Mark Jewell's Blog: Selling Energy, page 274
May 18, 2016
Personal Training for Your Selling Skills
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Most people think sales is all about forming strong relationships with prospects. If you do that, they’re going to want to buy from you, right? Not so fast. While I wouldn’t disagree that relationship-building is closely related to successful selling, I believe that relationships are the result of, rather than the cause of, successful selling.
When you first meet a prospect, I think that rapport-building is more important than relationship-building. You’re probably wondering, what the heck is the difference between rapport-building and relationship-building? Think about it. You can have good rapport without necessarily having a strong relationship with your prospect, right? Rapport is simply the conduit for effective communication. It suggests trust and mutual respect. It allows you to deliver your message effectively.
For the sake of analogy, consider how an effective personal trainer produces results for his/her client. The client has a fitness-related goal. The personal trainer is responsible for facilitating the achievement of that goal. Unless the client understands and trusts the trainer, that end goal will remain elusive. In such a situation, while “rapport” is necessary, an actual “relationship” is not. Rapport allows the personal trainer to push his or her client beyond the comfort zone. Without a little stress and that extra push, the client would not likely achieve the fitness goal.
So how does this analogy relate to sales? A salesperson can aim to be a relationship-builder – giving his prospect complimentary hockey tickets and the like – yet a lot of business will still go to a competing vendor. Why? Is the other vendor offering more impressive gifts?
Maybe his prospect actually has more respect for a competitor’s offerings or approach? Could it be that competitor has the courage to take a “Challenger Selling” approach – laying the foundation for good rapport by listening intently to what the prospect thinks he wants or needs, and then redirecting the conversation to what the sales professional knows will produce superior results for the prospect?
Complimentary hockey tickets or similar “gifts” don’t make your prospect’s business more competitive, profitable or valuable. Taking the time to translate your offering’s benefits so that they can be measured using yardsticks the prospect is already using to measure his or her success….now THAT’S a great way to motivate your prospect to leave his or her comfort zone and embrace your offering over your competitor’s.
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May 17, 2016
Neuroscience Behind Storytelling
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Those of you who know me (or read this blog) know that I love to tell stories. They’re great for capturing the attention of an audience, whether it’s a one-on-one meeting or a keynote speech. Stories are also a creative way to persuade an audience without overtly laying out facts and figures.
Have you ever given a sales presentation but failed to do it justice? We hear stories every day whether we’re aware of it or not. Without capturing your prospect or customer’s attention, though, a story becomes more of a “storyline” and it loses its ability to captivate. The HubSpot blog published an infographic called “The Neuroscience Behind Storytelling in Sales.” Check it out and learn how to deliver your message using a storytelling framework.
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May 16, 2016
Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels
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Whether you have experience in leadership or not, transitioning to a new leadership position can be difficult. If you are promoted to a management role in your current company, you are probably going to be overseeing employees that were once your equals. If you are joining a new company, you are going to be managing a team of people with whom you may have never before worked. Both of these scenarios present their own set of challenges, and you should be prepared to face those challenges right from the start.
In leadership, first impressions are vital. A successful leader exudes confidence and manages with consistency, and this begins on day one. According to Michael Watkins, in his book The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels, the first three months on the job determine a leader’s success. Whether you’re about to move into a management role or think you may someday want to, this book is a great guide for how to make the transition seamlessly and successfully.
Here’s a summary from Amazon Books:
“Fully a quarter of all managers in major corporations enter new leadership roles each year. Whether their assignments involve leading a work group or taking over a company as CEO, they face very similar challenges – and risks – in those critical first months on the job. How new leaders manage their transitions can make all the difference between success and failure.
“In this hands-on guide, Michael Watkins, a noted expert on leadership transitions, offers proven strategies for moving successfully into a new role at any point in one's career. Concise and practical, The First 90 Days walks managers through every aspect of the transition, from mental preparation to forging the right alliances to securing critical early wins. Through vivid examples of success and failure at all levels, Watkins identifies the most common pitfalls new leaders encounter and provides tools and strategies for how to avoid them.”
Love one of our blogs? Feel free to use an excerpt on your own site, newsletter, blog, etc. Just be sure to send us a copy or link, and include the following at the end of the excerpt: “By Mark Jewell, Wall Street Journal best-selling author of Selling Energy: Inspiring Ideas That Get More Projects Approved! This content is excerpted from the Sales Ninja blog, Mark Jewell's daily blog on ideas and inspiration for advancing efficiency. Sign up at SellingEnergy.com.”
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May 15, 2016
Weekly Recap, May 15, 2016
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Monday: Read Stephan Schiffman's book 25 Toughest Sales Objections (and How to Overcome Them) to be prepared for objections that may arise during the sales process.
Tuesday: Lead a productive discussion with your prospects and customers with a strong understanding of the "Op Ex" language.
Wednesday: Lead a productive discussion with your prospects and customers with a strong understanding of the "Cap Ex" language.
Thursday: Tips to keep in mind when preparing your perfect elevator pitches.
Friday: Take responsibility for the quality of your communication.
Saturday: Take a look at this article on the Entrepreneur blog on "An Exceptional Vision for Your Life Can Lead to Joy and Success."
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May 14, 2016
Visualize Success
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Communication is so vital to success, whether you’re guiding your prospect through the project or communicating with them regularly to make sure they’re in the loop.
Communication is your responsibility. If you meet with a prospect and he doesn’t seem to understand what you’re trying to convey, is it his fault? No. It’s yours. It’s not helpful to come back to the shop after a meeting and say, “He just didn't get it,” or “He was so dense,” or “I can't believe he spent the money on a new marble lobby in his office building instead of investing in a new chiller with me.”
The quality of your communication is your responsibility. If a person misunderstands, that’s your problem. Perhaps you should have slowed it down and asked more questions to check for understanding. Maybe you should have reframed the value proposition so that it made sense from his perspective. Would the outcome have been different if you had given an example that resonated with him? Perhaps you should have learned a little more about his segment, his industry, his organization, and/or his role and used that insight to formulate a more compelling value proposition.
The good news is, if we’re smart, we learn from our mistakes. If we place the blame for a failed opportunity on anyone other than ourselves, we lose the opportunity to learn and grow from that mistake (and we’ll end up making it over and over again). Take responsibility, reflect on your failure, and use it as an opportunity to improve. As Malcolm Forbes famously said, “Failure is success if we learn from it.”
Love one of our blogs? Feel free to use an excerpt on your own site, newsletter, blog, etc. Just be sure to send us a copy or link, and include the following at the end of the excerpt: “By Mark Jewell, Wall Street Journal best-selling author of Selling Energy: Inspiring Ideas That Get More Projects Approved! This content is excerpted from the Sales Ninja blog, Mark Jewell's daily blog on ideas and inspiration for advancing efficiency. Sign up at SellingEnergy.com.”
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May 13, 2016
Take Responsibility for the Quality of Your Communication
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Communication is so vital to success, whether you’re guiding your prospect through the project or communicating with them regularly to make sure they’re in the loop.
Communication is your responsibility. If you meet with a prospect and he doesn’t seem to understand what you’re trying to convey, is it his fault? No. It’s yours. It’s not helpful to come back to the shop after a meeting and say, “He just didn't get it,” or “He was so dense,” or “I can't believe he spent the money on a new marble lobby in his office building instead of investing in a new chiller with me.”
The quality of your communication is your responsibility. If a person misunderstands, that’s your problem. Perhaps you should have slowed it down and asked more questions to check for understanding. Maybe you should have reframed the value proposition so that it made sense from his perspective. Would the outcome have been different if you had given an example that resonated with him? Perhaps you should have learned a little more about his segment, his industry, his organization, and/or his role and used that insight to formulate a more compelling value proposition.
The good news is, if we’re smart, we learn from our mistakes. If we place the blame for a failed opportunity on anyone other than ourselves, we lose the opportunity to learn and grow from that mistake (and we’ll end up making it over and over again). Take responsibility, reflect on your failure, and use it as an opportunity to improve. As Malcolm Forbes famously said, “Failure is success if we learn from it.”
Love one of our blogs? Feel free to use an excerpt on your own site, newsletter, blog, etc. Just be sure to send us a copy or link, and include the following at the end of the excerpt: “By Mark Jewell, Wall Street Journal best-selling author of Selling Energy: Inspiring Ideas That Get More Projects Approved! This content is excerpted from the Sales Ninja blog, Mark Jewell's daily blog on ideas and inspiration for advancing efficiency. Sign up at SellingEnergy.com.”
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May 12, 2016
Good Pitching
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If you’ve attended one of my sales trainings or are a frequent reader of my blogs, you’ve likely heard me talk about crafting the perfect elevator pitch. An elevator pitch is a concise statement that grabs the attention and communicates values, ideally leading to a next step.
Every efficiency sales professional should have a handful of elevator pitches prepared, each one customized for a specific audience type. Here are some tips to keep in mind as you prepare your elevator pitches:
Your elevator pitch should be:
-Short and to the point
-Humorous
-Memorable
-Interactive (allows you to say something and pause for a response, or say something and ask a question)
-Conversational
Your elevator pitch should NOT be:
-A speech
-A soliloquy
-A pitch (in the traditional “sales pitch” sense)
-Longer than 15 seconds
Avoid fluff words that don’t really mean anything:
-“Finest”
-“Established”
-“Foremost”
-“Leading”
-“Pioneering”
-“Original”
Love one of our blogs? Feel free to use an excerpt on your own site, newsletter, blog, etc. Just be sure to send us a copy or link, and include the following at the end of the excerpt: “By Mark Jewell, Wall Street Journal best-selling author of Selling Energy: Inspiring Ideas That Get More Projects Approved! This content is excerpted from the Sales Ninja blog, Mark Jewell's daily blog on ideas and inspiration for advancing efficiency. Sign up at SellingEnergy.com.”
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May 11, 2016
The Language of Capital Expenditures
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Yesterday we discussed the concept of Operating Expenses. Today, we’ll extend that discussion by exploring Capital Expenses (also known as Capital Expenditures or “Cap Ex”).
A Capital Expense is a fixed asset purchase or a purchase that adds to the value of an existing asset where the useful life extends beyond the current tax year. This includes things like machinery, lighting systems, chillers, boilers, etc.
Unlike Operating Expenses, Capital Expenses cannot be fully deducted in the period in which they are incurred (unless special bonus depreciation rules are in place in the current period), and they are deducted over a period of years (depending on tax rules and the useful life of the asset). One key point to understand is that tangible assets are depreciated, while intangible assets are amortized over time.
In an income-producing property, the costs incurred when buying the property AND upgrading its building systems all fall into the category of Capital Expenses.
People often ask me: “If I’m advancing this efficiency maneuver in my own organization or proposing it to a prospect, should I suggest that it be labeled a Cap Ex or Op Ex investment? Which is better?” The answer to this question really depends on the situation.
Most people prefer to consider upgrade expenses as Op Ex instead of a Cap Ex investments because it keeps it “off-balance-sheet” and they get to deduct the entire value now (which reduces the entity’s tax burden for that fiscal period). However, someone might actually prefer to label a project as Cap Ex. Posting it as Cap Ex rather than Op Ex allows the entity to show higher earnings in the current fiscal period because the entire cost of the improvement is not deducted from earnings. Ultimately, generally accepted accounting principles will dictate the more defensible way to classify a given expense – as an operating expense or a capital expense.
In summary, don’t automatically assume that everyone wants to keep the expense “off-balance-sheet.” Some may actually want to post the expense as a Capital Expense rather than an Operating Expense because of the above-referenced impacts on the entity’s financial statements.
Love one of our blogs? Feel free to use an excerpt on your own site, newsletter, blog, etc. Just be sure to send us a copy or link, and include the following at the end of the excerpt: “By Mark Jewell, Wall Street Journal best-selling author of Selling Energy: Inspiring Ideas That Get More Projects Approved! This content is excerpted from the Sales Ninja blog, Mark Jewell's daily blog on ideas and inspiration for advancing efficiency. Sign up at SellingEnergy.com.”
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May 10, 2016
The Language of Operating Expenses
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As we discussed in the “Business Acumen is Key” blog last month, one of the main components in developing business acumen is having a strong understanding of the language that may be used during discussions with your prospects and customers. In today’s blog, we’ll go over the language of operating budgets.
One of the key things you’re going to hear a lot about is Operating Expenses (sometimes called “Op Ex”). You should know everything there is to know about Operating Expenses so that you can lead a productive discussion. Operating expenses are required for the day-to-day functioning of a business and are comprised of things like wages, utilities, maintenance, repairs, and so forth. All of these categories are sometimes referred to as “Revenue Expenditures.”
In an income-producing property, the landlord faces typical Operating Expenses, such as utilities, housekeeping, repairs and maintenance, roads and grounds, security, and administrative. These are generally known as “Controllable Operating Expenses.” Two examples of “Uncontrollable Operating Expenses” are real estate taxes and insurance.
Two things to keep in mind about operating expenses: they appear on the income statement, and they are fully deducted in the accounting period in which they were incurred.
Tomorrow we’ll continue our exploration to the language of capital expenditures, so stay tuned!
Love one of our blogs? Feel free to use an excerpt on your own site, newsletter, blog, etc. Just be sure to send us a copy or link, and include the following at the end of the excerpt: “By Mark Jewell, Wall Street Journal best-selling author of Selling Energy: Inspiring Ideas That Get More Projects Approved! This content is excerpted from the Sales Ninja blog, Mark Jewell's daily blog on ideas and inspiration for advancing efficiency. Sign up at SellingEnergy.com.”
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May 9, 2016
How to Overcome 25 Toughest Sales Objections
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Last week I wrote several blogs about objections (see "Overcoming Objections Part One, Two & Three”) that we encounter frequently in the efficiency sales world. In order to be a successful sales professional, you need to be prepared for any and all objections that may arise during the sales process. Getting caught off guard by an objection could cost you a sale, so it’s crucial to plan ahead and know how to respond.
If you find yourself losing sales from time to time because you can’t dispel an objection or myth, I recommend reading 25 Toughest Sales Objections (and How to Overcome Them), by Stephan Schiffman. This book provides numerous examples and sample dialogue for the 25 objections that Schiffman most frequently encountered during his career as a sales professional.
Here’s a summary from Amazon Books:
“You can do one of two things when a customer is reluctant to buy: You can back off or go in for the kill. 25 Toughest Sales Objections--and How to Overcome Them helps you choose which direction is the best approach and gives you the tools you need to deflect that obstacle and make the sale.
Bestselling author and renowned sales guru Stephan Schiffman has tapped into his decades of hands-on experience training sales professionals and has boiled his list of objections down to the top 25 most frustrating, universal issues. Through sample dialogues and occasionally humorous examples any salesperson can relate to, Schiffman provides the solutions to help turn any "No" into a done deal.
At long last, the sales objection has met its match. Stephan Schiffman provides you with an arsenal that helps you combat any negative response and, in the process, turn perceptions of you from sales rep to ultimate problem solver.”
Love one of our blogs? Feel free to use an excerpt on your own site, newsletter, blog, etc. Just be sure to send us a copy or link, and include the following at the end of the excerpt: “By Mark Jewell, Wall Street Journal best-selling author of Selling Energy: Inspiring Ideas That Get More Projects Approved! This content is excerpted from the Sales Ninja blog, Mark Jewell's daily blog on ideas and inspiration for advancing efficiency. Sign up at SellingEnergy.com.”
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