How many times has a sales person tried to sell you something that you don’t need? This is not only annoying, it’s bad salesmanship. I have been stopped by cellphone salesmen at the mall while I was talking on a cellphone. Is common sense dead?
Good marketers and sales people are educators not annoying cellphone sales people. Studies have shown that a prospect’s intent to by and ultimate purchase of a product increase as the prospect learns more about the product. This flies in the face of the traditional notion that consumers make their minds up quickly, like within seconds, and do not want more information than “necessary.”
There is one big reason why more information is better: The more a prospect knows about your product the more likely that prospect is to translate a feature of that product into a personal benefit. When a prospect sees the benefit he or she becomes a customer.
The level of education you give your prospects depends on what you sell, obviously. If you are a seller of fruit from a roadside fruit stand, there is little your prospects need to know other than where the fruit is from, how old it is, what pesticides were used on it, and how much it costs. If you are the seller of airplanes, you have a great deal of educating to do with your prospects.
You be the judge. But, make sure to follow through on whatever amount of education you deem necessary.
