{"id":119226,"date":"2014-10-28T18:31:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-29T01:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greatdemo.blogspot.com\/2014\/10\/early-adopters-vs-majority-prospects.html"},"modified":"2014-10-28T18:32:28","modified_gmt":"2014-10-29T01:32:28","slug":"early-adopters-vs-majority-prospects-features-vs-solutions-and-doing-discovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/early-adopters-vs-majority-prospects-features-vs-solutions-and-doing-discovery\/","title":{"rendered":"Early Adopters vs. Majority Prospects: Features vs. Solutions \u2013 and Doing Discovery"},"content":{"rendered":"
Early Adopters and Technology Adopters are inadvertently training us to deliver feature\/function \u201cHarbor Tour\u201d demos\u2026\u00a0 But it\u2019s not their fault; it\u2019s ours\u2026!<\/div>\r\n

<\/div>\r\n
Early Adopters and Technology Adopters love to hear and talk about new features and cool capabilities \u2013 and often identify problems themselves<\/em> that can be solved, synthesizing solutions from the feature set articulated by vendors.\u00a0 They embrace change and are excited about applying new capabilities to solve existing problems and new, previously unexplored arenas.\u00a0 However, while important, this group represents a very small fraction of the business population\u2026\u00a0<\/div>\r\n

<\/div>\r\n
Everyone else is not<\/em> interested in change, typically, and needs to feel that a problem is truly critical before investing resources to address it \u2013 they are interested in solutions, not features and functions. These groups (the Early Majority, Late Majority, and Laggards) represent the overwhelming majority of the population.\u00a0 [Note:\u00a0 This is one of the essential points in Geoffrey Moore\u2019s book \u201cCrossing the Chasm\u201d.]<\/div>\r\n

<\/div>\r\n
What does this mean with respect to doing Discovery?<\/div>\r\n

<\/div>\r\n
Early Adopters and Technology Adopters often don\u2019t need<\/em> to have Discovery done (and some may not respond well to it).\u00a0 They are eager to hear about new products, new features and new options \u2013 they ask<\/em> us to do feature\/function Harbor Tours.\u00a0 Worse, they indirectly train us to believe that these demos work well for everyone, because they tell us how exciting our new offerings are.\u00a0 And they may make a purchase based on what they\u2019ve seen in a feature\/function Harbor Tour demo, resulting in a (frightening) positive feedback loop supporting feature\/function-let\u2019s-just-show-them-a-demo\u2026\u00a0 [Note:\u00a0 some Early Adopter and Technology Adopter purchases are starting points for a \u201cLand and Expand\u201d strategy\u2026]<\/div>\r\n

<\/div>\r\n
On the other hand, Early and Late Majority populations need<\/em> to have Discovery done \u2013 they will generally not be comfortable making a purchase without completing rather substantial research on their part, which should include one or more sessions of diagnostic Discovery questions and discussion with a vendor.\u00a0 [Note:\u00a0 Even \u201cMr. Crusty\u201d still wants and needs to have Discovery done, but he\/she will only allow a vendor do to so once that vendor has earned sufficient credibility\u2026!]<\/div>\r\n

<\/div>\r\n
But wait \u2013 there\u2019s more:\u00a0 Many Technology Adopters are unable to drive a purchase \u2013 and simply spend their lives (and the lives of the vendors\u2019 sales teams) looking at technology.\u00a0 How many times have you heard someone say, \u201cI\u2019m always interested in exploring new technologies\u2026\u201d\u00a0 This is likely a recipe for a \u201cNo Decision\u201d outcome.\u00a0 Vendors may still<\/em> need to perform a reasonable amount of Discovery to determine if the opportunity is a real one\u2026!<\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Early Adopters and Technology Adopters are inadvertently training us to deliver feature\/function \u201cHarbor Tour\u201d demos\u2026\u00a0 But it\u2019s not their fault; it\u2019s ours\u2026! Early Adopters and Technology Adopters love to hear and talk about new features and cool capabilities \u2013 and often identify problems themselves that can be solved, synthesizing solutions from the feature set articulated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6517,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[128,85],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119226"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6517"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}