There was a time when knowledge was power. Knowledge was power because so few had it and because so little was known by anyone. Then knowledge was power because so few had access to education, to facts, and to information. And then it was power because it was hard to find, hard to access, hard to organize, and hard to understand.
None of this is still true.
Now knowledge is something less. The Internet has made knowledge ubiquitous. Facts and information are easy to find, easy to sort and organize, and easy to understand. And it is portable.
What used to serve as a differentiator and a source of power is now neither.
In sales, knowledge was something that the salesperson possessed. It was something that made them necessary and useful to the client. They understood their product, competing products, the options that were available, and could rattle off the features and benefits of their products.
Unless you sell something very new or very, very complex, your knowledge is widely known, it is indexed, it is searchable, and your clients have the same access that you have.
If Not Knowledge
Knowledge isn’t worth as much as it once was. It isn’t enough to know the facts, the options, the features, and the benefits of your product or service—especially if I can Google them.
What is increasingly valuable is wisdom. In sales, wisdom is found in business acumen. It is the advisor in “trusted advisor.” That makes wisdom rare, and it being rare is what makes it power.
Wisdom is made up of knowledge, experience, and understanding. Wisdom is what allows a person to make decisions, to offer advice, and to achieve the best possible outcome in a given situation. It is a deep understanding of how things work.
Salespeople who possess wisdom know what choices lead to what results, what risks are worth taking, and what risks should be avoided.
Wisdom is insight. It’s the ability to diagnose and to size up a situation where much is unknown, discerning what is wrong, what is missing, and what might improve it. It is also intuition; it is what feels right when no knowledge or experience is available.
What Now for Sales?
This is why business acumen is required to succeed in sales, and why sales acumen alone in no longer enough. Business acumen is wisdom, and wisdom is what is now required of salespeople.
To create value for your clients and to help them achieve the outcomes that you sell, it isn’t enough that you provide them with knowledge. It is critical that you provide them instead with wisdom.
What you provide needs to be the wisdom that comes from experience, and not just yours, but that of your entire organization and all its partners. You need to provide an insight that knowledge of the facts alone doesn’t provide. You need to possess the ability to take knowledge, experience, and understanding and turn them into insights that get your clients results. You need to apply your wisdom to your client’s business problems, challenges and opportunities.
Wisdom is a differentiator. Wisdom is the new power.
Conclusion
Knowledge is cheap, ubiquitous, indexed, accessible, and portable. It is no longer power. The new power is wisdom. It is the ability to make choices that generate the best results and outcomes.
Questions
1. In your industry, is knowledge still power? Are you mistaking knowledge for power?
2. Are you collecting the experiences (and your company’s experiences) to couple with your knowledge to build the wisdom necessary to really be a trusted advisor?
3. Are you spending as much time learning your clients businesses and acquiring the business acumen necessary to diagnose and prescribe solutions that get your clients the outcomes that you sell?
4. Are you collecting a network of contacts that supplement your wisdom and business acumen by filling in the known gaps you have in yours?
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You got this out quick. I would have stolen it from you if you hadn’t, great topic.
You are spot on. Wisdom is the ability to get stuff out of knowledge/information. The most wise get the most out of knowledge.
Great premise Anthony!
From Wikipedia: “The perception of business acumen as a valuable and necessary quality for high-level corporate leaders has occurred within a short period of time… some have classified business acumen as simply a buzzword.” It’s no wonder that business acumen training is now a critical concern of modern leadership development.
Hello Anthony
Seriously excellent blog post. I think that you have summarised nicely the difference between “knowing” something i.e. knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge “wisdom”. And indeed, I’d view this the same way applied in any context be that sales or another area of expertise. The ability to apply wisdom to a situation is most surely a differentiator when it comes to choosing whether to buy what that person has to offer.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the comments, Barney. Nice blog, too!
Anthony Right On! Right now our country needs much more wisdom than knowledge. Congress used thier knowledge to turn our health-care system into a bud light commercial. However you do have to tip your hat [these are good for the follicle-challenged] to your president who was able to ‘sell’ his snake oil health-care bill to groups of people who make Brittany Spears look like she runs a Mensa group. You did distinguish the concepts very well; now I just wish you take your ideas to Congress before our economy comes apart faster than a cub scout pot holder!
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