William W. Young
Having completed a successful twenty-three year career as President and CEO of one of the Northwest’s largest marketing research companies (Market Trends, Inc. – Sold to Informa Research Services in 2004), Mr. Young is now sharing his marketing / marketing research knowledge, as well as management leadership and organizational skills to enhance an organization’s effectiveness in reaching their goals by overseeing their research expenditures.
What I bring to your organization
Market Research Skills: The research programs that I have worked on range from single focus group studies to large multi-national multi-language web and phone surveys all designed to increase an organization’s markets and effectiveness through better understanding of current and potential customer desires.
Marketing Abilities: As the chief architect of Market Trends’ marketing programs, I learned the importance of developing and managing a multi-tiered marketing program ranging from emails to personal visits that increased our client base from the local Seattle area to worldwide clients.
Problem Solving: Through working with clients nationwide both in and out of the public sector, I have learned to be a methodical investigator into organizations’ problems to help isolate reasons for poor performance. This work helped me design research programs and methods that cut to the core issues and helped leaders improve services.
Leadership Abilities: As President of Market Trends, I learned that to be successful you needed to roll up your sleeves, dig in, and take initiative to see that problems are addressed and marketing opportunities are not missed. I am a loner when I need to be, but I have also honed the skills to be a dynamic team leader when that role is required.
Communications Skills: For clients, I have learned to be a two-way conduit between management and their employees bringing together the desires of both groups to produce win-win situations based on solid market research data collected.
Employee Training: My communications skills extend to teaching where I have excelled in designing and administering training programs that truly changed organizational behavior.
Financial Abilities: I have run a major company in a fashion that not only produced profits, but positive cash flow even in times of economic recessions.
Jacqueline Weise
With a successful career in market research that spans thirty years, Ms Weise is now using her years of experience by providing management leadership to companies on an as needed basis.
As Executive Vice President of Market Trends and Vice President at Informa Research Services, she was instrumental in the development and growth of these organizations. She led the National Field Division, taking it from regional to national prominence. She was responsible for personnel training and development, as well as sales and marketing, and the management and administration for the Division. Ms Weise is well known in the research industry, having served as President of the Northern California/Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Marketing Research Association and is currently serving on the Past Presidents Advisory Council and as a member of the National Chapter and Membership Workgroup. She received her Professional Researchers’ Certification (PRC) at the Expert level.
What I bring to your organization
Market Research Skills: Having managed thousands of qualitative and quantitative studies in a variety of disciplines to determine public opinion and attitudes toward a variety of products and services as well as current social, political, and economic issues, I am well-versed in all phases of research using a variety of methodologies.
Vendor Relationship Management: Having worked with quality vendors throughout the world, I will be able to advise you in selecting the vendor most suited to meet your unique project needs. I can help you in the prequalification process as well as in post selection management of this important element of your research project.
Problem Solving: Since I have been there, done that, I have seen what goes right and what can go wrong with research projects. With a proactive manner, questions are asked, daily reports and monitoring is completed, and I become a partner with both the agency/owner and the vendor. Seeing both sides, and having been on both sides, helps me to jump in as needed, work through the problem, and come to a satisfactory solution.
Communication Skills: Open communication is a key in the success of the project. Through the years I have learned to keep the key players informed, providing updates, asking questions, and actively seeking answers. I have always operated on the premise of “no surprises”. I can deal with anything as long as I am kept in the loop!
Quality Assurance: I believe in pretesting every new questionnaire and screener before fielding begins to insure we are on target with our questions, soliciting valid responses. Testing is completed for bias, ambiguous phrasing, illogical progression, incomplete code selection, and programming errors. During fielding, monitoring is completed on a regular basis. I have developed a Standard Operating Procedures manual, Interviewer Training manual, and standardized training for the Managers and Supervisors to assure quality and increase efficiency and will bring that knowledge in helping you manage your project. 
|