Salespeople need to prepare for effective sales conversations—they must be able to fully understand a prospect’s business, identify the issues that are most pressing for that business, and pinpoint the capabilities and solutions that address those issues. The level of preparation that a salesperson achieves has a direct impact on the success of the sales conversation. And yet, salespeople face too many obstacles that prevent them from easily getting what they need:

• The need to go on an archeological dig, sifting through numerous portals and intranets, and seeking out people who might have the right content.
• The time spent searching competing with the time available to prepare and conduct effective conversations.
• The lack of assurance that the content they do find is up to date, brand-compliant or even contains the right message for the audience.
• The lack of consistency in their results and the inability to identify best practices.

Instead of requiring salespeople to search for content, SAVO pushes the best assets to them based on their specific situation. Through situational interviews, typically a series of 3 to 5 online questions, salespeople provide the context of their sales situation and get the best materials pushed to them. So instead of getting a search results list of hundreds or even thousands of documents, which may or may not be relevant, they get the top 5 to 10 assets and SMEs available for that situation.

In addition, sales assets can be aligned with your organization’s sales methodology. Prospecting materials such as call guides and customer references may be appropriate for initial stages of the sales cycle, while contracts and customer retention materials ensure no steps are missed near the end of the cycle.

SAVO also lets salespeople decide and take control of what matters most to them. They can subscribe to their favorite documents, SMEs or topics—such as all the material in an industry or product category—so they are notified when there are updates. “SmartLists” keep the highest rated, most used, and freshest content immediately available. Since SAVO automatically updates SME pages, topic pages and SmartLists, salespeople can depend on content being fresh.

Finally, advanced search capabilities are available for those who prefer more search options. In addition to full-text search, salespeople can search within a particular topic or within the content created by a particular SME. Search results can also be narrowed with refined search terms suggested by SAVO. Since the user community rates and provides comments on content, salespeople know whether they’ve found the best assets for their needs. Instead of focusing on searching, salespeople can focus on selling.