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

by Geoffrey A. Moore

Turning back to the checklist, the four factors that raise showstopper issues for crossing the chasm are as follows: TARGET CUSTOMER: Is there a single, identifiable economic buyer for this offer, readily accessible to the sales channel we intend to use, and sufficiently well funded to pay the price for the whole product? In the absence of such a buyer, sales forces waste valuable time evangelizing groups of people trying to generate a sponsor. Sales cycles drag on forever, and the project can be shut down at any time. COMPELLING REASON TO BUY: Are the economic consequences sufficient to make any reasonable economic buyer anxious to fix the problem called out in the scenario? If pragmatists can live with the problem for another year, they will. But they will continue to be interested in learning more. So your salespeople will be invited back again and again—they just won’t return with any purchase orders. Instead, they will report that the customer said, “Great presentation!” What the customer was really saying was “I learned some more and I didn’t have to buy anything.” WHOLE PRODUCT: Can our company with the help of partners and allies field a complete solution to the target customer’s compelling reason to buy in the next three months such that we can be in the market by the end of next quarter and be dominating the market within twelve months thereafter? The clock is ticking. We need to cross now, which means we need a problem we can solve now. Any thread left han...