32. Crossing the Chasm with Geoffrey Moore

Unicorny

Why 54 tech titans failed (so you don't need to)

Personal note from our host, Dom Hawes: "Hi folks... this is a very special episode for me and part of a personal mission to see 'Chasm principles' return to every day marketing parlance.

In this episode Geoffrey details why tech titans, who ruled their day, faded away to nothing... all for the same reason. Moore's work is the definitive playbook for dealing with disruption.

As a marketer who cut my teeth in the mid to late 1990s, this work was everywhere. Now it's not. And, as we are swimming in a sea of sameness, it's time to bring back a more strategic approach. That's where Chasm comes in and why I invited my all-time marketing hero to join the Unicorny project.

I hope you enjoy this one... it really is a great show and I'm hugely grateful to Geoffrey for joining us."

In this episode of the Unicorny podcast, author and speaker Geoffrey A. Moore draws on the feted work in his book Crossing the Chasm. Moore addresses the challenges encountered by B2B marketers and makes the case for marketing activities to be aligned to the technology adoption lifecycle.

You won't find a better, clearer playbook for marketing than Chasm.

About Geoffrey A. Moore

Geoffrey Moore is an author, speaker, and strategic advisor to the CEOs of high-tech enterprises including Salesforce, Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, Airbnb, Gainsight, and Splunk. He has a BA in American literature from Stanford University, and a PhD in English literature from the University of Washington, with a focus on medieval and Renaissance literature.

Strategy and its execution have been the lifelong focus of Moore’s work. His dissertation while at the University of Washington analysed Edmund Spenser’s epic poem, The Faerie Queene, in terms of the strategies for living it portrays. Subsequently he taught literature and writing for four years at Olivet College in Michigan before he and his wife and children moved back to California.

There over the next ten years and three software companies, Moore migrated from HR to sales to marketing. The seminal move in his career came in 1986 when he joined Regis McKenna Inc, the premier strategic marketing consultancy for high-tech firms at that time. While there he wrote his first business book, Crossing the Chasm, which has been in print (with revisions) for thirty years, has sold over a million copies, been translated into twelve languages, and is still the go-to text for high-tech entrepreneurs. This success allowed Moore to found his own consulting practice, found multiple consulting firms, and publish six additional books.

Geoffrey lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife Marie. They enjoy reading, travel, fine dining, and doting on their terrific grandchildren. Geoff recently achieved what has been a lifelong ambition, namely, shooting his age in golf.

Links

Full show notes: Unicorny.co.uk

LinkedIn: Geoffrey Moore | Dom Hawes

Websites: Geoffrey Moore | Selbey Anderson

Timestamped summary of this episode

01:42 - Definition of Technology and Disruption

03:34 - The Stakes of Getting Marketing Wrong

06:17 - Zone to Win Playbook

08:37 - Introduction to Crossing the Chasm and Zone to Win

13:33 - The Evolution of Marketing in the Tech Industry

14:52 - Funding a Project and Putting Companies on the Map

15:49 - Challenges of Budget Allocation in Next-Generation Technologies

17:14 - The Impact of Consumer Computing and the Freemium Model

27:32 - Designing with a Compelling Reason to Buy

28:29 - The Beachhead Market

30:11 - The Bowling Alley Model

35:10 - Finding Trapped Value

41:12 - The Importance of Power in Performance

42:22 - The Venture Operating Model

43:34 - Account Based Marketing and the Six Personas

49:08 - Applying Moore's Playbook

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