The Manufacturing Outlook: Specials Magazine

Most complex industrial buying decisions unfold slowly and cautiously. In regulated manufacturing markets, sales cycles stretch over months or years, buying committees grow larger, and decisions are shaped less by persuasion than by risk reduction and confidence-building. When marketing activity is misaligned with how technical and commercial buyers actually evaluate options, marketing program effectiveness is impacted. According to Dan Konstantinovsky, strategy director at RH Blake, addressing that misalignment starts with focusing on the buyer’s decision process. For more than 30 years, the firm has helped manufacturers in high-stakes, regulated markets understand how customers actually make decisions across long, nonlinear buying journeys. Rather than chasing tactics, RH Blake focuses on Voice of the Customer (VoC) research to uncover how buyers assess risk, build confidence, and move toward change. “We build growth strategies around how buyers actually make decisions, and we use that insight to guide everything that follows,” says Konstantinovsky. Through that VoC work, the firm interviews manufacturers’ ideal customers, not just internal stakeholders. These conversations reveal where buyers go for information, who influences decisions, what risks matter most, and which messages help buyers feel confident rather than overwhelmed. RH Blake then pairs these external insights with the client’s internal perspective, creating a clear view of how the market actually perceives the offering. Those insights are formalized through the RH Blake Growth Roadmap™, a go-to-market framework grounded in customer reality rather than assumptions. The roadmap aligns positioning, messaging, and go-to-market strategy with buyer decision-making, prioritized customer value objectives and how their client can uniquely address them. As markets evolve, new products launch, or priorities shift, the firm builds on that foundation through continued collaboration and research, maintaining strategic continuity without locking clients into static plans. This adaptability is critical in environments defined by long, nonlinear buying journeys and conservative decision-making, where traditional funnel models are sometimes insufficient on their own. Rather than discarding buying-journey thinking altogether, RH Blake supplements it by identifying compelling events that prompt buyers to reconsider existing approaches. These include compliance changes, facility expansions, operational disruptions, or new strategic initiatives that create moments of openness to change..

Reducing waste while maintaining performance is a growing priority for industrial operators. Cold Jet addresses this challenge by converting reclaimed carbon dioxide into dry ice. The company manufactures dry ice blasting equipment for industrial cleaning and dry ice production systems for cold-chain applications. How has Cold Jet expanded the use of dry ice blasting technology across industries? Dry ice blasting was originally invented to replace hazardous methylene chloride-based coating removal in military and commercial aviation. Cold Jet advanced this technology and expanded its application across broader industries, offering an environmentally sustainable alternative to chemical, water, and abrasive cleaning methods while maintaining strict safety, efficiency, and sustainability standards. “We don’t treat sustainability as a slogan. We treat reclaimed carbon dioxide as a working industrial resource that delivers economic return while reducing risk and waste,” says Gene Cooke, owner and managing director..