Mark Jewell's Blog: Selling Energy, page 219

Trick for Writing Emails Faster

In the energy sales world, we’re constantly communicating our ideas via email. A sales professional may have excellent interpersonal skills; however he or she will not reach his or her true potential without the ability to communicate effectively and efficiently via email.  What if I told you that you could write emails 8x faster?

HubSpot recently shared an article titled, “My Trick for Writing Emails 8x Faster that 99% of People Haven’t Tried.” If you want to be part of the 1%, I highly recommend checking out this article.

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The Power of SIR

When I teach I almost always reserve a section for financial metrics.  One of the most overlooked metrics is my favorite one to use: savings-to-investment ratio or SIR.  It’s also one of the most effective to use if you frame it the right way.

Let’s say you’re in a meeting, and you know what the savings-to-investment ratio (SIR) of your proposed project is before you start talking.  Let’s say it’s something generous, like 5:1.  You say, “Just out of curiosity: if I offered you an investment with reasonable certainty that you would make $5 for every dollar you invested today, would you want to know more?”

A prospect would have to be crazy to turn that down.  After that it’s about showing them your financial analysis and the numbers to back it up.  In fact, you might as well be telling them your project is like an ATM that will give them $5 for every dollar they put in!  How many dollars would you put into that machine?  Probably every dollar you could get your hands on, right?

This metric is essential when it comes to illustrating savings, but it’s often left out of major decisions.  One of our students is so fond of the metric, she wrote it on a Post-It note and stuck it to the front of her proposal so it wouldn’t be missed.  Her company’s standard proposal template didn’t include SIR, so she went the extra mile to make sure that very compelling ratio would be seen.

The same could be said for many meetings and proposals.  If it’s a tool you can use, find a way to insert it into the discussion.

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Help Your Prospects Set Themselves Apart

When it comes to sales, a lot of our time is spent learning about a prospect’s needs.  Sometimes, one needs to “connect a few dots” to help the prospect realize just how urgently they need your proposed solution.

I’ll give you an example.  A few years ago, one of my students approached the owner of a building in Silicon Valley that was 30% vacant.  He told owner, “You should install high-tech lighting in this space.”

The owner was flummoxed.  “What?  Are you crazy?” he asked.  “This space is empty?  Why would I ever install the lighting before knowing what kind of tenant is going to lease it and what their lighting preferences are?

“That’s exactly why you need to put in a high-tech lighting control system,” my student said.  “You’re in Silicon Valley. The people who are going to rent this space are venture capital-funded game developers and the like.  They’re really going to get a kick out of being able to control the brightness of the light fixture above their heads using a widget on their computer’s desktop.  In fact, I’ll bet you that if a broker takes a prospective tenant to tour your space and 10 others, at the end of the day, yours would be the most memorable one.”

Long story short, the owner made some changes.  He spent $4 a square foot to put the high-tech lighting system into his building, which was 35% vacant at the time.  Six months later, the vacancy had been reduced to 5%.

Now you ask yourself, could you position energy efficiency, comfort, and  convenience as differentiating amenities to help lease up buildings?  Your prospect might not know it, but you may be offering the very thing that will set them apart from their competition so they can attract more clientele

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The Green Agenda

It’s no secret that many salespeople are drawn to the energy efficiency and renewable energy industries because they want to make a positive impact on the environment. Helping businesses increase their sustainability profile is a worthwhile and noble cause. However, it’s not always wise to lead with the environmental agenda in business-related sales settings. Even if the individual you are addressing is an environmentalist, his or her employer’s agenda will set the tone for the discussion and ultimately determine the fate of your proposal.

That said, the environmental angle might actually prove to be useful as long as it’s positioned properly. More specifically, while your prospect’s business may not have “saving the trees, seas, and honeybees” featured prominently on its goal sheet, someone even more important actually might: its customers.

Consider this study by the Nielson Company, in which 66% of survey respondents said they were willing to pay more for products and services that came from companies committed to positive environmental impact. A key driver for these consumers was the perception that the business was engaged in environmentally friendly practices, and energy efficiency and renewable energy projects certainly fit that bill. And if you are pitching to a business that is targeting the famous Millennial demographic, the effect is even greater: almost 75% of respondents in the 15-20 age group said they were willing to pay more for products from businesses that value sustainability.

Your prospect needn’t be a financial expert to understand that figures like these could be leveraged to drive revenues. Feel free to recommend that your prospect prominently feature the details of your energy project in its marketing materials. This marketing should illustrate genuinely quantitative reductions in emissions and carbon footprint, along with any applicable ratings that the improvement may have enabled, such as the acquisition of an ENERGY STAR® label for the subject property. Environmentally conscious consumers will find concrete facts to be more impressive than simply talking a green game.

The trend lines in consumer attitudes are clear: every year, consumers are more concerned with the environment and more willing to vote with their dollars. Illustrate to your business prospects that consumers will continue to flock to companies that are viewed as environmental stewards. When you combine this positive PR angle with the financial benefits of your proposed energy-related upgrades, your prospects will start realizing that they can’t afford not to go green.

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Unlock the Document

Students often ask me what format is best to use when sending a proposal digitally. While it may seem like a good idea to send a locked document (as a way of protecting intellectual property), I think it’s almost always better to send proposals as an unlocked PDF. Why? In an ideal situation, the person to whom you send the proposal will send it to other decision-makers in the chain. Since you took the time to create perfectly worded prose, you want to give them the privilege of copying and pasting directly into their management memo and give them the credit for having written it.

In most cases, the person you send your proposal to is not really getting approval for you; they’re getting approval to do the project. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether the persuasive language from your proposal is attributed to you or to the person passing your message along internally, as long as it works! Once your internal champion gets approval, they’ll come back to you and say, “Great! We got the project approved.”

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How to Recognize and Cultivate the Three Essential Virtues

You have heard it before: teamwork is essential.  But just how essential?

Chances are you already know the answer.  Everyone in the business world has experienced how teamwork can make or break a project.  When it comes to energy-related initiatives, collaborating and communicating are essential, not only within your inner circle, but also with customers and allies.  In many cases, you’ll need the best people to facilitate and maintain those relationships.  This is where teamwork can make the biggest difference and put you ahead of your competition.

Patrick Lencioni is an expert on leadership and team development, with over twenty years of experience under his belt.  His latest book, The Ideal Team Player, focuses on the characteristics that make the best teammates in any work situation:

They need to be humble, meaning that they aren’t arrogant and are willing to listen to others or learn from their mistakes.
They must be “hungry,” in that they are proactive, driven and committed to a rigorous work ethic.
They must be people smart, with the intuitive ability to read others, collaborate with different personalities, and think before they act or speak.

Lencioni argues that it is a combination of these three qualities that ensures the best teamwork.  Even a team player with two out of these three qualities will struggle or potentially hinder a project’s development.  Most importantly, you must have these qualities in order to be an effective leader.  The Ideal Team Player is not only a guide for what to look for in collaborators or employees, but ultimately a reminder of the example you should be setting at work, regardless of your position.

Here is a summary from Amazon:

“In his classic book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni laid out a groundbreaking approach for tackling the perilous group behaviors that destroy teamwork. Here he turns his focus to the individual, revealing the three indispensable virtues of an ideal team player.

In The Ideal Team Player, Lencioni tells the story of Jeff Shanley, a leader desperate to save his uncle’s company by restoring its cultural commitment to teamwork. Jeff must crack the code on the virtues that real team players possess, and then build a culture of hiring and development around those virtues.

Beyond the fable, Lencioni presents a practical framework and actionable tools for identifying, hiring, and developing ideal team players.  Whether you’re a leader trying to create a culture around teamwork, a staffing professional looking to hire real team players, or a team player wanting to improve yourself, this book will prove to be as useful as it is compelling.”

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Weekly Recap, January 28, 2018

Monday: Read Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, by Angela Duckworth, that illustrates the relationship between talent and effort, positing that in order for someone to reach their goals they have to push themselves and push hard.

Tuesday: Explore what to do once referrals bring prospects to your door.

Wednesday: Check out tips from the storytelling circle that can enhance the impact of your PowerPoint presentations.

Thursday: Read on if you’re interested in improving the success of your email campaigns.

Friday: Discover how getting inside your prospect’s head will help guide and focus your value proposition.

Saturday: Check out this article and focus your energy on persuading your prospect “why” they need your product or service (and leave the “what” and “how” for later).

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Start with Why

If you’ve attended one of my sales trainings or are a regular reader of my blogs, you’ve likely heard me talk about focusing on the “why” and watched Simon Sinek’s TED Talk on “How Great Leaders Inspire Action”. If you can’t determine why someone would feel compelled to purchase from you, how can you expect to present him or her with a compelling value proposition?

An article published in the HubSpot Sales blog titled, “In Sales, Start With Now” resonates with my point. If you can get to the root of the “why” and focus your energy on persuading your prospect why they need your product or service (and leave the “what” and “how” for later), you’ll have a leg up on your competition. Read the full blog here.

For the full TED Talk on “How Great Leaders Inspire Action”, I highly recommend watching this and exploring how to connect the dots for your decision-maker.

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Getting into Your Prospect’s Head

Suppose you get an unexpected call from a prospect who says he’s interested in replacing his building’s HVAC system with your energy-efficient technology. Many salespeople would say, “Great! Let’s set up an appointment and we can go over the details.” A sales professional, on the other hand, would say, “Would be happy to oblige. Just out of curiosity, what made you call us today about replacing your HVAC system?”

Why is this question important? The answer will get you inside the prospect’s head. You might learn something about the decision-making dynamics in your prospect’s organization. More than likely, you’ll get a glimpse of how you might use energy efficiency as the lever to alleviate pain and/or produce gain.

You might learn that your prospect is chasing utility bill savings. Or perhaps he’s more interested in capturing the praise and labels associated with sustainability initiatives. Or perhaps he’s received an ultimatum from a tenant who won’t renew his lease unless certain thermal comfort problems are definitively addressed.  Having this information ahead of time will help guide and focus your value proposition and allow you to hit the ball out of the park during the first meeting.

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Email Prospecting

Email is one of the most powerful marketing tools we have at our disposal. It’s also one of the most difficult to use effectively. Consumers have become increasingly adept at determining when they’re being “sold” to, and according to a study done by ExactTarget, people take an average of only 2.7 seconds to decide whether they’re going to read, forward, or delete an email.

So how do you craft an email that will actually elicit a response or action from the reader? According to marketing expert Jill Konrath, it all comes down to the four “SNAP” questions:

How simple is it?
Does this person bring value?
Is this aligned with my objectives?
How big a priority is it?

If you can create a compelling email that prompts the correct answers to these four SNAP questions, you’ll witness far higher returns on your email marketing efforts.

Konrath published a comprehensive paper on the subject called “The Ultimate Guide to Email Prospecting.” I highly recommend reading it if you are interested in improving the success of your email campaigns.

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