Brandon Goei

Project Highlights

• Development of global strategic sales enablement assets

• Over 20 group and solo interviews conducted with global SMEs

• Insights mapped across 17 key buyer profiles and four cross-product matrices

• Skills used: user interviews, writing and editing, facilitating meetings and workshops, Figma proficiency

Project Background and Role

Nasdaq is a multinational financial services company known for owning and operating several stock exchanges in the US and Europe. Our focus on this project was on the technology services side of the business, with a goal of developing sales enablement assets in the form of buyer personas and influence matrices.

Though my role evolved over time, I spent the majority of my time as the lead content editor, though I also led / supported interviews, provided mentorship for a team member looking to gain interview skills, provided technical expertise in Figma and prepared deliverables for handoff.

While Nasdaq is primarily known in the US for its stock exchanges, a major side of the business is in technology services, which are sometimes blocked by regulatory restrictions and conflicts of interest, but still represent significant growth opportunities, especially in non-US markets where regulations are less stringent.

Research and Early Phases

Our research for the project started with previous research conducted by a different team on a similar project. Using the key buyer profiles as a starting platform, we planned for interviews across the US and Europe with subject matter experts (SMEs) for particular offerings, aiming to map responses to buyer profiles.

Design Process

We started with generic interview frameworks to standardize findings and facilitate later organization of insights. Notes were converted into narrative flows that resembled personas, and internal workshopping allowed us to begin mapping certain services to the most likely interested buyers.

Outcomes and Reflections

After over 20 group and solo interviews, we began to consolidate findings into groupings that allowed for more usability given the large amount of content. We settled on 17 buyer profiles and four influence matrices, packaged in a PDF playbook.

Significant validation was required due to the subjective nature of the content. Through several regular meetings and workshops with our stakeholders, our deliverables struck a balance between common traits and specific insights, making room for geographic and cultural variability.

When meeting with our interview subjects, we were almost universally met with praise and interest — there was a definite appetite for the insights we were looking to uncover. Additionally, we noticed that a significant impact was made internally to Nasdaq, who often found opportunities for connection and collaboration that hadn't been apparent before.

Reflecting on the project near the final phases, I realized that our terminology and definitions needed to be stronger. There was significant confusion around what the terms "influence matrix", "persona" and "profile" entailed, which affected expectations surrounding our resulting deliverables.

In conclusion, our work with Nasdaq was ultimately satisfying and a testament of the power behind human-centered design processes. Our work continues to inform sellers on the best path towards growth amidst a complicated field of rules and regulations. Furthermore, our process has a side effect of strengthening the company's internal network.