The Customer Alignment Lifecycle

Customer Alignment Lifecycle™ Interactive Tool

In the Customer Alignment Lifecycle™, we have packed all our key frameworks into an interactive tool to help business and go-to-market leaders keep their product and business activities aligned with the ever-changing motivations of innovation and technology buyers.

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Whether you're launching a product, crossing The Chasm to the mainstream, or competing in a mature market, this is an essential guide to assess your alignment with the market you are in continuously.

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Customer-alignment is the key for sustainable and profitable revenue in every stage of your market.

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Drag your mouse cursor over the left legend to get instant strategic advice on what you need to pay attention to, depending on the stage of your target market.

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The 12 key drivers in technology buying decisions

Get ready your offering for scale and sustainbale growth by offering these 12 product completeness attributes.

End-User Harmony

Ensure harmony with the end-user and reduce technology adoption frictions with these augmented product attributes.

Compatible
and Familiar

Allow users to continue using existing systems, tools, processes, and methods as much as you can.

Trial Before Commitment

Allow users and buyers to try your product and realize its value before committing the full investment.

Standards and Certification

Adhere to well-known industry standards that similar vendors work to support... or become the de-facto standard.

Endorsements or Sponsorhips

Recruit recognized organizations to support your product/innovation through sponsorships or endorsements.

Market Category Cooperation

Show your prospective customers credibility and commitment with the market you're in with these augmented product attributes.

IP and Patents
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Use a trusted channel of sales and delivery that is well known and familiar.

Complimentary Products

Ensure complementary products, tools, and services are offered.

Complete Solution with Support

Offer a pre-configured solution with an integrated ecosystem, plus comprehensive support.

Trusted Channels

Allow buyers to be aware of your product and offer through their familiar and trusted distribution channels.

Safety in Numbers

Build and demonstrate external safeguards for the risk-averse majority with these augmented product attributes.

Universal
Support

Prevent users from thinking about the technology orphans risk. Create a completely independent long-term support infrastructure.

Security
and Privacy

Prove independent safeguards that ensure both security and privacy.

Peer-To-Peer Communication

Enable exchange of unbiased information through a user-controlled community..

Visible or Word-Of-Mouth References

Facilitate WOM recommendations from people the user knows
and trusts.

Innovators

Early Adopters

Early
Majority

Late
Majority

Laggard

Validate new possibilities
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Allow access to incoplete products
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Sell through communities
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Sell your
technical
advantage

Technology vision and capital raising

Gain competitive advantage
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Partner to get custom feedback and co-build

Use direct, consultative
selling

Sell the gains and opportunities your product provides

Core product building + market empathy

Solve a specific problem
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Deliver a complete solution with support

Transition to
value-added
selling

Sell market leadership
or wins

Management + business building

Crawl ahead safely

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Provide a standardized solution

Use transactional selling
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Sell your company stability, track record, team.

Management + operations efficiency

Adopt when unavoidable
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Embed your
product
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Use low-cost, transactional
selling

Sell customer control and total cost of ownership

Management + financial efficiency

InnovatorS - Characteristics

Early adopters - Characteristics

Early Majority - Characteristics

late Majority - Characteristics

laggard - Characteristics

Innovators are adventurous and adopt new technologies or ideas simply because they are the new cool thing. Technology and innovation are central interests in their life. The innovator’s goal is to explore new things and find opportunities to be an agent of change.

Early adopters are visionary leaders pursuing innovations to achieve a breakthrough that will give them a competitive advantage in their industry or company. They are willing to learn and provide feedback. Also, they love gaining new knowledge and an edge over their peers.

The early majority are value-conscious individuals that want to simplify what they already do. They don’t like leading, taking risks, or being the first to try something new. The early majority look for innovations or products that already carry the endorsement of early adopters and peers.

The late majority is very cautious about any change but also wants to avoid the penalties of not adopting new solutions. They seek to minimize the uncertainty of outcomes. People in this group want proof of the product’s advantage and costs from similar businesses or peers they know closely.

Laggards value traditional methods of doing things and refuse to adopt a new technology until they are forced to through obsolescence of their former system. They hold out to the bitter end.

2.5% OF THE POPULATION

13.5% OF THE POPULATION

34% OF THE POPULATION

16% OF THE POPULATION

Risk/Value Profile

Innovators are willing to take risks and are viewed by their peers as risk-takers. They are fascinated with novelty and take substantial risks on unfinished products.
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Innovators often buy a vision of possibility rather than a product. They are willing to tolerate very high pain levels to achieve the vision.

Early adopters accept high risk and disruption to reach their strategic objectives.
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They are attracted to test new alternative high-risk, high-cost innovations or technologies that return them exceptional, strategic or social benefits.

People in the early majority are reasonably risk-averse. They spend their limited resources on evolutionary improvement.

The early majority is willing to endure a minor amount of pain and disruption to solve a specific problem and receive an optimized outcome or benefit.

The late majority is risk-averse and only adopts new technology when it has been simplified, adapted to their workflows, and almost commoditized.

The late majority accepts a low level of benefit or progress to make the product almost cost-free, rick-free, and disruption-free.

Laggards avoid all risks, costs, and disruptions of any kind entirely. They want a guarantee that adopting something new will not fail or take too much effort to learn.

Laggards want absolutely pain-free products at zero cost and don't care about being left behind.

Cost-benefit Analysis

Risk Avoidance

Master Competitive Positioning

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Is this method right for you?

Book a no-strings, no-pitch discovery meeting with our founder and CEO, Jose Bermejo. If nothing else, it will be a worthwhile conversation.