All the smart people use focus groups,
right? Well, except for Donald Trump.
Several decades in the retail car biz
made me a cynic about focus groups. We would get called into training sessions
where the car company “suits” would waste our oxygen going over the results of
their latest focus groups. Since I met only two or three “suits” I would have
hired for my crew I didn’t spend a lot of mental energy on their presentations.
One mean, nasty, rude and graceless
manager I worked for was also the one I made the most money with.
In the sales process, the salesperson
makes a presentation to the customer then returns to the “tower” (the back and
forth customers “hate). The exchange would go like this.
“Boss, the customer wants, blah, blah,
blah……”
Kinsman, “I don’t give a fuck what the
customer WANTS. Find out what the fuckers will DO.”
Therein is the weakness of focus groups.
They are “wish” forums. And, as Art
Kinsman would say, “Wish in one hand and shit in the other. See which one fills
first”.
So along comes Trump (see, I do get to a
point) who ignores the whole industry of tea leaf readers and their
sophisticated tools and goes for the throat.
“Hey, American public, what will you do
right now”? Kinsman would have loved him.
