You can't afford to let the knowledge leak out!

"The ability to learn faster than your competitors is the only sustainable competitive advantage."    Arie de Geus

I first read this bit of wisdom sometime in the early 90s.  Back then, we were just beginning to realize that price, delivery, state-of-the-art product features and after-sale service were simply not good enough any more.  The competitive landscape had advanced by then, to the point where even superior knowledge about all those things was not enough to win consistently.  We began to realize that we needed to know the customer's business at least as well as the customer, and more realistically, that we had to anticipate problems and requirements.  We needed to be there with a cost justified solution, before the customer even knew there was a problem.

It's a gross understatement to say that since those pre-internet days, the pace of the business world has picked up just a tad.  In response, I do believe that a few top sales reps have in fact gotten quite good at this "learning faster" thing.  Problem is, even the eagles are having a tough time of it any more.  And the majority of reps are simply not keeping up.  A more formal process is essential.

Think in terms of a Sales Excellence Council comprised of 5-9 of your sales leaders responsible for three things:

• Sales Knowledge Generation - Your top sales personnel are creative, but quite often they are not consciously aware of that fact.  They assume everyone else has been and is figuring out and applying new sales processes, best practices and tools on a regular basis.  Make these eagles aware that they need to capture every little chunk of sales effectiveness and write it down!
   

• Sales Knowledge Sharing - DO NOT underestimate the effectiveness of simply writing things down.  Capturing the intelligence is the essential first step.  Some of your stars are good writers.  Great!  Ask them to write a short "tip of month" and then publish and reward them for it.  If they're not great writers, that's OK too.  Have them present at a sales meeting and have somebody else write it down for them.  Or just make an audio recording of it, and make that available.  Generate a continuous streaming of new knowledge in, around and throughout the sales organization.  Make knowledge sharing a habit for everybody.
   

• Sales Knowledge Management - This is the "formal" part and you need two IT systems to do it right.  First is a "Sales Knowledge Mine" where all of the processes, practices and tools are captured, sorted, indexed and made electronically available to all sales personnel.  Take a look at "wiki" technology for this, although just a plain old internal web site will do for starters.  The second system is CRM.  One that is actively used for contact, account, opportunity and activity management.

Knowledge generation, sharing and management.  It's one of the core responsibilities of the sales leader.  Gee, I wonder if customers would appreciate a sales rep who performed a similar function for them...