- AI sales, Knowledge Sharing, Sales Team, Smarter Strategic Decisions
- April 2, 2025
Successful sales teams do not just rely on tools for success. The efficient sharing of knowledge makes a key difference in what works and why. That’s where the types of knowledge your team holds make a real difference. But not all knowledge is the same. There are three main categories of knowledge that play distinct roles in how people learn and teach others: explicit, tacit, and implicit.
In this guide, we’ll break down what each type means, how they show up in sales, and how modern tools like Synaply help teams capture and share them without the mess of manual documentation or rigid CRMs.
Why Understanding the Types of Knowledge Matters in Sales
Every sales rep on your team is learning every day. They learn through calls, wins, roadblocks, and everything in between. When that learning is shared, the whole team gets better. When it’s lost or siloed, growth slows down.
Knowing the types of knowledge sharing and how to share each kind can help teams:
- Improve faster.
- Build on each other’s strengths.
- Solve problems without starting from scratch.
Overview of the Three Types of Knowledge
Here’s a comprehensive overview of the three types of knowledge:
1. Explicit Knowledge: Easy to Document, Easy to Teach
Explicit knowledge is the most straightforward kind. It’s information you can easily write down, organize, and share with others. It’s rule-based, structured, and formal. Some common examples are:
- Sales scripts and email templates.
- Product fact sheets.
- Onboarding checklists.
- Competitive analysis documents.
How it’s shared: Usually through documents, training manuals, or shared knowledge bases.
How Synaply Helps: While storing this information is easy, Synaply enhances it by showing how real reps use it. It adds stories, real-world examples, and search tags so the content stays relevant and actionable, not just static files in a folder.
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2. Tacit Knowledge: Learned Through Experience
Tacit knowledge is the kind you pick up over time, through personal experience. It’s hard to explain, but incredibly valuable. This is where true sales intuition lives. Tacit knowledge can be in the form of:
- Knowing when to pause on a call.
- Reading tone and adjusting your pitch.
- Navigating awkward objections smoothly.
- Feeling when a deal might slip away.
How it’s shared: Traditionally, through mentoring, shadowing, or informal chats. The problem is that these methods don’t scale well.
How Synaply helps: Synaply captures these subtle skills and moments as they happen. Reps can share short voice notes or insights right after a call. No need for live shadowing. And once it’s shared, Synaply’s AI tags and organizes it for the entire team to access later.
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3. Implicit Knowledge: The Bridge Between Knowing and Teaching
Implicit knowledge lives between the lines. It’s knowledge that can be explained but hasn’t been shared yet. It’s the tips and techniques reps develop over time that haven’t made it into official training. Some common examples include:
- A subject line that boosts open rates.
- A clever way to reframe pricing conversations.
- A pattern you’ve noticed with decision makers.
How it’s shared: Understanding the difference between implicit and explicit knowledge is key. Implicit knowledge can become explicit, but it just needs to be pulled out and captured.
How Synaply helps: Through smart prompts, asynchronous coaching, and lightweight recording tools, Synaply helps reps reflect on what they’re learning and turns implicit knowledge into a shared resource for the whole team.
Why Explicit and Implicit Knowledge Depend on Each Other
Many teams only focus on documents (explicit) or occasional reflections (implicit). But combining both and layering in tacit experience is where growth really happens. The difference between implicit and explicit knowledge often comes down to context. Synaply helps by bringing in that missing layer: showing how content was used, not just what it says.
For example, a rep might upload a one-pager (explicit), and another might explain how they used it to win over a skeptical stakeholder (implicit). Together, that’s powerful.
Why Traditional Tools Fall Short for Knowledge Sharing
Most tools and playbooks try to handle explicit and implicit knowledge but often miss the mark:
- They’re too manual. Reps would rather not stop and write out long notes.
- They lack context. Knowing the script is one thing and knowing when and why it works is another.
- They don’t scale. Shadowing doesn’t work with remote teams or growing headcounts.
Synaply solves this by capturing insights naturally, in the flow of work, without interrupting the rep’s rhythm. It’s built for modern, hybrid sales teams that care about learning, not just tracking.
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How Synaply Supports All Types of Knowledge
Synaply is built to support all three categories of knowledge in a modern sales setting:
Asynchronous Knowledge Sharing: Reps share insights when they’re fresh without booking meetings or writing reports.
Organization with AI: AI automatically tags insights by topic, persona, or stage, making it simple to find what you need when you need it.
Built for Human-Centered Sales: Synaply values what reps know, not just what they close. It builds a culture of learning, not pressure.
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A Quick Recap of the Types
Types of Knowledge | What It Is | How It’s Shared | Synaply’s Role |
Explicit | Clear, documented facts | Guides, documents | Adds real-world usage context |
Tacit | Intuitive, learned from experience | Shadowing, coaching | Captures and scales subtle skills |
Implicit | Personal knowledge not shared yet | Reflections, prompts | Turns thoughts into team learning |
Together, these three types of knowledge form the foundation of a learning culture in any sales team.
High Knowledge Cultures Win More Deals
Teams with high knowledge cultures outperform because they learn quickly, adapt quickly, and don’t waste time repeating mistakes that others have already solved. Synaply helps teams build that kind of culture by making sharing effortless and meaningful, not just another checkbox.
Conclusion
Your team already has everything it needs to grow. Inside their heads, in their stories, and in the small things, they’ve figured out along the way how to use their knowledge. By understanding the different types of knowledge; explicit, tacit, and implicit, you unlock a more agile, collaborative, and effective team. And with Synaply, sharing that knowledge becomes second nature.
