Mark Jewell's Blog: Selling Energy, page 239
July 11, 2017
Uncover Compelling Non-Energy Benefits for Your Products and Services
In selling efficiency, there are three main “value categories” that you can bring to the table when proposing a project: utility-cost financial benefits; non-utility-cost financial benefits; and, non-financial benefits. The more benefits you can come up with in each of these categories, the more value your offering has (and hence, the more likely your prospect will approve the project).
If you can come up with new, significant benefits for your product or service through brainstorming, research, and discussions with past clients, you’ll increase the strength of your value proposition. I like to share real-world examples on this blog from time to time as a way of getting the wheels spinning in your mind about what sorts of possibilities are out there. The following example comes from Nualight, an LED lighting company based in Ireland:
To determine the full benefits of an LED retrofit in the frozen section of grocery store, Nualight collected before-and-after data on a grocery store that replaced fluorescent lights with LEDs. In addition to the expected benefits (lower utility bill, longer lasting bulbs, less required maintenance, etc.), they found that this particular grocery store had 19% higher sales in the wake of installing LED lights. In the grocery business, utility costs are significant; however, the utility cost savings in this case are far less compelling than the increase in sales.
According to the study (which you can find HERE), the retrofit resulted in a payback of only five months! The report noted that an increase in sales of even 3% would be enough to reduce the payback to less than one year (not that “payback” is the best financial metric to focus on).
So, what’s the moral of the story? Go out and find compelling benefits for your products and services – particularly those that fall into the non-utility-cost and non-financial buckets. If you focus only on the most obvious benefits, you’re leaving potential business on the table.
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July 10, 2017
How Healthy Is Your Business?
It’s easy to measure success by the usual standards of business: finance, strategy, marketing, technology and so forth. Does that always ensure a company’s success? Not necessarily. In the end, how smart or skilled the players are doesn’t always apply, and promising businesses fold all the time. If you’re wondering why, it turns out a large part of success is due to the organizational health of a company. In the fast-paced business world this is an asset that is often overlooked.
So how can you integrate organizational health into your professional life? Last week we profiled Patrick Lencioni’s latest book, The Ideal Team Player. This week we’re recommending one of his earlier releases, The Advantage. Based on decades of experience, this book examines disciplines that change group dynamics and provide clarity for every level of employment. Lencioni prompts readers to ask serious questions about their company’s plans and intentions like “Why do we exist?”, “How do we behave?”, and “How will we succeed?” He also divides the book into step-by-step sections about how to build a team, create and reinforce clarity, then streamline a process of communication that benefits everyone. If you feel organization is lacking in your business ventures, then this is a must-read.
Here is a summary from Amazon:
“There is a competitive advantage out there, arguably more powerful than any other. Is it superior strategy? Faster innovation? Smarter employees? No, New York Times best-selling author, Patrick Lencioni, argues that the seminal difference between successful companies and mediocre ones has little to do with what they know and how smart they are and more to do with how healthy they are. In this book, Lencioni brings together his vast experience and many of the themes cultivated in his other best-selling books and delivers a first: a cohesive and comprehensive exploration of the unique advantage organizational health provides.
Simply put, an organization is healthy when it is whole, consistent and complete, when its management, operations and culture are unified. Healthy organizations outperform their counterparts, are free of politics and confusion and provide an environment where star performers never want to leave. Lencioni’s first non-fiction book provides leaders with a groundbreaking, approachable model for achieving organizational health—complete with stories, tips and anecdotes from his experiences consulting to some of the nation’s leading organizations. In this age of informational ubiquity and nano-second change, it is no longer enough to build a competitive advantage based on intelligence alone. The Advantage provides a foundational construct for conducting business in a new way—one that maximizes human
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July 9, 2017
Weekly Recap, July 9, 2017
Monday: Read The Ideal Team Player, by Patrick Lencioni, if you’re looking for a practical framework and actionable tools for identifying, hiring and developing ideal team players.
Tuesday: Check out tips to improve your written communication skills.
Wednesday: Learn how to focus on the “why” and leave the “how”, “how much” and “when” for later.
Thursday: Discover the importance of higher appraised value.
Friday: Explore how to motivate a prospect who won’t commit.
Saturday: Check out an article published in Success magazine on “11 Powerful Mantras for Those Who’ve Lost Motivation.”
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July 8, 2017
Mantras to Keep You Motivated
Keeping oneself motivated at all times can be a challenge, even for happy and successful sales professionals. So how do you get yourself back on track once you’ve lost motivation?
An article published in Success magazine suggests 11 powerful mantras designed to inspire and rejuvenate you when you need it most. If you have difficulty keeping yourself on-track and motivated, I highly recommend reading this article and repeating one of the mantras.
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July 7, 2017
How to Motivate a Prospect Who Won’t Commit
“What does my prospect stand to gain from my efficiency product or service?” This is a question that many salespeople focus on when presenting a value proposition to their prospects. While it is important to note what is going to be gained in the wake of an efficiency project, it’s equally important to address what could potentially be lost if the prospect doesn’t sign off on the project. Depending on the situation, the avoidance of loss may be the strongest motivator for change. Here are a few examples:
Downtime: If your prospect has an old piece of equipment that needs to be replaced, what is it going to cost them in the event that the equipment unexpectedly fails? If you’re talking about a data center, the loss could be huge. The average cost of data center downtime is about $7,900 per minute. If it’s an investment bank’s data center, the loss could exceed $1 million a minute!
Productivity: Some pieces of equipment are vital to the operation of a business. If employees were unable to do their job because of an equipment failure, how much would that cost in lost productivity? In the medical field, for example, the surgical suite must be properly pressurized in order for the surgeons to work. If the fan system fails, the surgeons would lose many days of work, and the hospital would lose a significant amount of revenue.
Damaged goods: Any business that relies on temperature control for the longevity of its products is susceptible to revenue loss in the event of a controls or equipment malfunction. Grocery stores, for example, could lose their entire meat or dairy inventory in a refrigeration failure.
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July 6, 2017
The Importance of Higher Appraised Value
When you’re selling an efficiency solution in the built environment, you might consider emphasizing the potential for increased appraised value as an important benefit. Unfortunately, most energy solutions providers don’t take the time to reframe their proposed improvement in this context. Today, we’ll discuss some strategies for framing this potential benefit properly.
Suppose your prospect tells you, “We’re not selling the building anytime soon, so increases in appraised value aren’t important.” There are plenty of opportunities in which a higher appraised value can help, even if you’re not selling the building anytime soon. Let’s say your prospect is interested in refinancing the building. Higher valuation paves the way to a more attractive loan-to-value ratio and/or provides headroom for a larger loan amount.
In some cases, a prospect will not want to retrofit a building even if they are going to sell it soon. They might tell you, “We are selling the building soon, so upgrading it now doesn’t make sense.” What does “soon” mean? Is it already on the market? Will it be next month? Or perhaps two years from now? Think about it. Let’s say the building is slated to be sold two years from now. That would give you a year to do the audits and the improvements, and another year to book the higher net operating income, which could support a higher sale price if the appraiser uses the income approach to appraisal and the capitalization rate is stable. Bottom line: don’t accept “soon” as an answer without finding out what your prospect really means.
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July 5, 2017
Start with “Why”; Leave the “How,” “How Much” and “When” for Later
You’ve no doubt heard the old saying, “Knowledge is power.” “Knowledge” may be “power”; however, in many cases, efficiency salespeople (as opposed to efficiency sales professionals) lose the power of persuasion by trying too hard to demonstrate their knowledge. They talk way past the sale. They overwhelm the prospect with too much information about what they do for a living, what their technology does, how their technology is installed and operated, and so forth. Believe me – most of that “knowledge” will not increase your probability of closing the sale. In fact, it will likely do the opposite.
Put yourself in your prospect’s shoes. You’ve just been thrown so much information that you’re probably going to think to yourself, “I didn’t think this was going to be such a complicated decision. I had no idea there were so many choices to make. In fact, I don’t understand half of what this guy is saying! What if he doesn’t understand half of what he is saying? What if he’s making it all up to earn a commission? I’d better get a paid consultant in here to serve as my translator and make sure I don’t buy the wrong solution.”
This is not to say that you shouldn’t be an expert on your product or service – you should be. However, don’t let your product knowledge drive the discussion. Focus on the “why,” and leave the “how” and “what” for later.
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July 4, 2017
Improving Your Written Communication Skills
As sales professionals, we use written communication on a daily basis. Whether we’re writing a proposal for a prospect, sending an email, or drafting a blog post, writing is an essential part of our jobs. To uphold our image of professionalism, it is vital that our writing be both accurate and effective.
So how do we ensure that we’re putting our best foot forward every time we send off a sample of our writing? Here are two tips:
Write in advance: When you’re writing, time is your friend. Leave yourself enough time to set it aside – ideally overnight – and review it again before sending it off. When you revisit it, ask yourself, “Is the message clear? Are there any extraneous sentences? Is my writing persuasive?” You may find that some of your language choices were awkward or confusing in retrospect.
Proofread thoroughly: Regardless of whether or not you have time to set aside your writing and revisit it later, it always pays to reread your work several times. Your writing is a reflection of your professional abilities, and spelling or grammatical errors convey a lack of care. If you don’t feel confident in your ability to catch all of your mistakes, consider sending your work to a coworker or friend for proofreading. It’s always good to have an extra pair of eyes
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July 3, 2017
How to Recruit (Or Become) The Ideal Team Player
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 is 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, hones in 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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July 2, 2017
Weekly Recap, July 2, 2017
Monday: Read Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, by Angela Duckworth, and learn how the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a special blend of passion and persistence she calls ‘grit.’
Tuesday: Learn how to reframe the value of efficiency when selling to homeowners, Part One.
Wednesday: Learn how to reframe the value of efficiency when selling to homeowners, Part Two.
Thursday: Learn how to reframe the value of efficiency when selling in the healthcare industry.
Friday: Discover one of the best ways to achieve success is to imagine yourself achieving it.
Saturday: Check out “10 Tips for Creating a Stellar LinkedIn Profile.”
Selling Energy Blog
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