This is a conversation between Jay Townley and Russell Wright of Theme Zoom revealing some of the most important connections between market research, keyword research and "Big Research". If you think your business is too small to benefit from survey research methods, think again.

Topics we cover in Part 1:

I just got back from a 10-day trip that started from Madison to Raleigh North Carolina and back to Madison, and right back on a plane for Los Angeles, than from LA to Seattle and back to Madison. I didn't total the mileage, which isn't as important as the 21-bike shop visits and the 6-supplier visits along the way.

Tuesday May 2 - we finished our meetings in Kent Washington and went looking for a bike shop in Renton that I had been told about last year. We drove up and were immediately impressed with the building and signage. This store would have to qualify as one of the top-ten buildings dedicated to specialty bicycle retail in the country. From what I have seen it would also rank in the top ten to twenty such buildings in the world. We walked in and were blown away! We thought the exterior was great

Sunday April 30 - another bike friendly city that actually has a bicycle named after it … Portland Oregon. I have never seen so many elevated highways and bridges all intertwined and curving around and over water in my life! However, with all this elevated concrete …
the bicycle is fully integrated into an inter-modal transportation system that is a model for whole country. We mystery shopped one of two locations we visited

Saturday April 29 - both of us mystery shopped a bike shop in what has to be one of the most bicycle friendly cities in American, Davis California. Davis is also one of the most intensely competitive bicycle shop markets in the land - with three competing bike shops within a one square-block of each other, and four more within walking distance. We went in at different times, but both were treated to a Body Scanning (OK, I'm biased), a consultative interview and a test ride on a bicycle individually fitted according to

Thursday April 27 - stopped in a bike shop in the garlic capital of the U.S. that was busy, so we didn't do a mystery shop. We were intercepted and greeted as soon as we walked in and explained that we were just visiting from out of town. After observing and tracking (following shoppers) for about 15-minutes we left - waving to the young man that had initially greeted us. We hadn't gone 10-feet when the manager came out the door behind us, and asked if we had been helped, and making sure we hadn't left without being served.