Welcome to the SampleCon 2021 Highlights Series. Recorded live in Pasadena, this series is bringing interviews straight to you from exhibitors, speakers and attendees at this year’s event. In this interview, host Jamin Brazil interviews Don Golden, CEO of Precision Sample.

More about SampleCon 2021: https://samplecon.com/

Find Don Online:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dongolden/ 

Email: don@precisionsample.com 

Website: https://www.precisionsample.com/ 

Find Jamin Online:

Email: jamin@happymr.com 

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jaminbrazil

Twitter: www.twitter.com/jaminbrazil 

Find Us Online: 

Twitter: www.twitter.com/happymrxp 

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/happymarketresearch 

Facebook: www.facebook.com/happymrxp 

Website: www.happymr.com 

Music: 

“Clap Along” by Auditionauti: https://audionautix.com 

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[00:00:00]

Jamin Brazil: Hey everybody. I am live at SampleCon. Apologies for the background noise. I am joined today by Don, Precision Sample is the name of the company. Don, welcome to the show.

[00:00:12]

Don Golden: Thank you very much. Happy to be here.

[00:00:14]

Jamin Brazil: What do you think about the show?

[00:00:15]

Don Golden: The show is great. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen everybody. Everybody calls it SampleCon, I call it sample reunion because I’m running into folks that I’ve been working with for ten, 15-plus years. So a lot of old faces, but some new faces as well. And I think it’s just great to be back in person. Everybody is so tired of the Zooms, and all that.

[00:00:36]

Jamin Brazil: Totally. One of the – it’s interesting, you’re a self-identified OG of the sample space, I think I can say that. How has COVID impacted us as an industry?

[00:00:46]

Don Golden: I think it’s business as usual for the industry really. And even more so, I think that – so I’ve heard some stories while I’ve been here about the major packaged goods companies, the C-level is more connected to the insights divisions than they are before, and we’re seeing it with the sample demand. Customer habits are changing and the big research buyers know it, and so there’s just more research going on. So as an industry, I think, unfortunately, it’s a really unfortunate event, but I think it’s actually – it’s pushing the industry forward because there’s more need for our services than ever. Personally, the way that we’re working, what I learned from this is that the office is still there, but it’s empty. And the team was just so efficient during the whole pandemic, that the way that Precision Sample works now is, we were always a highly remote company, but now, everybody just works where they want and I think we have a happier team, and it’s working for us.

[00:01:47]

Jamin Brazil: That’s great. Do you think you’re gonna wind up having localized team events?

[00:01:52]

Don Golden: Yeah, absolutely. We’ve always been – the Precision Sample team is about half of us are in Denver, the US team, and about half of us are right across the country. So we always do, not last year, of course, we do it once a year, get everybody together. And we’re gonna do it this year, so I think everybody is pretty excited for it and then we’ll just continue with that.

[00:02:10]

Jamin Brazil: I look forward to seeing that on LinkedIn, that will be fun.

[00:02:13]

Don Golden: Usually, there’s a couple of pictures that leak out.

[00:02:15]

Jamin Brazil: So Precision Sample, talk to us, tell us about the business.

[00:02:19]

Don Golden: The business is – we had a good year. April and May, I think everybody in the sample space was pretty scary. We were off by about a quarter of where we expected to be, but since then –

[00:02:31]

Jamin Brazil: And that was April, May 2020?

[00:02:33]

Don Golden: 2020, yeah. And then since then, it’s just been gangbusters and we’ve been growing, investing more in our internal panels. Hopefully, pretty soon we’ll be coming out to the industry with a new purpose-built B2B panel that we built. So we’re working on building more of a business community, where research is an aspect of it. I think there’s a big need for it in the industry, but it’s been – it’s been a long, hard road to get there, but it’s coming along. And so really just focusing on controlling more of our audiences for our customers, and bringing quality respondents forward. So, looking forward to it.

[00:03:05]

Jamin Brazil: That’s great. That’s fantastic. If somebody wants to get in contact with you, how would they find you?

[00:03:10]

Don Golden: Best place is precisionsample.com.

[00:03:11]

Jamin Brazil: Perfect.

[00:03:12]

Don Golden: Or I’m just don@precisionsample.com. Always happy to chat with folks.

[00:03:16]

Jamin Brazil: D-O-N?

[00:03:16]

Don Golden: Yeah, D-O-N. You got it.

[00:03:18]

Jamin Brazil: All right, man. Thanks for coming out.

[00:03:19]

Don Golden: Thanks, Jamin.