How to Fix the Pile of $%^T!

When I worked at Allego, one of the leading all-in-one sales enablement platforms that included a terrific sales content management system (CMS or SCM) to manage all the decks, documents, and videos, I was surprised to learn that one of the top reasons customer switched between CMS's wasn't because of features or values, it was because they wanted a fresh start.

Rather than doing a refresh on their existing platform, they used the purchase of a new platform as a compelling event to do house-cleaning.

It doesn't have to be that way!

At another company, I inherited a massive pile of documents dumped into Microsoft SharePoint, a tool that few people know how to use. Since we had no budget for another CMS, I set out to really learn SharePoint and built a new instance from scratch, with attractive and consistent graphics and color schemes to guide users toward the content they were looking for.

A few of my favorite tips

• Design the information architecture (IA) first. IA refers to the practice of organizing, structuring, and labeling information to make it easier to find. Ask your reps how their mind categorizes a piece of information. For example, does competitive intel about a feature belong under the "competitor" category or "feature" category? Oftentimes, no one answer is correct and you have to design the CMS such that a user can follow any of a number of paths to find the information. CAVEAT!! It is quite possible that IA won't be as important in the near future as enterprise AI search engines become more reliable.
• Curate, curate, CURATE!!! A museum doesn't display every artifact in the galleries. In fact, major museums might only display 10% of their artifacts for the public to see, the other 90% are in storage. Any outdated, duplicative documents must be archived. If your natural tendency at home is to be a hoarder, you probably should not be the one running the CMS.
• Sustainability. Make sure all stakeholders know the process for introducing, maintaining, and retiring artifacts. You must be maniacal about not turning your beautifully curated site back into a document dump.

I see content management as one of the lowest-hanging fruit for AI to seriously disrupt the enterprise content management space. Keep your eyes open to new innovators and don't get locked into multiyear contracts with your CMS vendor.

Are you looking to invest in a new CMS or fixing what you have? Before you do so, why not speak with me for a free initial consultation?