From Seth:
If marketing is the art of spreading ideas, then teaching is a kind of marketing.
Atex is a company that understands this very well.
They make a very complex and hard to understand set of products. Training is kept as an in-house competency. In fact, training is often included for a select group of key staff within a newspaper as part of the pre-sales process. The training isn’t conducted by an outsourced company, or by a junior employee, but by the best expert available on the system.
This makes the sales process much smoother, as the customer now understands the product and the value that the product brings to their business.
Do not underestimate the value of training, it may just help close your next deal!
Bonus Links (both from Creating Passionate Users):
- You can out-spend or out-teach - “The most important skill today is… teaching”
- You ARE a marketer. Deal with it. - “You’re in marketing. Now go kill yourself.”