Fresh Perspective

Recall that:

"Dormant problems are those of which your customers are not aware, and to which they will be oblivious until you present them with a new way of doing things."

Not only do customers suffer from an inability to recognize dormant problems, industry experts are often unaware of them as well. An industry expert typically is entrenched in existing ways of doing things, and therefore can easily be the victim of tunnel vision.

If you are an executive who believes that your company has all of the industry expertise it needs in-house, think again. It may be that the fresh perspective of a product manager skilled at uncovering the needs of customers - but not necessarily possessing significant industry experience - will reveal prospect problems you never considered.

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