Understanding Product Education Across All of Your Your Lines of Business

In most businesses today, there is a general consensus that education is a key aspect of success. Whether for customer onboarding or presales “kicking the tires,” getting people hands-on with your solution is the best thing you can do.

What we typically see in most organizations, though, is a disparity of learning across lines of business (LOB). Based on how an organization is structured, it is very rare to see learning shared across an organization. What is more common is to have learning detached across LOBs. Examples include:

• Professional Services creates learning content to onboard new customers for services engagements.

• Support teams create documentation to teach users how to utilize the product.

• Pre-sales teams build more temporary environments, to showcase initial value, and/or to provide an environment for prospects to learn about the product.

• Marketing teams build a catalog of media that highlights the various use cases of the product.

What is the cost of this learning disparity? Besides running the risk of misaligned and/or incorrect messaging, there is a significant amount of wasted time and resources building and maintaining content. And most important, we run the risk of our learners missing an exceptional learning experience.

Span of Focus

Why is there this disparity in learning? Different lines of business indeed have different goals.  But if you dive into what great learning looks like, you can quickly see an overlap for what we would like the learner to experience. Ultimately, each LOB tries to get the learner to the “Aha!” moment.

Spheres of Intersection

If you stop to consider the goal for all this learning, you quickly realize that, in all cases, you are trying to showcase your key value differentiators. The goal for teams usually looks something like this:

• Marketing:  identify a problem, pain point, or opportunity.
• Sales: showcase why your solution is of greater value.
• Services:  transform how a customer adopts your solution.‍
• Support: ensure a customer has what they need to be successful with your solution.

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So, how do we orient learning in my organization to take advantage of this shared goal?

Brick by Brick

To build a shared, successful learning program, you and your organization need to build upon a solid foundation.

We see a lot of activity, thought, planning, and work on the delivery of your solution.  This is critical for your success.  But what most organizations lack is a shared definition across the company for what your key differentiators are, and why customers value your solution.

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By having a defined set of key differentiators of your product, along with real-world customer feedback on why they value these differentiators, you are on your way to creating amazing learning experiences. 

Now, each LOB uses a common set of blocks for the work they must produce and deliver. This approach leads to a culture of learning; using a common set amongst teams saves considerable time and resources, creating engaging learning experiences for your customers and prospects alike.

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