Establishing best practices through benchmarking eliminates the trial and error phase of testing a strategy or practice, because you can go straight to subject matter experts for everything from GDPR compliance best practices to best practices for reducing the development lifecycle of a tech product.
Companies that implement tried and true best practices from the start then have the opportunity to build on what the world’s experts have already created — thereby spurring innovation and competitiveness.
That said, while the ideal best practices benchmark would give a holistic and detailed overview of expert strategies for the subject at hand, in practice it’s easier said than done to gain access to niche subject matter expertise, particularly for highly specific use cases.
The Best Practice For Best Practices Benchmarking: Fast Forward To The Experts
Many companies will turn to consulting firms to gain access to C-level executives and tried-and-true strategic planning. For broad best practices, such as building out a sales roadmap, creating paths to promotion, or building out a sprint cycle, this can be a good strategy. However, for more niche best practices, such as how to build out scalable SEO practices, or best practices for building a Hubspot-to-Salesforce funnel, it is more efficient and effective to go straight to the source: someone who has done precisely what you want to do for years and years.
Everyone is an expert at something, and there is an expert for everything. For best practices benchmarking, the right source of expertise isn’t going to necessarily be a C-level executive or a guru; it could be someone who’s worked in content marketing for the past 15 years, or a former engineer at Google search engine who can explain the ins and outs of page ranking. To identify these experts, the best strategy is to use a platform like NewtonX to precisely identify the best source of a highly niche best practice.
Find Niche Experts For Every Best Practice Area
By using a service such as NewtonX, companies can either conduct one-on-one best practices consultations with subject matter experts, or participate in tailored best practices workshops with a group of these experts. Additionally, unlike with a consulting firm, companies can return to these same experts over time, or request new ones to ensure that their best practices benchmarks are up to date and in line with rapidly changing technological ecosystems.
These consultations also offer the unique opportunity for businesses to gain both qualitative and quantitative insights. For instance, if your company wanted to develop best practices for creating a drip campaign targeting finance executives at global banks, you could speak with a former marketing executive at your competitor’s company who has successfully targeted and converted this cohort. This person could not only give qualitative insights into best practices, but could also give approximations for measuring success and setting quotas.
Ten Years of Experience in One Hour: The Most Efficient Way to do Best Practices Benchmarking
Expert consultations and workshops act like a fast forward button. Rather than learning through experience, trial and error, and costly mistakes, executives can save time and resources by learning from the best in two hours instead of two years. In the past, this luxury was only accessible to CEOs and Hedge Fund managers, but recently a few companies have leveraged technology to introduce this access to specialized knowledge to the mass market.
The article was originally posted on AlleyWatch. NewtonX, an AI-powered knowledge access platform makes this possible. Serving multiple use cases, the platform connects users with subject matter experts for one-on-one...
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