I just returned from the Sales 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. 

I was stationed at the bloggers table with Geoffrey James, amongst others.   For a great recap of the event and some candid comments, check out Geoffrey’s posts on the Sales Machine blog.

Jim Fisher, Director Sales Effectiveness at Bluewolf, a Cloud Computing consulting organization, spoke at the Conference on how Bluewolf targets their market.

Unlike Bluewolf, most organizations define their market based on industry, size of organization and geography.

Bluewolf selects their customers based on their approach to embracing innovation.   Two of the criteria are notable:

• Prospects who are willing to evolve and embrace a vision.
• Prospects whose culture embraces experimentation and accepts constant change.

That prompted me to ask the question of Jim:

What you have described is an early adopter market that is traditionally a narrow slice of the market.    Is this segment sizable enough to meet Bluewolf’s requirements?

Jim responded that Bluewolf has more than enough target accounts to pursue.

What does this imply about technology adoption and where innovative, Cloud applications (aka Sales 2.0 tools) fall on the bell curve?

It has been almost 50 years since Diffusion of Innovations was published by Everett Rogers and just shy of 20 years since Geoffrey Moore adapted this thinking around innovations to disruptive technology adoption with the release of his book Crossing the Chasm – the revered tome of tech marketers.

BlueWolf’s target prospects seem like visionaries: early adopters who take risks on a new-to-market solution and unlike the pragmatists of the early majority, do not demand customer references or proven ROI in their evaluation.

What are your thoughts on the subject?

1. Have Sales 2.0 tools crossed the chasm to the stage of the early majority?
2. Do these low risk, user-friendly tools accelerate the adoption of technology?
3. Similarly, have these tools changed the shape of the bell curve by enlarging the size of the early adopter phase?

Like a digital smoke signal picked up the watchful eyes of social media monitors, I would like to invite the folks listed below to weigh in on these questions.

Over the past year at the Sales 2.0 Conferences, I have had some great discussions with each (sorry if I missed anyone):

• Gerhard Gschwandtner, Selling Power
• Jim Dickie, CSO Insights
• Barry Trailer, CSO Insights
• Laura Ramos, Forrester Research
• Scott Santucci, Forrester Research
• Joe Galvin, SiriusDecisions
• Umberto Milletti, InsideView
• Garth Moulton, Jigsaw
• Peter Poulin, Hoovers
• David Thompson, Genius
• Anneke Seley, PhoneWorks
• Trish Bertuzzi, The Bridge Group
• Pelin Wood Thorogood, The Aegean Group
• Mac McIntosh, Mac McIntosh Inc.
• Miles Austin, Fill the Funnel
• Nigel Edelshain, Sales 2.0 LLC
• Jeb Castelein, LeadSloth

Further Reading:

• IDC Sees Clouds Crossing the Chasm
• Sales Enablement Tools Make the Selling Simpler
• Sales Enablement in a Sales 2.0 World