On the Same Side as Your Customer/Prospect

Some Differences Between Selling and Educating

Selling is the art of uncovering your prospect or customer needs or wants through a series of relationship-building processes which are both involved and many in number. In some cases, selling may involve guessing at those motivations (needs and wants) and making decisions about what they may want in advance. Your goal is to offer a solution to problems or pain or to present something in a way that creates a new want. In any case, selling requires you to start out on opposite sides of the table, if you can reach that stage, after which interviewing and trust-building exercises begin to grow the relationship. Or advertising and presentation guess at the motivations and hope to strike a fit through estimation.

Education is the art of providing information prospects or customers will find interesting, useful and that is presented in one or more formats easily consumed, makes a more informed decision possible and can be easily acted on. Education of your customer or prospect helps put you both on the same side of the desk, aisle, table or counter working together for results that have been determined by the choice of information. Once the customer or prospect finds and chooses to consume your information, they have done three things:

  1. Determined to give your information an opportunity, and pre-qualified themselves in that topic matter.

  2. Provided you feedback and data if you offer ways to collect that information.

  3. Decided that you are working with them cooperatively, rather than inverviewing you or your message adversarially.

Education requires providing a growing library of information in a growing arena of places where they can easily be found. Once a customer or prospects starts consuming your education, you will remain partners sharing information as long as you continue to do three things:

  1. Continue to provide reliable, accurate and useful information. (Useful is in relation to the person(s) you are courting, not in relation to your need to make a sale.)

  2. Continue to dial in the feedback received and work it into your future education plan.

  3. Remain truthful and manage not to annoy or bore your audience, or cause them to question your expertise or desire to help them succeed.

Start Building a Educational Hooks

How?

You Begin by Creating Lures and Dipping them Where Customers and Prospects Fish

(And it helps if you have additional methods of letting people know where to find ponds in which your lures are stocked.)

 

Select Outreach Focus

Education Action Plan

Start with One to Three Modules

We’ll help you with easy steps to start accomplishing new outreach beginning with your first month. When you order a plan below of 5, 12 or 18 hours a month. Disenroll at any time.

Modules

In general order of importance:

  • FAQ Library

  • Programmed Learning Modules

  • How-To Blog Articles

  • Interactive Feedback Loop

  • Brand-Recognition Lead Generation

  • Guides and Reviews

  • Story-Telling Website

  • Sales and CSR Email/Text Responses

  • Educational InfoVideos

  • Embeddable Flipbooks/Slideshows

  • Lunch and Learns or Eduvents

  • Directions, Instructions, Labeling

Select Hours per Month