Educating potential customers can be powerful and perhaps nothing educates them better than experiencing your product. This is where free demos and bite-sized samples come in handy.

Maybe you have a Kool-Aid Point with your product. People are polarized to either love you or hate you. Those who love you are labled or attacked by the haters. What to do? Kathy Sierra give some good advise from horse trainer Pat Pirelli:

So, I asked the guy who knows a whole lot about it–Pat Parelli. “What do you when your users are accused of being card-carrying, koolaid-drinking, Parelli cult members?”

He offers two simple suggestions we can use:

1) “Give users the tools to represent what you do accurately.” (He gives his users a free-for-the-asking DVD that clearly demonstrates what the program is about.) “Don’t expect–or ask–your users to defend you.”

But the most important one–the simple ‘doh-slapping-the-forehead’ one for me–was this:

2) Ask the critics, “How long did you try it before you came to these conclusions? Because the feedback is really important to us.”

But what if you don’t know how to represent your product accurately? What if the demo doesn’t give them a real feel for your service? What if you don’t have complete influence over the experience?

This doesn’t just affect businesses. This affects how people view and accept you, your church, your activities, your methodologies, and your beliefs.

This is why I believe door-to-door evangelism is less effective for the church. This is where multi-level marketing gets muddled. It’s where franchises lose their way.

Before you get amped up to go out and educate the ‘uneducated’ about the virtues of what you offer, take stock in what you’re offering. Is the audience uneducated in regards to your product, or are you uneducated in regards to their wants and needs?

Who really wants or needs green eggs and ham anyway?