Can you Educate without Selling?

I feel like I am a smart guy. You're smart. Everyone is smart. So, it is safe to say that in sales – your potential customers see you coming. So, how do you make your product/service palatable to them? How do you make them open to your “greatest thing since sliced bread?”

Because let’s face it. We have all been pitched the next great thing for our business and nine times out of ten it was not that great. So, we are gun shy. Better to send all sales inquiries to spam then weed through and figure out what could actually help us. It seems like such a waste.

The fact is you do not need to sell if you have a great product. You need to educate your potential customers. Leave the sales pitch, the come-ons and swarmy tactics on the sidelines. Just educate. Write articles about your industry. Tell the story of how your company saw problems in the industry and came up with a better mousetrap. Put out case studies. Be honest and describe how your company made missteps and corrected them down the line. Use VOC initiatives that allow your valued customers to become brand ambassadors that scream your praises from the rooftops. Find out what potential customers value and incorporate that into your company’s mantra. Educate. Educate. Educate.

If you really do have a great product or service, then the education will get through to your audience. Potential customers will take in the information, the statistics and the stories.  They will think about them, your company and their own problems from a pure place without the overhang of a sales pitch.

Your pure and informative information with no agenda has created trust with your potential customer. They are better able to hear you and what’s on your agenda now that they are educated about your product/service. They are more apt to reach out and contact you about doing business together.

Think of traditional advertising on TV as a sales pitch. Shoving information at the public that they do not want. They just want to get back to their program. The pitching company does not understand what creates value for the person watching the advertisement. They are too fixated on how special they think they are (ME, ME, ME). 

Have you ever bought a car based on a tv commercial? Probably not. You research how dependable a car is, maybe its potential resale value, its mpg ratings and definitely its safety rating. You get educated. You learn about the product. And then you make the decision. Probably before you even set foot in a car dealership. This is why Tesla has sidestepped the traditional way of selling cars and created information centers for its potential buyers. Education and connecting with customers on their terms (stores are inconvenient walk by retail settings) creates more trust around Tesla’s products.  

The bottom line is that your potential customers are just like you. They want to understand how a product or service might help them without the baggage of a sales pitch hanging over their shoulder. They want the bandwidth to decide if there is value in the potential relationship. Educating people without see-through and overbearing sales tactics will create the space for that to happen.