You want to find out if what you're offering is a viable product. Now, however, it's just as hard to obtain shelf space in the media world as it is in the supermarket. If you want to increase your chances for long-term survival, you do whatever you can to learn more about the audience you're hoping to reach. The market research business that now guides both soap salesmen and sudsy writers is a booming, multibillion-dollar industry. While laziness and the overblown self-assurance typical of most writers were at least partially responsible for this course of action, for Pullen's benefit I now chalked it up to my busy schedule and a relatively nonexistent budget.
Research can be expensive.
But not as expensive as bringing a product to market that no one actually wants. A focus group usually has eight to 12 participants, but with a mini-group, you've only got four or five. For any typical project, we might run four to five of these mini-groups. I mean, a lot of people are happy to criticize this column for free. What you need to do is get the right people.