Education is sales: attracting leads without chasing

I am going to share one of my deepest beliefs with you, and with it the reason I wrote a book, run webinars and keep a drawing board within arm's reach in every conversation: education is sales. The selling is in the teaching. Whoever teaches best wins the trust. And whoever wins the trust wins the customer.

Why education flips the dynamic of the sales conversation

Why does this work so well? Because it flips the dynamic of the conversation. A pitch puts the customer on the defensive: something is wanted from them. Education does the opposite: something is given to them. You show how you think, what you know and how you tackle problems, before there is anything for sale at all. The customer experiences your value instead of having to take it on faith. That is the difference between claiming you are a good partner and already being one.

Education is sales in practice

An example from my own practice. An energy company once asked me to join a pitch and mainly wanted a document telling them how fantastic we were. I had no time for it, it was my busiest month. So I did something else: I gave them the research they were actually looking for as a gift, a few thousand euros' worth of value, with one condition: afterwards we have a real conversation. They experienced the product, we got the conversation, and that relationship went on to generate many times that in revenue. Giving away knowledge turned out to be the best pitch I never wrote.

How to use education as your outreach

This is how you build it yourself. Pick the questions of your trade that genuinely occupy your customers. Answer them generously and concretely, in articles, a webinar, a session at the customer's office, and hold nothing back out of fear that they will then do it themselves. They will not anyway, and it is precisely that generosity that proves your expertise. And attach a natural next step: whoever wants more after your explanation will know where to find you.

This is exactly how the funnel from cold to warm works, and it is the element of content from the Customer Experience Model, at organisational level. Try it this week: write down the questions customers ask you most often, and answer one of them generously and concretely. In an article, an email or your next conversation. What do you notice in the response?