Meetings are a necessary evil in business. Whether in-person, over the phone, or through web conference, you are bound to participate in meetings in market research on a regular basis. It's important to make this time as well-spent as possible, because everyone is being pulled from their day-to-day activities to join. So in reality, a one hour meeting of five people is one hour of time spent for each person, equaling five hours of total company time spent.
Author Sam Carpenter alludes to this point in his book titled Work the System which emphasizes the incredible loss of staff hours spent in needless meetings. Have you ever had an hour-long meeting with 20 of your colleagues? This a total of 20 staff hours gone forever which equals two and a half days of work from an FTE. Therefore it's critical to remain task-oriented, focused, and tactical in all meetings, beyond just market research.
An essential part of the Drive Research process is what is called a project kickoff meeting. The kickoff meeting occurs to officially launch the market research project and its intent is to introduce teams, confirm objectives, discuss timeframe and logistics, and guide next steps. The kickoff meeting sets the tone for the entire project. When we start a new relationship with a client, we want to get off on the right foot. Rather than entering this kickoff meeting blindly, Drive Research takes the time to create a market research kickoff meeting agenda.
Not all meetings will follow an agenda perfectly, but preparing an agenda provides the following benefits: (1) it shows Drive Research takes the initiative and it proves we took time before the meeting to think about the project in detail and prepare a document and (2) it confirms organization of the market research into a step-by-step process by showing our clients we are thinking about short and long-term goals of the project. A kickoff meeting agenda is highly recommended and is something Drive Research always provides.
Drive Research is a market research firm in Central New York. Interested in conducting focus groups, an online survey, or intercept surveys? Contact our market research firm at 315-303-2040 or email us at [email protected].