One of the great challenges of leading with BIG ideas is matching them to your intended audience. You’ll know you’ve matched your audience when there is a strong demand for what you offer. Alternatively, if there is a mismatch of audience and offer then demand will naturally be low.
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Recently, I’ve encountered two examples of this mismatch.
The first is that of a colleague who has been presenting a new idea to the market. She has been working with this idea for more than five years and so far the traction has been slow. Most people think they’re already doing it or dismiss it by saying ‘we don’t have that issue here’. In some cases, this is a marketing or communication failure. And, sometimes it’s pitching to the wrong segment of customers.
The second example is that of a client I have been working with. He has been presenting ideas that I consider to be at least 20 years out of date. And, his audience continues to lap them up. However, our work together is focused on a completely new set of ideas that is a contemporary take on his previous work. Whilst we haven’t tested this in the market place yet, I suspect a mismatch between idea and adoption with his current audience.
A simple way to explain this mismatch is through The Innovation Adoption Lifecycle or Roger’s Bell Curve. It was made popular and more general by Everett Rogers in his book Diffusion of Innovations.
The basic idea is that different segments of the population adopt technology or innovation at different rates. And, there are five basic market segments or groups of consumers:
Image Source: Wikipedia
The key to matching your BIG idea requires two steps:
The important thing to gauge here is the novelty or newness of your innovation. Is your idea leading edge? Is it ready for the mass market? Or is it already out there and adopted by most people?
COMMENT: What level is your BIG idea at and who should you be pitching it to?
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