Mark Jewell's Blog: Selling Energy, page 130

Three Documents You Need for a Sales Meeting

When you attend an online or in-person sales meeting you should have three documents prepared and ready to go.  Before presenting any of them you should have asked about your prospect’s decision-making process.  What will it ultimately be based on?  Price?  Value?  Warranty?  Quality of service? 

Do You Have a Bad Closing Rate? Here’s How to Fix It!

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If you have a lousy closing rate, what are you doing wrong?  It's usually a combination of talking to the wrong people and saying the wrong thing in your proposals.  Perhaps you’re not addressing objections or really asking for the sale.

When You’re the New Kid in Town

When you find yourself in a new company or a new sales territory, the first thing you have to do is build rapport.  Make sure people know who you are and what you specialize in.

The Hard Thing About Hard Things

If you run a business or are involved in one, there will always be times when the going gets tough, especially now during COVID-19 and the recession.  If you’re in charge, it can be a heavy weight on your shoulders, and sometimes navigating your problems seems impossible.  What should you prioritize?  How should you instruct and motivate your employees during social distancing, especially if your people are working from home?  What if you have to resort to layoffs or restructuring your company? 

Weekly Recap, September 13, 2020

Here are our favorite sales-enhancing tips from this week's Selling Energy Blogs...

How to Graciously Decline a Handshake

With the spread of Coronavirus (Covid-19), etiquette is rapidly changing in schools, churches and – not surprisingly – our workplaces. 

Migrating the Discussion

When you’re selling an energy product or service, it’s pretty much a given that your prospect will raise some concern or objection during the negotiation. It’s your job as a sales professional to migrate the discussion away from that concern or objection and toward something that is more positive and productive. One of the tactics I teach in all of my energy-solutions-focused sales trainings is how to use certain words and phrases that move the prospect’s focus from whatever the roadblock might be to a new perspective that will help see the value proposition under consideration in a more favorable light.

Using LinkedIn to Make Cold Calls Warm

LinkedIn is a phenomenal resource for making connections, especially now that many of us are networking from home. There are currently more than 500 million users, which means you have an incredible opportunity to reach a bounty of current customers and potential prospects who are just a few connections away.

Regaining Your Financial Footing

One way to sell in our current environment is telling customers energy efficiency will help them regain their financial footing. More specifically, if you consider for a moment the three buckets of benefits on the most basic level, you’ll realize that all of those utility-cost-financial, non-utility-cost financial, and non-financial benefits can really help a business prevail in the wake of some rough sailing.

Recession Selling in the Residential Setting

Due to the pandemic many of us have been quarantined to our homes, and as a result we have become more familiar with the positive and negative aspects of being there 24/7. This is important to keep in mind since it will affect future residential sales.