We surveyed the marketing directors of the 7 largest oil companies on the planet.

We’ve surveyed state legislators, orthopedic surgeons, movie producers, Mexican cell phone users, and German businessmen. We’ve surveyed CEOs, CFOs, IT directors and consumers of virtually every kind of consumable.

The answers to many of the survey questions are often surprising. Not always, but often.

Here’s an example.

The relationship between the United States and Russia has gone through its ups and downs. There was the Cold War, of course – if a Russian was caught having a conversation with an American in Moscow in the 80s, Lubyanka awaited.

What a change after Gorbachev dissolved the Soviet Union in December of 1991.

It was just 6 months later, in June of 1992 that I handed my passport to the surly immigration officer at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport.

I subsequently traveled to Moscow several times in the 90s and, in so doing, developed a close relationship with the senior executives of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) – the federal Russian police (like the FBI).

It was a fascinating relationship, made more so because the MIA execs were fascinated with survey technology.

You may have seen this picture previously but, if not, this is a snapshot of me delivering a talk to 50 senior MIA executives in an historic conference room in the headquarters of the MIA. Yes, that’s a picture of Lenin behind me.

In the course of my meetings with a Colonel Pylov, he “confessed” that they were having trouble recruiting police – could we conduct surveys to help?

Yes.

The survey of Russian police required bilingual surveyors and tabulators but, once completed, the answer to the key question was startling. Though it really shouldn’t have been.

“What was the primary reason that you joined the MIA?”

“To get free transportation on the metro.”

What?

Yes. Ordinary Russians didn’t own cars in the late ’80s and early ’90s when these policemen would have originally joined the MIA. And police rode free on the metro. This was a big benefit.

There is more to the recruitment story, but I tell this to make the simple point: you don’t really know until you survey.

Something we have been doing for more than 25 years.

If you want to know what your customers think about your products or service, or what will motivate your prospects to buy from you as opposed to your competitors, call us or shoot us an email.

Best,
Bruce

Bruce Wiseman
President & CEO
On Target Research
www.ontargetresearch.com
Br***@br**********.net
1-818-397-1401

“On Target Research is fantastic. Their ability to extract relevant and powerful data from C-level executives is remarkable. In the short period of time, we were able to get profound insight into the hearts and minds of our potential clients. The research is invaluable for all of our marketing branding and sales initiatives.”

MA – President

There was an interview of Kellyanne Conway toward the end of the 2016 presidential election cycle. “Everyone” of the polls predicted that Hillary would win the election.

Everyone knew it and the polls showed it. As one example, here’s a headline to a story from CNN on October 23, 2016, that showed Hillary up 12 points 2 weeks before the election.

New poll shows Clinton over Trump by double-digits

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7776173333.

Well, everyone knew it except Kellyanne Conway. Kellyanne felt Trump would win and said so. Why? Well, before Kellyanne officially took over the Trump campaign she owned and operated a survey company called The Polling Company.

Kellyanne, knew her survey technology. She knew that respondents will often answer survey questions with a “social” answer.

As he comes into his office one bright Monday morning, Dr. Lawrence Jessup, DDS, walks by his office manager, 27-year-old Margie Swanson, sitting at her desk looking at a computer screen.

“Good morning, Margie,” says the good doctor. “How are you this morning?”

“Fine, Doctor Jessup, just fine.”

Fine is a “social” answer to the question.

Margie had a fight with her boyfriend last night. She is hungover.

“Fine” is a social answer to the question.

And that is what Kellyanne could see in the responses to the surveys being conducted by other polling firms. You have to be a pro to discern the difference between social answers and real answers to survey questions. Kellyanne is a pro and could see that the pro-Hillary or “anti-Trump” responses were social answers.

A pro can see beyond the social answers and discern the true feelings of the respondent.

The real key to this is done by creating survey questions that prompt answers that cut through the social veneer. Kellyanne knows how to write those questions.

And so do I. With more than 30 years conducting surveys for companies in virtually every sector of the American economy as well as Europe, Australia, and Mexico we know surveys.

We know how to create questions that will get you honest answers from your clients and / or your prospects. We also know the proper technology of survey tabulation that finds the “hot buttons” you can use in your marketing. The “buttons” from these surveys also enable us to create positioning surveys, the results of which create an instant familiarity and understanding of your brand.

Just ask our clients.

“Working with Bruce was like working with the Roger Federer of Surveys.  The questions evoked exactly what our public was thinking.  Now with the button and positioning in place our promotions are like an arrow going through tissue paper rather than a fist into a brick wall.  Our copy and imagery say exactly what the clientele is thinking and therefor procures more leads.

You served up an ace Bruce. Thank you.”

We conduct competitor research, survey your customers, survey your prospects all of which enables us to come up with recommendations that will make your cash register sing.

Contact me for a quote. Surveys may be just more reasonable than you think.

Best,

Bruce

Bruce Wiseman

President & CEO

On Target Research

www.ontargetresearch.com

Br***@br**********.net

1-818-397-1401

Following the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, international bankers pushed rates to zero and sat on them for several years opening the door for commercial banks to lend money to corporate clients that cost them nothing.

In 2017 they began ratcheting rates up. Like a financial social climber at a debutante’s ball, interest rates edged up throughout the remainder of 2017, and 2018. In December 2018, the Chairman of the Fed said two additional increases were scheduled for 2019.

It looked like a stairway to the stars.

Then a month later, Chairman Powell started a strange back pedal. On January 4^th, he said that there might not be two rate increases in 2019 – he’d wait and see.

Then in March, he said there would be no more rate increases for the rest of the year. Then he fully reversed course. On July 30th, he cut rates ¼% and did it again on September 17^th.

A stunning turnaround.

Many think that it was Trump’s constant criticism of Powell that got the Fed boss to ratchet the rates down. The Donald, in one of his classic misguided attacks of his own appointees, publicly stated that Powell was blessed with a “horrendous lack of vision”. https://tinyurl.com/y2c4rycb

But there are other reasons for the Fed’s bipolar actions, not the least of which was the fact that the owners of the Fed, Jerome Powell’s real bosses, are the New York-based, money-center banks – they own the Fed and have reason for rates to remain low. 

This is a subject for another article, but we introduce the data here to show how challenging it would be if you were in the mortgage business where the cost of your inventory was in a constant state of flux.

As it is and has been for Sun Pacific Mortgage.

Sun Pacific Mortgage is a family-owned mortgage company based in the beautiful rolling hills of Santa Rosa, California.

We, On Target Research, did some work for Sun Pacific a few years ago with which they were quite happy. They got back in touch with us a few months ago for an update on the research and marketing advice.

We conducted new surveys of their clients and prospects. Interestingly, the main button had changed. I read the survey results 3 times. Yep. The main button had changed.

This can happen when circumstances change in a market or in the environment. 

We made recommendations based on the new survey results and worked with them on their positioning and marketing. 

The results?

“My name is Ari Walker and I’m the Marketing Director for a company called Sun Pacific Mortgage & Real Estate. We are a family owned and operated, credit money financing company for California and I want to say that Bruce Wiseman and On Target Research have done phenomenal work for us.  We’ve worked with them for 4 or 5 years, originally just to do surveys, buttons.  Then we picked it up another year and a half later and did another survey with him, and he has just really helped to fine tune our buttons, and our marketing and the promotion of our product.  

As a result, we’ve rocketed on the production.  We rocketed on our income.  And we’re definitely helping so many more people get into homes with private money financing.  And I know, for sure, that without Bruce Wiseman’s skills and direction we would not be doing what we’re doing today.  So, thank you!  And I highly, highly recommend him and his services for survey technology.  It definitely makes a big difference in helping your company expand.

Besides the super-kind testimonial, Ari sent me graphs of the company’s production and income. All graphs are in screaming affluence (virtually straight up) with the income hitting highest ever and shooting off the graph requiring a new page. I am not attaching them as I am presuming the numbers are confidential to the company; but trust me, implementing the new buttons and positioning and the company’s new aggressive marketing campaign is driving their stats to the moon.

From Ari…

“Attached are 3 main graphs from last month:  Loan Reaches In, Loans Logged, Gross Income.  (The Loan Reaches In are in a whole new range for past 2 months. The Loans Logged went straight up and the income graph was so high it went off the graph so Lynn had to make another graph!)”

Buttons are used to attract and interest the public in your message. But not just any buttons.  Only by using properly surveyed buttons will you know that your advertising and marketing funds are most efficiently spent with the best possible results.

Are you using buttons in your marketing? If so, are your buttons attracting business?

We have been conducting surveys to find the right buttons for our clients for 30 years. We know this world.

If you need some help with your marketing, give us a call.

Best,

Bruce

Bruce Wiseman
President & CEO
On Target Research
ontargetresearch.com

       NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR 

George Orwell’s classic novel of a dystopian future overseen by the all-seeing despot, Big Brother, embodied omnipresent government surveillance, perpetual war and historical negationism (the rewriting of history).

It is a portrayal of government power and suppression of individual freedoms far beyond Orwell’s 1949 England and today’s governmental operations… or is it? 

If one were looking for a perpetual war, today’s never-ending War on Terror, 18 years old with no sign of ending, would certainly serve. The government surveillance exposed by Edward Snowden makes clear that your every phone call, Internet search and email is washed through Uncle’s digital fingers. And facial recognition software is embedded in cameras now strewn across the nation’s commercial landscape.

If you read 1984, you’ll recall that the protagonist, Winston Smith, worked in the Ministry of Truth, revising history to fit the current political demands.

“Comrade Ogilvy, unimagined an hour ago, was now a fact. Comrade Ogilvy, who had never existed in the present, now existed in the past, and when once the act of forgery was forgotten, he would exist just as authentically, and upon the same evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius Caesar.” (Orwell, pp.47-48) “It might very well be that literally every word in the history books, even the things that one accepted without question, was pure fantasy.”

Rewriting the past could never happen here, of course – setting aside the current destruction of statues of Civil War Generals throughout the South. It appears Robert E. Lee never existed, or so the City of New Orleans would have you believe.

I ran into this kind of historical revisionism, working on my 4^th fiction novel. I write a detective series (if you enjoy fiction thrillers, my books, under the pen name of John Truman Wolfe, are at Amazon. The fiction titles are Mind Games, The Gift, and Ransom. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=john+truman+wolfe&ref=nb_sb_noss_2 

At any rate, Tom McKenna, the protagonist, is a private eye who went to Boalt Hall, the heralded law school of the University of California at Berkeley. So, I was writing something about McKenna and in researching Boalt Hall found that it no longer exists, at least not as the official name of UC Berkeley’s law school, which it had been for over 100 years.

What happened?

The law school was named after John Boalt, a lawyer and sometime judge. In 1906, his widow, Elizabeth, donated land in San Francisco to be sold with the proceeds going for the construction of a new building for the law school at UC Berkeley.

The law school proudly carried this name for more than a century, when some committee at Cal, protecting the feelings of Berkeley’s Generation Snowflake, called for a name change because John Boalt had made some racially insensitive (racist) remarks more than a century earlier.

No one is justifying racist remarks. People who make them are low IQ fools, self-identified by what comes out of their mouth. But the Boalt brand had long ago outgrown and out shown the turn of the century lawyer for whom it was named.

Boalt was a brand. A brand that stood for graduating some of the greatest legal minds of the century.

Brands mean something.

Nike means sports – in all its ramifications. 

Google means search. (It has growing PR problems, but the brand still means search).

Titleist means golf ball.

B of A means banking.

But there are also local and regional brands. And having a brand that communicates and stands out above its competitors is valuable, indeed.

Some businesses don’t bother branding their product or service at all.

Some throw a name on what they produce without thought as to its communication value. You know, name a new tech product after their first-born child. Sure, the digital age has spawned some brands that don’t follow the rules – Google itself being an example.

But unless you have some seriously deep pockets to drive a non-sensical brand into the mind of your public, a brand should be descriptive of what you do. It should be memorable. 

Some communicate wonderfully. How about the organic/natural food market…Whole Foods? A great brand.

A while ago, a friend recommended a particular health supplement to me. It’s called Organifi.

Huh?

He sent me a link and I got some. But if someone had said, “You ought to get some Organifi…”

Which is a better contact lens brand?

SofLens…? Or Polycon?

Clarity…? Or Paragon?

Descriptive.

I have a brand of reading glasses called Peepers. Cute, clever brand.

There is an exact method of surveying for a name/brand for your product or service. We have conducted naming surveys for a wide variety of products and services.

A naming survey, particularly for a new product or service, can make a world of difference in the acceptance and want of the product.

Naming surveys are fast and quite reasonable.

If you are launching a new product or service, or perhaps are thinking about renaming one that you have, give us a call and I can let you know cost and timing.

Of course, to really boom your sales and income, we should also survey your products for buttons and positioning.

“On Target Research is fantastic. Their ability to extract relevant and powerful data from C-level executives (top execs) is remarkable. In a short period of time we were able to get profound insight into the hearts and minds of our potential clients. Their research is invaluable for all of our marketing, branding and sales initiatives.”     MA – President, Asperion, Inc. 

            ———–

“I can’t say enough how delighted I am with the result.  You and your team do a fabulous job. I really do like the positioning.  It fits exactly with what we ourselves know to be true about our brand and to have it concisely stated is exactly what we need.”  AS – Owner

———–

“[Before On Target]…I was only seeing 40 to 50 new patients a month.  After On Target… we have averaged over 100 new patients a month with a high of 132 (with a 50% raise in income).”     MB – DDS 

Marketing, advertising and PR should all be based on surveys. Omitting this vital step means you are taking a buzz saw to your own income stream.

Call us. We deliver surveys that drive sales.

Best,

Bruce

Bruce Wiseman
President & CEO
On Target Research
ontargetresearch.com
Br***@br**********.net
1-818-397-1401