Ride The 'New Wave'

Recently I’ve come across a spate of sales teams whose leadership is exasperated by the lack of extra sales key new product launches have brought in.  It’s a long-known problem, classically referred to as “sales substitution”.  This has two strands, the one I’ll deal with here typically runs as follows:

glitzy launch of new product to salesteam, financial incentives offered, management say sell it on pain of death, reps decide it’s all a bit too complicated, happy to still hit their numbers with the rest of their kit bag, so stay in their old comfort zone, new product doesn’t fly off the shelf, management jumps off roof, bitter recriminations follow…

I hate this scenario.  So was delighted to read about (albeit monolithic torpid laggards) BT’s push into broadband services achieving a degree of success.  They described two types of services; old & new wave.  After just a few quarters, the New Wave accounts for a whopping 36% of business.  One possible way of looking at this, is that 1 out of every 2.8 orders is now for New Wave products.

What BT does not state, is how the sales teams responsible embraced the New Wave, but you can still pick out the bones and persuade any dissenting sellers why the ‘feared future’ is worth pursuing.  In other words, if you’re launching a new product, this is a great example to explain why you can’t afford not to board the train.  Imagine you don’t join the pagent, in just a few months you’ll only be doing two-thirds the business you’re doing now…..