Developing a Market Survey

1. Ask potential interviewee if they wouldn't mind taking a short survey, not more than 10 minutes. Thank them for their time and participation.
2. Start by building rapport
   • Ask about their business or if retail, their special interests
   • Get them comfortable so they will answer questions
3. Discover pain points
   • Identify most pressing needs, interests
   • Note language interviewees use to describe their responses
4. How are they currently solving the "problem" or filling need?
5. Are they happy with their current vendor/service provider?
6. Identify plans to buy, replace, upgrade?
7. Ask them to describe what would provide the most value to them.
8. How do they find "vendors", service providers?
9. How much are they willing to spend for a solution, product?
10. Use a combination of closed and open questions to get the answers.
11. Be sure to thank them for their time.
12. In the business-to-business market it often helps to motivate people to take the survey by offering to send them a summary of the survey results. They like to see how they measure up against others in their industry.

Survey Formats

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