ESOMAR Members! As a two term ESOMAR Council Member, I am presenting myself as a candidate for Vice President for the 2019/2020 term.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur or an intrepreneur, one of the biggest determiners of success and, ultimately, growth, is how you respond to failures or setbacks.

Trying to envision what’s on the horizon in 2019 and how it might impact your strategic planning? The innovation we see in the market research industry impacts the way we research and, subsequently, interact and market to consumers on many levels. Trends like mobile, passive data collection, artificial intelligence and machine learning have been consuming media attention in 2018— but there are even more innovate marketing and research methods we can glimpse in the pipeline.

When I work with early-stage firms, I’m often advising on fundraising where potential investors focus on one key question... "What is your competitive moat?"

With a glut of new business books launching on a weekly basis, it can be challenging to figure out which are worth the time investment. And by “worth,” I mean books that deliver actual field-tested strategies that can easily be implemented in your day to day business... no theoretical BS.

I went on my first true sales call in 2000. It was after the advent of the internet, a year after the launch of SalesForce, but before business networking and prospecting tools like LinkedIn and Data.com existed. Prospecting was hard work. My potential client was in a new product group at Proctor & Gamble. As a byproduct of being a researcher by trade, I spent a LOT of time researching him before I asked for the meeting and even more time digging into everything I could find about new product development at P&G once the meeting was set. I didn’t get an immediate “yes” during my meeting, but I stuck with it. I followed up over and over again and when I finally landed P&G as an account, they were a $1M client within the first six months.

This post is a painful one for me to write. I’ve spent the last 20 years of my career in marketing research and measurement and I measure everything. Literally everything….from my clients' financial data and sales and marketing performance, to the number of steps I take every day and the ounces of protein, fat and carbohydrates I eat. I truly suffer from “metric fixation”.

“Growth hacking” is a new term for most in the marketing measurement space but a long held practice among the best marketers and product managers in Silicon Valley. Although market researchers today are awash with data, we rarely use it for the benefit of our own businesses. With traditional media fading and the onslaught of mass customization & niching on the web, marketing as we’ve known it for the past 100 years is in a stage of transition- which means we have to become more creative about how we market marketing research.

Adventure racer Kerry Gross wanted more stories of inspiring women. So, she decided to ride her bike across the US from California to Maine in search of women who inspire others. The Women Who Dare podcast tells the story of Kerry’s 5,700-mile bike ride and features her interviews with remarkable women. Kerry’s podcast was recently listed as one of Outside Magazine’s favorite adventure podcasts.

Going to market with a new product or service? It certainly isn't getting any easier to cut through competitive marketing clutter, and the time crunch you feel - it's a real thing.