Successful New Product Introduction

Surprisingly, new product introductions by established companies are never easy, even though the established company has numerous customers, a great brand, great sales and marketing, and great product management and engineering.

The challenge is getting two strong teams to work together and pass the product baton at the right time.  Otherwise, it resembles the US 4x100m relay team dropping the baton at the Beijing Olympics, as shown in the picture above.  Each runner is world class, but they obviously did not work well as a team.

A growing company typically has a strong Product team with a proven track record of developing what the customer wants, and a strong GTM team with a proven track record of selling.  So, when a new product introduction struggles (and most struggle), each blames the other – sales can’t or won’t sell, or It is not the right product.

The common answer is for each team to lobby top management to “force the other team to just do this.”  For example, top management may try to push sales through a carrot and stick.  Another answer is to appoint a person or team to solve this problem, such as a mini-GM or sales overlay team.

Regardless of the answer, the relay race metaphor helps -- where each team passes the product baton when the receiving team can succeed.  More specifically,

1)      Product management/engineering must find Product Market Fit (just like a startup) – in other words, at least XX happy and referenceable customers of the new product that should excite the rank and file sales people.  Exciting management and the product team is not enough.  Picking the right XX customers is critical, since it drives the product.

2)      Based on those XX, marketing can build confidence by promoting those XX internally and externally (frankly, internal promotion to excite the sales team is more important than external promotion).  It is important to close the next XX quickly to build momentum and confidence – and more importantly to develop a replicable sales process. 

3)      With confidence and an easy, replicable sales and onboarding process, the sales machine can start cranking. 

Basically, a new product introduction for an established company resembles finding Product Market Fit in an early stage startup, except for the internal dynamics.