Use Case - Jumpstart your Frequently Asked Questions

Welcome to Guru! This post is a tactical step-by-step guide to get your first set of key company knowledge captured and shared using Guru.

Regardless of how big your company is, there are several key things that everyone on your team should know. You want to ensure everyone in your company is representing you and your company in the best way, and consistently!

This is not only useful for new employees that you bring on, its also great for team members that have been with you from the beginning, because this information will change a lot and you now have a simple way to keep everyone on the same page with a solution that is built right into their workflow.

Step 1. Create your Cards

Lets get your first set of cards in place. Here our some recommendations for a core set of cards you should create and share with your team.

Your Company Pitch

If you went through our onboarding, you may already have this one. Bonus point for you. If not, how do you describe your company in a few sentences? We recommend using a conversational tone here, think of when someone on your team is at an event or talking about your company to a prospect.

Key Company Stats (External)

Key metrics your team should communicate to people outside of your organization, such as number of customers, number of users, number of partners, how many countries your product is deployed to, are all good examples of key value points. Consistency is really key here as these numbers change all the time, and it can be embarrassing if (1) 2 members on your team talk about this to the same person differently, or (2) you use old numbers, because people will assume your company is not making progress!

Key Company Stats (Internal)

Key metrics you want your team to know, but not share outside of the company. Key upcoming goals for the company, financial performance, etc. Notice the contrast here, by explicitly calling these stats Internal vs. External, you are clearly delineating for your team what they can safely share out in the wild, and what you want everyone to know but treat as confidential.

Product Cards

The following set of cards should be created for each product your company sells.

• Product Pitch: How do you describe your product in a few key sentences. If you only have one product, this may be covered in the company pitch card above.
• What’s new with [Product Name]: Briefly describe a few highlights from your most recent release and why they these things are awesome. This will change all the time, as there are always new things about your products, so this is a great way to keep that message centralized, and ensure your team always knows where to look to get the latest information.
• Who's using [Product Name]: Give a summary of key customers (2-3) and what problem(s) your product solves for them.
• Customer Facing Roadmap: What is the company approved set of things you can talk about when in the field when talking to customers? Include the upcoming feature, why it's awesome, and when it will come out. We will cover below how to ensure the right person is "blessing" this date so you aren't overcommitting your engineering team!
• Internal Roadmap: Similar to the Company Stats card above, you can create an internal version of the roadmap so everyone knows whats coming, but you can make it clear that no one should be talking about these things outside the company. This is key if you are planning a big PR push for your new release and don't want the story to get scooped.

[Your Company] in the news - what you need to know

As your company grows people will start writing/tweeting/posting about you. Your team will be asked about this news. Regardless if the coverage is good or bad, what do you want your team to say? Provide clear talking points here, and update the card over time as new news continues to get released about your company.

What if I don’t know what to put in these cards?

Many of these cards will be things that come “from the top”, directly from founders, your CEO, or vice presidents. If you are not one of these people, or aren’t sure what to say, setup time with the right leader to find out. This is a great way to get some face time with these leaders, and 100% of them will be happy that someone on the team cares enough about these critical topics that they are taking time to capture them and help share them with the team. One way to make your ask is to say:

“Hi XYZ, we are evaluating a product called Guru that lets us capture key company knowledge and easily share with our team and keep up to date as our company grows and evolves. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions that I can use to start this process.”

Even if Guru doesn’t work out for your team, having this information captured is still tremendously valuable to your company.

Step 2. Set up your verifiers

Every card in Guru has a Verifier. Whenever someone on your team opens a card in Guru, it is very clear (1) who is verifying the information they are looking at, and (2) if the card is stale or up to date. This eliminates the problems companies have today when they try to capture this information in documents or old emails. You dig them up when you need them (if you can find them) but you have no way to know if they are still right.

Verification solves this. For each card you have created, think about who on your team should verify them. If a team member pulls up your shiny new Roadmap card, who would they want to see as the verifier so they will trust that it is the correct and latest roadmap? Make that person the verifier. Based on the particular card, decide how often it should be reverified. To stick with our Roadmap example, if you do product releases quarterly, then set the verification interval to be 3 months. You’re now on auto-pilot; no more having to remember to go find and update that stale document, Guru will remind you automatically.

Step 3. Create your first Board

Now that you have these cards in place, organize them onto a board. Give the board a clear name like “Key Facts About [Our Company]”. Boards are responsive, so after you create it, take the URL for the board and have your team bookmark it. Cards are fundamentally designed for screens of all sizes, so you now have access to all of this key information wherever you go.

Step 4. Communicating changes

Ok so now that we have all of this setup, what happens when it changes? As I mentioned above, Guru will automatically check in with your experts to ensure all of your cards remain accurate, and when you do need to make change, here are 2 ways to easily let your team know:

Use a Comment. Write a Comment to let the whole team knowin one step. Open the Card that has changed, and click the Comment button. When you write the comment, @mention the whole team to let them know the news, like this:

“Hey @team, here is the latest customer facing roadmap. If you have questions, feel free to comment on this card and I will be happy to answer!”

When you post this comment, your whole team will get an email containing this message and a link to the Guru Card.

Use a link. Send out a link to the Card in your preferred messaging app. If your team has standardized on a messaging app like Slack, Chatter, HipChat, etc., just grab a link to the card by clicking the plus button on the card and choosing the share link. Now you can paste this link into your messaging app and your team can click that link to open the card.

What’s next?

Congratulations! You just got your company on the same page. No matter how big or how fast or how often your company grows or changes, you now have one centralized place where everyone knows to look and trust that what they are reading is accurate!

You have now laid the foundation for your next set of content in Guru. Think of these cards as the “root directory” for your company knowledge. Under each card you can expand and go into team specific detail. For sales teams in particular, here are some great topics we recommend setting up:

How to setup competitive positioning using Guru

How to capture Sales Process & Messaging using Guru

We are here to help!

Need some help on what to create? Want help migrating old content over to Guru? Want some advice on how best to design your content in Guru? We got you. Just click on the help button in Guru to contact us anytime or write us at info@getguru.com and we will get you rolling right away!