Mark Jewell's Blog: Selling Energy, page 213

Make it Easy

In this day and age, people are used to making purchasing decisions in seconds. You can find virtually anything on the Internet, see how good or bad the reviews are, and then with one or two clicks or a single swipe of the finger, buy it and it will be on your doorstep two days later. Even people shopping in stores have an immediate way to compare prices and read reviews simply by scanning a product’s UPC code with a clever app on their smartphone.

It has never been easier for marketers to separate prospects from their cash. So, the question is, how do we ethically apply this phenomenon to how we present our energy products and services?

To answer this question, think about how an average person finds and purchases a product or service. Each step along the path should be as streamlined and clear as possible. Your website should come up when your prospect searches keywords related to your business. The message on the landing page of that site should be clear and concise (it could even be a short video or infographic so your prospect quickly comes up to speed on what your value proposition is). The next steps should be immediately defined and presented in a streamlined way to help your prospect follow those steps – whether it’s a form to fill out, a “contact us” button, or even a checkout page that facilitates credit card payments.

If you’re not easy to find, easy to understand, and easy to contact, you’re not easy to buy from. Spend some time in your prospects’ shoes. How easy is it for them to do business with you? Your job is to optimize anything that might be making the process of buying from you unnecessarily tedious.

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Be Your Own Inside Man

A few years ago, I heard some excellent advice from one of our ninjas.  When he meets with a prospective customer one of the first things he does is strike up conversations at the front desk or with other employees, asking them basic questions.

“How long have you been here?”
“How comfortable are the surroundings where you work?”
“How are things around here? Are fortunes rising or falling?”
“How’s the XYZ business these days? Is the company growing?”
“Are you currently hiring?”

These are interesting conversational points that give you background information on the company.  Some people find that kind of intel from a web search the night before.  His tactic is more personable, whether he’s with employees taking their coffee break on the loading dock or at the front desk chatting about the weather.  He’s also keenly observant about what kinds of things look like deferred maintenance – lights out, restrooms that could use a makeover, or equipment in need of repair.

When he finally meets with the decision maker he knows what to say.  It definitely isn’t, “When you do this lighting retrofit, you’re going to save X number of dollars.” Using what he has just learned he will say something more specific like, “You know you’re wasting more than $10,000 a year on overly large utility bills caused by your outdated lighting system.  Think of all the things you could do around here with an extra $10,000 per year”… and then he’ll mention a potential repair he noticed or a “wish list” improvement an employee had shared with him earlier.

Sometimes he asks, “If you found an unallocated $10,000 in the budget, what would you do with it?”  He never uses the word “save,” and his rationale for not doing so is brilliant.  He told me, “The reason they call it ‘retail therapy’ is because there are a lot of people who get therapeutic value out of spending money.”  There is enjoyment – even a thrill – in spending money rather than saving.  Doing his own sleuthing before he chats with the decision-maker allows him to reframe the value proposition, which allows his prospect to visualize the gratification of checking something off his wish list simply by repurposing currently wasted utility expenses.  It’s not surprising that his closing ratio has soared as a result.

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Your Presentation Persona

A book I mention often is Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson’s The Challenger Sale, which places sales professionals into five groups: Hard Workers, Relationship Builders, Challengers, Lone Wolves and Reactive Problem Solvers.  Of course, the Challenger is the most effective of the five, hence the title of the book.  If you don’t already know why, then it’s about time you got a copy.

However, sales are more multi-faceted than simply closing a deal.  Presentation is a part of pitching your ideas and overcoming objections, making it an indispensable tool in your arsenal.  So where do your strengths lie?  What is your presentation style?  What do people see when you’re speaking to them?  How can you use that to your advantage?

Those are the questions that What’s Your Presentation Persona answers, and like The Challenger Sale it offers a way to assess your abilities.  The book features 16 personas and how to build upon them.  The next time you have to address a boardroom or step in front of a PowerPoint you’ll be better prepared.  If you’re already curious, you can take the test here, then proceed by discovering more of what this author has to offer.

Here is the summary on Amazon:

“What kind of presenter are you? Are you charming? Purposeful? Informative? Inspiring? Do you have natural charisma? A clear message? A powerful vision?

“What’s Your Presentation Persona? is a revolutionary guide based on Badge, the first-of-its-kind proprietary skill assessment tool – a Myers-Briggs for presenters –that provides strategies and tips that address the core element for becoming a successful presenter: YOU.

“This groundbreaking book identifies 16 presentation personas, each with its own strengths and weaknesses, and shows you how to leverage your unique qualities to become a more powerful, persuasive, and successful presenter.

“Take the self-assessment test in the book and discover your persona. Are you:

The Director: a respected leader with an empathetic core (Oprah Winfrey or Ned Stark from Game of Thrones)
The Captivator: a charismatic presenter with a natural, unrehearsed flair (Gary Vaynerchuk or Captain Kirk from Star Trek)
The Producer: a successful speaker who believes in hard work – not luck (Martin Luther King Jr. or Walter White from Breaking Bad)
The Scholar: an always-curious learner informed by their own wisdom (Elon Musk or Hermione Granger from Harry Potter)
The Liberator: an optimistic visionary who loves to inspire (Tony Robbins or William Wallace from Braveheart)

“The key to reaching others is knowing who you are. Get to know yourself. Build on your strengths. Work on your weaknesses. Learn how to deliver your message with confidence, charisma, humor, and authenticity. Be yourself – but better. Once you’ve mastered your presentation persona, explore others you’d like to experiment with and learn from. Incorporate techniques into your unique style to become the strongest, most well-rounded communicator you can be – so you can razzle-dazzle any audience on any topic anytime.”

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Weekly Recap, April 1, 2018

Monday: Read Deep Work, by Cal Newport, which outlines several goals that will return you to “deep work,” citing case studies arguing that it’s our natural state.


Tuesday: Discover what motivates a property manager.


Wednesday: Learn how to network like a pro, Part 1.


Thursday: Learn how to network like a pro, Part 2.


Friday: If you want to set yourself apart from others, simplify your PowerPoint.


Saturday: Check out how to break a bad habit.

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Breaking a Bad Habit

On today’s productivity blog, we’ll delve into the idea of trying something new, with a specific focus on being curious and mindful about our bad habits.

According to TED speaker and psychiatrist Judson Brewer, habit formations follow a reward-based learning process: “We lay down this context-dependent memory and learn to repeat the process next time. See food, eat food, feel good, repeat. Trigger, behavior, reward.”

Brewer continues by sharing that while at one point these brain processes had helped humans survive, humans have also created unhealthy dependencies on them. Furthermore, trying to unlearn bad habits by doing the extreme opposites (e.g., forcing oneself to quit smoking) may not always be successful long-term solutions. Instead, Brewer suggests we become curious and mindful about how our senses understand our habits.

In the context of being a sales professional, we may have learned some bad habits from our earlier days of training. Perhaps we cut corners, rather than commit to the due diligence needed to research a prospect. Or perhaps we procrastinate and wind up presenting with sloppy, rushed slides. If we follow Brewer’s encouragement, a more productive response might be to look at what we get from our habits as we commit them. By doing so, we actively understand them on a deeper level, thus becoming disenchanted of how they had worked for us in the past, which sets the stage for eventually letting them go to make room for new, smarter habits.

For Brewer’s full TED talk, watch it here:

Here’s a summary from TED:

“Can we break bad habits by being more curious about them? Psychiatrist Judson Brewer studies the relationship between mindfulness and addiction — from smoking to overeating to all those other things we do even though we know they’re bad for us. Learn more about the mechanism of habit development and discover a simple but profound tactic that might help you beat your next urge to smoke, snack or check a text while driving.”

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Simplifying PowerPoint

The way people typically design PowerPoint slides is a joke, mostly due to outdated guidelines.  PowerPoint practitioners used to say, “You shouldn’t have more than five bullets on each slide, with no more than six words per bullet and one minute spent on each slide.”

But here’s the math.  Let’s say this applies a 60-minute presentation.

5 bullets x 6 words per bullet = 30 words a slide

30 words a slide x 60 slides = 1800 words

There are colleges in this country that don’t assign 1800-word term papers until you’re a sophomore!  Having done the math, is it reasonable to expect your audience to read an 1,800-word essay over your shoulder, while you’re talking, over the course of an hour?  Keep in mind they’re also trying to listen and understand what you’re saying.

When you think about it in that context, it’s ridiculous.  Designers like Nancy Duarte and Garr Reynolds have offered more streamlined concepts; both have written excellent books on PowerPoint design as well.  I’d recommend reading their work on your own time, but for now I’ll stick with the basics.

To begin with, an overflow of words isn’t going to work for you, so what should you do instead?  It’s simple: use a very dramatic picture.  Have a story to tell.  Use another dramatic picture.  Accompany it with another story.  Repeat.  Words and reading don’t necessarily run the show.  It’s about keeping the audience’s interest.  The presentation is a visual guide.

You may think, “Well, I’ve got to tell these people some technical details about what we’re trying to sell.”  Great.  That doesn’t belong on the slide.  That belongs in a handout where people can take notes and take it home with them.  You have to be discerning as you decide how much information shows up on the wall and how much information winds up in people’s hands.

In short, a presentation doesn’t have to revolve around words and details.  It’s about the message and the value you’re trying to communicate.  If you want to set yourself apart from the others, simplify your PowerPoint.  In some ways, it’s like poetry – if nothing can be added or taken away without destroying its core meaning, then you’re in good shape.

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Network like a Pro, Part Two

How do you make the most of a networking event?

Be the first one there and the last one to leave. The middle gets crowded.
Spend 75% of the time with people you don’t know.
Be confident and happy. Confidence will attract people to you and make it easier to approach you than a wallflower.
Be respectful of people’s personal space.
Don’t drink too much – either drink a glass of water or nurse one drink the entire night. You have to keep your wits about you and maintain your composure.
Don’t be aggressive – you are there to network, not scream your pitch to everyone.
Don’t just use people to your advantage; rather, always focus on what you can do for them.
Make sure you get the person’s name and business card… and since so many of your counterparts are so dreadfully unprepared for networking (e.g., they forget to pack their own business cards!), have a notebook and pen handy to jot down their coordinates. Never depend on them to follow-up on the card you give them.

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Network like a Pro, Part One

“If you’re not networking, you’re not working.” – Denis Waitley

Networking is a necessary component of building your business and it’s the quickest way to forge relationships within the industry. Why is it important to network in-person?

It’s easier to build lasting relationships face-to-face.
It’s a great way to build your reputation – you’ll be seen and known as consistent if you regularly appear at the same events.
It’s a great way to reconnect with people you already know and meet people you don’t know.
It’s a good place to practice your elevator pitch.
Strong relationships start with shared experiences.
People are more relaxed and have their guard down.
Others are there to network, too… so you’ll never have reason to feel that you’re “bugging them.”

How do you master the art of networking?

Network as often as possible.
Don’t think of networking events as boring.
Be willing to dedicate the time to mastering in-person networking skills.
Get a plan together – determine when and where.
Master your elevator pitch.
Prepare ahead of time.

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What Motivates a Property Manager

A property manager’s main role is as a tenant concierge.  Their job is multi-faceted but breaks down to the following:

Maintaining a safe and profitable asset.
Maintaining every lease and the tenants’ satisfaction.
Maintaining accurate budgets for the building owners.

When you sell a project to a property manager they have to sell that project to at least three other stakeholders.  One concerns the capital budget to raise the money.  The second is the building’s engineers so they don’t block or veto the technology as something too dangerous or difficult to handle.  The third is the tenants themselves.  All in all, the property manager has a tough hill to climb.

My philosophy would be to help property managers get more of what they already consider their goal.  An energy upgrade could be an amenity to brag about when they talk to potential tenants.  The upgrade could also make tenants happier, minimizing their comfort issues and other complaints.  These, among other things, are what need to be emphasized when you talk to property managers about your offerings.

Other factors play a role in how you approach them.  For example, most property managers are always on pins and needles for having accurately forecasted their energy budgets.  If you befriend property managers and frame yourself as a solution to that problem (perhaps in the form of allowing them to forecast their operating expense budgets more reliably), they would be more likely to lobby for your services and become an internal champion.  After all, you’re helping them keep their career goals in order.

Another thing you can do is help them write their proposals.  Property managers aren’t hired for their writing skills and are often too busy to write a compelling proposal.  If you take care of that for them, you can give them an vital tool they’ll need when they go to their next meeting.  It will make them look like the hero.

The most successful sales almost always involve planning and collaboration.  With property managers, it’s imperative to be on their side and show them the way.  By helping to ensure their success, you’ll help to ensure your own.

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The Benefits of Deep Work

In the 21st century the average workday has shifted considerably.  People are spending less time outdoors and more time interacting with screens rather than human beings.  At the same time, constant upgrades to our technology are altering work demands.  There’s more to do because it’s easier to do, and as a result our tendency toward distraction is intensifying.

This is something I’ve noticed myself.  We keep juggling smaller tasks while tackling the larger, more pressing ones in a constant flurry of multi-tasking.  After a while our attention spans begin to wear thin, but we don’t notice it until we’ve become overwhelmed and unproductive.

In Deep Work, author Cal Newport describes these scattershot tendencies as “shallow work.”  The benefits of “deep work” have fallen by the wayside – an  unbroken concentration on a single task.  Participating in deep work is beneficial not only for your work life, but also for your brain and mental health.  Successful people like J.K. Rowling and Bill Gates understand this, tailoring their work schedules to free themselves of distraction.

So why not do the same?

Newton outlines several goals that will return you to “deep work,” citing evidence and case studies arguing that it’s our natural state.  We were never meant to fragment our attention to this extent and become inundated with information.  Through some simple schedule changes and some self-control, you can ease yourself back to a singular focus and reap benefits you’ve been missing for too long.

Here is the summary from Amazon:

“One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming increasingly rare. If you master this skill, you’ll achieve extraordinary results.

“Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task.  It’s a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time.  Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship.  In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy.  And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep – spending their days instead in a frantic blur of email and social media, not even realizing there’s a better way.

“In Deep Work, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age.  Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite.  Dividing this book into two parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits.  He then presents a rigorous training regimen, presented as a series of four ‘rules,’ for transforming your mind and habits to support this skill.

“A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, Deep Work takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories – from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air – and no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored.  Deep Work is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world.”

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