the sales learning curve

8/3/2019 The Sales Learning Curve

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Aman ChopraAkansha Singh

Anubhav Rawat

Neha Chowdhury

Prateek Malpani

THE SALES LEARNING CURVE


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What is the need of a sales learning curve

Twenty-five years ago the principal risk increating a new company or a new product is,underlying this was the belief that if we buildit, they will come.

The old assertion has become the newquestion: When we build it, will anyonecome?

Not estimating or analyzing the audienceusually results in an overinvestment in sales,disappointing revenues and excessiveconsumption of cash.


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What is a Sales learning Curve

When a company launches a new product, the temptation is to immediately

ramp up sales force capacity to acquire customers as quickly as possible.

A large sales staff hinders more than it helps a company climb the curve.

Instead the firm should focus first on organizing itself so it can learn from

customers and respond to them.

Hence entire organization needs to learn how customers will acquire and useit, a process we call the sales learning curve.


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Sales learning Curvefor a new market enterant

Sales learning Curve fora follow on product,

existing market


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SLC Process

The sales learning process unfolds in three phaseseach requiring a different size

sales force with different skills:

1. Initiation:

Youve beta-tested the product and have few potential customers. Hire three to four

salespeople to learn how customers will use the product and to support other parts

of the company in refining the offering as well as marketing and selling strategies.

Look for salespeople who: Communicate well with teams from other functions

Tolerate ambiguity

Have a deep interest in product technology

Can bring customers together with various functional teams in your firm

Can develop their own sales models and collateral materials


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SLC Process Cont.

2. Transition:

Youve acquired a critical mass of customers, and sales are accelerating. Keep your

initial sales team focused on learning.

Add sales reps who can operate effectively within an evolving sales model but who

dont necessarily have the analytical and communication skills the initial team

required.

3. Execution:

Now bring in traditional salespeopleand arm them with a territory, sales plan, price

book, and marketing materials to take orders.


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Experiencing the ESLC in a Startup Company -- Scalix Corporation

Scalixdeveloped a product using as its core HPsOpenMail system and jumped into the go-to-market

stage

Scalixs initial strategy was simple: recruit a high-

powered enterprise-sales veteran and sell direct toCIOs at large enterprises. They rapidly extended and

expanded the enthusiasm and interest for the Scalix

product at the CIO-level.


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Problems faced by Scalix

Scalix discovered a number of unanticipated problems.

1) It became evident that the CIO was not the decision-maker for

these companies email vendor.2) Scalix discovered that many large companies needed to get

more comfortable with Linux before they would run email on it.


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Steps taken as per SLC to correct its course of action

In mid 2004, it overhauled its go-to-market strategy to hit the

Linux evangelist and early adopter community first, with a

particular emphasis on smaller targets in the higher education

and public sectors, segments where Linux adoption wasstrongest

These adjustments are typical of a company learning and

changing as it interacts with real customers using the companys

product to do real work.


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Problems

Company had expected the product to be mature andready for prime time, but in actuality there were productstability and functionality issues that had to be dealt with.

Frustration for sales people used to selling mature products.

Sales force exposed to early product issues, no significantadditional revenue opportunity to compensate for this.

Experienced sales reps rebelled against new product andcommission structure.

Concerns that new product would be threat to hardwarevendors.

Low revenue - Product abandoned


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New Product strategy

Product Development

Marketing

Sales

the sales learning curve

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