I remember earlier in my ad career working on a national B2C account. I was new to this piece of business and responsible for in-store promotions and packaging. The client understood the value of research and was very thorough. Attending focus groups and reviewing research data with us was common. All that gave me useful information on positioning, branding and competitive issues. What I didn’t get from that provided research was a “real-world” perspective. I wanted to know more. What were the challenges experienced by the route salesman.

I asked for and got permission to ride along with a route salesman as he made calls to mom-and-pop stores throughout the five boroughs of New York. My client had a lock on the NYC market but another very powerful national brand was making inroads and being very aggressive hoping to squeeze out their share of this market.

This experience left an indelible impression on me. I watched and learned the language, listened to the conversations between the route salesmen and the storeowners. I realized the tools we had been creating to assist the salesmen were not always being used. They took too much time to complete and were complicated. The sales guys were hustling from one store to the next. And the storeowners were typically managing inventory, stocking shelves and waiting on customers. To top everything off, English was not always their first language.

A two-day time investment gave me the information I desperately needed so that I could revamp the sales and marketing tools so they were useable and used. In many ways, that “street” perspective was at least as, if not more valuable that the client-supplied research data.

Because of that experience, I frequently find myself asking permission from clients to speak directly to their sales force, distributors, end-users and other influencers in their sales chain. Sometimes it takes only a few phone calls; maybe a half dozen one-one visits. The feedback is invaluable.

Is this “research”? You bet. It meets the traditional definition of research: it helps us establish facts and reach new conclusions. No matter the objective, every means of customer insight should be considered. You might be surprised what you discover.