead dominoes that we've picked up. Where are people are going to be able to adopt this? I've seen that like the exit. I've seen that many times, but I'd say the example that is coming to my was is that is like, like, is that like the board came out of that and said, like, we're going to change the whole direction. Like we're ignoring, we're ignoring that there is real value add in this like supply chain that we're attempting to subvert, subvert, we're never going to like convince the, convince the market otherwise. And therefore if we're going to go to market, it's got to be in a completely different way.

Bill: No, that's amazing. And this kind of pivots into our next conversation, which is about private equity. You're doing a lot of work in private equity and with investment groups. What are they asking for most often? Is it product-market fit? Is it pricing sensitivity analysis? Or is it more like, like due diligence or deal formation where we're trying to come up with this thesis and decide how to go to market with this business? Like where do you see the most common requests for research from private equity?

Colson: So it's crazy how the PE market like goes together, right? So right now, recently, there's a lot more focus on the strategic and how and what's it going to acquire. Just obviously two years ago for sure, right, it was just a surge of investment thesis. Are we going to get the value back out of this user base that we believe that there's potential for, is there really value added services that are going to be gained and getting to that no go on and having what can be a very big effect on valuation. Because it's this independent assessment of whether that customer and user base are going to like one, sustain and two, convert to the premium offerings that you're likely going to be switching over to. And then, and that needs to be answered by the people that not like they're gonna be all great business plans, but it has to be answered not by the people who are on the inside. You need like an independent research group that goes out, talks to these people and makes that valuation assessment. Right now it's usually that like a portfolio company looking for like PE, some already expect to be, some have just had to shift their energy towards like this investment horizon in this portfolio company is only going fundamentally to actually make the critical decision necessary to get onto the growth trajectory we need them to be on over the next two years. If we step in and like level set, this is what the thing is. Like this is the one thing that is going to be the difference. Like you're not going to just be churning money each month. When you churn money, it's going to be because the churn is, is this strategic initiative that is worth it because it's going to turn this thing around in the next 18 months.

Bill: So is that where you see a lot of difference between like your pre-acquisition testing and then certainly post-acquisition research or maybe even not even just directly post-acquisition, but if you find troubled deals that are in, you know, they're in the year four five, no end in sight, not hitting their numbers, not painting a positive picture for exit that you're brought in and like how do you see those roles as different when you approach the research function?

Colson: Our approach doesn't change, but the questions change. It's like the methodology is similar, but there's a lot of… Hopefully there's a strong user-based understanding that is informing the investment back into product, which is shifting a lot. And that is in just direct alignment to how things are being packaged and what the price is that's being set. And is like, it's, it's the same thing as any small business, right? Like the more strategic alignment there is, the more, like the more all of a sudden, like things actually just start working and there is a, and like, it's like the cost of everything went down because we're now like doing something that the market is in need of and responding to and is like, we're inspiring action, right? Because it's no longer, it's not like we're stepping out of being commoditized on our feature set by the procurement folks.

Bill: Whenever you look at post-acquisition market research that you're contracted with to perform for private equity and you look at deals that are in trouble or that need a reset, do the outcomes of those research projects generally lead to more simplification or more complexity in the go-to-market strategy?

Colson: Simplification narrowing. Always.

Bill: Yeah, that's been our experience.

Colson: The reason why you got there most of the time is because you had 79 features that got developed over the last two and a half years and you really don't know which one of them is the reason why you're getting churn and you really don't know what the reason is. Like, you know, right? You think you know, but you haven't tested that hypothesis and like put quantitative analytics back to like modeling that like it's really because this thing where we created this new offshoot, like actually confused a new customer as to what it is they were getting value when they were even going to buy it. And we just didn't get that when we launched it. And it like this weird thing is now affecting whether we even get conversion on leads because we changed our pricing page and we didn't even, it was a completely unintended like would have never guessed, right? Like there has to be a third option, right? It is not this or that. It is that like there's a different varying factor that needs to be seen in a different light. And that has to come from the customer.

Bill: One of the biggest questions we're seeing today is around AI on so many fronts, but specifically in the PE space and B2B SaaS, is private equity firms are demanding answers around whether or not a SaaS or digital product actually has value anymore. And like what the risk, what risk does AI pose in either eroding value or maybe flat out destroying value by replacing that. What are you seeing in the data and how has that impacted some of the feedback you've given to the firms? Are you seeing research that points towards AI wiping out companies or wiping out their value? Or are we still on the bleeding edge of AI where it's starting to have a a small deflection, of course, but it is not truly uprooting deal thesis and where what companies are delivering?

Colson: Right now, companies are, I would say acting from a fear and uncertainty-based decision-making where some of the things that they like hypothesize that they'll get value out of AI, they're finding solution providers for that are driving market decisions that maybe aren't sustainable in terms of, in my own space in mark, in the market research industry, companies that do kind of knowledge management and provide AI driven platforms to help draw off of the knowledge base that exists are like surging and shockingly doing extremely well, which is kind of like a different form of insights and analytics delivery because it gets into business intelligence and analytics. That is like to me, well, yeah, right now that's AI powered, but like, you know, in my own business, I'm like, but that's going to go increasingly native to the core, like Microsoft, Google suite, whatever that suite of tools is, is just going to like offer that type of knowledge management and inquiry and insight, as essentially kind of like a value add without even having to get the middle man. So I worry about how much sustaining value there is in that for the insights and analytics world to think that I think that's like a trend, right? That'll be different in two years. But, you know, of course what I'm counting on is like the buyer is a human being. And so when you talk about SaaS businesses, it used to be that you had to have your process and your dev process and what you were doing built out. And it used to be that like your interface was an asset and what you were doing and the barrier to entry on those things. And then fundamentally how there's going to be an evolution in the buyer and user perspective as to how they interact and how with the softwares that they use in the sense that we should be able, like, UX in my mind is just about to like again, like completely alter right? Like so if it altered for mobile it it's going to just have the same level of transformation as to what is expected out of a user and and the ability to do the development to that is going is going to dramatically change with the use of AI as well. And so from my perspective, right? I'm counting on the fact that like, well, that's all nice, but it also creates even more confusion about like, well, how do I meet that human need? How do I really inspire action by the person? Right. Which is the same thing you need to tap into it as a marketing agency is that all of these things create an inordinate amount of noise and a more error and falseness then, you know, like and so where is that connection back to the human being that we're trying to get to part ways with their money?

Bill: That's great. Great perspective. In the pre-show you called research and insurance policy for an investment thesis. How have you seen that play out and how do you kind of present that when you're dealing with private equity to really make them see the value in undertaking these research projects?

Colson: The insurance policy is not in that you don't know all the things that you need to know to make a commitment, right? Because you may very well come out with the right decision from your stakeholders with your leadership and doing all that. On the other side of that, there's going to be an inordinate amount of obstacles that arise to actually seeing your customers buy based upon it, renew and work with you based upon it, get the value that you expect for the market to get the value. And if you want to have the courage to meet that, every one of those obstacles and essentially have that, I already know how I'm going to transform them, then like having that research one, it'll make you very, confident in that upfront decision, but it's going to likely inform the next one, two, three quarters worth of like returning back to the context of with confidence that like this is what's going to meet the market and it not just mushroom clouding. Cause I always say even as a service organization for us, the thing I don't want is an issue with a client to turn into nine people getting involved in it. Well, guess what? If product has a very specific insight direction that they're actually have been willing to listen to, it should narrow the number of times they're going to include the executive team back in a strategic choice. And the less that executive leadership team is going to be spread thin because of the breadth of decisions, so that they end up having to involve themselves because they have the specific direction and they have the courage to each meet those and have alignment around their role and responsibility, like the far more likely it is to actually succeed.

Bill: I love that. From your perspective, how does great marketing strategy connect EBITDA to exit values? And in your research, have you seen research projects that you've completed kind of align product market fit, pricing strategy, those type of marketing decisions that have to be made and strategies, how they connect and like if you've done this research and then 18 to 24 months later, you see a company that's thriving and then it's turned over, had an exit, been absorbed, whatever and directly tied to that marketing strategy based on your research?

Colson: Yes, I'm thinking of a specific example. So where… this would be a very, very big SaaS company that served SMBs, which is a very unique challenge often to be a back-end system. And then there's been a lot of focus, but you're talking about very high account volume, low AR, like low MMR individual client and yet like at the business client and there's a lot of pressure. They were able to… they saw the problem clearly, which was that they were known for existing, but not connected to the value they would create among the user, despite having actually invested in research with us that meant that they had very, very high confidence in the product meeting the market. So the investment with us was back into really what is going to inspire action among the people that we want to be responding to seeing our ads. Cause a lot of money is being spent on our ads and then us providing the arc and working with the ad agency, right? And then the ad agency coming back with creatives and us testing all that creative back into, like, does it deliver on meeting the needs that we know will, drive value. And then that, that like ad campaign launching it, like, you know, all of a sudden it not only increased conversion on what was in the pipeline, but now the people who they needed to see it as being for people like them, like actually did. it like caused the surge of leads. And then that like, so that was direct marketing strategy because it was like, how do we take some of this informed work and bring it back out into copy, messaging, and the story arc that the ad agency is building back in and like, you know, that can create massive market value very, very quickly because it, when you're, you're in that seat, as, you know, if you, if you suddenly lower that customer acquisition dramatically and start seeing that pipeline turn, small percentage increases in actual conversion, like translate to massive gross margin changes.

Bill: Absolutely. No, that's great. So one of the things we try to identify in these conversations, especially when we're dealing with an expert like yourself in a specific field, is maybe identify what's missing from our audience. If we have an owner, an executive, a marketing leader, a CEO, whatever, who thinks that they may have an opportunity to engage in marketing research, what's a first next step, simple thing that they can do to start moving in that direction? Is it like identifying a problem and getting very narrowly defined on it and like maybe quantifying financially what that problem looks like so that they understand the value of the research or is it reaching out to a professional and getting an assessment? What would be that first practical next step to engaging with market research?

Colson: I think of answering this a little bit differently, which is that as a researcher, I focus a lot on what are the questions that we ask ourselves. And if we're approaching that, the number one thing that I want to do is to connect to the progress that's already been made. And by asking ourselves, what is one milestone or sign of real progress that's happened, be it over the last 90 days or over the past year. And like, why did this matter to me? And why is it important? And like that I'm thinking about it right now. And that reflection upon gives oftentimes so much more clarity to the obstacle that it's always the right first step because then you go, then whatever that connection is that gets made on the other side of answering those questions for yourself, whether it's the next conversation, or this is the data that I should look into to learn more about that. Like you'll, your mind as a business leader jumps to, this is what I could do next to transform that.

Bill: I love that. So one of the things we want to do is to, we are all about shameless plugs and all about promoting our companies and where people can find us. So where can people connect with you both personally, professionally, as far as like LinkedIn and or your company's website? Could you share that with us, Colson?

Colson: The best place to find me, Colson Steber, is on LinkedIn. I post pretty regularly. Very, very, it's very, very little about my business and mostly about my own journey of leadership and personal self-development. Like how do we grow and be who we want to be in the world? And my company is Qlarity Access, Qlarity misspelled with a Q, intentionally. And therefore relatively easy to find if you type it in. And it's at qlarityaccess.com.

Bill: Love that. And all that information will be available in the show notes, the postings, wherever this is found online. Well, Colson, this has been a great discussion, and we appreciate your expertise in marketing research. And I think this conversation is going to be valuable in making marketing research more accessible, especially in the B2B, SaaS, and PE space, where we've kind of uncovered maybe a missing idea or a misperception around the scope and price of some entry level marketing research to get us a taste, to get us started, and to help validate some ideas or some guesses we may have about the market and turn those guesses into bets and future movement for organizations. So Colson, thank you so much for joining us today.

Colson: Yeah, thank you. This was amazing.

Bill: Thank you for joining the Missing Half podcast where we're discovering what's missing today in marketing research. Like, share, subscribe. Have a great day.