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HANDLING UNEXPECTED SITUATIONS (#2)
— by Art Shulman

Unexpected situations can be the bane of unprepared moderators. So in my quest to become the perfect moderator, I have been continuing the type of mental exercise I’d developed to improve my ability to handle such situations. I merely thought of what types of unexpected scenarios might arise, and then devised a way to handle them.

In the particular focus situation I conceived this day, a group of men met to discuss Christmas stockings. Usually, for security purposes, we screen out people whenever anyone in the household works in the client’s industry, market research, advertising, or professional wrestling (the latter applies to men only — for women we substitute Roller Derby). But in this particular exercise, soon after I asked each man individually to introduce himself, I realized that someone had made a boo-boo.

The first three respondents delivered their introductions uneventfully as they walked around the table, shaking each other's hand, although they all seemed to experience some pain when they shook the hand of the participant directly opposite me. He was a huge, burly, and bearded gentleman, who, when it was his turn to introduce himself, merely stood in place and gruffly announced, "I’m a professional wrestler. Go by the name Beast. Anyone got any problems with that?" He glared around the room.

"No, not me," said the tea taster.

"No, no. No problems at all," chimed in the costume designer.

"Why would I have any problems?" said the antique dealer.

And so on.

I quickly went through my inventory of ways to handle dominant respondents. First on the list — ask the hostess to slip him a sedative. But it was too late. That usually needed to be done in the waiting area before the group started, unless the session involved a beverage taste test, when it could be done unobtrusively, with the assistance of a nimble-fingered assistant.

Next option — tell him to "shut up" — in which case I might not survive to finish the group.

Then, I decided to implement the next alternative. I suggested to him, "Hey there, Beast, let’s do a little role-playing. I’d like you to pretend that you’re Bashful, the dwarf."

He replied, "Bashful, you say? I fought a guy with that name in a tag team match a couple of months ago in the Appalachians. Him and his six miner buddies. I’d have pinned them all if this albino gal hadn’t slipped me an apple before the match. Gave me food poisoning."

I made a mental note that this girl might turn out to be a good focus research assistant. If I were ever to conduct groups in the Appalachians, maybe on the subject of coal as Christmas stocking stuffers for children who had been bad…

With his rejection of the Bashful scenario, I continued down my mental list and decided to apply my knowledge of seating behavior. It’s well known that a respondent sitting directly opposite the moderator is inclined to be challenging and disruptive. It is not clear why this happens, although one market researcher with a niche in the community as a seating consultant has hypothesized that the rivalry is due to the M&M’s being equidistant between the moderator and the person at the opposite end. (Of course there isn’t always an M&M dish on the table, but the consultant insists that the conflict has, over time, been impressed into our collective memory.)

So, I asked Beast if he minded exchanging seats with the interior decorator. He had no problem with that, and sat immediately to my right, the seat that should have allied him with me.

Once we finally finished with the introductions, I told the group that today we were going to discuss Christmas stockings. Suddenly, Beast rose from his seat, growled loudly, picked up his chair, lifted it over his head, and turned toward me as if I were a competitor he wished to bash on the noggin. I did the only thing I could think of. I closed my eyes. When nothing happened after a few seconds, I opened them. To my huge relief, I saw him smash the chair against the one-way mirror.

I closed my eyes again, this time to protect my eyes from slivers — all the while imagining myself adding the resulting glazier fee to my invoice (something my client might not appreciate, given that he’d already be upset due to being confined to a hospital bed for a myriad of cuts). But, yes, miracles can happen, for the sturdy mirror did not break.

Then, as we all looked on, Beast sat back down and became tearful, confessing, "I don’t know if I can stick through this group. It’s going to be very painful."

As all eyes looked at him questioningly, he asked, "It’s about Christmas stockings, you said?"

"Yes," I confirmed.

He then explained, "Every December I apply for jobs as Santa Claus. But I’m always rejected once they find out I’m a professional wrestler. They think I’ll beat up on their kids, or something. Don’t I seem to you like I’d be a good Santa Claus?" he asked, clutching my collar.

"The very epitome of Santa," I agreed.

"You makin’ funna me?"

"No, you are the very essence of a Santa," I assured him. Then I offered, "If you let go of my collar I might have a suggestion for you."

He released my collar and I proffered my advice. "Next time, instead of telling them you’re a professional wrestler, say that normally you’re a homeless panhandler, except during December, when you accept Santa positions. That way, they’ll trust you and you’ll get hired."

When he stared at me doubtfully, I added, "Look, I’m a market research consultant. Over the years I’ve learned what sells. Where do you think most of the Santas you see around Christmas come from anyway?"

"Great idea," he finally came around.

For the rest of the session he was a pussycat, making all sorts of useful suggestions to increase sales of my client’s product, such as adding a heavy scent to give the stockings a more realistic foot odor. Or decorating the stockings with Stars of David or Buddha images and such, to attract zealots of other religions who celebrate Christmas.

Once I knew the session was running smoothly, I decided that it was okay to terminate my fantasy exercise. After I returned to reality I felt satisfied with myself for again having planned successfully for an unexpected situation that might one day arise.

Art Shulman’s company, Shulman Research, based in the Los Angeles area, has been around for over twenty-five years. In addition to qualitative research, they do a wide variety of quantitative research projects. Before starting Shulman Research, Art was Director of Research at a major advertising agency, and held positions at the Advertising Research Foundation and the Newspaper Advertising Bureau. He has a semi-regular humor column, "War Stories," in Quirk’s Marketing Research Review. Art is also known as Professor Shulman at California State University - Northridge, where he teaches in the Marketing Department. He can be reached at 818-782-4252, or emailed at artshulman@aol.com.