Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers

by Geoffrey A. Moore

Since, however, investment and time are two of your scarcest resources, cheaper and sooner are very desirable attributes in a target market scenario. Here’s how they play out: PARTNERS AND ALLIES: Do we already have relationships begun with the other companies needed to fulfill the whole product? If you do, it is typically from a single early-market project, or else you are just lucky. Pulling together this partnership is a major challenge for the whole product manager. DISTRIBUTION: Do we have a sales channel in place that can call on the target customer and fulfill the whole product requirements put on distribution? Calling on the line-of-business side of the house requires some fluency in the language of the target niche, and established relationships with targeted buyers and users accelerates this process dramatically. Lacking this, companies typically hire a well-connected individual out of the target industry and charter her to lead the sales force back in. PRICING: Is the price of the whole product consistent with the target customer’s budget and with the value gained by fixing the broken process? Do all the partners, including the distribution channel, get compensated sufficiently to keep their attention and loyalty? Note here that it is the whole product price, not the price of the product per se, that matters. Services will often make up as much or more of this total as product. POSITIONING: Is the company credible as a provider of products and services t...