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Mark Jewell's Blog: Selling Energy, page 255
January 31, 2017
Switch It Up
When you’re trying to move a project along according to schedule, timely communication is essential. Unfortunately, not all of your prospects and customers are going to be as quick to respond to your questions and requests as you’d like.
So what do you do when a person fails to respond to a time-sensitive email? There are several ways to handle the situation. If you know that your prospect or customer prefers email, you can send a second email with a subject line like, “Did you get my email?” or “Just wanted to make sure you received my email. Please respond.” Most of the time, the recipient will say, “Shoot! That was rude of me not to respond,” and then they’ll follow up immediately.
If you are not having success with this email strategy, you might consider switching communication modalities. You could call them (or leave a voicemail) and say, “I sent you an important email last week. I didn’t hear back and if we don’t get a response soon, I won’t know how to proceed with your project.” If they prefer text, you can send them a text.
Of course, you should always use discretion when communicating. I would not send an email, make a phone call, and send them a text at the same time – that’s just overwhelming! However, switching up your communication modality in certain situations just might clear the communication clog.
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January 30, 2017
Overcoming the Threat to Technology Adoption
One of the challenges we face in the efficiency industry is how to convey the value of our products and services without overloading our prospects with the technical complexity of our offerings. Those of you who have taken my workshops know that it’s best to avoid “talking tech.” If your prospects get the sense that your technology is too difficult to understand, they’re going to abandon the idea of doing business with you. So how do you keep them engaged and interested without crossing the line into “overwhelming” territory?
In J.B. Wood’s book, Complexity Avalanche: Overcoming the Threat to Technology Adoption, Wood argues that we should focus on selling user success rather than selling the technology itself. Even if you are selling a product (as opposed to a service), you can focus your offering on the service and support that comes with the product. And if you don’t already have the infrastructure in place to provide user success service, it’s never too late to incorporate it into your offerings. After all, this added value could more than pay for itself with the new business it would generate.
If you’re interested in learning more about this topic, I highly recommend picking up a copy of the book.
Here’s a summary from Amazon Books:
“Most customers struggle to keep up, and usually settle for far less value than they could (and should) get from their purchases. A new business model for the tech industry is needed—one that requires radically different thinking about the future of services, sales, R&D priorities, and how companies create shareholder value. This new way of doing business views the use of the product as the beginning of a journey with a customer, not the end. The growing consumption gap caused by the avalanche of complexity that these companies have unleashed on their customers is undermining feature-based differentiation as a competitive advantage. Results-based differentiation—actually measured by customers—may be the next Big Thing in tech. Complexity Avalanche offers technology companies a roadmap for moving to this next level of services. This is not a book strictly for service executives, but for every executive whose company builds, sells, or supports technology.”
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January 29, 2017
Weekly Recap, January 29, 2017
Monday: Read Managing Customers as Investments: The Strategic Value of Customers in the Long Run, by Sunil Gupta and Donald R. Lehmann, if you’re interested in learning how to save yourself the time and hassle of finding new prospects, and focusing on the customers who already love you.
Tuesday: Discover how spending the first 10 minutes of every day writing down the questions that your conscious mind has been idling on is an excellent success strategy.
Wednesday: Check out four customer profiling questions, and if the answer to any of these questions is “no”, then you need to figure out if you could change it to “yes”.
Thursday: Explore two strategies that will simplify the decision-making process for your prospects and maximize your sales.
Friday: How do you create a sense of urgency with your prospect?
Saturday: Check out an article published on the Fast Company blog on “How to Cut Your Email Time in Half.”
Selling Energy Blog
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January 28, 2017
How to Cut Your Email Time in Half
Successful sales professionals need successful communication; however, the constant connection that we maintain through emails, phone calls, texts, push notifications, and social media can be overwhelming, stress-inducing, and productivity-killing. According to recent poll by Adobe, 40% of employees wish they had less email. People who check their emails constantly can be more stressed out and less productive than those who only check their emails occasionally.
For tips on how to increase productivity and reduce the amount of time you spend checking email in half, check out an article published earlier this month on the Fast Company blog.
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January 27, 2017
How Do You Create a Sense of Urgency?
What do you do when your prospect fails to see the value of your product or service? Reframe it in a way that captures attention. There are many ways to do this, and some situations require a very creative approach to selling.
Here’s a scenario courtesy of one of our ESP graduates and the creative solution we came up with to help him capture the attention of his prospect in a new and different way:
Brian (not his real name) was trying to sell an LED lighting retrofit to the owner of a couple dozen Southern California gas stations. He told me that his prospect was from out of the country, difficult to communicate with, and even more difficult to read. He was also somewhat elusive, which had already delayed lighting upgrades at these stations for many months. Brian knew the owner’s favorite diner, which he was in the habit of visiting every Monday morning. This meant that there was at least one way to catch this character in person. Brian now needed to figure out how to get the owner’s attention and convince him that this lighting retrofit – which had a net present value of $53,000 – deserved an immediate “notice to proceed.”
Here’s what we came up with. Brian would walk into the diner one Monday morning with a $53,000 unsigned check made payable to the owner. He would ask to join him for coffee, and after a few minutes of casual conversation, remove the check from his pocket and slowly slide it across the table. “A check for $53,000? What is this for?” Brian would reply, “It’s the net present value you’ll enjoy by signing this purchase order and incentive application, the details of which I’ve already approved with the utility.”
Now, Brian’s prospect might not say “yes” immediately; however, I’d be surprised if this little stunt didn’t get him thinking a lot more seriously about giving the long-awaited approval for this upgrade.
The moral of the story? Sometimes it pays to get visual. Sometimes it pays to understand what will really grab someone’s attention. Sometimes you need to express the urgency in a new and different way. And to do that, it helps to be creative.
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January 26, 2017
Strategies to Simplify the Decision-Making Process
Most buyers like to have choices, and they get personal satisfaction knowing that they made the right choice. That said be careful not to overwhelm your prospects with too many options. The perceived risk of making the wrong decision may become a roadblock to making any decision at all. Here are two strategies that will simplify the decision-making process for your prospects and maximize your sales:
Set limits. If your company offers a wide variety of products or services, avoid offering the entire list to every prospect. Rather, custom-tailor your proposals based on what you think each prospect will most likely prefer. Consider removing some of the available options… or at least assemble them into groups so you can offer a choice of “Package A,” “Package B,” or “Package C.”
Offer comparisons. People like to feel as if they are getting the best value for the best price. If you offer several choices at different price levels and the highest-priced option is only slightly more expensive andoffers the best value, your customer will almost invariably ignore the lower-priced options and select the most expensive one. They may have never considered buying the highest-priced option if the lower-priced inferior options had not been available for comparison. Realizing that most people don’t actually make decisions, they make comparisons, true sales professionals arrange the selection of potential offerings in ways that maximize the probability that their prospects will make the right choice.
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January 25, 2017
Four Customer Profiling Questions
Before you reach out to a prospect, do you take the time to research the company to determine their likelihood of buying? Not every prospect in your target market is a good one. Go after quality, not quantity. It’s crucial that you research the company and acquire as much information as possible about their decision makers, finances, and current efficiency situation. Then ask yourself the following four questions:
Do they really have a need?
Do they have a desire?
Do they have the means?
Do they have the authority?
If the answer to any of these questions is “no,” then you need to figure out if you could change it to “yes.” Some of these objections could be filled in, like spackling a wall with a dent in it. If they don’t have the means to purchase, you could certainly bring finance to the table. If they don’t have the authority, you could help them soft circle approval of all the people to whom the authority is going to turn to ask, “Should we do this project?” If they don’t have the desire, you could manufacture the desire. If they didn’t originally have a need for change, by the time you’ve planted the seed of desire and helped them to understand the significant benefits of making the change, they’ll realize the need.
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January 24, 2017
Let Your Subconscious Do the Heavy Lifting
“What underserved markets should I be focusing on?” “How can I double the number of prospects I reach with the limited time I have available for outbound marketing?” “What would it take for news of our latest offering to go viral?” Successful sales professionals asks themselves questions like these all the time.
Being obsessed with a question and sitting in one place until the answer comes into your head is not always the right approach. In fact, in most cases, you should do exactly the opposite. Write the question down, and then walk away. That’s right. Focus on something else. Let your subconscious mind do the heavy lifting.
Spending the first 10 minutes of every day writing down the questions that your conscious mind has been idling on is an excellent success strategy. Just take a legal pad and write down any question that pops into your head, and continue writing until the 10-minute timer rings. It’s OK if you write the same questions day after day. If they’re on your mind, they should be down on paper.
Adopt this simple practice and wham, when you least expect it, you’ll have the insights that will help you answer those queries. Once you committed to getting those answers by writing them down, your mind began working on the answers in the background. It was inevitable that the answers would someday appear.
So, make an ongoing list of questions and add to it anytime you think of something you can’t answer right away. Carry this list with you and re-read it frequently. You already have enough on your plate – let your subconscious do some of the heavy lifting for you.
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January 23, 2017
The Strategic Value of Customers in the Long Run
If you’ve attended any of my efficiency-focused professional sales training workshops, you know how important it is to leverage your existing customer base. This is something you should keep in mind not only when you’re looking for repeat business, but also when you’re selling to a brand new prospect. By approaching a new prospect with the “long view” in mind (see last week’s blog on “Take the Long View“) and using it to guide the sales process, you’re placing the foundation for future opportunities right from the start.
According to Sunil Gupta and Donald R. Lehmann in their book, Managing Customers as Investments: The Strategic Value of Customers in the Long Run, to fully leverage your customer base, you need to understand the true value of a customer from a financial perspective. What is the “Customer’s Lifetime Value (CLV)?” How can you maximize the value of a customer through strategic planning and creative marketing initiatives? What loyalty programs can you implement to keep your customers engaged and primed for repeat sales? Answers to these questions and more can be found in this book, and I highly recommend picking up a copy for yourself. Save yourself the time and hassle of finding new prospects, and focus on the customers who already love you!
Here’s a summary from Amazon Books:
“What’s a customer really worth? Can you find out, without endlessly complex modeling? And once you know, what should you do with that knowledge? Managing Your Customers as Investments has the answers. You’ll learn simple ways to get reliable customer value information—in a form you can use. You’ll discover how to use it to measure marketing effectiveness, generate improvements throughout the entire customer relationship lifecycle, and improve decision-making. Everyone tells you to manage your business around customers. This book gives you the tools to do it.”
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January 22, 2017
Weekly Recap, January 22, 2017
Tuesday: Rather than seizing the first opportunity to do business with a prospect, slow down and take the longer view.
Wednesday: Explore how sales professionals are like symphony conductors.
Thursday: Focus on motivation, rather than education, on all of your outbound communications.
Friday: Discover the boundaries of your prospect’s comfort zone, and then either sell within those boundaries or convince your prospect that it is worth venturing beyond them.
Saturday: Check out an article published on the Fast Company blog on “How to Ditch the Bad Habits That Will Hold You Back This Year.”
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