Usually about 7 participants so all members can have significant input, and emphasize applied psychology for insight mining in qualitative research

There will be a special coaching club discussion board where members can discuss the outcome between calls and help shape the next agenda.

Available Dates                Ongoing – Call for times

Energizing Class with teaching, demonstration and practice several highly evocative  exercises that I’ve proven in my own research, including…

          Marketplays ™

The story your respondents act out leads to deeper more emotional connections

Sociogram  

How to get people to literally take a stand on an issue and explain why

Brand Improvasions:

Use Method acting techniques to understand the emotional valence of your brands features and functions.

Empty Chair

Help understand the conversation consumers have with their brands!

Overtones/Undertones 

Hear and see what people are willing to say out loud as well as what they are really thinking and feeling right before your eyes.

The Looking Glass Technique™  a great way to use guided imagery for rich, robust response

Archetypal Stories how to create consumer/brand stories using the 20 Master Plots that are the

underpinnings of all literature     

TouchStones™ Brand Sensing  create brand box with – colors, textures, found objects, scent, sound, tastes to more fully dimensionalize the products and brands from the consumer sensibility

Interpretation!  Finally we will wrap up with ideas on interpreting the output!

You will leave with a number of evocative techniques to add to your tool kit, as well as  instructions for using what has been learned to create one's own unique brand of projective techniques.  The marketing community has always conceded the existence of  emotional factors which drive brand selection and loyalty imagery attached to brands goes far beyond product attributes, functional benefits and price to sell.  All products and brands develop personas in consumers' minds.

All project varying user images which differ by audience.   Members of one audience may buy a product because it makes them feel

affluent.   Members of another, which values thrift, buy a brand because it makes them feel like smart shoppers.   Consumers buy products with imagery that is either consistent with their positive view of themselves (“I’m sophisticated and therefore buy this type of wine to complete my image”) or which conveys a plausible aspirational model - something they would like to be and believe they could conceivably achieve (“I can be a real ladies’

man if I drive a sports car.”)

Perhaps the most powerful influencing factor in purchasing habits is the subtle, often-overlooked product/consumer relationship. A vital brand has a “relationship” with loyal users not unlike a healthy relationship between two people. People maintain ongoing affiliations as long as each person in a relationship feels as though the other contributes positively to his/her sense of self.

Relationships fall apart when perceived negatives begin to outweigh the rewards of the association.  For example, being coupled with a successful friend casts a positive halo onto someone who values success.

This is a four day course which has become very popular, 4 day immersion for those with experience to hone and bump up their skills. Attendees will fill out a questionnaire before hand on their wants and needs, the training will concentrate on the particular groups profile to get everyone what they really see as crucial to improve their own practices.   It covers key concerns  such as dealing with difficult people, the advanced use of projective exercises to unearth consumer motivation (note: much more breadth and depth than our intro to projectives course), practice, practice, practice with real consumers, and a primer on Remote Moderating via video conferencing where everyone, including the moderator works from their home location.

Get the client to Yes: Selling strategies that work  based on my 24 years of experience in building my $2 M+ business, and Dr Robert Cialdini’s proven Pillars of Influence

Deal with Difficult Participants: There are 7 types of respondents who come to every focus group, how to bring each of them to life and help them be cooperative, vital members of the group

Get more insights: Tools and techniques to draw out more actionable responses
Reporting Skills: learn to report on the outcomes and your revelations that will animate your clients and move them to positive action.

The use of projective techniques and other psychological exercises to unearth consumer motivation and brand imagery

• Emphasis in Moderator Boot Camp is on teaching several specific projective examples and their interpretation. Specific Techniques taught include: The Looking Glass Technique™ of guided imagery to understand Brand Imagery, Mindwalk™ for advertising creative fuel; Branimation™ exploring the consumers relationship with products/brands; Laddering from product features and functional benefits to emotional end benefits, utilizing the Livingston Model of Self Esteem for categorizing the results of Laddering and many more.

Practice, practice, practice!

Prerequisite to Moderator Boot Camp

One or both of the following is an acceptable (required) prerequisite for the Advanced

Special Edition:

• 50+ hours previous moderating experience.

• Successful completion of one of our introductory or basic courses and approval of the instructor.  

            Available Dates:              June 26th—29th    August 14th—17th

   Many ways to fit in or belong to a group, Seven to be more precise (AND Managing the front and back room according to observed personality types.

• Primitive group dynamics required that individual participants play particular roles. Some were leaders, others would follow in their own unique ways. Some would quietly hide in the background, others would loudly make their opinions known. Some would falsely admire the leaders for fear of being ostracized, others would function as peace makers trying to neutralize all conflicts before they brewed too much disruption.

• In every newly forming group, people revert to primitive defenses against expressing truly individual thoughts and behaviors, in favor of ‘belonging’ to the group. Dr. Sharon Livingston has astutely picked up on this, and formulated a method for quickly diagnosing the specific postures people might take in a group to protect themselves. After diagnosing these stances, you'll be able to understand the psychological motivations which motivate them, and, with this knowledge in hand, intervene in such a way as to allow the TRUE thoughts and feelings of each group member to emerge. The results is a more cooperative, more smoothly flowing group which has a MUCH higher probability of accomplishing its goals.

Available Dates:              Call to schedule!

Creativity Training               2 Day Seminar                 $1,995.00

In this intensive two day course, you will leave with an understanding of the parameters of creativity so that you can construct your own unique brand of effective creative ideation.

Most business professionals are familiar with the BASIC set of guidelines for creative brainstorming ... go for quantity, put all ideas on the table, encourage each other, avoid criticism, try half-baked ideas, defer judgment, etc.

What is lesser known are the secrets which allow these ideas to be put into practice ... how to provide an atmosphere conducive to creative ideation, what specific types of exercises work best to get people to defer judgment, how to deal with criticism and pre-judgment when it does arise, how to manage anxiety and energy levels in a creative ideation session,... these are the real gems which turn your everyday brainstorming session into something truly brilliant.

In this intensive two day course, you will learn all of the above and will additionally leave with an understanding of the parameters of creativity so that you can construct your own unique brand of effective creative ideation. 

 Available Dates:                          August 8th and 9th

One Day Training deals with the particular issues and stumbling blocks encountered with Doctors and Patients

Available Dates:                          TBD  call for dates

Training to be done via Audio Conference and Bulletin Board.  Conducting qualitative research is fun and exciting for most qualitative consultants.  Writing it up is often a horse of a different color.  In this ongoing class, you’ll learn how to analyze and write up your reports with greater ease and poignancy for your clients.  There will be small assignments with group interaction each week. 

Whether as a Word document or presentation format, you will learn how  to better articulate the findings in a reader friendly, succinct but complete and actionable way.

Course content and writing assignments and will be posted on an Internet Bulletin Board. 

Participants will submit their responses before the weekly telephone group meeting to discuss their approaches.

Available Dates:                             TBD call for next class start up

The Cobbler’s Children have no shoes!! We’re great at helping our clients with their marketing, but how many of us do the same for ourselves!  Re-invent yourself in your marketing arena, there are seven steps for marketing their particular brand of research

outlined here..

Develop a web site, brochure, business card(s), and a series of articles that powerfully support your USP

• Identify Your Passion ... What do you love in what you do? What parts do never tire of?

• Find Your Unique Selling  Proposition (USP): Use creative exercises to help you conceptualize Consider differences in techniques, industries, audiences, special talents

• Build Your Newsletter List & Build Value into it: Choose a method and regularly communicate with list members, providing ongoing, valuable information and services…

• Craft a Persuasive Sales Argument: Create a strategic platform to support your USP, complete with (a) reasons to believe; (b) benefits to users; (c) emotional end benefits, and then write compelling copy to tell your story 

• Develop Your Selling Skills: Study the scientific principles of influence to master your closing skills

• Do It Again & Again: Passionately selling your personal brand is an ongoing endeavor