Selling KM based on emotion

You have have made a logical business case for KM at your organisation, but nobody buys things based on logic.

USP by photosteve101 on Flickr

People generally buy things based on emotion (“I must have that – it looks so cool”), and then convince themselves by logic that is was a Good Decision.

Knowledge Management is no different. You need to present your senior managers with an emotional case for Knowledge Management that they will buy into, then back this up with a logical business case that shows it was a great decision.

So how do you make the emotional case? Try some of these approaches

1. All our competitors are doing KM already. The sale is based on Fear of being left out. “We had better catch up with the others”.
2. None of our competitors are doing KM yet – we can beat them to the draw. The sale is based on the lure of Exclusivity (“Be the first on your block to have Knowledge Management), but it is a risky sale, as senior management may wonder WHY none of the competitors are doing it.
3. All the Big Companies are doing KM. This sale is based on Envy and Aspiration – the reasons why people buy BMWs. You tell them great stories about the MAKE award winners, and how much value they get from KM. You tell them about TI’s “free fabrication plant”, or Shell’s $200m pa from CoPs. Use some of our success stories as bait for the logical case, but the sell is “If so many Big Organisations do it, it must be good. Let’s copy the Big Boys”.
4. Clients are beginning to demand KM as “part of good business”. This is another Fear-based sale – “If we don’t have KM, we won’t be able to compete”. KM has already appeared in ISO Standard 9001, and there will soon be an ISO KM Standard, and clients will want to make sure you are up to standard.
5. We will look stupid if we can’t manage knowledge. Tell them the story of the client with a good knowledge management framework, who could see their contractor (who had no KM) making the same expensive repeat mistake around the world. This is a Fear-based sale – nobody wants their client to discover repeat mistakes.
6. We are at real risk if we don’t have have knowledge management. “We can’t carry on like this!” This is an effective sale for ageing industries, with age-loaded demographics, where you can show figures about projected expertise-loss. You show how the company will have lost 20% of its brainpower in the next 5 years (or whatever the figures are), and you talk about the risk that this poses to continued effective operation. Sell the idea that Doing Nothing is a Bad Choice.
7. There’s a massive advantage if we do have Knowledge Management. This is the Greed Sell, but it’s hard to divorce this from the logical sell. The best way to present this to your senior management is to say “We have this Knowledge already. We have already paid for it. It’s an underused asset. All we need to do it monetise it”. That’s a bit more subtle than a Greed Sell – it’s a “Wasted Value” sell.
8. It’s cool. This is a risky sale, as KM has now lost the “Cool” cachet. It may have worked 15 years ago, but it’s hard to make it work now.

Work out the Emotional Sell for KM, and back this up with a sound business case.