Mark Jewell's Blog: Selling Energy, page 237
July 31, 2017
How to Prospect (Fanatically)
I am often asked about the best ways to prospect for new clients. I always say the same thing: it’s all about attitude and thinking ahead. But while it may be the most intimidating part of the sales process, it’s also the most rewarding. You’ve got to convince someone you’re bringing value to their business and prove you’re worth their time!
Jeb Blount is a Sales Acceleration Specialist who works as a business consultant and runs four different companies. His latest book, Fanatical Prospecting, shares his tactics for excelling at the art of prospecting, whether in person, on the phone or through email, social media and texting. Blount states that in order to succeed you’ve got to train yourself like a professional athlete and maintain your focus. When you lose your footing or slow down, someone will inevitably overtake you.
Overall this book prompts you to ask yourself, “How bad do you want to succeed?” When it comes to prospecting, it’s paramount to stay ahead of the game.
Here is a summary from Amazon:
“Fanatical Prospecting gives salespeople, sales leaders, entrepreneurs, and executives a practical, eye-opening guide that clearly explains the why and how behind the most important activity in sales and business development—prospecting.
“The brutal fact is the number one reason for failure in sales is an empty pipe and the root cause of an empty pipeline is the failure to consistently prospect. By ignoring the muscle of prospecting, many otherwise competent salespeople and sales organizations consistently underperform.
“Step by step, Jeb Blount outlines his innovative approach to prospecting that works for real people, in the real world, with real prospects.
“Learn how to keep the pipeline full of qualified opportunities and avoid debilitating sales slumps by leveraging a balanced prospecting methodology across multiple prospecting channels.
“This book reveals the secrets, techniques, and tips of top earners. You’ll learn:
Why the 30-Day Ruleis critical for keeping the pipeline full
Why understanding the Law of Replacementis the key to avoiding sales slumps
How to leverage the Law of Familiarityto reduce prospecting friction and avoid rejection
The 5 C’s of Social Sellingand how to use them to get prospects to call you
How to use the simple 5 Step Telephone Frameworkto get more appointments fast
How to double call backs with a powerful voice mail technique
How to leverage the powerful 4 Step Email Prospecting Frameworkto create emails that compel prospects to respond
How to get text working for you with the 7 Step Text Message Prospecting Framework
And there is so much more!
“Fanatical Prospecting is filled with the high-powered strategies, techniques, and tools you need to fill your pipeline with high quality opportunities.
“In the most comprehensive book ever written about sales prospecting, Jeb Blount reveals the real secret to improving sales productivity and growing your income fast. You’ll gain the power to blow through resistance and objections, gain more appointments, start more sales conversations, and close more sales.
“Break free from the fear and frustration that is holding you and your team back from effective and consistent prospecting. It’s time to get off the feast or famine sales roller-coaster for good!”
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July 30, 2017
Weekly Recap, July 30, 2017
Tuesday: Don’t assume everyone has the same purchasing motives. Find out what they really want and be sure to feature it prominently in your proposal.
Wednesday: Check out three benefits of efficiency for income-producing properties.
Thursday: Explore three essential financial statements that you should know like the back of your hand.
Friday: Discover how to reframe the value of efficiency to educational institutions.
Saturday: Check out 10 time-saving tips for stressed working parents.
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July 29, 2017
10 Time-Saving Tips for Stressed Working Parents
As every working parent knows, time is a scarce commodity more valuable than gold. Finding new ways to squeeze every second out of a typical day and get as much done honoring all your obligations can feel like a mountain too high to climb. Thankfully, we have put together this list of time-saving tips to help busy, working parents achieve just a bit more each day and feel less stressed doing it.
Prepare the Night Ahead – Remember when you were little and your mom laid out your clothes the night before? This same practice can be a lifesaver when you are juggling work, home, and kids. Do as much as you can the night before. Get the kid’s clothes ready, pack lunches, have your bags packed and even try showering in the evenings instead of morning. Anything you can do the night before shaves precious minutes off the morning bustle.
Track Your Time – What are you doing each day? There are some great time-tracking mobile apps such as Tyme 2 where you can use timers to track your entire day’s worth of events. Try it for a full week to see where you can regain some free time. Perhaps you have a habit of reading the online news before work or checking the sports scores during lunch. You may find that freeing up these short bits of time and using them for other tasks can be the difference between having a stressful or non-stressful workday.
Prioritize Your Time – Juggling family and work is hard enough, but when faced with an invitation to do something extra, it can quickly reach Take a minute to determine whether or not it is worth your time and the stress. Do you really need to attend the company picnic or your third cousin’s barbecue? Does the lawn need to be mowed or can it wait a week (or even better, outsourced)? Prioritize what is most important and cancel any extra events and activities to help free up time and relax your schedule.
Take the Kids to Work on the Weekend – There is no better time to get a lot of work done than on a weekend when no one else is in the office, no phones are ringing, and no emails are coming in. However, if you have children, this can present a problem. The solution, bring the kids to work. Bring plenty of toys, snacks and things to keep them occupied. Set them up in the conference room or another office while you get some quality work done. The kids will love going to work with mom or dad and view it as a field trip. While you get points for the fun adventure, you also get caught up on work before your busy week.
Use Your Lunch Hour Wisely – This golden nugget of time is perfect for many tasks that are hard to accomplish at any other time of day. Use the Internet to pay bills online, check on the kids (nanny-cam or other similar services), schedule appointments, and even order products for home delivery. Just spending half of your lunch hour crossing things off your to-do list will ease the stress of the rest of your day. Use your lunch break efficiently every day and watch your whole week improve.
Assign a Time Limit to Each Task and Stick to It – A fantastic way to manage time, especially if you never have enough of it, is to assign a time limit to each task and when the time is up, move onto the next item. Limiting your time may seem counter-productive, but it helps on a subconscious level. Your brain knows you only have a specific amount of time to complete your task and therefore works more efficiently to accomplish it on time. It also gives you a relief valve knowing that the job will end at a particular time, and you will reward yourself with a forced break.
Hire Someone for Pickup/Drop Off of the Kids or Carpool with a Neighbor – Dropping off or picking up the kids can take up an enormous amount of time each week. Just by hiring someone for these two tasks or carpooling with a friend or neighbor can free up a lot of extra time. On those mornings when you don’t have the kids, go to the office extra early, before anyone else and get a lot done. On the evenings when you don’t have to pick up the kids, you can stay extra late and accomplish even more.
Double Up on Recipes for Lots of Leftovers (Easy Reheat) – When making dinner consider doubling the recipe, so you always have a quick reheat meal ready to go for those nights when the time is dwindling quickly. Don’t worry about being the perfect parent and serving up a freshly cooked meal every night; your sanity is worth more than your reputation, and the kids won’t care.
Delegate/Ask for Help – When there is too much on your plate juggling the kid’s activities, additional stuff at work and you can’t seem to find any relief, ask a friend or family member for help. Anything they can help with to free up extra time will make a big difference. On the weekends, have kids “help out” cleaning up the garage or working on a project. Make it fun by turning it into a competition or game. This way you can spend family time together but also get some household chores done as well.
Organize Everything – Keep everything in your home and office organized. There are dozens of great resources for keeping kids toys, clothes and office items in their proper place. Stick to routines and habits so that you don’t waste precious time hunting around for things. For example, always put your car keys in the same place every night when coming home. This way you will never lose them and frantically search when you need to be in the car on the way to daycare. And if you always seem to misplace your keys, you can get a wireless “key finder” on Amazon for less than $20 that will keep four items as far as 100 feet away within easy reach with a loud beep and a blinking light!
We live hectic lives these days, and every bit of timesaving helps ease our stress. These tips can add minutes or even hours to your busy week and help put a smile on your previously stressed face.
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July 28, 2017
Reframing the Value to Educational Institutions
If you’re trying to sell efficiency to educational institutions, one of the most compelling cases for change comes not in the form of utility cost savings, but rather in the form of what I like to call “butts in seats.”
What is a value of a butt in a seat? Many school districts in the U.S. take the average daily attendance of the preceding school year, and they use that as one of the constants in figuring out how much money the state will give that particular school district. Improving the attendance rate by even a fraction of a percent can have a major impact on the funding a school receives. If you can make a school more comfortable with better access to fresh air, daylight, high-quality interior lighting, and so forth, you’ll likely see a positive impact on attendance, not only among students but also among teachers (which makes the budget for substitute teachers go farther).
The bottom line is that the combination of all these factors means that you have more learners in the room at any given time. Reading scores goes up. Math scores go up. People are spending more time in school. School subsidies go up because the average daily attendance numbers are higher. Win, win, win, without even having to look at the upgrades’ impact on the utility bill.
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July 27, 2017
The Three Essential Financial Statements
When it comes to having intelligent financial conversations with your prospects and clients, there are three important financial statements that you should know like the back of your hand. These statements give you the vital signs of the company to which you’re selling.
The income statement: The income statement summarizes the revenues, costs, and expenses incurred during a specific period of time, usually a fiscal quarter or year. This is also known as the P&L, or profit and loss statement. The income statement is powerful because it tells you how much revenue is being brought in, how much they’re spending to generate that revenue, and ultimately, what’s left over.
The balance sheet: The balance sheet summarizes the balances of the business organization as of a specific date, and it includes the assets, the liabilities, and the ownership equity. It is also called the “statement of financial position.”
The statement of cash flows: The statement of cash flows states how changes in the various balance sheet accounts and income affect the cash and cash equivalents, and it categorizes those amounts in three classifications: operating activities, investing activities, and financing activities. It is also known as the “cash flow statement.”
Understanding these three statements will not only allow you to have more intelligent conversations with your clients, but also get you better prepared to pitch efficiency projects to your own management team.
If you’ve never heard these terms before, or if you’ve always wondered exactly what goes into an income statement or how to set up a balance sheet, etc., I would recommend checking out an online resource called AccountingCoach. You’ll find a wealth of free information about accounting and finance there, and a fee-based premium version that features a deeper dive.
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July 26, 2017
3 Benefits of Efficiency for Income-Producing Properties
One of the prime targets for efficiency retrofits is income-producing property. You can give yourself a leg up on the competition if you demonstrate for your prospect the many ways in which your project will make their building more competitive, profitable, and valuable. Here are some of the many benefits you may choose to work into the discussion:
1. More competitive:
Lower occupancy cost positions the building as more cost-effective for tenants
Enhanced comfort and productivity improve tenant retention and building reputation
Sustainability provides marketing advantage
More profitable:
Better tenant retention and attraction increase revenue while reducing cost of tenant churn
Lower vacancy rates yield higher rental revenue
Lower tenant utility bills provide opportunity for higher base rents
More valuable:
Rental revenue (from above) increases cash flow
Lower operating costs increase cash flow
Higher Net Operating Income (NOI) supports higher appraisal
The post 3 Benefits of Efficiency for Income-Producing Properties appeared first on Selling Energy.
July 25, 2017
Discover the Dominant Purchasing Motive
There are countless reasons someone might be interested in energy efficiency. If you can find out exactly why your prospect is considering an efficiency project, you’ll be better positioned to prevail. I’d like to share a story that one of our Efficiency Sales Professional Boot Camp graduates (we’ll call him Steve) shared with me. It exemplifies the value of knowing your prospect’s motives and adapting your sales approach accordingly.
Steve’s company was proposing a variable frequency drive and boiler upgrade for a retailer that prided itself on its socially conscious agenda. In fact, his principal contact there was lamenting that the company had just approved funding for an expensive solar project, even though less glamorous investments would have offset much more energy than the solar project was slated to produce, and do so at a smaller upfront cost. He continued that the board had been motivated by the solar installation’s case study and ribbon-cutting that demonstrated the company’s commitment to the environment.
It became apparent that what the organization was really looking for was some outsider to say – in a very public way – that they were doing a great job in reducing the company’s carbon footprint. It wasn’t about the energy or cost savings. In retrospect, it wouldn’t have mattered if the project had been solar panels or a boiler replacement as long as management could count on being lauded for investing its greenbacks in something “green.”
Equipped with this knowledge, Steve casually asked, “What if we were to include a case study as part of this project?” And what do you think happened next? Armed with the prospect of a post-retrofit case study, his internal champion was able to secure funding for the “boring” VFDs and boiler retrofit!
The moral of the story is clear. Don’t assume everyone has the same purchasing motives. Find out what they really want and be sure to feature it prominently in your proposal.
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July 24, 2017
Reaching Your Peak Performance
It’s an old adage you’ve heard plenty of times: “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” You might have heard it enough to accept it as truth; however, the human brain is much more flexible and forgiving than we realize. Acquiring new skills and talents are associated with the young, but here’s what most people don’t know: we are able to adapt and change in incredible ways regardless of age. It just takes more dedication and willpower.
Anders Ericsson is a psychologist who has been writing about performance and expertise for a decade. Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise is the latest in his studies, co-authored with mathematician Robert Pool. The book instills the idea of “purposeful” and “deliberate” practice as a way of building a new ability. With time this practice forces you to break out of comfortable habits, learn new things or retrain your body. In the end, it is only through full-fledged commitment and making specific goals that you can explore your potential.
I would recommend pairing this book with Angela Duckworth’s Grit, one of our previous recommendations. Its teachings go hand in hand with the principles here.
Here is a summary from Amazon:
“Anders Ericsson has made a career studying chess champions, violin virtuosos, star athletes, and memory mavens. Peak distills three decades of myth-shattering research into a powerful learning strategy that is fundamentally different from the way people traditionally think about acquiring new abilities. Whether you want to stand out at work, improve your athletic or musical performance, or help your child achieve academic goals, Ericsson’s revolutionary methods will show you how to improve at almost any skill that matters to you.”
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July 23, 2017
Weekly Recap, July 23, 2017
Tuesday: Learn to turbocharge your value proposition by bringing up non-utility-cost financial benefits.
Wednesday: Check out another example of how reframing utility cost savings can boost your value proposition.
Thursday: Create an “influencer map” to determine which players are going to help your project get approved.
Friday: Discover how to determine if you’re talking to the REAL decision-maker.
Saturday: Read this article from TIME.com on “10 Things the Most Successful People Do Every Day.”
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July 22, 2017
10 Things the Most Successful People Do
At the end of the week it’s a time to relax and reflect before gearing up for what’s ahead. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, what could you do to get through the next week and be better?
The good news is you can take time to prepare with some great advice. Eric Barker, the author of Barking Up The Wrong Tree (see HERE for this week’s book recommendation), took it upon himself to interview fellow author and entrepreneur Tim Ferris about the daily habits of successful people. You can read it at Time.com and start integrating these ideas as soon as possible.
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