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Weekly Recap, April 2, 2017

    

Monday: Read Singletasking: Get More Done – One Thing at a Time, by Devora Zack, and explore the science behind multitasking and why we should learn to “singletask.”


Tuesday: Check out some examples of weak and strong call objectives. 


Wednesday: Learn how to set yourself apart from your competition by not limiting the conversation to utility-cost-financial savings. 


Thursday:  Check out this networking approach… you never know who may be holding the key that can open a door of opportunity for you. 


Friday: Explore how to convince your prospect to abandon the two-year payback “rule of thumb.”


Saturday: Check out this article published inFastCompany on “Seven Bad Habits Every New Manager Needs to Shake.”


Selling Energy Blog

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7 Bad Habits Managers Needs to Break

Effective communication is essential in building rapport and closing sales. It is especially important to a manager. According to a recent FastCompany article, here are some of the most common new manager bad habits that you’ll want to be sure to correct. 

You listen, but don’t watch.
You fake it to make it.
You micromanage.
You lose sight of the big picture.
You say “yes” to every project.
You only manage down.
You treat everyone the same.

If you are a manager and can identify with any of these, I highly suggest reading the full article and making it a point to work on breaking the habit.

Selling Energy Blog

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How to Convince Your Prospect to Abandon the Two-Year Payback “Rule of Thumb”

What do you do when your prospect says, “I need a two-year payback”?  One of the first things you should ask is, “Could you share with me how that expectation was derived?”

By the way, the power of the question is magnified greatly by silence afterwards, so resist the urge to restate the question or to embellish it. Ask the question once, and just sit back and listen. I tell my students that if they themselves feel uncomfortable with silence and feel an urge to break it, they should just take a sip of water, or even apply some lip balm… Your prospect knows that you’re not going to be the next one talking with a glass of water or lip balm pressed against your lips. It makes it even more obvious that the prospect will have to fill the silence in the wake of your powerful question.

What happens next is key to your success in convincing your prospect to abandon the two-year payback rule of thumb…

Your prospect will likely reply with something like, “I don’t know… it’s just what I’ve always looked for.” 

“How long have you been in business?”

“About 30 years.”

“Well, you know something, 30 years ago when the rates on alternative investment vehicles were higher (remember the early Eighties when the prime rate exceeded 20% and it was common to get 6-month CDs earning over 16%?), maybe 50% a year made sense; however, it certainly does not make sense now. Is there anything else that you do in your portfolio (that is legal) that gives you a 50% return? Is there any other core business project that you’re about to invest in that’s going to give you 50% return?”

“Uh, come to think of it, no. Our CFO would be thrilled to make 50% a year on our core business; frankly, we’re happy to see 15% these days.”

“Then why in the heck would you ever require this efficiency investment to give you a 50% return?” 

I often coach my students to use “challenger selling.” This is certainly a great example of when challenging your prospect’s assumptions is vital to your success in selling that prospect an expense-reducing capital improvement that sports a simple payback of greater than two years. 

There are several other ways you can approach this conversation, by the way. You might say, “Well, John, if you were to estimate how many energy-saving maneuvers we could do in your entire building that would qualify at the two-year payback or less, what percentage of that universe of potential measures do you think it would be?” As mentioned above, when you ask a powerful question, just zip it.  Don’t say another word.  Silence following a powerful question makes it all the more powerful. Your prospect will likely respond, “I don’t know, maybe 10%?” You might respond, “Great. How do you feel about marooning 90% of your potential opportunities to save energy in this building because you’re using an overly aggressive metric for approving projects?” One final piece of advice… Whenever you ask a question like that, be sure to drop your intonation at the end of the sentence. A rising intonation – which most folks would typically apply when speaking this question – is not nearly as powerful as a falling one.

Selling Energy Blog

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The Key to Opening Doors of Opportunities

 

Salespeople often complain about not being able to connect with higher-level decision-makers at the networking events and trade shows. Sales professionals know that it often doesn’t matter. Here’s why…

Assume an organization that you’ve been researching takes the time to participate in a networking event or trade show. However, since the C-level execs are often too busy to attend, they send their “delegates” – mid-level execs who can represent the organization, report back on who else was there, etc.  In many cases, these delegates will be fairly low on the totem pole – perhaps even interns or brand-new hires. It’s unlikely they’ll have a full picture of the organization’s needs, much less the ability to approve a proposal from you. However, they may have valuable insights into the company, including which players would likely be involved in evaluating your offerings. Bottom line, if approached with respect and decorum, these non-decision-makers may provide a fast track to the right people.

Here’s how this phenomenon plays out in real life… Suppose you’re at a conference or networking event. You scan the room for “decision-makers”… What you see instead are small clusters of people standing in the corners like nervous adolescents at a high school dance. They are used to being ignored because they don’t have a lot of clout within their own organizations. They may be there because their boss told them to attend.

A “salesperson” would ignore these folks as not having the power to effect change. A sales professional knows otherwise.  He approaches as many of these delegates as possible. He asks them how long they’ve been with their respective companies, how they’re enjoying the experience so far, and what they actually do day to day. Note the order and tone of the questions… Each interaction is a human conversation, not some cold-call qualification script being acted out in person.

If you take this approach, eventually each of your conversation partners will ask, “So what do you do?” At that point, you’ll give your 15-second elevator pitch, custom-made for your prospect’s segment, company and role. Then you’ll ask casually, “I know you work for a large organization, and you’ve only been there for a short time. That said, do you know if your organization is even interested in energy efficiency initiatives?”

It’s highly likely your conversation partner will have no idea, which is still alright provided that you handle your follow-up questions properly. You might add, “I’m wondering who over there at your shop might be interested in energy efficiency initiatives. Do you happen to know who that might be?” You may be shocked to hear that the in-house energy guru sits 15 feet away from this newly hired exec. Or perhaps you’ll hear, “I don’t know, but I think it’s Joe Smith… I probably have his email address in my Blackberry… and even if I don’t, you could certainly guess his email address – everyone at our company uses the same protocol: first initial and the first five letters of the name @BigCompany.com.

If you’re lucky enough to hear that your conversation partner sees your genuine target on a regular basis, you might say, “Wow, what a small world! You know, you would be doing me the greatest personal favor if you were to give one of my cards to Mr. Smith when you see him next… In fact, here are two of my business cards, one for you and one for him.  Would you be willing to hand-carry this card to him?” (I have never had someone refuse to do this favor for me. In most cases, the “messenger” places my business card in my target’s hand the very next day.)

Always be sure to take your new friend’s card because even if he’s an “under the radar” staffer, it’s great to drop a name when you connect with the person whose contact information they provided. When you reach out to your target, you might start with, “I met a very helpful young man named ______at the XYZ conference last Friday. I understand he just started working in your Chicago office. When I asked him who in your organization was responsible for <<>>, he was kind enough to volunteer your name and suggested that I reach out to you.”

So what’s the moral of the story? You never know who may be holding a key that can open a door of opportunity for you. Talk to people as human beings, not networking pawns. Genuinely network. Make those connections. And remember, the most useful chains usually have far more than two links in them!

 

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Don’t Limit the Conversation to Utility-Cost Financial Savings

Suppose you are targeting a large building that you know has plans to do an efficiency upgrade. Chances are a lot of other salespeople are vying for the same job. So how do you set yourself apart from the competition? I can confidently say that most of your competitors are going to focus on the metrics (saved kW, kWh, therms, etc.) and the most obvious financial impacts – the cost of the project, the utility cost savings, and perhaps utility rebates or incentives.

Sure, people care about money; however, utility-cost financial savings alone are often not compelling enough to motivate a major change to the built environment. You can set yourself apart by highlighting the non-utility-cost financial benefits (which are often an order-of-magnitude larger than the utility cost savings) and non-financial benefits.

What non-utility-cost financial benefits might you emphasize? That depends on how well you know the business dynamics of your prospect’s market segment and individual role. How might your project produce benefits that can be quantified and monetized? How well can you reframe your project’s benefits so that they could be measured with yardsticks your prospect is already using to gauge his/her success? Need some examples of non-utility-cost financial benefits to focus on? How about these for starters: 

Improvements in worker productivity
Improved occupant health
Reduced absenteeism/presenteeism
Improved employee/tenant attraction/retention

Realize that the above-referenced benefits are hardly hypothetical. There is plenty of empirical evidence supporting the connection between enhanced efficiency and every one of these benefits… studies that quantify and monetize the impacts in a wide variety of segments including office, healthcare, education, and more.

And by the way, once you’ve quantified and monetized the non-utility-cost financial benefits, remember to consider all the non-financial benefits as well…  things like getting an ENERGY STAR® label… many of which actually wind up leaking value back into the non-utility-cost financial benefits bucket. As just one example, no less than a half-dozen recent studies have shown that ENERGY STAR-labeled office buildings enjoy higher base rents, increased occupancy and higher resale value. So, what you might have assumed to be a “feel-good” non-financial benefit may actually be a robust non-utility-cost financial benefit instead!

So, if you limit your conversation to utility-cost financial benefits or technical specs like kilowatts, kilowatt hours and therms, get in line. Every other vendor who has approached your prospect has talked about the same things. When you talk about higher-order benefits – ones that are custom-tailored to your prospect’s segment and role – you’ll have a far more interesting and compelling interaction, and a much higher closing ratio to boot.

Selling Energy Blog

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Setting Call Objectives

Before you make a phone call – whether it’s a cold call, a call to a prospect, or even a call to a long-time client – you should ask yourself, “What is my objective?” You need to have a strong objective before you pick up the phone. Otherwise, you’re simply wasting your time… and your prospect’s time, too. Here are some examples of weak and strong call objectives:

Weak call objectives:

To find out their address so you can send a brochure
To introduce yourself to the territory
To see if they received your quote
To ask to stay on their radar
To touch base

Strong call objectives:

To close the deal
To determine the virtual team you can assemble to meet your prospect’s particular needs
To create a compelling event that will motivate a faster approval
To give news of a related project that another client just completed with you with great success
To offer assistance in completing the paperwork

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Get More Done – One Thing at a Time

How many times a day do you switch from one unfinished task to another? If you’re like most people, you’re probably thinking of a pretty high number right now. In a fast-paced business with lots of distractions and multiple projects to juggle, it’s very easy to succumb to multitasking and task-switching. Unfortunately, this can take a huge toll on your productivity – and even your sanity.

In an ideal world, we would all focus on one task at a time and see it through to completion (or to a determined stopping point). This ideal world is, in fact, not so far out of reach. In Devora Zack’s book, Singletasking: Get More Done – One Thing at a Time, Zack explores the science behind multitasking and makes a strong argument as to why we should all learn to “singletask.” Her actionable advice on how to become a singletasker is perfect for anyone struggling to stay focused on “one thing at a time.”

Here’s a summary from Amazon Books:

“Too many of us have become addicted to the popular, enticing, dangerously misleading drug of multitasking. Devora Zack was once hooked herself. But she beat it and became more efficient, and you can too. 

“Zack marshals convincing neuroscientific evidence to prove that you really can’t do more by trying to tackle several things at once—it’s an illusion. There is a better way to deal with all the information and interruptions that bombard us today. Singletasking explains exactly how to clear and calm your mind, arrange your schedule and environment, and gently yet firmly manage the expectations of people around you so that you can accomplish a succession of tasks, one by one – and be infinitely more productive. Singletasking is the secret to success and sanity.”

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Weekly Recap, March 26, 2017

    

Monday: Read Winners Dream: A Journey from Corner Store to Corner Office, by Bill McDermott,  if you need some guidance on how to make “reach” goals a reality.


Tuesday: Explore how to convince a prospect to buy a higher-priced product or service. 


Wednesday: Ask yourself, “What would make this person motivated to take time away from their busy schedule to consider buying my product or service?”


Thursday: Learn the best time to ask for referrals. 


Friday: Explore how to keep a presentation interesting. 


Saturday: Read this article from the Entrepreneur blog on “Do More of What Already Works.”


Selling Energy Blog

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Do What Works

One of the most valuable aspects of failure is that it gives you the opportunity to learn from your mistakes (and presumably, to get it right the next time). Most people are good about using failure as a learning experience. However, people often overlook the value of using success as a learning experience. If something goes perfectly, it’s easy to just say, “Great. That worked well, so we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing.”

The fact of the matter is, success can be achieved by chance. Perhaps everything you did during your last prospect meeting happened to result in a sale. Do you know exactly why it worked out favorably? Do you know the exact steps you took to achieve the sale? Rather than assuming that a past success will guarantee a future one, think back on what you did specifically that produced the desired result. The goal is to make it replicable. Write down each step and use it as a checklist moving forward.

An article published on the Entrepreneur blog suggests that we spend more time “doing what we’re already doing.” According to the article, we have a tendency to underutilize “old solutions,” and that we don’t implement solutions that are proven to work on a consistent basis. For more on this topic, read the full article.

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Presentation Story

What is the structure of an effective presentation? Well, not surprisingly, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning is the call to adventure. The middle, of course, is the contrast – what is versus what could be. The end is a call to action. The three sections have to have a clear focus or the audience will tune you out. A focused presentation has a primary intention and no more than three or four main ideas to surround that primary intention. If you keep the presentation focused, people will know where you’re going and follow you there.

You also have to keep it interesting. How do you do that? Photographs are interesting. Contrast is interesting. People are interesting. Stories are interesting. Case studies are interesting.  What is not interesting? Cut sheets, technical specifications, units of measure that most people don’t know the meaning of… kilowatts, kilowatt-hours, therms, and so forth.

If you throw in some drama, that helps, too. Don’t be afraid to make it personal. In the book Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences (which I highly recommend), Nancy Duarte talks about how the PowerPoint presentation is the modern version of a campfire. She argues that, unfortunately, most people who use this “4,500-lumen campfire” are simply not adept storytellers.

Would you like to keep your audience huddled around your campfire rapt with attention? Keep your presentation concise, structured and visually engaging. Focus on attention-grabbing contrast. Tell a few stories with memorable punch lines. Do all that and you’ll have the audience in the palm of your hand… rather than just your slide advancer!

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