Focus groups are normally conducted in a professional facility designed for this purpose, and the selection of the focus group facility is very important. There are hundreds of alternatives listed in the Market Research Association Blue Book, and they can also be found in other sources, such as trade magazines and under Market Research in the Yellow Pages. Facilities vary considerably in appearance and in their ability to effectively recruit the number and type of respondents required. It is a real waste of time and money if half of the respondents are no-shows or do not meet the requirements of the screening questionnaire. These things happen often enough that you should check references carefully before hiring a facility to host your focus groups.
A key function of the focus group facility will be to recruit your respondents for you. The facility’s staff will call potential respondents on the telephone and use your screening questionnaire. To ensure that eight people will show up, you should recruit twelve. The facility will normally use lists from its database that represent the general types of respondents you are looking for. If you have particular needs (such as customer lists), you may provide this information to the facility.