One of the core concepts discussed in sales class this week was to avoid “spilling your candy in the lobby”. In more serious terms, this analogy basically means don’t use all your information and knowledge in a sales situation prematurely. Coming off as a know-it-all or just trying to prove to your client that you have all the facts can be damaging to the trust you are trying to form with them. Rather than spill your candy right away, good salesman rely on both patience and qualifying questions to get to know more about the customer than simple hard facts.
This concept reminded me of an experience my dad and I had this past summer with a car salesman that was helping us look for a new vehicle. Before any major purchase in my family, my dad is always very meticulous and does lots of his own research on specs, packages, etc. that are involved with the new car we may be looking into. So, when he and I first went to test drive the car in choosing, we both had some decent background knowledge on the vehicle. When approached by the salesman, we explained what car we had been looking at for some time and right off the bat he started rattling off fact after fact about the car. After about five minutes, and my dad being the impatient dad he is, stopped him short and explained that we were aware of the basics about the car and really just wanted to test drive it. The salesman quickly realized he was dealing with an informed customer and refrained from trying to tell us anything about the car until he was asked. While my dad certainly did not know everything to know about the vehicle, he was an informed buyer and the salesman had to adjust accordingly once my dad made it aware to him.
Being sure to hold off on spilling your knowledge and expertise in making a sale can make a huge impact on how your interactions with customers go. Trying to show your extensive knowledge of the product can come off as unappealing or arrogant to some and is not always the right path to go down when selling. Customers will always be curious and ask to see what it is you can do for them, and you should give them this opportunity.
Ethan David 
Trinity Blank
Great blog Joey! Loved how you tied some real world experience in by talking about how you and your dad went to go test drive the car and the salesman just kept talking! As you said he quickly realized he was dealing with an informed customer!
This ties back to the basic concept of not answering unasked questions. By rolling right into his sales pitch, the car salesman completely neglected to discover why you were at the dealership in the first place. Nice post!