Mark Jewell's Blog: Selling Energy, page 199

Active Listening Tips, Part 1

“A good listener has the ability to better understand and process information.  A great listener has the ability to use this information to negotiate, to influence, and avoid misunderstandings and conflicts." – Christopher Pappas 

Active Listening Tips, Part One

“A good listener has the ability to better understand and process information.  A great listener has the ability to use this information to negotiate, to influence, and avoid misunderstandings and conflicts." – Christopher Pappas 

Net Present Value

One of the reasons I print out our financial worksheets and juxtapose them with each other is to demonstrate the outcomes of three scenarios for doing an energy efficiency improvement: 

Listening for Repetition

I’ve written in the past about the importance of listening carefully to everything your prospects say to you. One thing that you should be sure to take note of when listening is repetition. When people repeat words or ideas, it usually signifies importance. The things your prospects choose to repeat provide insight into their world (which is certainly valuable to have when you’re selling).

Be the Problem Solver

As a sales professional, you have an immense amount of knowledge about your offerings. You know what the benefits are, and you know how they can bring value to your customers. You know the costs, the savings, the project timeline, and so forth. It can be very tempting to jump right in and tell your prospects about the benefits of your project, how much money you could save them, and how long it will take them to recoup the cost of the project through energy savings. Don’t succumb to that temptation. Before you present any information to them – regardless of how compelling it is – find out about their goals, objectives, needs, biases, and scar tissue.

The Secret Weapon That Can Solve Your Toughest Sales Challenges

As virtually any of my trainings will attest, making a sale in today’s environment is incredibly complex.  It’s more important than ever to be aware of who the players are, what is most important to them, and how to speak their language, often while juggling several other tasks at once.  

Weekly Recap, October 28, 2018

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

Habits of Successful Entrepreneurs

Sales professionals understand that successful selling is a holistic practice. Their choices and habits, both in their personal and professional lives, are aligned with their goals. To achieve success, one must plan for it. It’s one thing to hope for success or to assume that your values and work ethic will lead you to become successful, and it’s another thing to write out a plan for precisely how you will achieve your goals and aspirations and to stick to that plan throughout your life.  

Redirect Your Prospect’s Focus

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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 efficiency-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 frame the value proposition under consideration in a more favorable light.

7 Ways to Incorporate Online Sales Training Into Your Busy Schedule

Time management is often a sales rep’s biggest challenge, and at first glance, it would seem that adding additional demands such as online sales training would just make things more difficult.