Since 2009, I have been making a living working from home writing market research reports. Ask me anything you like! Where possible, I'll try and edit this post later on to reflect my answers to good/popular questions. A few Q&A type questions to get the ball rolling.

WTF do you actually do?!
There are broadly two types of jobs that form the bulk of my work which depends on the types of client I get:
(i) Research agencies want high level reports, e.g. "Retailing in Malaysia 2018" or "Oil and Gas Malaysia 2018". This involves looking for a lot of information from the press, databases, etc. and compiling them into a report. The idea is that the reader will be able to get a high level view of what Retailing in Malaysia looked like in 2018 after a quick read through of the report.

(ii) End clients have more specific requirements. For instance, a client might have a business idea, e.g. "I want to set up a cafe on the 1st floor in Cheras" and then I would might do some of the ground work to help the client decide if they want to take the idea further or not. I also get foreign clients who want to bring a product into Malaysia and want to know what the market is like, e.g. "What is the market for Korean strawberries like in the Klang Valley?" Again, it is about presenting the information to them to help them decide whether to take it further.

Are the hours flexible?
Absolutely. This is one of the pros of this line of work and exactly why I got into this gig in the first place. My clients generally do not care if I put x number of hours into their project per day, or that I must be at the desk from 9-5. What they would like to see is updates every 1-2 weeks and progress towards the end deliverable.

How do I get started in this business?
There is no great secret in getting into this business: apply! In my case, I had a friend who was in this line of work and who was exiting the business. She recommended me to Euromonitor International who tends to specialise in FMCG research. They still seem to hire freelance in-country analysts, so if you want to look for an excellent place to learn and have a look at how the business works, Euromonitor might be it. Otherwise, you might look at other market research agencies that produce reports of the same nature. Names that spring to mind include BMI Research, and the Economist Intelligence Unit. Contact them to see if there are any opportunities available.

Do I need to learn any special software to do this work?
In some cases, software helps to speed the work up but it is not necessary. For a freelancer, speed is everything (obviously the quality must be there). Faster writing means more revenue per hour. Excel skills are a must because you will end up doing quite a bit of number crunching. I have used SPSS in the past to do a lot of bulk statistical calculations but I can count the number of projects where I have needed to use SPSS on the fingers of one hand.

Most important /k question: can make 20k?
It is possible but you have to be able to work fast and work a lot. When I started this line of work, I couldn't even come close. But as I became familiar with the tools of the trade, and with what readers and editors are looking for, earnings went up. I could probably have hit the 20k per month mark but this has always been a side gig for me so I've not put in enough hours to regularly make a 20k/month income. For someone who wants to do this more diligently, it is completely possible.

But how much can you really make?
It depends on how much time you are willing/able to put into it. I have found I can make about 8k-10k per month for what is a part-time gig, i.e. 60-80 hours per month. Your mileage may vary - higher if you have some real specialist skills, lower if you're totally new to the business. I've not tried to go for the 20k per month from this job, so I'm not sure if that will really work. Going to 20k per month means (i) putting in more hours (obviously) and (ii) finding more clients. The second part arises because it's unlikely there is going to be a single client who will have enough capacity to give you 20k per month worth of work.

This post has been edited by mesothelium: Apr 10 2019, 06:06 PM

Which port are you located at?
How much for BBBJ?

What type of market research do you do and generally used for what purposes?

Are you required to carry out primary researches or mostly secondary?

This post has been edited by sembilan: Apr 10 2019, 03:17 PM

Kaki Cheongster detected oh wai

i dont understand
what exactly do you do?

What's your stock portfolio at the moment and their worth.

how does anyone become a market research? where to apply?

Market research reports? Are you by any chance under a bank's or IB's payroll? I thought the banks already have their whole research teams to do this.

how do u seperate work and vacation since everyday also work can and everyday also vacation can

Your clients are from what industries? Also SME or corporate clients?

Can you explain a bit more about market research. What exactly do you do

About 80% of my work is desk research but this is because I have set it up that way. I have a sick parent at home who needs a lot of care so that limits the amount of time I can round around conducting interviews. Most of my clients are agencies that syndicate research reports to readers so the bulk of the work involves only secondary research. I have done a few projects with heavy primary research requirements but those tend to be requested directly be end clients (more bespoke work).

I generally work with two types of clients:

(i) Research agencies who want high level reports, e.g. "Retailing in Malaysia 2018" or "Oil and Gas Malaysia 2018". This involves looking for a lot of information from the press, databases, etc. and compiling them into a report. The idea is that the reader will be able to get a high level view of what Retailing in Malaysia looked like in 2018 after a quick read through of the report.

(ii) End clients have more specific requirements. For instance, a client might have a business idea, e.g. "I want to set up a cafe on the 1st floor in Cheras" and then I would might do some of the ground work to help the client decide if they want to take the idea further or not. More often than not, I get foreign clients who want to bring a product into Malaysia and want to know what the market is like, e.g. "What is the market for Korean strawberries like in the Klang Valley?" Again, it is about presenting the information to them to help them decide whether to take it further.

Where do you get your jobs from/scan for opportunities?

is it possible for newbies to join you and learn a thing or 2? im interested to earn more actually

Nice job but tedious ones.....coz you data have to be accurate not manipulated

This is an excellent question, thanks for asking. When I started, I was not disciplined and just worked and chilled "whenever". I found that was a bit of a waste of time. I wasn't working properly and I wasn't even relaxing properly. After a while, I found it helpful to set and stick to a regular schedule. Discipline helps so that you won't be thinking of work when you're supposed to be relaxing.

Clients have come from all sorts of industries but there have been more clients from F&B and retail than others. Small enterprises don't normally look for this sort of service unless they are a part of an association. Why spend so much on research when they can just do a little experiment to test the market? That would cost much less and give them much better feedback. So, most of my work comes from medium-large enterprises.

I got into this business by luck - a friend was exiting the industry and recommended me. I've had a few jobs from LinkedIn as well and, in fact, one of my longstanding clients found me entirely randomly from LinkedIn. For more bespoke work, I found that it's good to know lawyers and accountants since they know companies who might be looking for this sort of service. But I've never done too much of that type of work, mainly because it involves a lot of business development time.

do u report ur income to LHDN?

Definitely report every single sen. It's important to maintain good quality records. In fact, I should warn anyone thinking of doing this business not to be cheeky with their taxes. You don't conduct that many transactions a month/year and it doesn't take a lot for the tax authorities to find out if you have been under-reporting your income.

how many %

qual
quanti
desk report
MSS

Thanks for sharing...

You do have an excellent command of the english language so i reckon that is extremely important in your line of work..

do you advertise your services on FB ? Do you rely mainly on recommendations from clients and how much time do you spend
a day working?