new product launch | No Smoke and Mirrors

2009 Health Care Reform Initiative Lesson #1: Without a Clear Definition of the Problem You Want to Solve, You Will Experience “Scope Creep” and Your Launch Plan Will Fail

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Without a clear definition of the problem(s) you solve with your new product or service you will experience scope creep and your team will thrash around. When you thrash around you have a number of starts and stops without completely solving each individual initiative. Not only is this behavior ineffective but it is costly and often dangerous.

Fundamentally I agree, if what the news media tells us is true regarding; the number of uninsured Americans, the rising costs of care, the rising costs of caring for uninsured Americans,… that there is a problem that needs to be solved. However I do not understand the problem, or problems we are trying to solve with the 2009 Health Care Reform Initiative, nor how the over 1,000 page proposal solves them.

I see this frequently with entrepreneurs. They discover what they perceive to be an unresolved market problem and the solution is crystal clear (to them) so they launch. They take out 2^nd mortgages, they cash in their 401k, and they ask family and friends for support. (Money) They share their brilliant idea with their buddies on the golf course to validate their idea and everyone says… ”brilliant idea”. However very quickly they learn an expensive lesson when they expect (and have created the support) to sell 60,000 units and only sell 2.

Without a clear definition of the Problem you solve your New Product Launch Plan will fail.

Instead of clearly defining the problem, quantifying the need, making sure people want and will pay money to solve that problem they broaden their scope. Now they have a number of messages floating in their market that are Luke warm at best and none clearly articulate how you solve any problems for buyers in your marketplace. None are connecting with anyone.

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Watching the current Health Care reform Initiative we can learn valuable lessons for all leaders throughout the world if we just take time to pay attention. I think it was Einstein who said “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Over my next 12 posts I will share lessons we can learn by watching the 2009 Health Care Reform launch.

I was sitting in the Austin airport after participating in PCamp Austin (something else I need to blog about as it was the future of executive education and I was blessed to have lived it) killing time watching CNN as I waited on my flight. The reporter was discussing how President Obama was “repositioning” (re-launching) the 2009 Health Care Reform initiative given the poor overall acceptability by the American Public.

As I watched the clips of our President rolling up his sleeves in a town hall meeting (as I would have coached him to do as well) it struck me how we have an incredible living lesson for all leaders to observe and learn from. Some of the best life lessons are those that have an emotional element and the strongest emotion is pain. Studies were conducted where college students were asked to study and their arm was placed in a tub of ice and water and they were asked to keep their arm in this until they could no longer stand the pain. The other group just studied and had no pain. The group that experienced pain significantly remembered more than the group who just studied.

It does not surprise me as we are living this lesson and we see the anger and pain in the faces of those at town halls. There is nothing more painful than to feel you have a voice and your voice is not heard as I discussed in my post: How do Buyer’s Feel, when Salespeople fail to Listen? Shelia Jackson Lee helps us all understand… « No Smoke and Mirrors to Listen? Shelia Jackson Lee helps us all understand….

What can all leaders learn about designing and launching new products and services by watching the 2009 US Health Care Imitative?

Over my next 12 posts I will be sharing lessons, some painful, to help us learn.

I want to say early on this is not about Republicans versus Democrats as I discussed in my post about how teams must tear down silos as they are only good for shooting missiles. The United States is the World leader. We can get better but we must never forget we are all “Americans” first, and then we have our segmented communities and groups.

None of us are as smart as all of us.

Together as one team we can solve any issue when we drop our self serving objectives and seek first to understand, and then focus on the problem(s)

What the following posts will be about is specific lessons for us to observe and make our own so we do not repeat them in the organizations we serve.

What lessons do you see?

Have you learned lessons you will never forget because there was some discomfort and or pain?

Do you believe we are one team; Americans first?

What silos do you see and why do you think they exist today? How do we tear them down?

How can we all be a part of the solution?.as leaders that is always our mission.

Technorati Tags: health care reform,obama,president obama,new product launch,marketing,leader lessons

Market leaders know that Goals should not be a “Shell Game”

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Market leading teams understand the importance of clear, measureable goals.

Market losers set loose goals and objectives that change like a shell game, as their mood and business climate changes…this is the quickest way to demoralize a team, lose shareholder value and key contributors.

Market leading teams understand the importance of clear, measureable goals.

Market losers set loose goals and objectives that change like a shell game, as their mood and business climate changes…this is the quickest way to demoralize a team, lose shareholder value and key contributors.

Goals that are not written down are just dreams.

So how do we set goals that motivate, drive growth, but do not feel unrealistic?

What I have always done is build goals from the market up as opposed to from the ivory tower down.

I recommend you segment your market into regions, and then keep peeling the onion until you are down to current and targeted new customers and then products and services.

You must spend time living in your market gaining current information to set achievable goals that drive profitable growth and add value.

From real market knowledge I then recommend building sales playbooks by team member. This is a collaborative effort with the team members who will execute the plan and are closest to the market. We identify sales goals for specific current customers and products .We spend time developing strategy upfront with tactics and key initiatives to achieve our goals.

Where market losers consistently fail is spending too much time deep in the weeds of tactics with little if any time upfront in strategy.

Then we identify new accounts we would like to sell and again assign a goal and develop strategies and tactics to open the targeted new accounts. Next we take the data and goals by product, by customer, and targeted new customer, and new products, and we now build a goal as well as a stretch goal.

The goal becomes our mission; it is what we will be talking about for the next year. The goal aligns us as well as other cross functional team members helping us clearly understand what we are setting out to accomplish.

A stretch goal is always developed to insure the goal is achieved. You are paid on the goal, and if you achieve stretch goal objectives above and beyond your goal you realize a compensation multiplier. Stretch goals become your contingency plan. Stretch goals give you the wiggle room for when things go bump in the night.

What do they say…? “Colonel Custer had a plan”…or “the best laid plans of mice and men”….and they are right. No matter how well we gather market data, “things” happen. Markets change, accounts get acquired, planned product launches are often late, and competitors also are executing their plans.

**Having a stretch goal helps us” shoot for the moon and worst case we still end up a star”.**

When a change occurs we go back to the original goal and review the specific strategies and tactics. If a key account was acquired or closed, we go back to our stretch goals and change the weighting of those stretch objectives. We ask ourselves…” OK, based on what we now know, we need to make up the shortfall . Of our stretch goals, which have the highest probability to make up the delta to goal? What do we need to do? What do we need to ask of others?

In Market leading teams everyone is a member of “the team” and everyone rallies around the goal, and are aligned with a singular purpose of the team’s definition of a win.

Market leaders know cross functional goals tear down dysfunctional silos and make mighty market leading teams.

Market losers play a shell game with their goals.

They have a “goal of the day” and their teams set out to take the hill. Their teams work diligently against difficult odds and often achieve the goal only to find out the goal changed. In this environment, you must be more skilled at watching the shell game masters hands and follow the goal more than the strategy and tactics to achieve the goal itself.

Market losers observe the goal building process (if they allow you to build it from the market up) and “bet the farm” on the stretch goals.

They need all the stars to align perfectly and although your team will achieve the 20% growth goal, and the corresponding increase in shareholder value, your CEO makes you feel like losers because you failed to hit the stretch goal he told the board ( and often the bank to justify additional capital) we would achieve.

Market losers build goals based on the ROI to justify the investment.

They create a number to make the board and investors happy then they slice this home grown goal and distribute the unrealistic slices to each team member. When team members challenge these goals from mount high they are disciplined and told to “make it happen”. If you challenge how the goals were developed you are often left feeling like you are not being a “team guy” and your questions are signs of disloyalty.

Market losers change the goal when they are not achieving it.

For example I hear some entrepreneurs bragging they are not;” losing as much business as others in their market” versus reporting their performance to plan.

Market leaders set aggressive goals and establish stretch goals as contingencies to insure they: do what they say they would do.

Boards, investors, and owners respect teams that do what they say they will do. Investors gain confidence and are more willing to make additional investments in the future.

How about your organization…..

Is your organization a Market Leader?

Is your organization a Market Loser? Why?

Who sets goals in your organization?

Are the goals fixed or are they a shell game?

Do you know your goals? If you are not sure…how does that make you feel?

What kind of company would you prefer to serve…one that sets aggressive market built goals or one that promises the bank and board numbers and then throws goal slices over the wall and tell you to “Make it Happen”?

Technorati Tags: goals,set goals,achieve goals,add value,increase shareholder value,cross functional team,tear down silos

More Big-Money-Wasted by BMW in new ad campaign? We will have to wait and see…

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I read an article on BrandWeek today by Anthony Crupi titled: BMW Pumps Diesel and Anthony did a particularly good job in grasping BMW’s objectives behind what we are about to see in a new BMW ad;

“For us, it’s about changing the perception that diesel is still that noisy and smelly [technology] many people remember from the ‘70s.” “For us, it’s about changing the perception that diesel is still that noisy and smelly [technology] many people remember from the ‘70s.”

The trouble is, as a potential consumer of one of your driving machines…I really do not care Patrick (the guy in charge at BMW) what it is about “for you”.

What problem are you solving for me?

“Affluent Americans don’t want to sacrifice performance for fuel efficiency,” McKenna said. “The 335d can go from 0-60 [mph] in 6 seconds flat …That’s immediate power.”

Now you are talking!

But what about starting my diesel car at the Cleveland airport in the winters…did you solve this?

Although not as focused on the environment and fuel efficiency as I should be, I do follow the cost per gallon of fuel, and if I am not mistaken, one of the historical advantages of why consumers chose diesel vehicles was the lower cost per gallon.

On the one side you have Mercedes, who did a great job of connecting their product to; Luxury, power and torch, and longevity (they run forever)

On the other side you have VW who have raving fans of their economical diesel vehicles that are fun to drive and last forever as well. VW too is tapping consumers on the shoulder today with a message of ““Better performance AND higher gas mileage than a Prius”.

From my days in international sales I still have relationships with past JV partners in Germany that are now friends and they openly share how fun their BMW 3 series are to drive.

GO TALK WITH CURRENT RAVING FANS NOW; CONNECT TO THEIR VOICE, THEIR PASSION, CLEARLY UNDERSTAND, IN THEIR VOICE THE PROBLEMS YOU SOLVE.

What this “feels” like is you are trying to win the hearts and pocket books of “potentials” those people who are not current customers, and are not currently shopping, but thinking about diesel vehicles? So you are actively attacking their perceived problems with your solution. Your current raving fans in the US who own M5’s will pass on your new offering.

So who is your targeted buyer persona?

New buyers of diesel vehicles are more likely to swing into VW’s camp as their position is clearly defined if their need is; fun to drive, economical, and longevity. If what they want is performance and Luxury, they will swing to Mercedes who currently owns this position.

Is this Product Launch (re launch really as you are one of the leaders in diesel vehicles in Europe) an example of “Right idea but late?” We will see…

I am looking forward to see this ad, as I am a huge fan of your vehicles, engineering, fit and finish, just not a fan of your execution of marketing “messaging” as of late as I discussed in my blog post : The Expression of Joy Ad campaign by BMW; May be an Expression of Big Money Wasted http://nosmokeandmirrors.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/the-expression-of-joy-ad-campaign-by-bmw-may-be-an-expression-of-big-money-wasted/ . Business leaders follow you “Big Guys” and I would hate to see smaller businesses clouding their messaging with “creative that requires an interpreter”. (But there I go again being a ROI driven Neanderthal)

Again Patrick, you make amazing vehicles, but because of that my expectation is your messaging will also be amazing. To be amazing I want to “get it” when I see it, and not be like everyone else in a packed movie theater and groan when your ad is played.

I want you to clearly state the problem you solve for me. I do not want some “foo foo marketing creative” that requires an interpreter, because then BMW means Big – Money- Wasted to me.

How about your business….

Does a big expensive ad add value in your business?

Or do they send a message you are disconnected to the market’s true needs?

Or worst, do these big budget ads and media buys make you, as a loyal customer feel you must have over paid for their product if they can afford such Big Money Wasted?

I predict this campaign will be a flop if I need an art director to explain it to me and they do not explain their distinctive competence clearly with an emotional attachment that resonates with me.

Technorati Tags: BMW Z4,BMW,Ads,Advertising,message,messaging,problems you solve,marketing

Mentor Moment #10: “Nail it before you Scale it”

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Entrepreneurs must insure they totally “nail” their product or service thoroughly before they “scale” it.

Like a number of these Mentor Moment nuggets, I do not claim to have written them, but I do whole heartily believe in them. I did a Google search and found this Mentor Moment can be attributed to Warren Packard. He was recently interviewed by Fox Business newsat the CES show concerning what his firm is investing in today.

Market leading entrepreneurs understand how critical it is to totally “Nail” your solution to an unresolved market problem before you “Scale” it. Where market losers fail is only incrementally providing a new solution and not totally solving it leaving themselves vulnerable to competitors who do their homework and thoroughly understand the unresolved market problem and solve it brilliantly. I know the rush of excitement…your new thing will be big and you can’t wait to launch it. When you feel this way, force yourself to to see all the “no-see-ums“. You must make sure you totally nailed it. What are users saying about your new product? Have you learned something new after launch? All of these are considerations you must reconcile BEFORE you scale it, or you will be very unhappy with the results.

Market leaders gain market knowledge and completely solve unresolved market problems.

How about your company…

Your last launch…did you nail it before you scaled it?

What prevents your team from totally nailing it first?

Did you nail it before you scaled it…if so share your results.

Technorati Tags: scale business,product solution,market leadership

Mentor Moment #3: Just because you can, does not mean you should

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Inventors and entrepreneurs are launching new products and services daily… and 80% will fail and be taken off the market within 18 months? Why?

The biggest reason is companies building products because they can and not necessarily because they should. For example, the photo to the right of the iBum by designer Tomomi Sayudais one of those products. For all those office pranksters who find joy in mounting the office copier to copy their back side, Tomomi has now designed you a chair with a copier in the seat. This Japanese designer built a solution “butt” should they have? In addition to the cost of development, launch, and marketing, you also have the opportunity cost of what your team could have been spending time on, and you don’t want me to discuss the negative impact on your team’s morale and damaged trust with your buyers.

You may say; “Well Mark, this is a ridiculous example…” Really? Is it any more ridiculous than: a refrigerator with a computer screen and Internet access, or how about a new refrigerator, microwave and iPod charger for college student dorm rooms. Is it any more ridiculous than a company spending millions developing a pen that will write in the zero gravity of space? When the Russian space program chose to use a pencil? Or how about the laptop manufacturer who spent over 18 months developing a scented laptop. What problem did that solve? Could they do it…yes. Should they have built it?…. Your call.

How do you know if your company is launching products they built because they could and not because they should?

· Customers do not understand the value of the product

· The product or feature was built without a known problem it solves

· Marketing is asked to “create a need for this product”

· You discount the new product or feature by at least 25% within 3 months of Product Launch

· Within six months of launch, marketing asks to double the budget

· Sales misses projection ( and ROI targets) by 50% or more

· When sales cannot gain placement, development and or engineering says “we cannot help it if we have dumb customers”

How about your company….

Do you build products because you can or because you should?

What other examples of products have you seen that were built because they could?

Is there an example of a product built because they could, that turned into a hit product?

If you are in sales, have you been asked to gain placement for products your customers did not understand or need? How did it make you feel? How did it affect your relationship with those buyers?

Just because you can does not always mean you should

Technorati Tags: new product,new product development,innovation,mentor,new product sales,launch,new product launch

$84 million Greeting Card new product idea for Father’s day? …not so fast

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Father’s day is approaching and what do you get the guy who seems to have everything? For my dad it’s pretty easy, although he lives 2,000 miles away we still talk each week and a couple of ideas quickly come to mind. He’s a big fan of the television show 24, and he likes to golf so I went to the store and I quickly found episode three of 24, a golf shirt, and a card that connected to a memory of when he would say” I’m not sleeping, I am just resting my eyes”.

My wife however struggles each year with father’s day as her parents were divorced when she was very young and she has little if any communication with her dad. Each year she gets frustrated while shopping for a card as they all say things like; “to the best dad in the world”, or “for someone who was always there”. So I offered to find a card for her to send to her dad this year. (How hard could it be?Just go to Target and buy one right?)

I started looking at funny cards, yet they referenced time together. I looked at serious cards; however they expressed a deep message that did not seem appropriate. (Why did I volunteer for this mission?) This was becoming very difficult to find a card that basically says ; “Happy father’s day, although you choose not to be a part of my life I love you unconditionally and I am thinking of you this day, and although you forgot my last birthday, I want to thank you for helping to bring me into this world and it’s never too late to build a relationship”.

Having launched a number of new products over the years, my mind started racing…this is an unresolved market problem: Cards for children who wish to connect with their parents who are absent from their lives. ( I am reminded of the scene from the movie Night Shift when the actor gets out his tape recorder and says…I’m an idea man, for example; stop the garbage problem by having edible paper..yes, I have a tape recorder too)

Then that familiar little voice in my head said; I should start a company to fix this problem…..

Not so fast… does it pass the 3 step acid test discussed in the book Tuned In? Is the problem; urgent, pervasive, and are people willing to pay to have it solved?

Is this an Urgent problem? I would say yes every father’s day, Mother’s day, birthday, and holiday.

Is it pervasive, do a number of people have this problem? Again, I quickly say “yes” as this is a problem for my wife.( and therefore becomes a problem for me) I need to be sure however before I take funds from my home equity it will work. Very quickly I start extrapolating( justifying why I should do this); the divorce rate in the US is around 50%, so this problem could touch ½ the US population. So I remember reading somewhere the US population is around 290 million so ½ would be a potential market size of 145 million, sounds good so far. Not all parents that are divorced are absent from their children’s lives. However I do hear quite a bit in the news about deadbeat dads…so let’s assume 10% of divorced parents are absent from their child’s lives…so the market size is now around 14 million per occurrence, and there are at least three occurrences per year per person

Are people willing to pay to solve this problem? I would say yes again. After all I would pay more than the average cost of a card if it perfectly solved this problem, and I would not have to search so hard for the right card.

So we have an unresolved market problem, as far as I can tell. We have children of absentee parents who wish to communicate with them on special days and holidays. So let’s try to size this opportunity ;(three times per year kids need cards ) X(my market size of 14 million) X (retail price of the card, say $3.00). This would be a nice $84 million business right? Well no, my guess is the gross profit margin Target realizes on greeting cards is around 50%, so now the opportunity is $42 million.I need to write a business plan, go get funding and launch this puppy before anyone else thinks of it….again,maybe.

The above scenario happens to me mentally each day, many times per day as I find unresolved problems. The problems feel urgent, pervasive, and I am willing to pay to solve them…and that’s where most people blow it, because like me you assume and guess without market data.You may very well be willing to pay to solve this problem with a perfect solution designed just for this specific niche, however at this point you really do not know if others would be willing to pay to solve this problem. You really do not know if others feel this problem is as urgent to them, and therefore it may not be nearly as pervasive as you once thought. It may very well be an awesome idea and because we know this problem intimately we would be the perfect person to solve it.

I have helped a number of startups who saw unresolved market problems that were so crystal clear they felt they would be a fool not to launch a solution to solve this problem before someone else did. About 6-8 months into missing their positive cash flow projections they hire me to “fix it”. Sometimes they find problems in markets they know very well. Most of the new companies launched today were started by someone who was working for someone else at the time they discovered a problem. However some entrepreneurs fall into a trap; I’m a pretty smart guy, I have done ——-, and ——-, and I believe I can turn this into a nice business quickly that I can then sell to a market leader for millions, buy matching Bentley’s and never have a care in the world again…right? Again, Maybe…

I did a little research not long ago and found that at any given time 6 out of 10 US adults are thinking about starting their own business. The disturbing statistic was the majority, between 80-90% who do launch a new business fail within 18 months. Why? They launch without a thorough understanding of the market, they lack a business plan, and grossly underestimate the cash needed to build and grow the business.Of those that fail, 50% declare bankruptcy.

There are a number of great on line tools for how to write a business plan. You can Google “how to write a business plan” and you will find sites like; My own Business, and many others. Before anyone takes equity out of their home, or borrows from their 401K or loved ones I highly recommend you do research and write a business plan. When you write a plan, you will be forced to answer hard questions, and you will need to go into the market and do research and not just rely on your gut and mental extrapolations of market size. Based on my experience,when you estimate the cost to start your business pad it by +25%, and when you estimate your timeframe to positive cash flow add 8 months to your forecast. You still in the game?

You may vary well have the next great new product, and when you complete market research and build a business plan you may validate that opportunity. Once the plan is written show it to at least 5 trusted advisors and ask their opinion of the opportunity. Ask them if they would loan you the money to start this business and listen to what they say.(many will say it’s a great idea as to not hurt your feelings, however the true test is would they back it with their checkbook?) If these advisors say you have a winner, meet with a number of people who would be representative of your buyer persona and ask their opinion of your solution. What you must determine is ;does your solution perfectly solve their problem? In addition, you will be asked to create a SWOT analysis for your plan. In doing so make sure and review competitors in the space, as well as competitors adjacent to the space you wish to participate in. In this case I would be up against American Greeting and Hallmark to name a few. Far too often entrepreneurs launch great solutions to unresolved market problems but they underestimate competitors already in the space, or adjacent to the space.

If you find an unresolved market problem, and you find the problem to be pervasive and buyers are willing to pay to solve it, do yourself a favor and do some additional research and write a business plan.

Oh, and as for my hunt that became a three hour quest to find a father’s day card for my father in law…the card pictured worked just fine. Was it a perfect solution…no, but it will do.

Don’t let “FUD” cause you to “soft launch” your next product

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Over the years I have experienced two types of product launches; a “Hard Launch” and what some people have referred to as a “Soft Launch”.

Hard Launch

A hard launch is when you set a specific date based on your market opportunity window, the ability of your team, resources, and market conditions. In a hard launch you have done your homework, you have market based data, and you have beta tested your product or service and received qualitative and quantitative feedback from the market. In a hard launch you have cross functional groups within your organization aligned and communicating regularly. If something unplanned occurs your team learns about it within days and has time to adapt verse finding out hours before the targeted launch that it will be late.

I believe in hard launches for four main reasons;

1. Sales can pre-sell based on your known buyer process and cycle

2. Execution, when hard launch dates are made, and communicated to internal and external customers…teams deliver

3. Buyers like vendor partners who do what they say they will do

4. Team members who hard launch products believe in their solution

Back when I sold big box retailers like Wal-Mart and others, if we missed a launch date you would lose more than the revenue your product would have generated. To miss a key launch date violates your trust with that buyer and you had little if any likelihood of placing other new products in the future.

Hard launch dates create a “make it happen ” environment within high performance teams. In addition hard launch plans also quickly identify weaknesses holding teams back from becoming market leaders.

In most cases in my past I led sales and marketing teams and our goals were established based on a hard launch date. In the last 25 years I have never had my sales goals reduced because a product failed to launch on time. If your known buyer’s buying cycle is six months, you need to pre-sell to insure you meet the revenue projections that product management provided senior management to get funding for the product.

Soft Launch

If a member of one of my teams said we “need” to soft launch a product it would make my skin crawl. A soft launch means you did not thoroughly conduct market research, you are not sure you totally understand the problem you are solving and your solution may not completely solve the need. When someone says soft launch I hear them saying this product is an incremental improvement to a current solutions and is not a breakthrough product. I also hear them saying we will throw this product over the wall, into our market and see if it sticks.Team members describe a soft launch as if it were some safe and effective way to launch new products. Their approach is like someone wanting to join the polar bear club and just putting their big toe in the frozen lake to check it out, and saying; I will ease myself in. It simply does not work. I hear some discuss how a soft launch is more cost effective. Again, I have experienced the opposite in actual real as well as the opportunity costs.

So I asked some senior leaders recently why they would or would not use a soft launch and what I heard in summary in favor of a soft launch was “FUD”…

Fear

Uncertainty

Doubt

Fear

· Fear the market may not accept nor embrace your new product

· Fear if you did a hard launch and you announced a future date your competitor would beat your team to market with your idea

· Personal fear, if this draws a great deal of attention, and it does not work I may be out of a job ( particularly in these economic times)

Uncertainty

· Not sure if their solution completely solves the unresolved problem you discovered

· Uncertainty in your teams ability to execute

· Uncertainty to the validation of the market justification data and process used to justify the ROI

Doubt (the what if’s)

· What if raw material costs go up?

· What if the market projection numbers and how we assigned goals was wrong?

· What if this new product in some way caused a negative feeling in our buyers that hurts our base business?

· What if the product turns out to be an incremental improvement and not a breakthrough product?

· What if by the time we go to market we missed the window of opportunity?

Market leaders do not wait for the perfect conditions and they lack “FUD”. Market leading organizations spend considerably more time in upfront research, doing their research in their markets and clearly understanding the unresolved market problems. The crystal clarity they gain insures the requirements for the new product or service are thorough, complete, and nail it the first time. Market leading teams have a launch strategy and plan that includes multiple steps and representatives from other cross functional areas within the team.

The next time someone recommends a “soft launch” what I want you to hear is “FUD” .Before you or your team spend any more time or money on this project you must identify what did not occur that should have. I have lived through soft launches and they never achieve targeted goals and thus ROI’s are missed. Soft launches , that put your toe in the water not only create doubt within your sales team, but customers have a 6^th sense about products that are launched and just do not “feel right” so they wait. As buyers wait, your sales and marketing teams miss their key indicators and morale suffers. Soft launches are a sign you lack confidence in your product, product management, and marketing’s ability. With a soft launch sales does not pre-sell so even if your team totally nailed the solution, you now have the buying cycle before you generate the revenues and more importantly profits that meet ROI targets.

If you can’t have a hard launch plan, don’t launch it at all!

How about you, what experience have you had with “soft launches”?

How does your company launch products?

If you miss launch dates do you reduce the sales and profit key indicators?

Have you ever soft launched a product and exceeded your ROI targets? If so tell me about it.

Is there a case in which a soft launch is the best way to launch a new product or solution?