Driving Sales Enablement with Knowledge Management. With Rick Nucci [Episode 571]

Rick Nucci, Co-founder and CEO of Guru, joins me on this episode.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Rick says the single biggest challenge facing sales reps is getting the attention of the buyer, given the number of vendors attempting to engage your prospect through their inbox. Our own technologies are creating this problem.

Sales automation is not as well-targeted as it should be. Rick believes the answer is not found in technology, but in human engagement with the specific buyer and their needs. Rick gives some indication of targeting done by the Guru team.

It’s a cultural shift to go back to personalized targeting. Rick tells of three practices to follow. 1. Use the right metric for SDRs — quality. 2. Don’t use a template for the first email.

The follow-up to the first email is an email from a template with a value for that prospect. 3. Invest in product marketing early. This allowed Guru to learn and execute on personas and the corresponding messaging.

Guru is a knowledge management app that “lives where you work.” Guru replaces sales portals, Wikis, and intranet sites with a verified solution that’s built into the technology you use, with a browser extension and a Slackbot.

Guru is a sales enablement tool. It is an answer to the complexity we have already created. It also helps the rep to be more educated. Rick gives a case study of a customer using Guru to help reps with the knowledge around new products.

Reps need to have product knowledge at their fingertips, and tools to understand the customer. Guru talks about reasonably complex products. Pulling up the card often enough helps reps to learn the products.

Guru deals with changes in assets. As assets change continually, it is not effective to try to keep all the information memorized. It’s more than just getting the right datasheet.

Tools need to be effective for the middle 60% of the sales force. Analytics is a big part of it. Who is using your wiki? WIth Guru, you get reports how it is being used.

Guru shows “time to pipeline contribution,” or how long it takes reps to contribute to the pipeline. This is helpful in high turnover cases.

Besides onboarding time, Guru can measure how long a rep stays with the company. Rick talks about the technology monitoring signals of rep activities without the rep needing to log them in.

Data on the aggregate amount of time it takes to close the deal can answer productivity questions.