Mark Jewell's Blog: Selling Energy, page 246

Are You an Efficiency Sales Professional?

To become a sales professional, you must first realize that:

Energy efficiency products, services and programs all require effective selling.
Professional sales skills make you more successful at advancing any energy efficiency initiative, regardless of your role in the process.
You need to think of yourself as a sales professional even if your job title does not include the word “sales.” 

Secondly, you need to move from “reactive” to “proactive” sales. Can you really grow your business simply fielding calls and producing estimates upon request? Using this approach, by the time you hear about a project, you are often too late. There are several dimensions of being proactive:

Coaching others in the decision chain to drive requests for premium approaches
Communicating compelling value propositions that preempt value engineering 
Selling directly to the owner 

If you are proactive in developing INTEREST IN and DEMAND FOR higher-efficiency approaches, you will be paving the way towards increased sales. Getting to the owner and communicating how your solution makes his or her life easier or more profitable sets the stage for more effective selling later.

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Step-by-Step Solutions to (Nearly) All of Your Management Problems

 

I make it a habit to reach out and interview managers of efficiency sales teams in the course of fine-tuning the content I plan to deliver for my audiences. These leaders have a wealth of success (and horror) stories to share from their time as managers in the efficiency industry, and students learn a lot about how successful sales professionals are also reliant on effective management. While the leaders I interview each have unique stories and perspectives, they all have one thing in common: they work hard and smart to help their teams succeed.

Achieving success and becoming a great leader for one’s team takes more than a simple desire to be successful. If you are a new manager or if you hope to better your own management style for your employees, I highly recommend reading The 27 Challenges Managers Face: Step-by-Step Solutions to (Nearly) All of Your Management Problems by Bruce Tulgan. This book delves into common issues leaders come across, such as employee interdependency, resource constraints, and undermanaging, while demonstrating various solutions to assist. Furthermore, the book emphasizes that excellent management requires time, focus, follow-up and overall effort.

Here’s a summary from Amazon Books:

“For more than twenty years, management expert Bruce Tulgan has been asking, ‘What are the most difficult challenges you face when it comes to managing people?’

“Regardless of industry or job title, managers cite the same core issues—27 recurring challenges: the superstar whom the manager is afraid of losing, the slacker whom the manager cannot figure out how to motivate, the one with an attitude problem, and the two who cannot get along, to name just a few. It turns out that when things are going wrong in a management relationship, the common denominator is almost always unstructured, low-substance, hit-or-miss communication. The real problem is that most managers are “managing on autopilot” without even realizing it—until something goes wrong. And if you are managing on autopilot, then something almost always does.

“The 27 Challenges Managers Face shows exactly how to break the vicious cycle and gain control of management relationships. No matter what the issue, Tulgan shows that the fundamentals are all you need. The very best managers hold ongoing one-on-one conversations that make expectations clear, track performance, offer feedback, and hold people accountable.”

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Weekly Recap, April 30, 2017

Monday: Read, People Buy You: The Real Secret to What Matters Most in Business, by Jeb Blount, if you’re looking for a wealth of strategies for building rapport, connecting with your prospects and clients on an emotional level, and building customer loyalty.


Tuesday: Explore three reasons why you should always follow up immediately after the project you sold is complete.


Wednesday: Discover how to motivate your prospect to say “yes” to pursuing your energy-saving project.


Thursday: Check out a few tips on how to make a proper introduction.


Friday: Read six tips to help you present like a pro.


Saturday: Read this article published in FastCompany on “How the Most Successful People Start and End Their Workdays.”

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How the Most Successful People Kick Off and Wind Down Their Workdays

How do you start and end your day? Maybe you’re finishing up that proposal that’s due on Monday because you were not as productive in the office? Perhaps it’s your turn to watch the kids but do not yet have meals planned for the day (let alone the week)? If you want to be truly productive during the day, you must set clear goals for the way you kick off and end each day. 

FastCompany published an article this month on “How the Most Successful People Start and End Their Workdays”. My favorites include: kids first, email second; and, wake up and walk it out. If you have some time to spare this weekend, read the full article here and consider fitting these into your morning and nighttime routines.

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Present like a Pro

 

As sales professionals, we’re called upon to give presentations from time to time. Here are six tips to help you present like a pro: 

Know your content inside and out. If you are under-rehearsed, you will be nervous (and your audience will likely be able to tell).
Make it clear why you’re there. You may even start your presentation with “I’m here because…” While I prefer to open with something a little more poetic, say whatever you have to say to make it clear why you’re there. Why is this important? In many cases, people just get called into meetings by their bosses without actually knowing what the agenda is going to be. It’s very helpful to spend the first minute or so letting them know what’s coming so they know what to listen for.
Get to the point quickly. Audiences are selfish. There’s this little jingle that plays over and over in their minds: “WAMWIG.” It stands for, “What about me, what do I get?” If you don’t get to that answer quickly enough, your audience will grow increasingly impatient. Some people may tune you out altogether. 
Ask questions and encourage audience participation. It’s easy to lose the attention of your audience. When you ask a question, you bring the audience into the discussion and they’re less likely to tune out.
Don’t go over your allotted time. There’s nothing worse than getting cut off or rushing through the last few minutes of your presentation. How do you ensure that this won’t happen? Make fewer slides than you would typically, and rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. 
Always leave time for questions and answers. Even if you did a good job of preemptively addressing the most likely questions and concerns, you need to leave plenty of time for Q&A. It affords the opportunity to take the audience’s temperature… Did they receive the message you aimed to send? Do you detect any potential resistance that might stymie forward progress? Ideally, you can neutralize that resistance before leaving the room. That final interaction with your audience may be the most important time you spend in the room.

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How to Make a Proper Introduction

Often an introduction leads to a new friendship or business alliance… and sometimes the whole process can be awkward. Here are a few tips on how to make a proper introduction: 

The Basics

When meeting someone for the first time, stand up, smile, make eye contact, express a greeting, and shake hands. To make the person feel welcome, and to help you remember his or her name, try repeating the person’s name during your greeting. For example, “It’s nice to meet you, Rachel.”

Who Introduces Whom?

A proper introduction can set you apart from your peers.

Remember this rule: Talk to the most important person first . 

When executing an introduction, address the most important individual first and introduce the other person to the most important individual. Offer snippets of information about each person and use proper titles such as Mr. and Ms. in formal settings. For example, if your client’s name is Neil Page and you want to introduce him to your colleague, Del Griffith, the conversation would go as follows:

Turn toward Neil and say, “Mr. Page, I’d like to introduce you my colleague, Mr. Griffith, who specializes in energy efficiency solutions for the hospitality industry.” Then turn toward Del and say, “Mr. Griffith, please meet Mr. Page of Page and Associates.”

Suppose you are meeting with a prospect and the CEO of your company walks into the room. Whom do you introduce first? The answer is easy according to Judith Bowman, author of Don’t Take the Last Donut: New Rules of Business Etiquette. The prospect is more important than the CEO and should be addressed first because, without clients’ business, there would be no company and no CEO.

Above all, the etiquette rules behind introductions are meant to make people feel comfortable and ease conversation. The next time you find yourself making introductions, decide for yourself whether a formal or a more relaxed social introduction is appropriate given the context.

Forgotten Names

If you’ve forgotten someone’s name, don’t panic or avoid the introduction. Introduce the person whose name you know first and hope the person with the forgotten name picks up on situation and introduces herself. Otherwise, quickly apologize and admit that you’ve suddenly forgotten the person’s name. This happens to everyone occasionally and most people are understanding.

The Handshake

Handshakes are appropriate, not only during introductions, but also when you welcome people into your office, run into a colleague outside of work, and when you say goodbye. It used to be considered polite for a man to wait for a woman to extend her hand before offering his own. According to Peggy Post, author of The Etiquette Advantage in Business, this is an old-fashioned custom. In modern business settings, everyone should shake hands with everyone without hesitating to evaluate who should extend a hand first.

The Online Introduction

As you grow your business through social media, you may find yourself in the position of wanting to meet someone in your social media network. LinkedIn is a great tool for facilitating professional introductions. The LinkedIn “Introductions” feature on their mobile app lets you contact members in your extended network through the people you know. If you want to contact someone more than one degree away from you, you can request an introduction through one of your connections. Your connection will then decide whether to forward your message on to the desired recipient. When you request an introduction, you’ll be prompted to write a note to your mutual connection and then a separate note to the person you want to meet. In both cases, draft a compelling subject line and a short note that introduces you and explains why you hope to connect. Just remember never to ask directly for a job – it’s neither polite nor appropriate.

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How to Get a “Yes!” to Your Proposal

Why might your prospect be willing to say “yes” to taking on a proposed energy-efficiency project? Is it about saving energy? Saving money? Saving carbon? Something else?

No doubt there are dozens of reasons a prospect might be motivated to say “yes” to pursuing your energy-saving project. I encountered one of the more surprising ones a while back when a workshop participant told me that her municipal client agreed to do a project because if they hadn’t found something for one of their managers to work on, they would have had to lay him off. It wasn’t about saving the energy itself, the economic value nor the carbon content. It was all about saving their valued team member from the unemployment line.

I often reference Seth Godin’s “hierarchy of business needs.” Seth argues that if you’re selling a product or service to a non-business-owner in a B2B setting, the primary needs rank in the following order:

Avoiding risk
Avoiding hassle
Gaining praise
Gaining power
Having fun
Making a profit

How does the typical energy-efficiency proposal fare when evaluated in the context of that hierarchy? Well, let’s think about it.

How much risk does a manager take on by saying “yes” to a 50+ page proposal written in a language that’s not his own (think “engineer-speak”)?

How much hassle is involved in understanding all of the potential competing technologies and approaches, interviewing and then selecting suppliers, negotiating contracts, applying for and securing the necessary capital, filling out incentive applications, cooperating with pre- and post-installation walk-throughs, measuring actual savings against projections, etc. – all for the purpose of replacing equipment that is not technically “broken”?

Skipping down to the bottom of Seth’s hierarchy, how might the resulting energy efficiency map into the last item: making a profit? How similar is “saving energy” to “making a profit”? And how much is the estimated savings? Would it even “move the needle” when compared with the rest of the organization’s overhead? Who would actually receive the savings? And would that be the same person who had to endure all the above-referenced risk and hassle?

Suppose your prospect is disengaged with his or her job, or even seeking a new employment opportunity. Can you imagine their perspective on taking on additional risk or hassle when, even if the project were successful, their “prize” would be their employer making more profit?

I mentioned all of this at one of our Efficiency Sales Professional Boot Camps a couple years ago and someone wryly pointed out that the middle-ranked motivators – gaining praise, gaining power – still applied even if you were seeking other employment. Why? A successful energy project is a great resume builder! Reducing your present employer’s energy bills or capturing an ENERGY STAR® label for the facility you now manage could be a feather in your cap while interviewing for a new role.

One thing’s for sure whether your prospect is looking for another job or not. Someone who has the insight to connect the dots between enhanced energy efficiency and more traditional metrics of performance (think better productivity in office environments, lower scrap rate in industrial settings, better learning outcomes in schools, etc.) stands to receive praise and maybe even more power and influence within their organization by jumping on the efficiency agenda.

So what are the morals to this story? I see at least three:

Never assume the reason that your prospect is interested in your offerings is as simple as saving energy or even money.
Realize that decision-makers are human beings first and job titles second.
Leverage the above-referenced Seth Godin hierarchy as you formulate compelling value propositions for your prospects. How? Well, how about these for starters….


Reduce the risk: Bring industry foreknowledge to the table – genuine insight into how your solution has provided value for others in your prospect’s situation and how your offerings compare to the competition’s. Doing so will reduce the perceived risk of whatever you are proposing and help the prospect feel more comfortable proceeding without undertaking extensive due diligence.


Minimize the hassle: Make it easy to do business with you to reduce the perceived hassle factor. Act as a broker of strengths and coordinate your efforts with other vendors, if necessary.


Offer promise of praise: Offer to write a success story – or perhaps help the prospect apply for the ENERGY STAR label – after the proposed project is successfully implemented.


Draw a path to increased power: Help the prospect see how moving forward positions him/her more favorably in the organization. The above-referenced success story might also help the prospect justify a raise or promotion!


Have fun: Wow, this point has so many dimensions, it deserves its own blog! Here’s just one to think about in the meantime: Make the effort to discover what the prospect finds truly fun and fascinating about his/her job, and then make sure your selling approach resonates with those preferences! Let’s say your prospect enjoys escaping the office for the occasional “field trip.” You might suggest a lunch at their favorite eatery bookended by two tours of visits to buildings already benefiting from your offering. Above all, be eternally positive and personable, have a great sense of humor, and use it often. By the way, if you don’t have a sense of humor, get one! Your prospects want to be around people who make them feel great!


Demonstrate the true value: Take the time to connect the dots between efficiency and segment-specific outcomes that are more valuable than the cost of the kilowatts, kilowatt-hours or therms saved. Remember, there are three distinct categories of benefits to highlight when selling efficiency solutions: utility-cost financial benefits (utility bill savings plus any rebates or other financial incentives); non-utility-cost financial benefits (e.g., the value of increased productivity when your solution delivers improved occupant comfort and convenience in addition to the energy savings); and, non-financial benefits (e.g., earning an ENERGY STAR® label). Keep in mind that in some cases, the third category blurs into the second one – for example, when an ENERGY STAR®-labeled building commands higher rent per square foot, occupancy rate, or sales price per square foot when compared to its non-labeled peers.

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After Project Completion: Why You Should Follow up Immediately

 

It’s very important to begin nurturing your relationship with a customer immediately after the project you sold is installed.  It is a good customer service practice.  It also keeps you fresh in your customer’s mind. There are at least three reasons that you should always circle back with recently sold customers:

1.  You want to make a sure they are happy with the installation – that it matched what you had promised in every regard. If even the slightest aspect of the installation was out of order, now is your time to remedy the situation before it prevents your customer from giving a thoroughly positive review of your offerings if asked by colleagues (or other prospects you may send his/her way).

2.  Following up promptly to ensure your customer is pleased provides an excellent opportunity to ask for a referral.

3.  A follow-up call also affords the opportunity to inquire about segment-specific “non-energy benefits.” More specifically, be sure to ask your customer if he/she experienced any unexpected positive outcome in the wake of the installation. In our efficiency-focused professional sales trainings, we offer case studies of increased productivity, decreased scrap rate, and other positive outcomes that certain types of customers have enjoyed in addition to projected energy savings. Empirical evidence of these non-energy benefits will help you capture the attention of new prospects in the same market segment. 

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The Real Secret to What Matters Most in Business

Before a prospect can be sold on an efficiency product or service, they need to be sold on the person selling it. I’ve written many blogs about how crucial it is to build good rapport with your prospects and clients. In many cases, you may not even need to pull out all the stops in your sales pitch to get a “Yes” provided you’ve established a good connection with the buyer beforehand.

So how do you put your best foot forward as a sales professional on a personal level? Learn how to sell yourself. One of my favorite books on this topic is called People Buy You, by Jeb Blount. In it you’ll find a wealth of strategies for building rapport, connecting with your prospects and clients on an emotional level, building customer loyalty, and more.

Here’s an excerpt of the book summary from Amazon Books:

“This break-through book pushes past the typical focus on mechanics and stale processes found in so many of today’s sales and business books, and goes right to the heart of what matters most in 21stcentury business. Offering a straightforward, actionable formula for creating instant connections with prospects and customers, People Buy You will enable you to achieve a whole new level of success in your sales and business career. You’ll discover:

Three relationship myths that are holding you back
Five levers that open the door to stronger relationships that quickly increase sales, improve retention, increase profits and advance your career
The real secret to making instant emotional connections that eliminate objections and move buyers to reveal their real problems and needs
How to anchor your business relationships and create loyal customers who will never leave you for a competitor
How to build your personal brand to improve your professional presence and stand-out in the market place

“People Buy You is the new standard in the art of influence and persuasion. Few books have tackled the subject of interpersonal relationships in the business world in such a practical and down-to-earth manner, breaking what many perceive as a complex and frustrating process into easy, actionable steps that anyone can follow.”

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Weekly Recap, April 23, 2017

  

Monday: If you’re looking for a great guide for developing, practicing, and delivering winning presentations, read Lend Me Your Ears: All You Need to Know about Making Speeches and Presentations, by Max Atkinson.  


Tuesday: Explore how to prove buying from you is the right decision when proof of success cannot yet be provided. 


Wednesday: Check out ways to become an expert in your prospect’s industry. 


Thursday: Check out a few tips for conquering fears that may be standing between you and high performance. 


Friday: Learn not to be afraid of challenging your prospect’s expectations.


Saturday: Earth Day, ENERGY STAR® and the Power of Concise Messaging. 

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