Topic

new products

A collection of 267 issues

A Shill Confidence

Here’s one problem I can encounter when working to maximise sales of a client’s latest new product. The glamour and glitz of Launch is greeted with dark mutterings inside closed huddles of salespeople bemoaning the product’s shortfalls as catastrophic. When has each aspect of a new product

Indian Pitch Approach

Idling away downtime reading TechCrunch, I came across a summary interview [http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/19/the-man-corporations-love-and-xenophobes-hate/] with the chap credited as starting the race to Off-Shore business processes by dint of his Indian outsourcer creation Infosys,N.R. Narayana Murthy [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._R._Narayana_

Most Simple Deals Work

On a slightly tangential note for us solution sellers, I came across an interview with a Swiss chap that founded a hotel chain [http://www.timeslive.co.za/business/article283722.ece]. A quarter of a century later, the firm has 50 hotels throughout S Africa. Always interested in company founders,

Hit Hard And Fast

I’m involved on a project aiming to launch a technologically advanced product into an arena where legislation has removed any current viable options. There’s a yawning market gap compounded by substitute solutions being woefully inadequate. The entry-level version of the product will retail at around $40. It is

First-Run Placements Plan

News from a client of mine about how they successfully launched a new item during the past twelve months of torture. Their new product was a piece of IT wizardry, typically bought through leasing, worth around €30k. In their own words, they decided to separate their sales potential into: > “first-run

Child Habit Psychology

My regular work that helps people no longer lose new product launch momentum, and sell such latest offerings more effectively than they may have experienced before, makes me interested in the concept of neophobia. In my field this primarily refers to the way that salespeople often shy away from selling

Monty's Insight

I caught a chastening documentary on how the Allies managed to prolong the war in Europe and needlessly increase the pyre of bodies, due to internal strife, egos and mistakes of the commanders towards the end of 1944. In a narrative where no leader escapes blame, here’s a quote

Keeping Your Expert Scrapbook

Round at a friend’s pad for a spot of lunch over the weekend, I noticed a flash looking glossy lying about with the seemingly dull title Global Foreign Exchange Quarterly. It was produced by a bank eager to prove themselves as thought leaders to their target marketplace, within which

Sales Must Innovate In A Downturn

Browsing the FT’s ‘managing in a downturn [http://www.ft.com/cms/af1c5354-e0d1-11dd-b0e8-000077b07658.htm?segid=60004&ftcamp=crunch/hse_ad/highlights-box_mmHP//60004] ‘ video selection during a tea-break, I watched clips that discussed what Management must do during recession. One gave the thoughts of a private equity boss, Jon

Evolving New Products

I came across a summary written by author Rosabeth Moss Kanter (first known to me for Change Masters and When Giants Learn To Dance) after her then latest insights on innovation earlier in the decade, “Evolve!” Although I do hold an interest in the subject matter generally, this summary struck