30Under30 Honouree: Trent Radding
Great to hear from Global 30 Under 30 Honouree, Trent Radding, Account Executive at The Bantam Group, a boutique full-service market research agency based in Atlanta, Georgia. Trent is responsible for leading Bantam’s project design and product development teams, while also supporting the analysis team on qualitative and quantitative reporting. He is passionate about continuously growing Bantam’s abilities to deliver exceptional game-changing insights to its clients, both now and in the years to come.
How did you get into the industry and reach this point?
From a young age, I’ve been inclined to see our world through an anthropological lens, always trying to learn and understand it better in my life endeavours. I always dreamed I would do this in my career. Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly), starting my career in sales did not scratch this itch. When the opportunity came to work at the Bantam Group, an agency who values answering big questions for a vast array of clients, I jumped at the opportunity. And I haven’t looked back since (safe to say it scratched that itch for continuous learning!)
When I started, my president felt the best way to help me learn the world of insights was for me to work with our project management team. This quickly helped me understand the ins and outs of the market research product that we are delivering to our clients. But more than that, my first-hand experience with our product became the launching pad from which I could excel in other parts of our organisation. I soon began working on more complex work at our firm and began progressing into a more client facing and analysis-centric role, while also overseeing Bantam’s project management and project bidding teams. I was tasked with knowing vendors during my early days in project management, but in recent years this knowledge has progressed into me taking responsibility for exploring new industry trends for the company, striving to find new products that can expand or deepen Bantam’s revenue streams, while looking for technologies that can help us cut costs and improve time efficiencies in our pre-existing processes. After nearly 5 years in this industry, I’m thankful for how I’ve grown, but I know this is still just the beginning of my path, as I constantly strive for new ways to add exceptional value to my firm and my clients’ businesses.
Why should someone consider a career in market research, data and insights?
You can truly have a role in helping people better understand our world. The data we collect in this industry helps to answer some of the biggest questions on the planet. In a rapidly changing world, companies and institutions need to know what real people think, or risk losing their opportunity for impact and relevance. In this industry, we get to have a major role in that. With the right research process and good analysis, you can regularly deliver powerful insights that any kind of organisation, from a nonprofit to a Fortune 100 company, will heavily rely on for developing their direction strategically. The ability to provide the data resources that inform impactful decisions is why I feel this is an industry that others should be considering a career in.
Career paths are rarely without challenges. Can you share a moment from your career when things didn’t go to plan, but the lessons learned remain with you to this day?
I started my prior job in promotional branding in February 2020. Right as I was starting to hit my stride, the world as we all knew it changed when Covid hit in March of that year. Mass layoffs ensued and I found myself without a job, with no marketing positions available anywhere, and (most importantly) with a wedding only 2 months away. So, 5 days later, I started working as a front-line worker at an Amazon distribution warehouse while applying for jobs. I ultimately landed on my feet soon after, but the month I spent at Amazon taught me a great deal. It taught me that everyone in an organisation, from the person doing the simplest of tasks to the people making the most complex decisions in the C-Suite all have value and are crucial to an organisation’s success. It also taught me gratitude in my career from then onward, appreciating each opportunity and stage of growth versus simply expecting them and taking them for granted.
What two things should junior researchers focus on as they progress in their careers?
Constantly look for ways to add value to your company, even it means going beyond the scope of your job description. If you have the mindset of “that isn’t my job”, you’ll rarely find growth in this point in your career. As someone at this point in my career who wants to grow in my field, every chance I can get to take on something new or harder is a chance to push myself to become a stronger, more well-rounded market research professional. So I feel my mindset shouldn’t be to ask how little I can do, but how much.
Be highly adaptable and constantly strive for greater efficiencies. Most humans are creatures of habit; we don’t like change. But if you ever resign yourself to thinking “I’ve got this subject or process totally figured out and I don’t see why I should ever change my approach”, you’ve really hamstrung your ability for growth. As young professionals with less experience, we must realise that there’s most likely a better way out there to do things than the way we currently do things now. Especially living in today’s world of technology that is improving at an exponential scale, if we just stick to the way we’ve always done things, we’ll likely find ourselves being left behind. We have to lean into not away from the opportunities to do things in new and better ways than we’ve done them in the past.
Do you have any advice for our sector?
Don’t compromise when it comes to fighting quantitative data fraud and improving data quality in the years to come. For the sake of our long-term relevance of quantitative sample, we must consider innovative new ways for building and maintaining panels/data sources. As a buyer who is looking for exceptional data quality for my clients, I’m desperate for sample I can be certain is real. Some companies are meeting the moment with innovative approaches to obtaining sample and verifying respondents, but they are in the minority at this point in time, due in large part to the pragmatic reality that changing the industry status quo for how we gather and use sample is more costly, time-intensive, and altogether difficult. The lifeblood of our industry is good data that provides an accurate picture of the real-world to our clients so that they can make well-informed decisions. If we don’t start changing the game in combatting fraud, it will make delivering on that mission harder and harder. So we need to come together and be willing to take wholesale radical measures now to address these issues in ways we haven’t before. It will most certainly be hard, but our industry will be better for it.
Is there anyone who has helped or supported you in your career who you’d like to acknowledge or thank?
Our company president, Melynn Cogbill. I can genuinely say she’s one of the most outstanding professionals I’ve ever encountered, a master in her field who is seemingly good at everything. She’s skilled in research, a tireless worker, a great leader, and does everything with an infectious positivity and excellence. It’s been such a privilege to learn from her since I started in this industry almost 5 years ago.