Why Decision Speed Determines Product Success Decision speed is the time it takes your customers to go from initial awareness to enthusiastic full use and recommendation of your product or service. This in turn is governed by the simplicity, ease, and sometimes the fun of the decision process. Obviously, the company that makes its products easier to decide on will acquire customers faster and increase market share faster. But increased decision speed causes much larger changes in market share than might be obvious. In fact, it's the key to dominating your market.
Accelerated decisions are in a different class from other marketing program adjustments.
Why Speed Equals Multiplied Sales Suppose there are five similar products competing in a new category. All things being equal, they will each eventually capture a 20 percent market share. Say the decision cycle time for these products is about one year. Obviously, if your product achieves its expected one-year market share in six months, it will have effectively doubled the market window of opportunity, giving you the time and resources to capture another 20 percent market share in the remaining six months. This would give your product a 40 percent share at year's end, with the four other competitors sharing the remainder, at 15 percent each.