What buyers ask before a launch.

Why do new products launch on time and then not sell?

New products launch on time and then miss their sales plan because nobody owns whether they sell.

Product managers often run the go-to-market launch between their other jobs, and sellers stay with the deals that make this quarter's number. In my interviews with launch leaders at 15 business software companies with $600M to $20B in revenue, more than half named sales compensation as a launch risk.

What is the difference between a product launch and a go-to-market launch?

A product launch makes the new product available, and a go-to-market launch decides who buys it, at what price, from which seller, and why now.

Your product team owns the product launch. The go-to-market launch needs product, marketing, sales and customer success working from one plan.

Why do sellers skip new products, and how do you pay them to sell?

Sellers skip new products because the core product is the surer way to make their number.

Before launch day, each seller gets a pay plan that counts the new product and training built on the first deals that closed.

How do you price a product before anyone has bought it?

You set the price, packaging and messaging with your first customers during beta and limited availability, and adjust them from how those customers respond.

At Dun & Bradstreet, I repositioned a risk decisioning product as premium and priced it by industry. The transaction price tripled, and the line's revenue grew 44% that year.

When should go-to-market work on a new product start?

Go-to-market work should start about four months before your first customers, once the business case is approved.

That leaves time to test the price with your first customers and to have sellers working named accounts before launch day.

How is a go-to-market launch different at a large company and a small one?

The steps stay the same, and the team changes with company size.

At a larger company, a small team of your best sellers works the first deals before launch. What wins those deals becomes the pitch, the training and the pay plan for everyone else.

At a smaller company, your sales team is the whole team, so the research happens before the first call. We decide in advance what the team needs to learn from its first deals and how each lesson reaches every seller.