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The Launch Pad
January 2004

Diets, Resolutions, and Launches

It’s the first day of a new year, and once again, thoughts turn to going on a diet, making resolutions, and planning launches for the new year. So get out your calorie counter, your to-do list, and a 12-month calendar, and let’s get to it.

First, the Diet
We have to get the diet stuff out of the way first, because it takes the least amount of time, and we can therefore move on to the more important things. The first step is to decide how much weight you want to lose. Write that down. Next, write down the month that will be your deadline for losing that weight, such as “December”. Then, decide how you want to lose that weight, choosing amongst the thousand or so diet plans available to you (Atkins, South Beach, Grapefruit and Oatmeal diet, etc.). Now, put two items on the To-Do list: 1) Buy diet book, and 2) Weigh self in December. Okay, you are done with that, and you don’t have to worry about that until your weigh-in and you can concentrate on your launch planning.

Second, the Resolutions
Everyone has good intentions of making new resolutions to improve your personal health, attitude, well-being, habits, relationships, financial status, mood, and accomplishments. So write out each one on a scrap of paper, put them all in a hat, and pull out one. Throw out the rest (or keep for next year). Write that one resolution on your To Do list for the year. Okay, now we’re ready for the good stuff.

First Step of Launch Planning: the WHAT
As you think about the year ahead, identify the products or services that you will be launching. If you are part of a large organization, you may need to consult with the product development or business development groups to get an update on the “product roadmap”, which is the list and sequence of individual products that will be developed as part of a product family. If your company sells services, work with the business planners to find out about new offerings planned. Once you obtain this information, you will need to identify which of those products are likely to be launched during the upcoming year.
If you are entrepreneur or the owner of a small business, you may not have a lot of new product releases planned, but you may have activities that may need to be done in order to support a product that is already in the market. After this first step, you should have a list of WHAT you will be launching in 2004.

Second Step of Launch Planning: the WHEN
Now it’s time to get out the calendar. You will need to post the approximate launch dates on the calendar. The launch date may be determined by the product development group, or the marketing group. The term “launch date” may mean different things to different people, and companies may also have a different definition. In most cases, the launch date means the date when the product has been made available to the target market, in other words, available for purchase.

If launch dates have not been solidified, and you have some flexibility as to launch date, you may need to do some additional research in order to find out what the competition is doing and also the dates for some key events in the industry such as annual conferences or trade shows. With regard to competition, you may want to launch your product before or after your competitor’s product, depending on your market strategy. If your product availability will precede or coincide with a major conference or other industry event, you may choose that venue as a way to further market your product.

If you don’t have any new product launches planned for the year, you may still want to list key marketing programs and events from launches that occurred last year, in order to keep the momentum going.

Third Step of Launch Planning: Resources
Now that you have the dates of your launches, you can develop detailed launch timelines for all of the marketing programs that you will need to support your launch. (Note: the best tool to use for this purpose is on page 271 of my book, “From Idea to Launch at Internet Speed”. This chart has a timeline at the top marked in weeks before launch, horizontal rows showing functional organizations, and the marketing programs plotted on the chart that indicate when they are done and who should do them.) When you have all of the programs listed on each launch timeline, you then will have the information you need to allocate your human resources, hire outside contractors, and develop your launch budget for the year.

Quick and Quirky Example
You are the Marketing and Launch Manager for PharmaSwift, a company that makes wireless devices that connect pharmacists with prescribing doctors. Last year, you launched the latest version of the device that had additional capabilities, but there were some difficulties with it. PharmaSwift is now introducing a full training, service and support offering that will be sold directly to participants, because the third party vendor was not providing the levels of quality that the company desired. (The physicians were not grasping the nuances of using the touchpad shorthand, and had reverted to using their notoriously bad handwriting when sending prescriptions to the pharmacy. This resulted in some back and forth instant messaging between the pharmacists and the physicians, and finally they just ended up calling each other on the phone anyway. The physicians needed better training on the devices.)

After meeting with the product development and business development managers, you have determined that there will be three major launches of the services package this year, along with continuation of the marketing programs for the hardware device that was released last year. Training was the key issue, so all field and support personnel will go through “train the trainer” courses so they can do on the spot training along with maintenance, if needed. The field service offering will be launched first; transitioning from the third party vendor so that they will no longer be involved by March 1st. Customer support will be next, with that launch on June 1st. The training package will be ready on September 1st.

The resulting launch plan then has the following elements:

-First quarter: bring in vendor to train field service and support personnel, develop marketing materials for field service offering in preparation for launch March 1st, continue marketing programs for last year’s hardware launch
-Second quarter: develop marketing materials for customer support offering in preparation for launch June 1st, continue marketing programs for last year’s hardware launch
-Third quarter: develop marketing materials for training offering in preparation for launch September 1st, continue marketing programs for last year’s hardware launch
-Fourth quarter: continue marketing programs for new package of service offerings, including at least one success story from one physician who no longer has to worry about their handwriting issues!

May you lose your weight by December, keep all your resolutions and have many profitable launches.

Happy 2004!

Catherine Kitcho
The Launch Doctor