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You fill in a short brief
Tell us what you sell, who it is for, any competitors or examples, and where you think your customers talk. It takes a few minutes.
Ask Before You Build
Customer research that used to cost thousands, done for you in 48 hours on working days for £97.
A 5 to 8 page report, in your customers' own words, with a short note from Robert on what he would do next. Delivery is within 48 hours on working days (Monday to Friday, UK).
The first five buyers pay £97. After that, the price is £150.
The problem
It is easy to invent a product, write a sales page and choose a price from inside your own head. The customers are already talking — on Reddit, on YouTube, in reviews and on forums — about the problem, the phrases they trust, the objections that stop them, and what they will and will not pay.
The expensive mistake is to build first and listen later. This report exists so you do the plain thing first: ask.
What you get
Not a slide deck of opinions. A short, usable document built from real comments, with the wording left intact.
How it works
Tell us what you sell, who it is for, any competitors or examples, and where you think your customers talk. It takes a few minutes.
We listen on Reddit, YouTube, reviews and forums — the places people already tell the truth, often more plainly than they will tell a salesperson.
The top problems, the exact phrases, the objections and the price signals. Vendor pitches are set aside. The customers' words are kept.
He reads the findings and writes a “what I’d do next” note — plain advice, not a lecture, from someone who has both followed this rule and paid dearly for ignoring it.
A 5 to 8 page report, ready to use on a sales page, an offer, or a decision you were about to make too soon. The 48 hours run Monday to Friday, UK time, and do not run over the weekend.
A good fit, or not
Behind Merchants Virtual
Robert Daubigny is 76. In 1981 he founded Programmes Ltd, Europe's first telephone marketing company, in north-west London, with little money. It grew into The Merchants Group, which employed more than a thousand people. He designed First Direct for Midland Bank, the UK's first 24-hour telephone bank, and the work collected more than forty national and international awards. In 1996 the group was sold to Dimension Data for about £50 million.
Then came what he still talks about openly: he lost millions in manufacturing, after he stopped following his own rules. Past success protects no one. The rule he ignored is the name of this offer. Ask before you build.
He is building again. Merchants Virtual helps smaller firms do the plain things that used to belong only to large companies — and, with this report, to hear their customers before they spend money they do not need to spend.
Questions
We will tell you within 24 hours and refund you in full. Some ideas are discussed constantly; some are almost silent in public. We will not invent comments to fill a report.
A 5 to 8 page report: the top problems in customers' own words, phrases to use and avoid, objections, price signals, five headlines, five social hooks, and a short “what I’d do next” note from Robert. It is sent to the email you give us in the brief.
Within 48 hours on working days (Monday to Friday, UK) of receiving your completed brief. If we cannot find enough material, you will hear from us within 24 hours and you will have your money back.
The 48 hours run Monday to Friday, UK time. They do not run over the weekend. A brief received on a Friday is delivered by Tuesday.
Reddit, YouTube, reviews and forums — wherever we can find real, public comments about your kind of customer and problem. We do not present vendor advertisements as customer research.
No. The report uses short, attributed quotations from public sources, and it will say when the evidence is thin. This sales page does not invent client names, results or reviews either.
No. It is a listening exercise: a practical reading of what people are already saying in public. It will not give you a market size, a survey sample or a promise of sales.
Merchants Virtual, the UK sole trader business of Robert Daubigny. The business is not VAT registered. You can write to robert@merchantsvirtual.org, or to Glebe Corner, St Martins, Stamford, PE9 2LS.
Guarantee
If there is not enough real online conversation for your niche, we will tell you within 24 hours of your brief and refund you in full. We would rather send your money back than send you a thin report dressed up as research.