Whatever your market, product or niche, you are probably always searching for more information about your particular area. In my time in non-profit work, we were always looking for ways to connect with the community around us. Now, I’m a natural networker so I’m always trying to make connections. My goal here is to connect you to the resources around you. For your business or organization, more exposure means more demand, referrals and in most cases, more revenue.

What if you could do your research at little or no cost with a maximum benefit both to your company and to the researcher? If you are in a Metro area, like Dallas-Ft. Worth, there are multiple colleges, universities and vocational schools. Most of those institutions have courses in marketing, sales, business, management, etc. Most of those courses requires a student to do research to satisfy the class requirements. Make your company, your product/service and even your self available to those students for research projects. At best, a fresh set of eyes or and idealistic student may stumble across something you hadn’t recognized before. That “stumble” could potentially be a major breakthrough in your business. At a minimum, those same eyes or idealistic student confirm that you’re operating well and you can improve on your already effective practices. Either way, it’s a win for your business and a win for that student to see effective practice and how to improve business.

Take the time to contact your local college/university business professor about your business or product/service. See if allowing a student or group of students to research your business would be mutually beneficial and don’t be afraid to take a chance. It will cost you little, if anything at all, and the student will be grateful for a new spin on a research project. Even more, the outcome could open a whole new segment of the market for your business or product/service.

Take a chance and you just might be surprised what you find out. In the words of Wayne Gretzky, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

10 Feb This entry was published on February 10, 2011 at 8:10 am. It’s filed under Uncategorized and tagged business, marketing, maximizing, research. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.