Adele

Marketing Research
She doesn’t have runway model looks, doesn’t dress provocatively, and has no gimmicks added to her music, says 60 Minutes reporter Anderson Cooper. However, what Adele does have, besides talent, is a grasp of business principles.

Consider: after her Grammy win several years ago, the singing sensation took a part-time job in a record shop sorting and labeling CDs. Her presence baffled fellow employees. But Adele’s seemingly odd behavior had a commonsense purpose: she wanted to learn more about music and what people were buying. Hopefully the manager/owner of the store educated his workers about market research and its value.

Today, fans are buying Adele’s records to the tune of 100,000 albums each week. And there is nothing baffling about that.

Lesson: Working in a retail location is one way to learn about latest trends and what customers are buying.