Once managers experience this Standard of Performance, they never slide back.

Decisive Path leads organizations to be in business in the right way by creating a system for engineering, marketing, and business units to arrive at a consensus on the opportunity at hand and what it takes to develop it based on the best information available.

We achieve success by leading development and business teams through a disciplined process of customer interaction early in the development of new products and markets. We set a clear, high standard of performance which results in consensus identification of bull's-eye product feature sets and a quick ramp up of revenues, OR early identification of projects with little business promise. Once success is experienced, leading managers adopt these standards and techniques for their future efforts.

Here is our proven methodology:

1. Assemble your product and business team -- not just marketing or sales people, but also those responsible for the design and business success of the project.
2. Identify your product's likely (or existing) functionality and features, likely customers, and likely competitors.
3. Meet with target market customers across market segments in the right way.
4. As a team, digest what is learned and take corrective action.
5. Refine your target market hypothesis.
6. Keep doing this until you are learning nothing new (you can size and scale the business) or you don't want to hear anymore (shut down this project).

This is a straightforward, proven process that few companies employ who do not have managers who have experienced the power of this approach first-hand. Engineering especially is quick to adopt this methodology. They see that design and business decisions are made based on empirical evidence from prospective customers rather than marathon internal discussions about what everyone thinks the customer will buy.

Typical Projects

• Product & market development for new products and/or new markets,
• Sales start-ups or restarts

Product & Market Introduction Program

Too often, products are designed with too little of the right communication with prospective customers. There are a number of reasons for this critical oversight, but the primary one is that few have experienced the power of getting the design and business team out in the field in front of the future users and procurers of the product.

Our program leads your team on a rigorous, disciplined process that iterates around waves of customer meetings. These meetings are sales meetings with some important modifications and occur at any time, the earlier the better, in the product development cycle.

It is not unusual that within a few weeks, your engineers are championing design changes they previously argued against. A major difference is their robust experience with serious prospective customers and their participation in consensus development of what needs to be done.

Within a 6-10 weeks, you have the business case nailed for your new product, initial customers readying purchase orders, and clear expectations for managers and field personnel on who to call, what to ask, what to present, and how to close.

Significantly, your engineering and business teams want to do it again for the next product under development. Engagements are customized based on your specific needs and the specific phase of your product and market development.

Sales Start-Up Program

Ramping up sales or restarting sales for a new or existing product is one of our focal areas. As with most of our engagements, the primary efforts focus on preparing and leading the right team into the field to present the product to prospective customers in the target market.

This program is designed for products ready to ship or otherwise past the stage of influencing version 1.0. However, we still involve some members of the development team to understand what the next version of the product might need to be.

As with all engagements, Decisive Path maintains a keen sensitivity to market segmentation, the prospecting script, objections, and the problem your product solves.

The team approach and disciplined presentation creates fast learning within your organization so that conclusions are personal and first-hand for your key personnel. Once we find the sweet spot of the market, the basis for sales training, qualifying, prospecting, and revenue expectations are evident and packaged for rapid scale-up of your sales force.

Decisive Path designs engagements based on your specific needs, but all engagements typically center on developing relationships with user teams and procurement teams within your bull's-eye customer prospects.