Stage 1 · Discover

Frontline

Understand the customer and capture the opportunity.

Status: Pilot preparation. Being prepared for a small private pilot.

The problem

Most of what a seller learns about a customer lives in their head, a notebook or a text thread. By the time a solution is designed, the reasons behind the request have thinned out.

The person who heard the customer is often not the person who designs, prices or presents the answer. Context can get lost between hand-offs.

Inputs and outputs

Goes in

  • Conversation notes, in the operator's own words
  • Who the customer is and who decides
  • What they use today and what is not working
  • Requirements, constraints and timing

Comes out

  • A clear working account record
  • Confirmed requirements, assumptions and open questions kept distinct
  • Agreed next steps with owners and dates
  • An opportunity ready to be designed

How the work moves

  1. Listen

    Capture the conversation while it is fresh, without forcing it into a form first.

  2. Organize

    Sort what was said into context, requirements and open questions.

  3. Confirm

    Check the summary against what the customer actually said, and mark what is still a guess.

  4. Plan

    Set the next steps, and decide whether there is a real opportunity to carry forward.

An example

Fictional example. The company, people and details are invented to show the shape of the work.

A seller visits Harbor Line Studio, a fictional 40-person design firm moving to a second floor. The office manager mentions slow printing, a scanner nobody trusts, and a lease ending in the spring.

In Frontline the seller records those points, notes that the office manager recommends but the managing partner decides, and marks the scanner volume as an assumption to confirm. The next step is a short walk-through of both floors.

Where a person decides

The operator decides what is true about the customer. Frontline is designed to organize notes and point out gaps, not to supply facts or contact anyone on its own.

Assumptions stay labeled as assumptions until a person confirms them.

What it hands on

The intended next step is a confirmed picture of the customer's needs, with the open questions, ready for solution design. The four programs are at different stages; this describes the intended workflow, not a live integration.

Discuss your workflow

Tell us where the work slows down between the first conversation and the customer's decision.

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