Knowledge Management System
Knowledge management systems (KMS) are defined as technology solutions, combined with processes and people, that store and organize knowledge so teams can collaborate, stay aligned, and do their best work. Common uses for knowledge management systems may include:
- New employee onboarding and ongoing training
- Sharing of knowledge from subject matter experts
- Centralizing research and final documents for easy access
- Providing resources for sales team to answer questions for prospects
Most companies seek to reduce time spent searching for content, make content easily accessible and shareable, and encourage salespeople to share content more frequently. In short, they need quality content maintained at a low cost. A strong knowledge management system bolsters success by infusing your sales agents with knowledge, making all agents as productive as the best ones. The knowledge management software allows you to leverage or reuse existing content across your enterprise. By providing agents and other users a range of ways to get to information from the common knowledge base, it ensures fast, consistent, and accurate answers.
Showpad is a complete knowledge management platform focused on sales enablement. It includes sales content management, coaching, and training. Showpad Coach is a user-focused, learning solution built on the platform and is ideal for department-specific learning initiatives. Coach is used by department heads but also in smaller groups at a business unit, office, or team level to ensure employees retain training and are able to apply what they learn. Here’s what Coach can provide:
- Learning, Testing, and Application (Pitch IQ)
- Global and local department learning initiatives
- Low stakes training to improve job-related skills
- Training on objection handling and new product value propositions
- Administration by business users (directors and managers)
- Reporting to track aptitude, strengths, and weaknesses
As a knowledge management system, Showpad is well suited for the delivery and tracking of global learning and performance initiatives. It’s best for courses and planning that are delivered from a central learning organization. Showpad provides:
- Training delivery and tracking
- Global onboarding
- Formal learning
- Compliance and regulatory training
- Performance and career management
- Administration at a global level (across entire org)
- Reporting for learning and career development
Knowledge Management Systems Build Knowledge
The Showpad platform also provides immediate access to a company’s expansive content library — white papers, eBooks, research presentations, playbooks, and more. Each type, or format, of content plays a critical role in the sales cycle. Videos and podcasts are a vital educational tool for newer sales team members. Short, product-related videos and podcast series provide an interactive companion piece for more experienced sales people when they are working with a client.
Video series can also be used strategically to prepare for a new product release. You can use Showpad to house a weekly podcast as part of an internal campaign for your sales team. Use a weekly video to highlight the latest chapter on new product capabilities, the problems being solved and the kind of customers the new features appeal to. It not only builds excitement around the launch, it also gets sales people up to speed so that by launch time, they are ready to pass this newfound knowledge onto customers.
Overcoming challenges of selling
There’s no denying, enterprise selling entails many formidable challenges. Here are just a few.
- First, enterprise sales cycles are nearly always lengthy, from many months to oftentimes more than a year.
- Second, the discovery process is far more complicated and involved than that required for a smaller, transactional sale.
- Third, the requirement for social proof and projected ROI is far more important in enterprise selling than in transactional selling.
- Fourth, things change! Over the course of a lengthy enterprise sales cycle, the customer’s business, its decision-makers, the external business environment, your products, your pricing, your sales team and the positioning of your competitors may change, all with the potential to impact the outcome of your enterprise sales efforts.
- Fifth, enterprise selling almost always means multiple decision-makers and often the very real and active presence of office politics. It can be challenging to identify key influencers from the outside and then win their support. Sixth, once you do identify the right players, you may have just one shot to secure their interest, their support, and their business.
What is sales enablement?
Sales enablement is a benefit of a knowledge management system. Sales enablement means equipping sellers with the right resources to shorten the sales cycle, increase win rates, and sign bigger deals. Sales enablement, as a function, evolved in response to the evolution of the enterprise buyer. With a wealth of information available online, buyers are in more control of the buying process than ever before. In many cases, buyers can be more than halfway through their journey before they reach out to a seller.
What does this mean? It means that sellers must take the initiative to reach out to buyers, winning the buyers’ attention much earlier in their journey. This is a task typically associated with marketing. So, sellers need to think more like marketers, and marketers need to think more like sellers – about the day-to-day experiences of buying and selling.
Sales enablement is providing customer insights, content and coaching to your sales team throughout the entire selling process. Sales enablement is the process of providing your sales team with the resources they need to close more deals. These resources may include content, tools, knowledge, and information to effectively sell your product or service to customers.
Ultimately, the goal of sales enablement is to align the interdependent elements of sales, marketing, customer support, product management, legal, brand management and human resources to boost seller productivity and improve the buyer experience. In a nutshell, sales enablement strategy should provide salespeople with what they need to successfully engage the buyer throughout the buying process.
Want to learn more about Showpad?
Contact us for a personal assessment of your enablement journey.