Over the past week, I decided to tackle a book that has been sitting on my shelf for a couple of years. This book is a Businessweek Bestseller. It is Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm
Crossing the Chasm is 227 pages long. Moore organized the book across seven chapters arranged in two parts. Part one focuses on the chasm and part two discusses how to cross the chasm. As I noted, part two is roughly described as the Normandy Invasion.
For the past week, I have been at Social Media Marketing World. During this time, I have listened to repeated presentations about shifting from a product-oriented marketing approach to one that is relationship building. In the foreword of Crossing the Chasm, the same guidance is provided and this book was written almost 30 years ago. After reading this book, I am also recognizing the message in the advice that a number of entrepreneurs have given in their podcasts.
Technology Adoption Life Cycle
Moore’s Technology Adoption Life Cycle reminds me of Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation Model. What Moore does that is profound is that he focuses on the gap between the early adopters and the early majority. He calls this gap, the chasm. Moore does a great job describing each of the groups (innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards) and their needs. One must market to each of the groups in a different way. Marketers will have an extremely difficult time if they are using an incorrect approach for a group.
Crossing the Chasm
“It is critical that, when crossing the chasm, you focus exclusively on achieving a dominant position in one or two narrowly bounded market segments” (Moore, 2006, p. 71). This is the part of the book that resonated most for me. As I try to service all the small businesses in Rhode Island, the group is still too large. I need to further segment this market into niches. As they say, “the riches are in the niches.”
Before you can start marketing to a group, you have to define the group. Moore provided strategies for defining a market group and narrowing the group to the right one for your product. I will have to review this as I move forward.
Just like with the invasion of Europe during WWII, the Allies had to establish a beachhead even though the ultimate goal was something larger. Once you have successfully conquered one market, you can then branch another market or bring another product to market.
One of the keys to success is focusing the entire company’s energy to crossing the chasm and successfully introducing the product into this market. Trying to do too many competing experiences and the effort will fail.
Moore used countless examples to highlight his strategy. In addition to focusing on relationships and niching down, Moore also stressed that it was important to quit providing custom work and instead move to a position where you were standardizing your product. As I have heard before, if you want to be exceptional, you need to stop having exceptions.
Even though Crossing the Chasm focuses on the high-tech industry, I think that this would be a good book for most business owners to read. It is a book that I will be passing on to a number of people I know. I am glad I read it. It reinforces concepts that I have heard. But this provides a thorough explanation of why I need to take the recommended approach.
Additional Reading
- Book Review: Duct Tape Marketing Revised and Updated: The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide
- Book Review: They Ask You Answer: A Revolutionary Approach to Inbound Sales, Content Marketing, and Today’s Digital Consumer
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