Make Money from Telling Lies on The Internet! Part 2

Money Talks
Ok let's think about this before going further. Lets imagine that you work for the luxury car company Lexus in the design department, your job is to design the hotest most funky car dashboard the automotive industry has ever seen. Lexus are really up for this, they are really going to pimp this car. Your going to see it all over the TV, your going to see pictures of it in magazines and newspapers its going to be all over the place, all based on your cutting edge dashboard designs. Whose design opinion do you want before you spank all that cash? Some unemployed bum who would most likely be thrown out of a showroom for looking at the cars funny or a well to do company director earning £100K+ a year? How many company directors are filling out online surveys for a pound a time? You with me? - Big dogs get the big bones! They might even let you have a spin, and when the unemployed bum turns up - haha, too late - 'wassup suckers!'

Now let's imagine you've just invented the coolest washing powder in the world, you've got your operations nailed, you can produce this washing powder for 1/2 the price of the competition. The question you need answered is not who will want to buy this? It's a fair guess everyone will, the questions are how? how quick? and at what price? You will want to talk to the unemployed bum and the company director. The point is the company director will be invited to both, the bum just the 2nd.

No Journalists, Advertisers, Marketeers
Almost every time, without fail one of the 1st questions you will be asked when starting any new survey is something along the lines of:
"Are you, a member of your family or any close friends:

a) A journalist?
b) In advertising?
c) In Marketing
d) In some industry related to the topic of this survey (BIG CLUE - Take Note for later!)"

Correct answer: e) 'No'

I like to mix things up a bit (you know, lie, close my eyes, click randomly) when I'm answering questions so in the early days I have answered yes to these - guarantees immediate explusion ' do not pass go, do not collect £200 :( If you are in any of these industries either change jobs or lie. Also don't be fooled into thinking that answering yes to 'd)' will help either, it wont.

Loopholes Baby!
I love loopholes and in the survey business (can't believe I just said that - what a tool) there is one great big one that you must exploit. This exploit is based on the fact that the company who actually wants the results i.e. the guys who are ultimately paying your bill, don't really trust the survey company or they don't care about wasting peoples time or both. Almost every survey I have done has re-qualified even the most basic of information, Are you 'Male/Female/Both/Don't know' are you '18-25/25-30/30-35/Don't Know' etc etc Which leaves you plenty of room for shall we say 'creativity'? Like a cheap hooker 'I will be whomever you want me to be if you got the money baby' haha. 'Now I'll lie my fine lil arse off', (ahem, sorry) I've told some pretty big lies and it hasn't stopped the surveys coming though, which suggests that each survey belongs to that particular client and that client alone, not to be shared with the survey company, which I guess is the way it has to be.

Yes, Yes, Yes
The final qualifying question is usually a big one and is often sneaky with 5-20 tick boxes, something along the lines of 'do you own?', 'have you seen?' or 'have you recently purchased?': then a list of options. Here is where your judgment will need to come into play, remember these people are looking to sell things, maybe not directly to you but certainly to people like you (or whomever your pretending to be:)). You've probably got an idea of whose asking the questions by now from question one earlier (see no journalists, advertisers, marketeers above) you now need to decide by the phrasing of the question what they want to hear. Make your decision and stick to it, ticking every box usually ensures that your either very right (75%) or very wrong (25%). In the early days I answered honestly and kicked myself knowing that if I would have ticked every box I would have gone through, nothing worse then being half right/wrong, and in this game it seems, honest.

I guess the lessons I've learnt are:
1) The initial profile you make for the survey company will decide (very broadly) what surveys you get invited to, make sure what you do for a living, what you earn, how you live etc is optimized to get as many worthwhile survey invites as possible (Don't lie too much, at least give the right name and address - you want to get your cheques!). Remember a millionaire still buys toilet paper and eats, sleeps, craps, shaves just like the rest of us, as far as I can see you won't be excluded from having too much money. But also remember that no-one gives a monkey's what you think if you ain't got any, especially marketing types who are asking the questions. Harsh but true.
2) The initial 3-5 questions of the individual surveys will decide if you make the dough or not, in those 3-5 questions, read between the lines, they will tell you exactly what they want to hear, might as well tell them just that. Once the initial questions have been answered cruise on home, make a cup of tea, get the cat to walk across the keyboard, see if you're toddler wants to 'play computer' :). money's in the bag!

Happy trails!

PS: Please also drop me a line with any decent sites and I will put them up on this blog. 1) Must be free to join 2) Must be non-spammy.

The list of decent online survey companies that I've discussed is below:

(1) Campden & Chorleywood Food Research Association Group:
(2) Ciao! Shopping Intelligence:
(3) Global Test Market:
(4) Great UK Survey
(5) Home of Research
(6) IPSOS
(7) It's Your View
(8) Juicy Brains Panel
(9) Light Speed Research
(10) Mobile Panel
(11) Survey Savvy:
(12) Synovate
(13) Toluna
(14) Valued Opinions
(15) YouGov