One of my jobs is recruiting people for focus groups. In many cases the lists we recruit from are people who’ve signed up to be in our database, and we filter results for whatever age group, occupation, gender or whatever it is we’re looking for. Then we call those people and take them through a screener to see if they qualify for that particular focus group. They know how it is, and how it works.
Occasionally the focus group is about something so specific that it’s impossible to use our database, and therefore we cold call from a list of names and phone numbers. If no one answers the phone we leave a message with the company name and phone number so they can call us back. We get hung up on all the time, and people don’t call back. Why? It’s easy to understand.
We’re calling people out of the blue and saying “Hello, my name is ____ and I’m from . We have an upcoming focus group in your area that if you qualified for and participated in, you would get paid $_ for your time and opinions…”
I’m sure they think it’s a scam, who wouldn’t? But it’s not a scam. We’re a large, established company, we really do recruit for focus groups, and people really do get paid for their participation. I did focus groups for years and it was a great way to make extra money. I can’t do it anymore of course, but it was fun when I could.
Most people don’t even seem to know what a “focus group” is! I have to explain dozens of times a day. Bad enough someone calls you out of the blue and offers you money. SCAM! But when you don’t even know what the thing is they’re offering you money for. BIG SCAM!
But it’s not, it’s for real.
What other things seem too good to be true, but are?
laugh. Any food that tastes good is too good to be true. Oh, and the Internet. Or just about everything in that other Things you could take for granted, but don’t thread.
Oh and I’ll pitch one in on-topic: the SCORE network. Unlimited free small-business counseling from entrepreneurs and small business owners who have been there, done that. Truly an astounding resource.
/total aside
Hey, speaking of research how do I get in on this focus group thing? I’ve been offering to guinea-pig for biomedical stuff ever since I moved here, but they only call me up once every five years or so and I never qualify for the studies :(. Is there something I should look for in the phone book to find a company that runs focus groups to get on their mailing list?
What is this “phone book” that you speak of? They have this thing called the “Internet” nowadays…
Where do you live? The first thing is to find your nearest offices of companies that do market research/focus groups. Here’s one list for the Chicago area (and beyond). Sign up with all the ones you can find. You do have to give them a lot of initial information because that’s how they find people, by querying a database. We also recruit people through Craigslist and Facebook.
I don’t know anything about this web site, but it’ll give you an idea of the different types of focus groups that companies need people for.
Don’t get frustrated if you are called and go through a screener and then aren’t picked. It happens all the time. It could happen several times. For every focus group I did, I got called to go through a screener dozens of times. Now that I’m on the other side I understand. I had one guy the other day hang up on me saying “You people never choose me!” and I felt bad, but I can’t bend rules or make the client change their criteria. The companies that put on focus groups are looking for something very specific. One group might need women in a specific age group who have children under 5. Another might need young men who drink a certain kind of beer so many times in a month. Another might need kids who eat a certain snack at least 3 times a week. Sometimes it gets very very VERY specific and those are really hard. Right now we’re looking for women between the ages 60-75 who’ve been diagnosed with osteoporosis and take a specific drug to participate in focus groups in 4 cities. You’d think it’d be easy? No way. We can’t buy lists of names from doctors or pharmacists of course, so we have to cold call people. Thousands and thousands of people. Just to fill a few dozen focus group spots.
My friend once land a job which is essentially checking up the customer service for various resturants and service-based outlets, such as jewellry shops and etc. He gets a refund for whatever he eats or buys (up to a certain cap, though).
Hey, thanks for the good info!
Yeah, I do imagine you get a lot of incredulity… “oh sure, you want to give me FREE MONEY for JUST A FEW MINUTES of my time?! Uh huh” <click>
