Sports teams have one for each game. Theatre companies have one for each production. Political parties have one for each campaign. And high-tech companies...well, not so fast. What are we talking about? Playbooks. Their purpose: to coordinate a group of autonomous individuals, performing a complex activity, to achieve a predetermined and gratifying result. 

High-tech businesses, whether start-ups or flourishing enterprises, succeed often not because they have a great playbook, but in spite of the fact that they do not have a playbook. A playbook should spell out specific responses to the following questions:

• Are we managing our categories correctly?
• Are we optimizing our product strategies based on the right criteria?
• Have we created user scenarios that clearly explain the business issues of our customers?
• Do we have a clearly defined strategy for each market development initiative?
• Do we have clearly defined go-to-market programs for implementing each market development initiative?

Drive your team through these five questions for each of your major offers, and you will have a playbook for market success.

At Chasm Institute we've helped hundreds of high-tech companies create and implement playbooks for their market development initiatives. And now, we're delighted to introduce ChasmPlaybook, a strategic market development application for planning, executing, and tracking unlimited market development initiatives in key customer segments. It is based in part on tools from Geoffrey Moore's best-selling books "Crossing the Chasm" and "Escape Velocity." It is a system of record for market development.

• Brainstorm and prioritize market development initiatives. Create end-user customer "before" and "after" cases, then analyze and score each case, and prioritize them based on the nine critical success factors shown below.

• Create a detailed strategy for market leadership. Collaboratively define all elements of your strategy including target customer, compelling reason to buy, whole product, partners & allies, distribution, pricing, competition, positioning, and next target.

• Define and implement go-to-market programs. Create your whole product solution, analyze and prioritize whole product partners, define specific marketing messages, analyze and prioritize distribution partners, define marketing communications programs, and define sales support programs.

ChasmPlaybook helps high-tech teams collaboratively plan, execute, and track strategies to create and sustain market leadership for multiple Vertical Market Initiatives. It helps teams gain clarity regarding their categories and Tech Market Model placement, get consensus on product marketing strategies, explore and prioritize end-user scenarios, manage Target Market Initiatives, and define and execute go-to-market programs. Built on Salesforce.com’s Force.com platform, it is seamlessly integrated with the Salesforce Sales Cloud CRM data including Leads, Accounts, Contacts, and Opportunities.

ChasmPlaybook is designed for large companies with multiple Vertical Market Initiatives. It may also be used in a myriad of other applications such as Horizon 2 initiatives to take new technologies created internally across the chasm, venture capital portfolio management, corporate entrepreneuring, and crossing the chasm in accelerators and technology business parks.

ChasmPlaybook is available on the Salesforce.com AppExchange here.