Excellence in Market Research

In response to my complaint about Deloitte’s recent market research study on electric vehicles in which it was clear (to me at least) that they had surveyed irrelevant people as thus missed the mark with their conclusions, a gentleman named Gus wrote:

I believe that the comment “…the same critical mistake that most people do: survey the wrong people…” is at the root of the problem. Who are the right people then? Only the ones who think the way we do?

This is an astute comment. I’m not saying that these “irrelevant” people are not fine human beings. My mother, for instance, is a kind, intelligent and loving woman. But I can assure you, insofar as she’s extremely unlikely to by an electric vehicle – now or ever — any research process that included her opinion on the subject would be, to that degree, misguided.

The reason I regard your comment as astute is that it highlights one of the true art-forms that lies at the base of all good research: walking the tightrope of assumptions. When we assume too little, we wind up with soup – with generalized garbage that does not point the way to answers. Conversely, if we assume too much, we prove little more than we’ve already assumed, and we wind up with equally useless circular logic, e.g., More than 90% of all qualified homebuyers are those with both the current willingness and the ability to purchase a dwelling.

Market research looks easy — until you try it yourself. There are many ways to ruin a project — and until you make some of those errors and learn from your mistakes, it’s really not a piece of cake.