52 Bicycles

When marketing, or evaluating a b2b market, I think it’s instructive to think about the costs of adopting one’s product/service expansively. That is, figure out all the reasons and factors that disincline one to become a user/client. From the direct, like out-of-pocket costs and labor for installation, to indirect, such as culture shock.

At the same time, limiting one to the set of benefits that can be held in a single hand, and are tangible. This is usually one benefit, sometimes two, rarely three, and almost never more than that. Because while the other benefits may exist, we all tend to focus on the one overriding benefit statement (maybe two, possibly three) that compels us to overcome the hurdles.

With this in mind, “it takes longer and costs more” to introduce a product becomes clearer, because coming out of the passion of our early months, we believe in a universe of benefits, and pooh-pooh costs outside of those paid to us. If we can, in our minds, expand costs and limit the benefits to a clear statement, we will do much better.

Update: Lostgarden.com did a great essay that dances around the edge of this issue, and demonstrates that it is not limited to b2b. Excellent read, as are the other essays.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 26th, 2005 at 5:31 pm and is filed under Technology Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. Reddit This