5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Launching a New Product or Service

Launching a new product or service can completely change the trajectory of a business. It can also become an expensive distraction if leadership makes the wrong decisions early.

When we say "new product," we’re not talking about launching a new IPA for your brewery, adding another software feature to your SaaS product, or introducing another SKU to your warehouse. We’re talking about a truly adjacent product or service. Something that requires your company to build new sales muscles, learn a new market, or develop a new revenue stream.

We’ve struggled through these launches ourselves, so in addition to recruiting salespeople into hundreds of companies launching new products over the last fifteen years, we also have our own experiences.

These are the five questions SalesFirst has its clients ask themselves before making that investment.

1. Should I launch this product myself, hire someone, or have my existing team sell it?

Every successful product launch requires pain. That pain comes in three forms: time, money, or sweat.

Unfortunately there isn't a fourth option.

Many owners assume hiring someone eliminates the grind. It doesn't. It simply transfers the grind to someone else. If you're asking another person to experience that pain on your behalf, fully fund them. Give them the time, resources, support, and patience required to succeed.

The same applies if you ask your existing sales team to sell the new product. Don't expect immediate success. They still have to learn the market, refine the messaging, discover objections, and figure out what works. And it will impact you both positively and negatively, so there will still be pain.

The pain doesn't disappear. The only decision is who experiences it.

Questions to ask yourself:

• Who should own this launch?

• Am I trying to avoid the pain?

• If I ask my existing team to sell it, am I prepared for them to struggle?

• If I hire someone, have I FULLY funded the effort?

2. If I hire someone, what kind of salesperson do I actually need?

One of the biggest hiring mistakes we see is treating every salesperson like they're interchangeable.

They're not.

Some people are builders. They're leaders first. They build systems, teams, accountability, and repeatable processes. They may not know your market, but they know how to build an organization.

Some people are rainmakers. They're salespeople first. They usually come directly from the industry. They already know the market, the competitors, the customers, and where the opportunities are. They can often generate revenue quickly because they aren't starting from scratch.

Occasionally you'll find someone who's both. Someone who understands the market and knows how to build an organization around it. They're rare and expensive. But they can also be worth every penny.

Then there's what we call the budget hire.

Budget hires usually make sense on paper. They require less compensation, they have strong intangibles, and they feel like the lower-risk decision. Sometimes they are, but sometimes they're the most expensive decision you'll make.

The salary may be lower, but if the product fails to gain traction because you hired the wrong person, the real costs become lost revenue, lost momentum, and eventually replacing the hire you were trying to save money on.

Questions to ask yourself:

• Do I need a leader or a producer?

• Does this person already know my market?

• Am I asking someone to learn a new industry and launch a new product at the same time?

• What's more important to me right now: lower compensation or better odds of success?

3. If I hire a dedicated rep, how will I get my existing team to support them?

One of the first conversations we recommend is with your existing sales team.

Something like this:

"I need to ask all of you for a favor. We're about to hire someone into one of the hardest jobs in this company. They're going to have a very steep hill to climb, and they'll fail without your proactive help. Forget titles. Forget territories. Forget personal relationships. Commit to making this person successful."

Your existing salespeople already have relationships with customers. They've earned trust. They know who will take a meeting. Every introduction they make gives your new product another opportunity to succeed.

This new person isn't important. But their job is.

Questions to ask yourself:

• Have I clearly defined my existing team's role?

• How will I hold them accountable for supporting this launch?

• What happens if nobody helps?

4. How should I compensate someone when nobody knows what success looks like yet?

Before deciding how to compensate someone, ask a more important question. Am I paying for discovery or execution?

If the market is known, the customer is known, the messaging is proven, and the sales process is predictable, paying on revenue makes perfect sense. If most of those things are still unknown, your salesperson isn't just selling. They're helping identify the ideal customer, testing messaging, uncovering objections, validating pricing, and validating product fit.

In that situation, we often prefer Management by Objectives (MBOs). Instead of rewarding revenue immediately, reward the activities that turn unknowns into knowns.

In the first quarter, those objectives might include meeting with existing customers, meeting with target prospects, documenting customer objections, and delivering product demonstrations.

Later, they may shift toward recommending pricing changes, refining messaging, identifying the ideal customer profile, and improving the product itself.

As the unknowns become knowns, transition to a traditional revenue-based compensation plan.

Questions to ask yourself:

• Am I paying for discovery or execution?

• What unknowns still exist?

• When should I transition to revenue-based compensation?

5. How much money and time am I genuinely willing to invest before deciding whether this product works?

Before launching, build a plan. It actually doesn’t even matter if you follow it perfectly… (you probably won't, anyway).

Build it because creating the plan changes your thinking. And be sure to bring in your leadership team. Talk to your finance, your partner, your ops person, and even involve your spouse if that’s where your business is at.

The conversation itself will expose risks, challenge assumptions, and force decisions you probably wouldn't have made on your own.

You won’t be able to predict the future, but you will become better prepared for it.

Questions to ask yourself:

• How much money am I willing to invest?

• How much time am I willing to invest?

• When will I pivot?

• When will I stop?

Launching a new product is rarely just a sales challenge.

Who you hire matters.

How you support them matters.

How you compensate them matters.

But before any of those decisions, the most important question is whether you're asking someone to execute a proven plan or help you discover one.

That answer shapes almost every decision that follows.