Is that little café or retail business you are thinking of opening really worth it. If so you need to get up your nerve to do a bit of on-the-street market research.
This means making up some pertinent questions to ask people, writing them up into a questionnaire and then getting out there on the street with a clipboard so that you can stop passersby and ask them a few questions.
Don’t be surprised if you are rejected the first few times you stop people on the street to ask them your questions. Not everyone has time for on-the-fly off-the-cuff market researchers assailing them on the street and you just can’t take their refusal to talk to you personally.
However you will find that some people are quite willing to give you their opinion about the type of business you are planning to open in their neighborhood. Yet another thing is key to your success here. It is also a good idea to tell them that you have been hired to do market research for a business and that the information you are gathering is not for your own purpose. This is because once people find out the information is for you they will likely be more encouraging than if they know it is destined elsewhere. This can be attributed to that foible of human nature that we did discuss earlier in this book where people won’t want to “crush you dreams” by giving you an honest answer. They will protect your feelings and tell you that they would love to have a gourmet cupcake shop in their neighborhood even if they think it is the worst idea they have ever heard. On the other hand they might be inclined to tell you exactly why opening a gourmet cupcake shop in their neighborhood is a big mistake if they think the information is anonymous and will not directly reach the entrepreneur’s ears.
Good questions to ask your polled passerby’s are things like “How often do they come to the area, why do they like shopping there, what they usually buy there and so on…”
After you have finished asking them a few questions about how well they think your new business would do in the neighborhood you should also be sure to ask him or her for their email address so you can keep in touch with them and follow up. Be sure to have them sign something that agrees to be on this type of opt-in list so they can’t accuse your store of spamming them with email at a later date.
