Where is your customer? (Product adoption)

Any sales call should begin LONG before the professional sales representative gets in front of the customer. Pre-call planning is imperative for a successful sales interaction. This means reviewing any notes on the customer, previous commitments made by the rep or the customer, as well as a clear determination of where the customer is along the product adoption spectrum.

The product adoption spectrum is a continuum that represents the use of your product or service by the customer:



Each customer's experience or use of a product or service will fall along this spectrum.

• Not aware: The customer has no knowledge of your product or service, but may have experience with a similar product or service.
• Aware: In this stage, the customer indicates knowledge of the product or service, but has not used the product or service. This could be the case with a brand new product entering the market.
• Evaluation: The customer has exposure to the product. This could happen if someone else has purchased the product, and the customer is familiar with it. Or, it could mean that the customer has seen the results of your product or service even though they were not the decision maker.
• Trail: The customer has purchased or agreed to use the product or service on a limited basis. This may be a first time purchase order, use of samples, or a trial subscription for a service.
• Adoption: In this stage, the customer regularly buys or uses the product or service beyond the first time "trial" stage.

Remember, this is a fluid continuum, not four distinct stages. There are multiple steps in each stage, and a customer's position on the spectrum may fluctuate-moving forward or backward over time. Bottom line, your goal as a sales professional is to move the customer along the product adoption spectrum all the way to Adoption. But you won't know how to get there if don't know where your customer is. Before you determine your approach, questions, and sale materials ask, "Where is my customer?"