The Value Path with Joshua Oakes Ep. 13: The Adopter Stage - Part 2

Two weeks ago, Joshua Oakes and I opened up the Adopter stage of the Value Path — the sixth stage, "I Realize Your Value," and the most under-tracked moment in the entire customer journey. We spent Part 1 establishing why the stage even needs a name: because the language we inherited — onboarding, implementation, maintenance, managed services — quietly trains us to treat adoption as a finish line instead of the place where value actually gets made real. Part 2 gets tactical. This is the "here's a thing you can do" episode the show has been building toward. We move from the philosophy of the Adopter stage into the specific moves that separate great execution from the status call that gives an hour back and calls it a win. The center of gravity is one deceptively simple skill: hearing a closed door and choosing to knock on it. When a stakeholder says "yeah, people are using the workflows, it's looking good" — that is a complete sentence and a dead end at the same time. In Part 2, we unpack the questions that open it, the signals to listen for (expansion exploration, advanced-capability access, success amplification, optimization partnership), and the way value realization travels two degrees out to the stakeholder you're not even on the call with. #valuepath #adopter #valuefirst