Incidence of Exact Levelling-Off Point 'Knee'

It should be a fairly common occurrence for a solution salesperson to graph out a picture of hopeful improvement.

Blanket coronavirus coverage at present keenly focuses on ‘levelling-off”.

When will the peak be reached? And then passed?

The exact place you hit this plateau point during the so-called ‘incidence’ has I feel much relevance to us solution sellers. Specifically where an abrupt reversal is not expected and ‘change’ will then provide a managed drop.

It shows our prospect when they can hope to see an improvement from any runaway negative situation rising no longer.

Not quite a point of inflection. As that’s where a line changes from one curve to the next, as opposed to straightening.

An analogy from nature could be when you put a stick in water. It appears to flatten away from you. The optics of refraction at play. From the precise point of the liquid’s surface.

I have though graphically seen it referred to as the ‘knee’.

I’ve tried to represent these ideas in my whiteboard, flipchart or even fresh page of your notebook scribble on the above demo image. Using a standard tablet drawing app.

Your prospect’s line could be showing all manner of unpleasantries. Defects within a system, resource being haemorrhaged somewhere, even a touch creatively their fall of market share.

I consulted a mathematically qualified friend of mine to see if this precise point has a name.

One may well not be forthcoming.

In epidemiology, experts might refer to the trap or critical angle. Again, like our twig in a stream where refraction makes it look like the image flips a bit. The trap angle also a feature of returning spacecraft not wishing to bounce off Earth’s atmosphere.

Biology and chemistry may provide another view. Their concepts of saturation. When a population’s growth reaches the limits of its environment’s resource leading to an S-curve. When a solution can no longer dissolve something.

So perhaps we could rather make our own?

I note the Latin verb, insidere, may be a useful root. Meaning to sit/settle on; to occupy/seize; to hold (position); to penetrate; to sink in; to merge into. (The present tense conjugates; insido, insidis, insidit, insidimus, insiditis, insidunt.) So perhaps we could ascribe the label insidus to this hallowed point?

Then better still, where you seek to be allowed to unleash such levelling-off to help your prospect, make up your own term for when this begins. One with resonance for them and their language. Getting them to also coin it (with your assistance) would be wonderful.

There’s an added bonus of ‘owning’ your prospect’s path to improvement in this way. Not only do you, uniquely, introduce the concept of when this plateauing begins, you can shape how they might both target and react to it.

Another plus; you can begin serious talk of implementation here.

In the present viral pandemic, entering the plateau phase of incidence seems to see infection numbers bounce around. Surely this is not the time to relax. What must they focus on at such testing stage to ensure their project will still go on to enjoy the desired downward direction of incidence?

A proposal appropriate for inclusion of this element feels like a winning one.