Meet Naomi Kim Nelson

Founder & Customer Progression Strategist, Clear Path Studio

Before this was a methodology, it was just how I paid attention.

Hi, I’m Naomi. I help businesses solve one specific problem: marketing that generates leads but not enough customers.

That problem isn’t new to me. I’ve watched it play out from three different sides—as a clinician trained to notice what people don’t say out loud; as a business owner who lived and re-lived it every day at the front counter; and as an organizer who had to earn trust door by door, with no brand and no ad budget to do it for me. Clear Path Studio is what happens when you run those three lenses on the same question: Why does someone actually decide to move forward—and what makes them stall?

I trained to notice what people don’t say out loud.

Before marketing, I worked as an occupational therapy assistant. That job is built entirely around reading what’s underneath the surface—where someone is hesitating, what’s actually holding them back physically or mentally, and what small adjustment moves them forward. You learn fast that people rarely announce their real objection. They say “I’ll think about it” when what they mean is something much more specific.

That habit never left. It’s the same skill I now use to figure out why a lead goes quiet or a longtime customer drifts away — the reason is almost never the one stated out loud.

I built and ran my own salon—so I’ve lived this problem, not just studied it.

For years, I owned and operated a salon in San Diego. I wasn’t consulting from the outside; I was the one at the front desk when a client hesitated, the one who noticed which regulars quietly stopped booking, and the one who had to figure out—in real time, with no playbook—what actually kept people coming back.

That’s where Customer Progression started, long before it had a name. I could see the exact moments where a lead would stall or a loyal customer would drift, and I could feel how much revenue was sitting in that gap between “interested” and “committed.” Clear Path Studio’s BUY, STAY, RETURN framework isn’t a theory I read about—it’s the pattern I lived, stage by stage, behind my own counter.

I learned persuasion the hard way—through community organizing.

Alongside building the salon, I spent years in grassroots community organizing here in San Diego. There’s no brand recognition or ad spend in that work—just conversations, one at a time, with people who have every reason not to trust you yet. You learn quickly that people move in stages, not all at once, and that the job isn’t to convince someone in a single conversation—it’s to understand exactly where they are and what they need to take the next step.

That’s the same principle behind everything Clear Path Studio does. Whether it’s a lead comparing options or a neighbor deciding whether to get involved, the psychology of moving someone forward doesn’t change.

Why Clear Path Studio exists

I started Clear Path Studio because I kept seeing the same gap, business after business: strong marketing that brings people in, and no clear map for what happens between that first lead and a loyal, returning customer. Most businesses fill that gap by hiring more people or spending more on ads — without ever finding out where the path itself is breaking down.

Through Customer Intelligence, Customer Progression (CPCP), and Marketing Pathways, I bring together everything I’ve learned—reading what people don’t say, living the problem firsthand, and earning trust one stage at a time—into a clear, repeatable path your team can actually follow.

Meet Jeremy Nelson

Founder, Deliberate Decision Making & COMPRA Customer Intelligence

The decision science behind Clear Path Studio’s Customer Intelligence.

Clear Path Studio’s Customer Intelligence work is built alongside Jeremy Nelson—founder of Deliberate Decision Making and creator of COMPRA, a customer intelligence framework grounded in the neuroscience of how people actually decide to buy, stay, or leave.

A physical therapist first.

Jeremy spent nearly 27 years as a licensed physical therapist, trained at Loma Linda University. That’s not a detour from decision science — it’s where his understanding of it started. Rehab is a field built entirely around readiness: a patient can know exactly what they need to do and still not be ready to do it. Jeremy spent his career learning to recognize that gap—between knowing and deciding—and helping people move through it.

From patient decisions to customer decisions.

That same question: why does someone stall when they already know what they should do? — is what led Jeremy to found Deliberate Decision Making (DDM). DDM applies neuroscience-based decision-readiness tools to the moments where people get stuck: overthinking, second-guessing, and delaying a choice that matters.

Out of that work came COMPRA — DDM’s customer intelligence framework, built specifically around why customers buy from a business, stay with it, or leave it. Instead of guessing based on demographics or segments, COMPRA works from real decision timelines: what actually happened, step by step, in the moments before someone decided.

Why we’re working together.

Clear Path Studio’s Customer Progression framework and COMPRA start from the same core belief—that growth isn’t about convincing people harder; it’s about understanding exactly where they are in their own decision and what they need next. Jeremy and Naomi are now working together to bring COMPRA’s decision-science rigor directly into Clear Path Studio’s Customer Intelligence offering, strengthening the research behind why your leads and customers move—or stall.

The result: an even more precise picture of what’s actually happening beneath your numbers, backed by a framework built specifically to study how people decide to buy, stay, or return.

Learn more about Jeremy’s work at Deliberate Decision Making.