Ignorance Is Bliss

For many people approaching their first sales job, they feel like in order to do well they need to know absolutely everything there is to know about the product they’re selling. It is indeed important to know your product info well so that you can match products to customer needs, however their is a risk to knowing too much about a product. As we have talked about in class, one of the major risks of having a lot of product know is that it becomes tempting to spill your candy in the lobby, or give away your knowledge to quickly in the sale. Throwing knowledge a the customer at the wrong time can wreck the sale and end your conversation prematurely. Additionally, you run the risk of sounding a bit show-offy, at which point you lose your connection to the customer and they begin to feel inferior to you- something which you want to avoid at all costs. Knowing to much can also tempt you to answer question that the prospect has not asked and did not care to know, extraneous information can lead to new questions that the prospect had not thought of before and can slow up or even completely halt the sale.

So what good is product knowledge, if the salesman isn’t at liberty to use it? I would contest that product knowledge is good for match up a customer pain to a solution, but when you are actually talking to the customer, a tasteful level of ignorance is far more valuable then a book full of product specifications. When you admit ignorance to a customer, you do a couple of things: first, you build trust with the prospect. A salesman who is willing to admit his own ignorance seems far less likely to be making stuff up than a slick salesman that has all the answers. Secondly, product ignorance shows the customer that you aren’t perfect either, making you much more relate-able as a person. And lastly, admitting your own ignorance bolsters that pride of the customer, especially if they know the answer and you don’t. A customer who feels smarter than the salesman is far more likely to buy than one who doesn’t. This is not to say that salesmen need to be running around claiming ignorance on every possible issue, but it does mean that a TASTEFUL smattering of ignorance can go a long way in building a relationship with a customer.