Anyone who believes they can convince a customer to buy a high-priced product from them on the spot usually has little luck.  And even the often highly praised sales techniques cannot change the fact that normal people go through certain phases before they decide for or against a product.  First of all, there is the information gathering phase.   In this phase one begins to concern oneself with a thing, for example a certain form of the Diät or nutrition or with the question whether one wants to learn or buy a certain music instrument.  In order to have any interest in acquiring this information, one must first know that there is a context.  In my example, it was a nutritional deficiency that led to a blood test finding a less than optimal value that explained why I had so many joint problems.  In plain language, this means that I had a health problem which suddenly affected me personally at a certain point in time and which I had not known existed before.  My joints simply hurt, but I didn't know why that was.  The blood test revealed that there was a problem.  Certain foods were causing me joint pain.  I would never have thought of this before!  And that's why I would never have thought of looking for a solution to a problem that I wasn't aware of.  And if you don't have a problem, you won't spend money on a solution for it.  One of the most interesting questions you can ask yourself as a provider is what exactly happens before the customer starts looking for a solution.  A few years ago I was invited to Frankfurt by a prospect who wanted to know if it was possible to find out when a merger manager changes jobs and goes to another company.  When I asked him why this was important to him, he explained that a company only looks for a merger manager when they are planning a merger with another company. Sounds logical, doesn't it? Usually, such mergers require loans or funds.   And my prospect was working for a company that could provide exactly that kind of money and therefore had an interest in finding out when a merger could be expected.   So if you know what things happen before your prospect searches for your product, then you can introduce that prospect to your services for the first time at that exact point.  A classic example in the American space is a man named Joe Polish.  Joe Polish had a carpet cleaning company in the past.  The company was not doing very well, he was having financial problems. And one day, after fainting, he found himself lying overworked on a sidewalk.  That was the moment when he decided to change his life and he took a very effective approach.  He offered potential customers a help tool which he called a user awareness guide.  Each prospective customer could inform himself in advance what he had to pay attention to before booking a carpet cleaning company.  In this user awareness guide, Joe Polish informed his prospective customers about the tricks his competitors might use and where exactly the difference between a good and a bad service lay.  This was free information, but it made people realize why carpet cleaning might be an important thing!  If I remember correctly, Joe Polish told these people how many bacteria live in such a carpet and what problems could arise if this cleaning was not done properly.  Many companies have now realized how important it is to pick up the customer at exactly the point where he first comes into contact with an issue.  For example, as an expectant mother in the hospital, you often receive a package from a manufacturer with diapers or baby care products.  If you are able to inform your target customers in this phase already in a helpful way if and which problem you could solve for them, then this can lead to the fact that you are already in advance of your competitors a big step.  Because most providers invest very little or not at all in potential customers who are still in this very first phase of decision-making.  Your competitors probably only want to spend money on advertising if they can reach customers who are already in the buying phase.  Of course, it is more likely that you can persuade someone to make a short-term purchase if they are already specifically looking for the price of a particular model.  But often it is also very helpful if you have provided someone with information that has helped them for weeks or months before a potential purchase.  We have all been trained to use search engines on the Internet and each of us has his own search engine in his head.  If you ask yourself who you could talk to about real estate, you will think of a certain person in your circle of acquaintances.  If it's about health, it's probably another person.  And if you can manage to place yourself in the mind of your potential target customers for your own products or services in their internal search engine, then it's easier if you do it in the first phase. Especially easy if they are not yet looking for your offers on the Internet but for information about their problem.  Because in the first phase of the information procurement nobody resists that you give him helpful information where your competitors do not do it yet.