Asking Questions & Educating Your Customers? You're Right

Next time when you meet a customer or client who’s not in a mood to accept your pitch, just say “I haven’t come here to sell, just allow me to help you”.

Try it, it works like magic.

Why? Because people, in general, hate marketers. They simply want someone who can help them solve their problems. So, just give them what they want. Simple.

Example: If you just set up a meeting with a Fortune 500 company’s head of the HR dept. trying to pitch your HR software. In the meeting, the head of the HR obviously will be in no mood to accept your offer. The reason being another working software they’re presently using. Therefore, in that situation, simply talking about your product won’t help. Instead, educate the head of the HR by showing a presentation, gifting a book, or sharing an article on an HR problem that company is facing right now.

The era of visiting cards is long over. Prospects don’t care about your designation or phone number. All they need is someone who can help.

This idea of marketing by educating becomes even more powerful if you start asking your prospects right questions.

Let me explain this with an example:

Imagine you’re a real estate agent showing a bungalow to a rich couple. What would a normal agent do – tell about how impressive the bungalow is & how perfect the pricing or investment is. Right? You can be different. Take a different approach. First, ask the couple a series of questions that demonstrates your expertise in the real estate & then share a few tips on selecting the best bungalow based on their requirements (you should have figured this out by listening to their answers). Pitch the bungalow only at the end of good session packed with questions & tips.

This “Ask & Educate” strategy works wonders because it helps you to project as a trusted advisor in front of your prospects.

Whom do you trust, an advisor or a salesperson? That’s my point.

Let’s take another example:

Imagine you’re selling a home cleaning solution. Using this strategy, first try to understand the needs of the house owner by asking a series of questions & then educate her with a few tips on keeping the house clean. You can also say like “Did you know? As per a stat, there’re 1 million bacteria in an average American home.”.

Makes sense?

Share with me (vishal@bizain.com) of any instance you remember where you saw this “Ask & Educate” strategy being implemented.