CRM - November 2008 - (Page BPS11)

Sponsored Content November 2008 11 Knowledge Management 2.0 Over the past decade, SAVO has helped leading organizations including ADP, IBM, FedEx Kinko’s, and CareerBuilder.com enable their sales and marketing organizations to drive better selling conversations via true Knowledge Management strategies. In this time, we’ve learned several lessons from our clients about the factors that determine success. We have witnessed the transformation of Knowledge Management, from a purely document-management function to a powerful Sales Enablement instrument that focuses on true, value-driven sales support. Traditionally, Knowledge Management was defined by the centralization of documents. Brochures, RFP responses, and PowerPoints filled portals and intranets. The objective was to centralize these materials with the hope that people across the organization knew where to look. The problem with this approach? • It assumes that everyone has time to navigate through layers of architecture. • It assumes documents are the only resources customer facing-people need. • It focuses too little on the behaviors that we’re looking to reinforce via Knowledge Management. FROM KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TO “GENIUS MANAGEMENT” successful, they use this entire network – the collective genius of the organization. They win by driving this genius into every selling conversation. True Knowledge Management strategies today have transitioned from document management to Genius Management – the ability to manage all of the genius that exists across your company. Within your organization, who are the “gurus” your top sales reps tap? Are you scaling their insights and making their knowledge readily available to every rep? How much more successful would your salespeople be if everyone had access to the right people, expertise, and information 24/7? This is the cornerstone of Knowledge Management 2.0. ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIG NO MORE the cycle, and capturing the genius that supports each one of these conversations: “Plays” Every organization has a few urgent revenue-generating “plays” it’s looking to execute against in the coming quarter or year. Whether it’s transitioning to solution selling, increasing the revenue contribution of channel partners, or improving your bidto-win ratio, an ability to execute these key plays across the sales organization is pivotal to meeting your objectives. What are the top 2-3 plays you’re looking to execute today? “Conversations” First things first – knowledge management is more than document management. Most winning sales reps will tell you that success is not dependent on more corporate-approved content. While top sellers leverage this content at certain times in the sales cycle, content management is not the key differentiator in a winning sale. Instead, top sales reps credit their “knowledge network” as the key success driver – and more specifically, their ability to tap this network at the right point in every sales cycle. Sales reps reach out to colleagues for industry knowledge and best practices for driving a particular deal forward. They tap into product experts to hone their understanding of features, or learn the latest on competitive products. They reach out to Marketing for case studies or articles. To be Traditional portals and technologies built to organize documents miss the mark by failing to recognize what salespeople truly need – a network of people and expertise readily available to support each selling interaction. As a result, portals and intranet solutions have become virtual ghost towns for salespeople - nothing more than dumping grounds for outdated documents. How do we ensure that every salesperson is leveraging the best information for a specific selling situation? How do we make it easy for them to tap into what’s most important - the unstructured insights and genius that exist across the organization? A NEW WAY OF MANAGING KNOWLEDGE: PLAYS, CONVERSATIONS, AND GENIUS Enabling reps to execute against your critical “plays” requires support at the conversation level. What are the three to five critical conversations a sales rep will have with a buyer in order to execute against your play? How can you improve the quality and the efficacy of these conversations (e.g. How can you improve your team’s approach to discovery? How can you easily displace a competitor?) How can you leverage Knowledge Management to ensure that every seller leads these conversations as adeptly as your top seller? “Genius” Knowledge Management is Genius Management. As a result, a strategy focused on centralizing and categorizing brochures and PowerPoint documents simply won’t capture the knowledge that truly differentiates your business. True Knowledge Management means pushing the right combination of resources (people, insights, relevant content) to your people, at the right time. The key to success? Identifying the objectives you’re looking to enable across the sales force (the sales “plays”), understanding the critical conversations that take place throughout Finally, which pockets of “genius” from your company provide the necessary support for each conversation? What are the best approaches to handling objections? Who has the specific industry knowledge or key customer success stories that can drive a specific deal forward? As discussed earlier, the practice of managing knowledge must be focused on managing genius. How can you provide this collection of genius to your reps at the right moment in the sales cycle? How can you enable your sales reps to deliver this genius during that critical sales conversation? This is the cornerstone of Knowledge Management 2.0. Learn more at savogroup.com, or call (877) 542-7266 for a demo of our award winning Genius Management application. http://www.savogroup.com http://www.CareerBuilder.com http://www.savogroup.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - November 2008

CRM - November 2008 Contents Front Office Feedback Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Working with the Years CRM on Twitter Virtual Spenders Contact Centers Chatting to Success The Complexity Chasm Required Reading Generational Spending: A Special Report Who, What, Where, When, Y The Slackers’ X-cellent Adventure The Boomer Boom The Matures Endure Boosting Productivity North of the Border Changing the Channel Invicta’s Thrill of Victory Secret of My Success Connect Re:Tooling Pint of View

CRM - November 2008

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