"Brand loyalty is really just a polished turd version of 'consumer whore'"

The subject line is in quotes because it’s something someone actually said in response to a survey I conducted a few years ago.

I used the term “brand loyalty” in the question and – realizing how out of touch I sounded – pledged to never use marketing jargon in a survey again.

Today, I rely on a method for not just removing jargon but ensuring useful results, because the problem isn’t just sarcastic remarks about “polished turds” but uninformative responses – the kind that add zero value and leave you no closer to what you’re trying to do.

Maybe you’ve been there.

You do a survey, you get the results, and then you scroll through the spreadsheet like a chef tasked with making a gourmet meal with a single can of beans.

It’s not fun.

The good news is that my "method" can help you avoid these situations.

I call it the “IRL” test.

What you do is take a survey question you’re working on and ask a friend from outside work the question. If your friend does not react by wondering why you temporarily turned into a marketing “buzzword guy,” the question passes the test.

“What was your primary reason for purchasing today?”

With the “IRL” test this post-checkout question becomes:

“Why’d you buy?”

A great feature of the "IRL" test is that it eliminates virtually every survey question you'd find in a free template or on Survey Monkey, thereby saving you a spreadsheet full of unusable garbage.

It also helps to reveal the subtle influence work has on how we speak by getting you to think outside your professional box. Brand loyalty is a polished turd version of “consumer whore” and the “IRL” test would have revealed about as much.

My Roasts focus on this exact problem – trimming the jargon, taking context into account, and editing questions so they sound like something a person would actually say amongst friends.

If you’ve ever struggled to write questions that don’t sound like they were written by some detached analytical nerd, then consider booking one.

Just click the link below, we’ll fix your survey, and I’ll tell you what else the “consumer whore” guy said.

https://www.sammcnerney.com/45-dollar-survey-roast

Sam