Paul Hague

Those old running shoes are my leitmotif.

I have been a market researcher all my working life – all 38 years of it. For 34 years have been running market research agencies (no pun intended). Now I am not grumbling, but this is not a business for the faint hearted. Ad hoc research is commissioned by people who want intelligence fast. Results Now! may be a better title for our company. This means that there is considerable pressure to deliver and those running shoes have helped.

Of course, I don’t don them as I speed around this country and others, meeting clients or carrying out interviews. I pull them on most mornings as I traipse around the woods and canal paths close to home, joined by Alfie, my boxer dog. This morning constitutional wakes me up, gives me thinking time and, more importantly keeps body and soul together. Those running shoes have solved many a market research problem.