Following hot on the heels of your planning work in the B2B product launch process is the need to get your people sorted.

The fifth B2B product launch process step is to align your people.

After you’ve planned the launch, you should get your protagonists together to review the planning, get their feedback, and make sure they’re comfortable committing to what you’re asking of them and their departments.

For this reason it’s wise to allow a bit of wiggle room time before executing the plan. This enables you to iterate your planning document so that all the key players are happy with the modified version.

Another useful step to build in is the consideration and incorporation of any feedback and experiences from those of your partners and customers who have had access to any prototypes or beta versions of your product. This work may have knock-on effects for your lead times and planning, so you’ll be thanking yourself for building in buffer before you hit the execute button. It’s also a good time to capture agreement from these early adopters to help with marketing endorsements and – in the absence of paying customers for the product – build credibility and confidence for the launch.

So, you’ve done your planning, got it blessed, and profited from the feedback loop on early versions of the product. You’re good to go.