Sales involvement makes or breaks market launches.

It doesn’t matter how great your marketing story is. If the sales force isn’t on board with your approach – revenues won’t flow. Involve sales from the beginning, you’ll be more successful.

  • Select your ideal target customers – and involve their reps up front. The reps will test your story, figure out the best sales strategies and bring in those all important first deals. They'll also give you the feedback you need on your messages – early in the cycle, before you blow it with their customers. Have a new audience or market you want to attack? Involve the reps who understand that market early on as well. They are the experts – use them to tune your story the best way possible.
  • Make sales buy-in a priority. When sales offers feedback during the launch planning, they feel part of the team. Trust me when I say, if you get the right few sales leaders involved - the ones most respected by the reps themselves - you will get buy in. And a lot better feedback too!
  • Train for Sales, not Techs. Sales reps don't want to know about the feeds 'n speeds anymore than your customers do. Sure, their technical reps want this information for the complex product evaluators. Give it to them in a separate, in-depth training exercise. Sales training is best when its focused on how to win business from the economic buyer - you know, the guy who signs the checks. Include customer-centric targeting, messaging and evidence (in the form of real world application stories) - all focused on bottom-line value and the evidence to support those claims. 

Always remember, sales reps are driven by the potential to make money. In the absence of the right information and involvement, you won't get their attention. They won't see how to make the bucks without a big long fight for the sale.

If a product is too difficult to sell, too far ahead of its time, too complex and technical, if the training isn't appropriate... sales will continue selling their status quo suite of products - and making money. It's human nature, and it's certainly sales' nature. 

Invite sales to the launch party early, get their buy-in and support – and watch that revenue flow.