Turn to the person sitting next to you and ask them – If this company were a person, what would he/she be like?  What car would they drive?  What style of clothes would they wear.  It’s a classic projective/enabling technique which researchers use a lot.  But not many people do it internally.  Hold a focus group inside your own company; or send everyone an email to get their opinion.  It’s surprising what you find out.

Q:  I’d like to do some research, but I haven’t got much of a budget

Research does cost money, there’s no getting away from that. Good research often costs more than badly conceived or executed research, because of the quality and effort put into recruiting the right people, ensuring we do not listen a load of ‘professional respondents’ or a bunch of the recruiter’s friends. However, there are ways of cutting the costs, and we are always happy to think creatively about less expensive ways of providing quality and useful research.