Salespeople Need Two Kinds of Knowledge and Adaptive Competencies!

When I discussed our latest data on sales enablement, especially regarding the impact of onboarding, I also shared six design principles for effective onboarding. And one of those principles is “knowledge comes in different forms and shapes.” I referred to the difference between capability knowledge and situational knowledge. I received some questions about this from readers, so let’s look at it in greater detail today.
Knowledge comes in different forms and shapes. Often we are not aware of this, and I’m grateful that Christian Maurer involved me in this discussion years ago and again recently when we were both working with MA students at the Reutlingen University.
There is capability knowledge: it is knowledge about what you sell, about your products, what they are and what they do. This kind of knowledge is usually transferred to the sales force in the form of product training services, based on various content services.
However, as we