⚡ 𝗗𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗳 𝗶𝘁 𝗶𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂’𝗿𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘁 𝘄𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴. Step 1: how I talked to 50 firefighters using LinkedIn
In 2019 I was contracted by STIHL (they do motorsaws and stuff, maybe you have heard of them) to bring a new Virtual Reality application for firefighters to market.
𝗠𝘆 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝘂𝘀𝗵 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 (tldr: there was none) to be able to build a better sales strategy.
I put a number out there: we need to talk to 50 firefighters in order to have a statistically relevant set of answers.
𝗟𝗲𝘁 𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝘆𝗼𝘂: 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻’𝘁 𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗲𝘁. Call the municipality and hope they give you phone numbers of their voluntary supporters from the firefighting unit? Forget it - ever heard of “DSGVO”? Build a fake landing page and hope they sign up? Nope, too careful.
So I started a search on LinkedIn and voilà there were actually a few thousand people who are also firefighters as a voluntary side job in their community.
Manually I started adding a few hundreds. Having STIHL in the background was really helpful, because all those guys (yes, only guys) loved their STIHL equipment.
𝗣𝗹𝘂𝘀, 𝗶𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗛𝗟 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺, 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝘀𝗸 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 (even if it was “just” a digital one).
Those interviews generated so many insights into how these people work, what kinds of challenges they have, how they spend budget on training, what the organisational structures are, how they interface with municipalities etc. that even 2,5 years into the project I regularly looked back into the customer research data to get a better understanding of certain aspects.
In my opinion you can’t outsource this kind of qualitative customer research to a service provider or market research agency or working student.
It needs to be done by your Venture Lead - be it an internal Intrapreneur or an external Co-Preneur like me. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗶𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗹𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲, you have to go through the pain of talking to 50 people to really understand your target group and being able to build for them.
If you’re not ready to do this, don’t bother starting and spend your budget elsewhere.
Hope that helps you kickstart your customer research!