Major Areas of Sales Research

One major area concerns the field supervisor, who sets up the study with the local agencies, the people who work for us in individual cities. The agencies are in charge of auditing the product. The field supervisor is also the person who travels; who actually puts the product on the shelves; and who is responsible for making sure the agency people in that particular city keep a close eye on the study, do the restocking, and the auditing. Both the chain relations position and the field supervisor position are entry-level jobs. The field supervisor could be traveling from one to three weeks out of a month. Chain relations personnel travel two or three times a month.

Another area of sales research is auditing products in a certain category. The person doing this type of research would say, "I don't want to put something new on your shelves; rather, I want to come in and audit the items you currently stock, and I'll pay you a certain amount of money to see your records concerning those products." A field supervisor is responsible for coordinating the local auditing staffs that we have. This is the same field supervisor position, but there are two different types of studies they could be involved with. One is an audit; the other, a control test for a new product.

Another area of sales research is called distribution checks. This entails checks on item distribution. This work is also done by someone in an entry-level position. If you wanted to check on an item's distribution throughout the United States, you would come to us, and we would compile a sample of perhaps a couple thousand stores. With the help of our local agencies, we would report such information as the product is in 92 percent of the stores we checked; it has an average price of $0.55; your competitor's product is in 96 percent of the stores; and it has an average price of $0.53 a unit. These studies are not as costly, partly because the chain department doesn't get into any of this.



Another, smaller area of sales research is the product pickup department. A lot of clients use this service. If they see a product written up somewhere, they want to get it, see what it looks like, and do some analyses on it. We have a service that will find the item and pick it up for them. It helps them keep on top of the competition.

I coordinate all four areas of sales research. On the sales end, we have a department that fields the study and another department that reports it. In the consumer end, there is a project director who does both.

Q- What do you enjoy about marketing research?

A - I like the problem solving aspects of the job. There are a set of goals before me, and I have the means to achieve those goals through the data. I have to search for the answers, and that's a real challenge to me.

• It's interesting to see items that you have worked with come out and hit the market.
  

A Taking a number of different sources of information and turning them into a useful plan of action is probably the most fascinating part of research. I take six or seven available courses of action, weed out the ones I don't think are going to work, and narrow it down to one. You can never say which is the best method for certain, but you have to make a choice.
I enjoy the final product, the idea of sending out a finished report. I have a bunch of them on my shelf right now, and I look back at them and say, "Wow, I put together a pretty decent report; we did a really good study." That is probably the most satisfying aspect of the job.

Q - What are some negative aspects of your job?

• The problem in marketing research is that you are always dealing with incomplete information. You never really know as much as the client knows. They may not want to tell you things that they feel are too confidential, or they simply may not know what is really going on. Or they may know what's going on and just not tell you. Then you'll suggest a course of action they tried a couple of years ago, and they'll laugh at you. That can be frustrating.
  

You can put a lot of effort into getting all the information together, and then it goes to a desk somewhere and gets dust on it. You get recommendations together, put information together, and spend hours and hours, and then for one reason or another the president of the company doesn't like it or disagrees with it. They're paying you. So you're wrong.

It is a learning process. You are always learning. You may have 98 percent of it mastered, but that is not good enough.

• It's frustrating when people have a research problem set in their mind and they want it answered in one way, a way that might not be the right way. Sometimes you have to go along with them, because that's the way they want to do it, and they're paying you.
  

Q - Is there a lot of stress in marketing research?

A - It is somewhat stressful, because I am the last one on the assembly line. I am the one who has to meet the ultimate deadline to the client.

• In some cases it takes two to three weeks to do a project right, but you have to get it done in a week. That's a high pressure situation.
  

There is a lot of stress; there really is. Any time you are in a client oriented business, you'll find that. Sometimes you get what you may consider to be an unreasonable deadline, but the client may not see it that way. A lot of clients don't necessarily realize the problems and the time involved in doing a research project. All they see is a bound report, and it doesn't look like much. But when you think a project all the way through, it's a different story.

Q - What are some important skills for your position?

A - Effective time management is a necessity in this job, because you have so many little things that have to be done on a day to day basis. If you don't get them done, you goof up the deadlines.