Crossing the Chasm - How to teach your sales team to sell a disruptive product
I first heard about the concept of “Crossing the Chasm” while working at LinkedIn in 2016. At the time, I was an account manager for the newly-formed Sales Solution business unit.
Our job was to bring Sales Navigator to Europe, me and the Italian team, specifically to Italy. In 2014, lead generation was mainly done through cold-calling, lists, and external partners.
Sales were not used to selling digitally, let alone using social selling to do so.
I was the first account manager in Italy and had to help ensure the initial customers who bought Sales Navigator licenses would succeed.
However, the first year did not go as planned. My churn rate was as high as 70%.
Basically, 7 out of 10 of my clients who had to renew either churned or reduced the number of licenses.
I tried everything, including webinars, QBRs, ROI, the hard way, and the nice way.
I changed my sales approach multiple times and tried new things, but nothing seemed to be working.
My clients didn’t want Sales Navigator and preferred going back to the old way of lead generation, like cold calling, lists, or external agencies.
One day, our VP of Sales brought us a new narrative based on the famous book, “Crossing the Chasm” by Geoffrey A. Moore.
Our new sales narrative was focused on two main points:
Understand that we were selling a disruptive product.
Realise that to cross the chasm, we had to change our approach and go for the early market first.
As simple as it sounds, that sales narrative completely changed the way we sold and positioned Sales Navigator in Italy.
First, we realised that we were disrupting a market, so we turned our sales efforts from pitching to evangelisation.
You cannot sell and position a disruptive product in the same way you would an established product.
An iPhone and a BlackBerry in the early 2000s were sold completely differently and, more importantly, were positioned oppositely. The iPhone was for the early market, the BlackBerry for the rest.
My mom would not stand for six hours to get the first iPhone in the same way an early adopter wouldn’t go into a phone shop to get a BlackBerry Pearl (I loved the Pearl!).
So we changed our sales efforts to target startups, and within those startups, we started targeting CEOs, founders, and VPs of Sales who were engaging on LinkedIn: the early adopters.
Long story short, in 2017 my churn rate went down from 70% to 20%.
The Italian team not only hit their sales goals but most importantly, we were performing even better than more established markets.
Eventually, LinkedIn Sales Navigator crossed the chasm, going to the mass market some years later. But thanks to our change in the playbook, we were able to sell effectively to the early market and make Sales Navigator a must-have in any sales team in the world.
How to teach your sales team
Since I started working as a Fractional VP of Sales, I have mostly worked with early-stage startups with early-stage products.
Most of those products were completely new in the market and looking to disrupt a certain ideal customer profile.
The biggest mistake I have seen is trying to sell to the mass market.
As you have seen above, you should not sell a disruptive product to the mass market.
First, you go to the early market (innovators and early adopters) and then transition to the mass market.
This is a fundamental shift, not only for the founders but most importantly for your sales team and the way you teach them.
Below are some sales tactics to sell disruptive products:
Evangelise, don’t sell: You have to feel like the CEO of the company to sell to the early market. Innovators want to feel the vision and the mission. They care less about features and more about values and status. Evangelise to them, do not sell to them.
Own the sales cycle: Innovators are by definition curious, which means they might not buy if you don’t guide them through the sales cycle. Own the cycle, recommend the next steps, and hold them accountable. You are the expert of your product, not them.
Disqualify fast: If you recognise you bumped into laggards or mass markets, understand fast, and in case they are not ready, disqualify them. Let them know why. Tell them the product is very innovative and suits early adopters best. Give them FOMO, they will eventually get more interested.
Finally, whether you’re a founder or a salesperson selling something disruptive, remember that the mass market will come later and that’s ok.
To survive and thrive you have to master the early market.
Remember: talk to your team today about this and happy selling!
