Eric Wiedenmann, President

Market Development Group Inc.

Validating or determining an accurate or realistic market size potential for your product or service is critical to the success of any business venture. An accurate or realistic market size and growth determination is required to allocate the money, time and human capital needed to achieve your sales and profit goals.

Market size validation can be achieved through both secondary and primary data gathering goals.

Sources of Information

Some of the more standard sources of secondary data gathering are business publications, such as:

• The Wall Street Journal
• Fortune Magazine
• Business Week
• Forbes

Trade associations such as The National Resource Association and The National Association of Home Builders are very useful. The U.S. Department of Commerce is also a good source. You can also Google keywords and find data online.

Unfortunately, secondary sources of market data may be too “global� or generic and outdated. As a result, secondary data almost always misses the market, which could result in missed market opportunities, wasted resources, cost profits and jobs.

Primary Data Gathering

Gathering primary data for market size validation is your "stealth weapon" for winning the market wars. Primary data is found by Voice of Customer Surveys, competitive data gathering, and interviews with market channel opinion leaders, etc.

MDG has never met a market it could not quantify or validate. Market size validation is a core competency of MDG.

If you would like to learn more about how primary data can increase your competitive advantage through accurate market size validation, call Eric Wiedenmann at (925) 648-0680.

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Eric W. Wiedenmann has held executive marketing and business development positions at Masco, Avery Dennison, British Petroleum and CBC Industries. He founded MDG (www.marketdevelopment.net) in 1998, which is based in Danville, California. MDG clients include Fortune 500 companies, mid-sized and startups nationwide. Mr. Wiedenmann received a B.S. in Economics and Marketing at Ashland University and an MBA from Northwestern University Kellogg Graduate School of Management. He is a lecturer at Ashland University and has published numerous articles. Mr. Wiedenmann has given business development speeches to various CEO and COO advisory groups. He lives in Danville, California with his wife, Anne, and son, William.