customer-commitment-validation

Customer Commitment Validation

Use this skill after a product, sales, partnership, investor, or customer conversation where the team needs to decide whether the meeting created real progress. The core test is what the other person gave up: time, reputation, or money.

Source Traceability

Primary source: The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick, especially chapters 5 and 8. Guidance is paraphrased for this MIT repo; authoring notes used converted EPUB lines 2365-2790 and 3613-4108.

Commitment Currencies

Currency	Examples	Signal Strength
Time	Scheduled next meeting with goals, trial setup work, real feedback session	Medium
Reputation	Intro to a decision maker, internal championing, public case study	Medium to high
Money	Deposit, preorder, paid pilot, purchase order, signed letter of intent	High

Compliments, vague "keep me posted" replies, and future-tense buying promises are not commitments.

An advancement must move the real-world funnel to a specific next decision or action. A next step without an owner, date, or customer-side effort is usually weak interest.

Review Workflow

1. Restate the meeting context and what the team hoped would happen next.
2. Classify the outcome as commitment, advancement, rejection, weak interest, or bad data.
3. Identify what the other person gave up, if anything.
4. If the outcome is fuzzy, propose a concrete next ask that creates a decision.
5. If there was rejection, preserve the learning and decide whether it changes the product, segment, positioning, or sales path.
6. If there was commitment, define the owner, date, success criteria, and follow up.

Outcome Classification

Outcome	Meaning	Action
Commitment	They gave up time, reputation, or money	Track and follow through
Advancement	They moved the real-world funnel forward	Confirm next step details
Rejection	They declined a concrete ask	Learn and update assumptions
Weak interest	They were friendly but gave up nothing	Ask for a concrete next step or stop counting it
Bad data	Outcome is only compliments or future hypotheticals	Return to evidence or commitment

Output Format

# Commitment Review

## Meeting
- Person/company:
- Context:
- Stage:

## Outcome
- Classification, evidence, currency given up:

## Interpretation
- What this proves / does not prove:
- Risks, missing decision makers, approval path:

## Next Ask
[A concrete ask that creates advancement or rejection.]

## Follow-Up
- Owner, deadline, success criteria:

Workflow

Use workflows/classify-meeting-outcome.md when the user provides notes, transcripts, CRM entries, or a narrative of how a meeting ended.

Quality Bar

• Do not call a meeting successful because it felt positive.
• Do not count a lead as real until they had a chance to reject a concrete ask.
• Do not overvalue free trials that cost the customer nothing.
• Do not ignore missing decision makers or approval paths.
• Treat rejection as useful evidence, not as failure.