All the content but none of the academic pomposity of CONSUMER BEHAVIOR, July 12, 2010

By Bill Meade (Eagle, ID USA) –
  

This review is from: Marketing Research Kit For Dummies (For Dummies (Business & Personal Finance)) (Paperback)

There are 3 kinds of market research problems: Low uncertainty problems where you can ask people questions and they can tell you their wants and their needs, Medium uncertainty problems where you can ask people questions and they can tell you what they want, and then there are high uncertainty problems where you can ask people questions and they ask you back “why are you asking me this.” MARKETING RESEARCH KIT FOR DUMMIES Is the tool kit for the low uncertainty set of problems. Problems where you have measures of variability, where you know what the key properties are. Where you know what you are looking for in quantitative or near quantitative terms. It has the whole schmear of the academic tools and they are explained in plain English. This is a great guide for people who are looking to understand the Greek (literally) in the statistics used by their employees, research suppliers, or staff gurus. The normal consumer behaviorist crushing load of “you are stupid and I am smart” that is seen around numbers in marketing, is totally absent. For people who are into high uncertainty research: new to the world software, new to the world business models over the internet, this is not your book. You need to buy Steve Blank’s 4 STEPS TO THE EPIPHANY [...] and get your fingers over to the Lean Startup Circle on Google Groups [...] and search for the word “pivot.” Pivot is what you do to your business idea after you’ve got a REAL PRODUCT, that you show to REAL CUSTOMERS, in a REAL CONTEXT, and they tell you your product is not worth buying. That is, when you have a high uncertainty product, you need to prototype your ideas. Steve Blank is the guru of this, and a lightning rod around which lots of great people and thoughts are coalescing. If you are doing normal research in a normal consumer packaged goods business and you need help understanding what the heck “normal” means. Hyman’s book is what you want. Enjoy! bill meade

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