For your product to sustain itself through the review and development process, it needs a champion, a white knight. Typically this standard-bearer will come from among those attending your first meeting. This is the person who will be representing your product as it passes from review to review. This is a process that can resemble a flight through the Danzig Corridor at night being tracked by enemy radar and dodging triple-A fire.

It will be the responsibility of this executive to keep you up-to-date on the progress of review. Try to get a schedule. No manufacturer should be allowed an open-ended time frame. Parameters need to be set before you leave the meeting.

Schedules slip, however, and things may not fire off on time. Each case is different, of course, so use your best judgment to determine when it is time to pull the plug if things start dragging. I am typically guided by how the product is moving along through the internal system. If I get a sense that it is sitting in a closet, I’ll ask for it. One thing you can be assured is that no manufacturer will send something back that it is sold on. If your product comes back, it means there is no constituency for it.