About Chris Nelson
Background
My background prior to conducting qualitative market research includes eight years of product management experience at General Mills. There I acquired multiple years of experience identifying and evaluating marketing issues and opportunities for brands such as Betty Crocker Cake Mix, Golden Grahams and several brands of RTE cereal, all with full P/L experience.
Prior to graduate school, I worked in field sales for Johnson and Johnson Health Care Division selling products such as Band-Aid Brand® Adhesive Bandages.
I attended the University of Wisconsin and was a member of the Wisconsin Badger Men’s Hockey Team.
Experience
In his New York Times bestseller “Outliers: The Story of Success”, author Malcom Gladwell made the point it requires at least 10,000 hours of “practice” to truly master one’s craft… a number I have well surpassed. Since 1986, I have completed over 1,600 projects totaling over 30,000 hours of interviewing.
Most of these projects were for recognized industry leaders such as Coca Cola, Goodyear, Cargill, Campbell Soup, Hormel, Toro, Land O’ Lakes/Purina, multiple divisions of 3M and major ad agencies.
These projects were conducted with a wide variety of respondents from male and female consumers, professionals such as dentists, technical respondents such as food scientists/feed nutritionists, golf course superintendents, and others too numerous to list!
Ongoing Work
In addition to this new course, I am actively continuing my qualitative market research practice.
There are many important roles a moderator of qualitative market research plays for a client beginning with the planning of a potential project. The most important role, however, is conducting the actual research sessions… how questions are asked, listening to respondents, making changes as needed, managing the sessions and staying on task.
Having completed over 1,600 projects I have developed the expertise necessary to manage these sessions.
If you are in need of seasoned expertise, I invite you to connect with me here.