7 Surefire Ways to Guarantee Your New Product Flops

Got an exciting new product or service you’re introducing to the market soon? Do you plan (or hope) to sell it to big companies?

If so, you’ll want to avoid these common, yet critical mistakes that can slow down or even totally derail your best sales efforts.

Mistake 1: Lack of familiarity with your customer’s situation

If you’re not totally familiar with how customers handle things without your new product or service, you’re at a major disadvantage.

To be successful selling, you need to know the:

1. Likely problems customers experience because of their current product or method.

2. Implications of these problems on their business.

3. Pay-off they get from making a change.

Without this knowledge, your ability to create value is severely hampered, it’s hard to sell with confidence, and objections are hard to overcome. Make sure you know as much as you can about your customer before you launch your new product.

Mistake 2: No pre-planning of questions to ask your customer

Good questions drive the sales process. They don’t just emerge from thin air when you’re sitting in front of a prospective customer. They take time to develop. If you omit this crucial step, you’ll flounder during customer meetings.

Uncovering dissatisfaction or pain with status quo will be difficult. Discovering gaps between the customer’s vision of the future and their current state is a formidable challenge. Building a business case to make a change is next to impossible.

Make sure you pre-plan a minimum of ten questions you can use to uncover and develop needs before you make the sales call.

Mistake 3: Calling on your very best prospects first

Calling on your top prospects first can be a big mistake! On your first sales calls with a new product, it’s easy to screw things up and trip over your own feet. Your knowledge of your customer’s situation may be spotty. Your presentation may be ragged. Unanticipated questions and obstacles can throw you for a loop.

Your overall effectiveness is much lower than it would be if you had a few practice sessions under your belt. Make your first calls on “B” prospects – use these calls as practice. Then, you won’t blow a good opportunity.

Mistake 4: Setting up meetings to “tell” about the new product

If you set up a meeting to update a customer about your new product – you can be headed right into some big trouble. By telling customers you’re bringing in information, that’s exactly what they’ll expect the meeting to be all about. They want you to talk, talk, talk.

The result: Customers ask about your pricing – and it’s always too high since you haven’t built value relevant to their situation. Plus, customers try to find reasons not to buy it. They look for little things it can’t do so they don’t have to change.

Talking does NOT sell buyers from big companies. Questions do. So, instead of arranging the meeting to tell about your offering, suggest a meeting to see if the new product is a “fit” for their situation. Then, when you’re there, give a brief overview but quickly move into questions.

Mistake 5: Leaning forward in your chair

Laugh all you want at this one, but it’s a killer. If you lean forward, you’re pitching - pure and simple. And customers hate being “pitched.” This behavior usually happens early in a sales call when you’re nervous or immediately after the customer shares a minor dissatisfaction with their current situation that you can help them with.

The minute you lean forward, you lose your ability to be a consultative seller. Customers sense that they’re being “sold” and quickly salesperson leans forward to start talking about the new product or service. Customers quickly erect barriers, protecting themselves from the onslaught. A major sales delay is guaranteed.

So make sure you’re leaning back. It’s the best way to stay in a consultative mode.

Mistake 6: Bringing brochures out early in the call

Designed to be a sales aid, marketing collateral has been the death of more sales than anyone dares to imagine. Using brochures in early meetings with prospective clients focuses discussion on two deadly areas: product/service features and pricing. Needs are forgotten. Because you haven’t uncovered enough value for making a change, your cost is always to high. Or, you’re ruled out because of irrelevant capabilities that have minimal impact on achieving the desired end result.

When you’re introducing new products, keep your brochures in the car. It’s the only way to ensure you’re not tempted to bring them out too early and ruin the meeting. Also, if you don’t have them with you, that means you’ll need to set up a follow-up meeting to discuss things in more detail.

Mistake 7: Lack of a pre-planned next step

Without a clearly defined next step implanted in your brain prior to your sales call, you’re doomed.. Just sharing exciting new product information gets you nowhere. Unless you have a clearly defined objective before the call and are ready to offer logical next steps, you’ll be left sitting by the phone waiting for it to ring.

So before your next meeting think about what the logical next step is: Do you need to learn more about their operation? Should you schedule a meeting with another person in the organization? Perhaps a demonstration is required. Or, a proposal. But, whatever is next, don’t leave home without the determining exactly what you’ll suggest as a follow-up step.

Next time your company introduces a new product or service, make sure you avoid these common yet often catastrophic mistakes. It’ll make a big difference in your sales results!

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Jill Konrath, President of Selling to Big Companies, helps small businesses win big contracts. To sign up for her FREE e- newsletter, "Quantum Leaps Selling", send a blank email to mailto:jill@SellingtoBigCompanies.com with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. You'll receive a free special report, “Sales Call Planning Guide,” too.

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