Why Knowledge Sharing is becoming more important than Selling

Louis Columbus, Cincom

Now before anyone says "What a minute! Sales is Always number #1!" just consider the fact that the efficiency of any sales cycle is directly related to how well a company shares information and knowledge to begin with. Sure, salespeople are continually in various phases of sales cycles with prospects and repeat customers and need support, yet the best support of all is building a culture that freely shares knowledge.

Customers buy based on trust not on features. What prospects really want is knowledge and guidance on how to get to their goals, accomplish results, and alleviate pain (even if it is just getting their grouchy bosses off their backs!)

I got to thinking about how much more important knowledge sharing was versus sales after I recently re-read The Tipping Point. Often the tipping point was only found through a network of Connectors and Mavens, all fueled by the catalyst of knowledge sharing. Example after example in the book supports this fact, from the catalyst of the American Revolution to success selling IRAs to teachers. Quite eclectic in examples, the book is worth a re-read from time to time for its ideas.

So if a company is faltering from a selling standpoint, could it be knowledge sharing needs work? Sure, and while it is impossible to just isolate lack of sales success just to a lack of knowledge sharing, there is abundant evidence showing this could also be a major contributing factor.

Knowledge sharing extends past teamwork, even past collaboration. It’s about engraining knowledge transfer into those key processes that are used for interlinking suppliers, buyers, customers and service organizations into a company’s workflows. I just had to throw in this graphic from despair.com on teamwork, and it really is true, jokingly so. A few harmless flakes (and well intentioned contributors) can unleash significant change.

In my classes on international business we talk a lot about how the best performing companies develop into "learning" organizations. Getting past just excelling at marketing, branding, selling or supply chains, certain companies have the ability to drive learning into the core processes they rely on. One of the best papers I’ve seen written on this is Creating and Managing a High Performance Knowledge-Sharing Network: The Toyota Case which is excellent. It’s written by Dr. Jeffrey Dyer from the Wharton School and Dr. Kentaro Nobeoka of Kobe University. It’s a fascinating look inside the Toyota Production System and worth checking out.

Comments

[Dale Wolf]

Very astute argument, Louis, for changing how we think about creating experiences that customers will value. Most salespeople latch onto any lead and try to move it to close as fast as possible.

What I find particularly interesting is that I woke up this morning with an Ah-Ha and ran to my office at home to jot it down. My note: We help you give your customers what they want. They are tired of being sold what we want to sell them. Instead they want knowledge so they can resolve their needs. If we provide them with this kind of knowledge, they will see us as thought leaders in areas that most interest them. They will see us as the vendor who best understands their needs. They will see us as trying to help them be more successful. When we provide valued knowledge, they will learn to trust us.

And in the end, as you say, people buy from people they trust. So knowledge sharing is a powerful marketing and sales technique ... precisely because it improves the customer's experience with your company.

This is a huge, emerging strategy.