Mark Jewell's Blog: Selling Energy, page 267

Free Audits Don't Work

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Many efficiency businesses offer free audits as a way of getting their foot in the door with new prospects. Free audits seem great in theory, but in practice, they don’t work (for a couple of reasons): 

If the customer doesn’t have enough money to pay for an audit, he or she is not likely to have enough money to pay for your other services.
Free audits are very easy to approve – who would say “no” to that? The problem is that in many cases, the person approving the audit doesn’t talk to the real decision-makers because there is no money involved in the transaction. If the prospect doesn’t have to ask “Mother may I?” for even $500 to pay for the audit, it means you’ve never gotten his or her boss’s approval to do the audit (which means that you don’t necessarily have the boss’s approval to do any improvements that come out of the audit). Are you really going to dedicate all this time and money to do an audit and not even have the buy-in of the boss?

On a related note, there is added benefit in getting yourself into the accounts payable system of the organization from the very start. This makes your prospect less inclined to authorize and review your audit, and then hire someone else to do the job because they already went through the effort of adding you to the A/P system.

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Busyness Benefits on Your Brain

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It seems that everywhere we go (particularly in the business world), people complain about stress and how “there’s too much to do, and too little time.” Most of us are very busy and have a lot of duties, both at work and in our personal lives. But is being busy good or bad for our cognitive health? 

According to a recent study published in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience and article published last month in Fast Company, even “the busiest people were the ones who scored highest on cognition tests showing better processing speed, working memory, episodic long-term memory, reasoning, and crystallized knowledge.” Moreover, the cognitive performance gap between busy and not-so-busy widens, as we grow older. If you’re a busy person (as most of us are), I highly recommend reading this article!

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Selling to Big Companies

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When you’re trying to sell to a big company, it can be difficult to capture the attention of the decision-maker(s) – that is, if you can even get your foot in the door to meet with them in the first place. If you do get a meeting with the right people, you have to make sure your value proposition is clear and strong and that you demonstrate your ability to be a problem-solver. The last thing a C-level exec wants is a project that is going to make his/her life more complicated, so it’s vital that you come to the table with a game plan that establishes your competence and thorough preparation.

If you currently work with large companies or are planning to target them in the future, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Jill Konrath’s Selling to Big Companies. This book covers a range of topics, including how to target the right people, how to get meetings, how to prepare a clear and concise value proposition, and much more.

Here’s a summary from Amazon Books:

“Setting up meetings with corporate decision makers has never been harder. It's almost impossible to get them to pick up the phone. They never return your calls. And if you do happen to catch them, they blow you off right away.

It's time to stop making endless cold calls or waiting for the phone to ring. In today's crazy marketplace, new sales strategies are needed to penetrate these big accounts.

Discover how to:

Target accounts where you have the highest likelihood of success.
Find the names of prospects who can use your offering.
Create break-though value propositions that capture their attention. 
Develop an effective, multi-faceted account-entry campaign.
Overcome obstacles and objections that derail your sale efforts.
Position yourself as an invaluable resource, not a product pusher.
Have powerful initial sales meetings that build unstoppable momentum.
Differentiate yourself from other sellers.

Use these sure-fire strategies to crack into big accounts, shrink your sales cycle and close more business. Check out the Account Entry Toolkit for ideas on how to apply this process to your own unique business.”

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Weekly Recap, July 24, 2016

 



  
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Monday: Read one of my favorite self-help books Perform Like a Rock Star and Still Have Time for Lunch, by Orna W. Drawas, and dive into the day-to-day steps that you can take to achieve success. 


Tuesday: Explore five effective ways to work smarter, not harder. 


Wednesday: Learn how to get your prospect to agree to let you sit in on the committee meeting. 


Thursday: Check out five psychological concepts that will strengthen your social media strategy. 


Friday: Explore three starter tips on effective and impactful story telling. 


Saturday: Check out this article from Lifehack that has 14 things that productive people do in the first 15 minutes of the workday.  

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Things Productive People Do in the First 15 Minutes of the Workday

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How do you start your day? If you want to be truly productive, you need to set clear goals for yourself for the rest of your workday and stick to them. I came across a recent article from Lifehack that has 14 things that productive people do in the first 15 minutes of the workday to help them stay productive. If you have an hour or two to spare this weekend, check them out. 

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Tips on Effective Story-telling

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Those of you who know me (or who read this blog on a regular basis) know that I love to tell stories. Stories are a great way to captivate, motivate, and connect with your audience whether it’s a 500-person keynote presentation or a one-on-one conversation. 

Telling a personal story makes your presentation even more interesting, and your audience will feel a natural sense of empathy that subconsciously makes them more comfortable to be around you. 

So how do you pick a good personal story? If you’re the kind of person who finds it challenging to choose a story to share, I recommend sitting down and brainstorming some ideas.  What are some funny things that have happened to you or to those around you recently? Can you think of any clients or projects that have particularly benefited from your assistance? Once you have a list of ideas, assemble them into a collection of pithy stories and practice them until they feel very natural to recount. 

Here are three starter tips on effective and impactful story telling:

Make it a short story – ideally one that can be retold in less than 2 minutes.
Make the punch line both relevant to the listener and memorable.
Watch your language (keep it clean) and never share confidential details about anyone or anything.  Storytelling should improve your image in the eyes of your customer, not detract from it.

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Psychological Concepts to Strengthen Social Media Presence

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The ubiquity and rate of change in social media have immensely broadened the landscape of marketing possibilities. If you’re a savvy businessperson, you understand the importance of adapting your business model to fit the present needs and desires of your target market. Social media has become one of the most powerful marketing platforms, and a key tool for capturing attention and engaging your target audience. 

For those of you who are not successfully utilizing social media strategy as a marketing tool, check out this article from Hubspot Marketing Blog about five psychological concepts that will strengthen your social media strategy.

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Sitting in on the Meeting

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Have you ever been in a situation where a prospect tells you that they need to talk to the rest of their committee before making any decisions? Committees are notorious for shooting down projects, so you should be ready to address the situation upfront.

Unless you’ve prepared your prospect to give a stellar presentation and to fight for the project on your mutual behalf, there will be nobody at the committee meeting to address questions, objections or misunderstandings. This puts your proposal at high risk of being rejected. Wouldn’t it be a lot better if you could be in the room during the meeting? After all, you’re the expert, and you’re best equipped to explain the benefits of your offering and field any questions or comments that may arise.

In my experience, people don’t want vendors to attend internal meetings because they are afraid they’ll monopolize the meeting and listen in on confidential information. Here’s an example of a conversation you might have with your prospect to get them to agree to let you sit in on the meeting:

Prospect: “I’ve got to take this to the committee.”
You: “When does the committee meet?”
Prospect: “Every Thursday.”
You: “How long does the committee usually meet?”
Prospect: “About an hour.”
You: “How many topics are typically discussed at the meeting?”
Prospect: “About a half a dozen.”
You: “Okay, so if everyone gets to the meeting on time, you've got an hour to talk about six topics. That's roughly 10 minutes a topic. Am I correct?”
Prospect: “Yes, that’s right.”
You: “What do you think the chances are of my attending that meeting?”
Prospect: “Well, unfortunately we don’t usually let vendors sit in on committee meetings.”
You: “Okay, let me ask you this: Do you think there’s anybody in the world that's more capable of addressing questions on this project than I am? If you want to get your project approved [notice I say “your” instead of “my”], the best thing you can do is get me in that room. And I'll make a deal with you: If you have 10 minutes for each topic, you get me in the room at whatever point in the agenda you want me. Invite me into the room just for that agenda item and I'll leave immediately after talking about my agenda item. I will not exceed my allotted time and I will not be present during any confidential discussions. So I can sit in the lobby, you can bring me in on minute 20, and I will be out of there at minute 30, graciously thanking you and your colleagues for inviting me to the meeting. I'll get out of your way and you guys can get back to business. I can assure you that in three or four minutes, I can make a compelling case to make sure you get your project approved, and in the next four to six minutes, I can answer any questions that come up in the wake of that little presentation. Honestly, if I were in the room, I think you'd have a greater chance of getting your project approved.”

If you put these types of parameters around your requested participation, you might actually get invited to that meeting, and you’ll have an excellent chance of emerging from that meeting with everyone else primed to say “yes” when the vote to approve the project is taken after you leave.

And by the way, even if your internal champion is unsuccessful getting you a seat in the room, he or she might still get permission to have you dial in (or be called) at some point during the meeting so that you’re able to give a concise overview and address any questions/comments in real time.

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5 Ways to Work Smarter, Not Harder

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As efficiency sales professionals, we all need to work hard to succeed. I’m sure anyone who reads this blog is already a motivated and hard worker. However, there are situations in which we can make difficult tasks easier for ourselves and eliminate productivity-draining habits by working smarter.

 

An article from Inc.com titled “5 Incredibly Effective Ways to Work Smarter, Not Harder”, suggests five ways to make the most of your time and energy. The tips are really spot-on and I highly recommend giving it a read.

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The Rock Star Sales Professional

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In the process of creating content for my speaking engagements, I make it a habit to interview “rock star” efficiency sales professionals. These experts have a wealth of success (and horror) stories to share from their careers in the efficiency industry, and students learn a lot from the scar tissue that these folks share with me about what does and does not work. While the rock stars I interview each have unique stories and perspectives on effective selling, they all have one thing in common: they worked hard and they worked smart to become the rock star sales professionals that they are today.

 

Achieving success and becoming an industry leader takes more than a simple desire to be successful. One of my favorite self-help books on the topic is called Perform Like a Rock Star and Still Have Time for Lunch, by Orna Drawas. This book delves deeply into the day-to-day steps that you can take to achieve success. The content is spot-on and the illustrations, stories, and quotes make for a very enjoyable read. If you want to reach “rock star” status, I highly recommend reading this book and taking Drawas’ suggestions to heart.

 

Here’s a summary from Amazon Books:

 

“Everyone wants to be a star at some point in their life. Become a true leader, a real mover, and quite simply, someone who people can count on to make things happen. Inside the pages of Perform Like a Rock Star and Still Have Time for Lunch you can uncover ways to attain whole new levels in your own personal peak performance that can bring you greater success and fulfillment in your career than you ever thought possible - and still have time for lunch . . . and so much more.”

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