Industry Knowledge, a Cornerstone to Client Engagement

You’ve found yourself in a difficult position. Your company sets out new goals for the year with the aim to grow 15-20%. However, your senior sales representatives are already running on fumes - imparting their knowledge on the junior sales representatives as well as trying to make their sales numbers. Do you push your senior/junior sales representatives? Give them additional incentives to meet the lofty goals? Do you hire additional sales representatives? Can you even find tenured sales representatives with industry knowledge?

Industry knowledge typically consists of information, processes, terms, and tools that define the intricacies of a specific industry. At your company, this could mean a specialized sub-industry like Healthcare Financiers or more broadly. Demonstrating expertise in your industry is a huge differentiator from competitors. So, how do you do that when you can’t hire every expert?

Sharing the expertise already contained within your organization is key. Here is why developing an industry learning solution can benefit your employees in roles like sales, consultants, and for project teams.

Scaled Company Growth Having more industry experts increases your ability to engage with clients across all levels of your organization. This builds trust with clients and helps spotlight your team’s ability to execute on a client’s needs. You become the go-to company in the industry.

Spread of Knowledge Industry knowledge takes years and years to acquire. Your subject-matter-experts (SME) have the most knowledge about the industry and can predict what a client needs or how they will react to a product. Partnering with them to help spread their knowledge across a workforce increases other’s proficiency while allowing them to spend more time with higher-stake clients.

Deeper Industry Knowledge with Clients Clients want to speak with those that know their industry, understand their problems, and recognize their needs. Centralizing industry knowledge, best practices, common issues, and new trends for all your employees facilitates these types of conversations. A centralized knowledge base allows for easy maintenance - keeping everyone aligned with what’s new and what’s changing.

Industry Learning is a continuation in the investment in your workforce and your business. Try a small step in producing your own industry knowledge by using our templates, or simply interviewing your own SME about a specific question and sharing the results. Giving your organization the ability to become experts is a powerful source of inspiration.