In the arena of consumerism, the person who needs to understand is the provider not the buyer.  I am often surprised by the comments of sales professional and sales managers who seem to think that simply educating the customer about all the features and benefits their products offer will help them decide to buy from them.

The person who needs to be educated is the salesperson and the marketer and their management team:

1. No matter how wonderful, unique, and valuable you believe your product to be, it means nothing to a consumer if they don’t want, need, or care about your product.
2. They can only care about your product if you can directly demonstrate how it solves their most urgent business issues.
3. Demonstrating how it can solve their most urgent business issues means taking the time to discover what those issues are.
4. Taking the time to discover what those issues are requires sitting down with a potential customer and learning what they want, need and value and the priorities associated with those needs.
5. Learning is a process of education and discovery.  You cannot learn if you are telling and selling.

When it comes to sales and marketing, a product only has value when those that are doing the selling and marketing actually understand how important that product is in the market in terms of prioritized needs.  Just because it is new, cool, and great doesn’t mean it is worth buying.

Take the time to learn from your customer before you attempt to educate your customer.

After all, they know more about their business than you do.