This is the seventh podcast in the Customer Reference Program Maturity Model series. David and I discuss the value of Outside Expertise, element #6. The reason we included this in our maturity model is that we’ve come across a number of CRPs that were full of really unique practices and processes, which didn’t make sense to us based on our other client work. It took a little while to discover the pattern. The majority of these environments were mainly the victim of a highly insular culture. Plainly put, the CRP team just didn’t talk to others in our community, didn’t seek out best practices, and often just assumed they were too different (or special, yes, there was some hubris) to learn anything from people outside their four walls.

In this podcast we’ll discuss the symptoms and the remedies for this condition, and how to take a big leap forward in your program’s evolution through outside perspective.

If you’re interested in finding out where your program is on the maturity model curve and how you compare to others in the industry, we invite you to take this Customer Reference Program Maturity online assessment. If you’d like to learn how one company deployed some of these metrics to show the executives the positive impact their program was having on sales productivity read this white paper.

Next week we will be reviewing the seventh element of the Maturity Model, Managing Upward. It’s a big one when it comes time for the support and $ you need to establish a strong program.

As always, we’d appreciate any comments or insights.

Check out the complete Maturity Model podcast series.

CRP Maturity Model - Element 6: Outside Expertise

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