From Research to Riches: How Scientific Results Propel Business Growth

One Saturday morning, I was just up and about to start my day at 7 in the morning by browsing the internet to watch news forecasts on business when my WhatsApp rang.

On the other hand, my friend asked me for advice on how to start a business. He has no idea how to proceed but is motivated to learn what the market is like in his locality.

I advised him to get to know what the community wanted and he gave me an assumption regarding the current problem of the former that needs to be solved. Along with it is a business plan and he is worried that it might not be got through.

So, my friend here has a plan and an assumption but is not confident enough as to the possible positive outcome if he launches this.

I informed him that one pragmatic way to know is how to get through the minds of potential customers.

This is where the concept of business research comes to life.??

There are many types of business research but I will discuss here one easy way to get what the customer wants.

I have been teaching medical research for more than half a decade and I found that it can also be used for business research. There is a simple one that most of my students use in medicine that can also translate into the realm of entrepreneurship.

It is called Cross-Sectional research. Sounds technical? I'll explain it.

In this type of research, there are only two variables. One variable is fixed and the other is dependent.

If we translate it to business it will be:

The fixed variable- The Target Customer

The dependent variable- What do the Target Customer want?

Research is vital to the success of an outcome. You need to know what the customer wants. Thats it!

I know, most businesses have rivals but try not to think about them momentarily. Just FOCUS on the customers.

If you are going to put a business research protocol which is the blueprint of an idea in paper you need to have the following components below:

• The Objective- This is the mission of your research. You've got to ask yourself, "What are you trying to achieve with this undertaking?" The objective has to be clear and measurable.??Take note that the objective is simply one question trying to answer a single problem. Just a single problem. Having 2 or more will only obscure the real results. Instead, put the other objectives as your side objectives but put your primary objective as one goal.
• Determine your target market. Brainstorm your target market with your business partners and ask friends who are the likely target for your business. Try putting an age group, income status and location as an example.
• Determine the possible problems of the target market.??

• Set up your questionnaires. The questionnaire should be easily understood. It can be a rating for a question asking them to rate a problem from 1-10 or it can be an open-ended question so that the target market customer can expound on answering those questions.
• Go for a dry run. Get at least about 20 target customers to answer your questionnaire and based on their answers, you can tweak the questions so you can improve on the accuracy of their answers.
• Distribute the questionnaires to at least 400 potential customers. This is a good sample for a population of a million in a certain geography. The questionnaires can either be online or on paper. Remember to only give them to Potential Customers, else, you will have a conflicting result.
• Tally the results.
• Interpret the results. Based on the results now, you have credible data as to what your target market wants.
• Pivot based on the results. Depending on the results, you are now poised to re-position your business plans and this will enable you to steer clearly in your trajectory about how to proceed next with your plans.

Remember that once you have the results, it is usually necessary to do another business research of this type should any doubts arise with your target market.

Depending on your business venture, you might need at least 5 or as many as hundreds of these well-planned researchers to answer the needs of your target market.

There are still many types of research out there but this is one good way to start to get to your target customer's mind.

When done perfectly, you can disrupt businesses. Who knows, your enterprise can make it to the top as one of the unicorns.