“The technology journey simplified and targeted to meet business goals. In today's competitive environment you need an information advantage; this book gives it to you!” —Jylanne Dunne, Executive Vice President, Relationship Management
BISYS Read an Excerpt: Chapter 1
KEEP WHAT'S CRITICAL AT YOUR FINGERTIPS
"The most meaningful way to differentiate your company from
your competition, the best way to put distance between
yourself and the crowd, is to do an outstanding job with
information. How you gather, manage, and use information
will determine whether you win or lose."
—Bill Gates, Business @ the Speed of Thought
Leveraging Knowledge and Time
Any way you slice it, a big chunk of productivity is lost in the search and
retrieval of information. If you're in sales, it's especially painful because every
minute spent digging for something means less time for cultivating clients or
calling on prospects.
So what if you could designate a single spot for capturing, organizing, and
storing all your critical information: sales ideas, your marketing plan, phone
scripts, proposal content, procedures, the things you currently carry in your
head, scribbled on a notepad, or stuck on a Post-it? Suppose you could have
instant access to that information any time you wanted-indexed so you could
scan a list of topics and immediately jump to what you needed.
|
|
Did you know . . .?
· Over 50 percent of the average knowledge worker's time is spent looking for information.
· Up to 20 percent of employee time is spent replicating answers for others.
· Over 80 percent of the knowledge available to most companies is never actually utilized.
|
Imagine you could use that very same indexing technique to professionally
format documents and reports you wanted to share with clients or prospects:
quarterly or annual account reviews or a proposal to do business — wouldn't
that be a tremendous productivity boost and a potentially huge competitive
advantage?
Now, what if I told you it wouldn't cost you a cent to obtain that tool because
you already own what you need to create it, software you use every day; would
you be willing to invest a few minutes in learning how to use it?
The Knowledge Journal Concept
What I'm describing is called a knowledge journal, a file created in
Microsoft Word for organizing and leveraging what you know about acquiring
and servicing clients and running every facet of your business, more effectively.
A knowledge journal is a bible of business processes, mission and values,
goals, challenges, brainstorms, and anything else you want to refer to
regularly.
Here's an example. You return from a conference with a notepad full of
improvement ideas. You're excited about putting them to work, but you're met
by a mountain of voice mail and e-mail demanding your attention. The urgent
need to clear the backlog trumps your enthusiasm, and reluctantly, you put your
notes aside. Other things come up; the notes get buried. Months later, cleaning
off your credenza, you find them and think, "Gee, there was a lot of good
material here, but now I can't remember what I wanted to do with it."
Sound familiar?
Keeping a knowledge journal is a simple, effective way to increase your
return by keeping important information easily accessible ...
|
