How understanding the sales learning curve can improve your business growth.
After you launch your product, you have probably had the urge to scale up your sales force capacity to get more customers fast. Although it might seem tempting, ramping up your sales force before you can efficiently sell the product can lead to failure of meeting your revenue expectations.
So then you might ask “What should I do?”…
Have you heard about the Sales Learning Curve? The SLC is a company-wide initiative and not just the sales department. Marketing, sales, product support, and product development are all elements of the organization that interact with customers. When you're launching a new product, don't just recruit a slew of salespeople and then let them loose once the initial version is out. Consider this to be a new "development" cycle for the company to go through, meaning everything should move in the same direction together. If done properly, SLC can bring you higher merchantability of the product and eventually higher sales yield.
But don’t get confused!
The companies’ SLC is different from the sales rep’s SLC. During the initial months on the job, most organizations want sales reps to progress from new hires to fully productive salespeople as they learn more about the product, the customers, the market, and the competitors. The sales learning curve we're talking about is distinct from and distinct from the individual learning curve, and it's more extensive, incorporating all customer-facing areas of the company: marketing, sales, product support, and product development. The increases in sales yield that come as a result of this organizational learning process affect all sales reps, new and old. Because this process can be very intricate and complex, outsourcing might be a viable option for your company. By employing skilled salesperson or professionals, sales outsourcing allows businesses to capitalize on previously untapped prospects. Outsourcing your sales can lower the cost of sales, and allows for more responsibility, analysis, and consistent performance management.
Every organization has its own learning curve, and each industry, company, and product has its own set of drivers. It's possible that the sales and marketing procedures aren't initially focused on the proper clients. Product development, marketing, and sales must answer a slew of hard questions in order to climb the learning curve. For example, product developers must accurately identify which features will make the product desirable to buyers. Selecting the right sales team, planning your sales rollout and learn to compress the SLC can help you plan for a more successful product launch.
Credit: https://www.sequoiacap.cn/article/the-sales-learning-curve