Mark Jewell's Blog: Selling Energy, page 185

How to Tackle Sales Team Turnover and Grow Your Business

Sales team turnover is one of the biggest problems facing today’s businesses, especially in high-growth markets. Qualified sales professionals are scarce, and they demand top dollar. At the same time, selling can be one of the toughest and most discouraging professions, and good salespeople will seek out jobs where they feel welcomed and nurtured, in addition to being well-compensated. With a little insight and imagination, you can buck the trend and hire and retain great salespeople who can help your business grow. 

Reluctant Buyer

Many buyers have a tendency to talk themselves out of the sale. Your job as an energy sales professional is to make sure they don’t find a reason not to buy. Say you have a prospect that is interested in purchasing window films. Chances are they've never touched a window film in their life except maybe unconsciously putting their nose against the glass of a store window to look at the merchandise. They have no idea what a window film looks like, tastes like, smells like, or feels like. They have no idea what it costs. They have no idea that there is tremendous variety of window film available. 

Presentation Timing

Most sales professionals are asked to give presentations from time to time. If someone says you’ve got 60 minutes to present, do not create 60 slides. What’s going to happen if you have 60 slides? You’ll be rushing through them; or worse yet, you’ll be strolling through them very leisurely, perhaps getting derailed by a couple of offbeat questions and maybe even a personal story… and then you look up at the clock… and you’re horrified to find that you only 20 minutes remaining! You still have 40 slides to get through, and it’s a disaster. Everybody in the audience gets increasingly uncomfortable, because not only are you not covering the remaining material with sufficient depth; you are also making them anxious that you're not going to finish your presentation in time. Believe me, an anxious audience is lot less receptive to your ideas.

Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts

A study of executive decision-making behavior several years back found that the average CEO made 139 decisions in the average week, and that more than half of those decisions were made in nine minutes or less. Regardless of whether the stakes are high or low, these higher-ups need to process large amounts of information, weigh their choices and use their gut instincts literally in minutes.  

Weekly Recap, March 17, 2019

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

The Most Successful People Take the Third Door

7 Signs You Should Invest in Sales Training

Is your sales team performing at its best? Probably not, but corporate managers tend to overlook even lackluster sales performance as long as company profits continue to climb. 

Tips for Vetting Trade Associations

Trade associations can be an excellent resource for educating yourself about a segment and generating leads.  Finding them is pretty straightforward; however, most salespeople aren’t sure how to utilize them.  Here are some tricks of the trade (pun intended) that will ensure both you and the association will benefit from your relationship. 

Follow Up Tips

We sow the seeds of our own destruction by not following up with customers.  My philosophy is when you send a proposal, you've got to follow up from the beginning.  I also recommend a multi-modal approach.  If you send a proposal by email, you should also send a text or leave a voicemail, something like “I just want to let you know I sent this proposal so you don’t miss it.  I’ll follow up with you in a couple of days.”

How to Find Your Customer’s Why

I’ve often talked about the “why” behind selling energy, because in the end that’s what drives the bus.