Mark Jewell's Blog: Selling Energy, page 282

Emotional Selling

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If you’ve taken any of my efficiency sales workshops, you’ve probably heard me say that “most decisions are made emotionally and then justified financially.” Unless your prospect is an efficiency professional and knows everything about the technology you’re selling, he or she is probably not going to be interested in therms or kilowatt-hours. What’s going to sway your prospect is the emotional appeal of your product or service, not the technical specs.

In Simon Sinek’s TED Talk, “How Great Leaders Inspire Action,” Sinek notes that the limbic brain controls both decision-making and emotions. Once we’ve made a decision emotionally, we fill in details about the “how,” “why,” and “what” later. So put aside the technical aspects of your efficiency projects and think about how your prospect might be drawn to your project emotionally.

One of my colleagues sent me a car commercial that perfectly exemplifies this concept of emotional selling. This 30-second Infinity commercial is packed full of emotion and does not mention a single technical spec.

Emotional appeals in the commercial:
-Relying on others
-Staying connected
-Feeling accomplished

 Impressive technical specs NOT in the commercial:
-Horsepower: 400-hp 5.6-liter V8
-Torque: 413 lb-ft @ 4,000 rpm
-7-speed automatic transmission
-4-wheel Anti-lock Braking System (ABS)
-Leather seats with heating
-Bose® 13-speaker Premium Audio system
-Tri-Zone Automatic Temperature Control System
-Moonroof

I highly recommend you all watch this short commercial as an example of effective emotional selling:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Zx0Qx2xX0U

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Success Starts with Failure

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“Failure isn’t fatal, but failure to change might be.” - John Wooden
It’s a simple fact of life that things don’t always go according to plan. Of course, if you fear failure to the point that you never take risks, you will neither grow nor progress. In the complex and ever-changing landscape of the efficiency industry, you must take risks and be flexible in order to succeed.

In his book Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure, Tim Harford argues that survival in business requires a willingness to adapt. He emphasizes the fact that all levels of an organization must respond to change in order for change to take place, and that trust among colleagues helps reduce the risk of failure in the wake of change. If you find that fear of failure holds you back, I highly recommend reading this insightful book.

Here’s a summary from Amazon Books:

 “In this groundbreaking book, Tim Harford, the Undercover Economist, shows us a new and inspiring approach to solving the most pressing problems in our lives. When faced with complex situations, we have all become accustomed to looking to our leaders to set out a plan of action and blaze a path to success. Harford argues that today’s challenges simply cannot be tackled with ready-made solutions and expert opinion; the world has become far too unpredictable and profoundly complex. Instead, we must adapt.

“Deftly weaving together psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, physics, and economics, along with the compelling story of hard-won lessons learned in the field, Harford makes a passionate case for the importance of adaptive trial and error in tackling issues such as climate change, poverty, and financial crises—as well as in fostering innovation and creativity in our business and personal lives.

“Taking us from corporate boardrooms to the deserts of Iraq, Adapt clearly explains the necessary ingredients for turning failure into success. It is a breakthrough handbook for surviving—and prospering— in our complex and ever-shifting world.”

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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Weekly Recap, February 28, 2016

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Monday: How price impacts your prospect's decision-making chain.




Tuesday: Taking a glimpse inside your prospect's mind will help you learn about industry trends.




Wednesday: Energy efficient services and products can lead to savings in hotel costs. 




Thursday: Milking the repeat customer. 
 

Friday: 7 ways to thank people in your network.




Saturday: 4 types of productivity styles.  

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The 4 Types of Productivity Styles

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On today’s productivity-focused blog, we emphasize that there is not one specific tool or way to be productive that works for everyone. Learning and implementing a system that works for you may take some time and practice, but can lead to more productive work sessions.

In a recent article published by online productivity and leadership magazine 99u, “The 4 Types of Productivity Styles” gives insight on how our methods of productivity are personal and can be synced with our natural inclinations. The following are the four productivity styles:

The Prioritizer: “A Prioritizer is that guy or gal who will always defer to logical, analytical, fact-based, critical, and realistic thinking.”

The Planner: “The Planner is the team member who thrives on organized, sequential, planned, and detailed thinking.”

The Arranger: “An Arranger prefers supportive, expressive, and emotional thinking. They are the ultimate team player and excel at partnering with colleagues to get work done.” 

The Visualizer: “A Visualizer prefers holistic, intuitive, integrating, and synthesizing thinking. “

The article also shares detailed insight on how each type functions and contributes to the team, while also suggesting a list of productivity tools to help each type succeed. If you are interested in learning more about these productivity styles, we highly recommend checking out the full article:
http://99u.com/articles/42643/the-4-types-of-productivity-styles

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7 Ways to Thank People in Your Network

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When it comes to the growth and sustainability of your enterprise, I recommend having a strong network of colleagues in and outside of your industry. Besides attending facilitated events such as meet-ups and conferences, going above and beyond to let your contact know the impression they made towards you is key to establishing stronger bonds. If you’re wondering what going above and beyond might look like, I encourage you to think about expressing gratitude towards your contact.

In an article published by the Harvard Business Review (HBR), being able to express gratitude towards others requires awareness and noticing. Often times, when we meet so many individuals at networking events, remembering and differentiating what each person said might be a little difficult. Keeping notes of what they care about will it make easier to show your gratitude later.

Eventually, you’ll return back to your little pocketbook and wonder how to share your gratitude. Of the 7 ways that HBR recommends, our favorites include: sending something fun with a thank you note; making an introduction; and offering to help- and delivering on your offer. 

We recommend reading the remainder of the list here for more ideas:
https://hbr.org/2015/12/7-ways-to-thank-people-in-your-network

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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The Significance of Repeat Customers

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Finding new prospects is a time-consuming activity and often requires a great deal of research, cold calling, email campaigns, and so forth. If you’ve ever done repeat business with a past customer, you know how time-efficient (and lucrative) it can be. When is the last time you combed through your customer list to consider how you might continue to provide value for them?

I was interviewing a very successful efficiency sales professional in preparation for a two-day presentation that I gave to a group of mechanical contractors. This sales professional had recently decided to expand his business beyond simply service contracts and start focusing on efficiency-motivated retrofits. He shared with me that his change in focus had paid off handsomely. He said, “90 percent of our roughly $10 million in energy work last year came from existing customers.”

That statement underscored something I've been telling vendors and service providers for years. People say, “I want to morph this service business into an energy-efficient retrofit company. I don't know where to start. Where am I going to find new leads?” Are you kidding me? You have file cabinets filled with projects you've done since you first set up shop. You already know their situation. You know what the installed systems are. You know where the skeletons are buried in those buildings. You know which systems are legacy systems, no longer supported by their manufacturers. At least some of those installed systems have an obvious upgrade path that you could suggest.

This sales professional used that valuable information to his advantage. He said, "Well, these are the buildings that we're servicing. We happen to know that some of these buildings are paying us more in maintenance annually than they would be paying in debt service to totally replace their existing systems with new ones. Let’s sell them some new equipment.”

Bottom line, take a careful look at your existing customers. You have the advantage of being the incumbent. You have the advantage of already having a relationship with them – you’re trustworthy, you're always on time, you charge them fairly, and you've been doing business with them for years. Those factors effectively eliminate the trust-building phase of the relationship that you would have to go through with any new customer.

So, pay attention to your current stable of customers. There's a lot of work that can be done without ever calling anyone new. And, by the way, every present customer for whom you design new solutions has plenty of other peers who will eventually become referrals for you if you play your cards right and inject new value into your existing relationship.

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Energy Efficiency in the Hospitality Industry

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As someone who does more than 100 speaking engagements a year all over North America, I spend a lot of time on the road. Every time I pass a Motel 6, I am reminded of the tag line they adopted in the mid-Eighties – “We’ll leave the light on for you.” In fact, for the chain’s 50th anniversary in 2012, they began using the motto, “50 Years, the Light’s Still On.” For decades now, the hotel industry has been obsessed with perfecting hardware and software that keep the lights (and HVAC) turned off in unoccupied rooms. Nonetheless, those Motel 6 mottos remain indelibly etched in my mind.

The last time I checked, U.S. hotels were spending close to $4 billion in energy every year. Think about how much could be saved if those costs could be reduced by even just 10%. The numbers are truly compelling.

One of the metrics that hospitality analysts focus on is the Average Daily Rate, or ADR. Years ago, the ENERGY STAR® program released data suggesting that if a hotel were to reduce its energy costs by 10%, it would be the equivalent of raising its ADR by $0.62 if it were a limited service hotel and $1.35 if it were a full-service hotel. 

In this age of total rate transparency – with Hotels.com, Priceline.com, Kayak.com, and all of the other online options for comparing hotel ratings and pricing in a given area – the competition for overnight stays is fierce.

Now I ask you, if a CFO wants to increase his chain’s ADR to demonstrate enhanced profitability for his investors, would he be wise to raise his hotel rates across the board? Probably not, since given the aforementioned rate transparency, his chain would likely lose market share in the wake of that price increase.

On the other hand, what if that same CFO decided to benchmark his hotels, find out what improvements could be made, and pursue the ENERGY STAR label in as many properties as possible? The resulting decrease in energy costs might have the same economic impact as if he had raised his rates, but he wouldn't be losing market share. In fact, his chain might actually gain market share because his hotel rooms would be deemed to be more comfortable, the online reviews would see an uptick, and more people would book. In addition, sustainability-minded travelers might select his chain over others in the wake of announcing a new sustainability agenda (and perhaps even a few newly minted ENERGY STAR labels).

So what’s the moral here? It's a win-win for hotels to pursue efficiency measures, and if you can convey this to your prospects in the hospitality industry, they should be more willing to embrace your efficiency solutions.

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Take a Glimpse Inside Your Prospect's Mind

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Suppose you get an unexpected call from a prospect who says he’s interested in replacing his building’s HVAC system with your energy-efficient technology. Many salespeople would say, “Great! Let’s set up an appointment and we can go over the details.” A sales professional, on the other hand, would say, “Would be happy to oblige. Just out of curiosity, what made you call us today about replacing your HVAC system?”

Why is this question important? The answer will get you inside the prospect’s head. You might learn something about the decision-making dynamics in your prospect’s organization. More than likely, you’ll get a glimpse of how you might use energy efficiency as the lever to alleviate pain and/or produce gain.

You might learn that your prospect is chasing utility bill savings. Or perhaps he’s more interested in capturing the praise and labels associated with sustainability initiatives. Or perhaps he’s received an ultimatum from a tenant who won’t renew his lease unless certain thermal comfort problems are definitively addressed.  Having this information ahead of time will help guide and focus your value proposition and allow you to hit the ball out of the park during the first meeting.

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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Price and the Decision-Making Chain

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One of the keys to successful selling is being able to customize the benefits of your product or service so that they resonate with each and every stakeholder. Different stakeholders are going to be resonating at different frequencies. It’s your job to make sure that you resonate at each and every one of those frequencies at the right time to soft-circle the approval of all of the initiators, influencers, gatekeepers, decision-makers, buyers, and end-users who will ultimately need to say “Yes!” in order to make your proposed project a reality.

In Anthony Parinello's best-selling book, Selling to VITO (The Very Important Top Officer), Parinello addresses the fact that the higher up the corporate ladder you get, the less price matters. In Tony’s words, “Decision-makers make the budget, and non-decision-makers spend the budget.” If you find that price is a barrier, you're probably not high enough in the food chain. If you have a compelling proposition to present to a CEO, price will be less of an issue. In fact, you may have heard me say before that two of the most important questions to answer when addressing a CEO are: “Will what you are offering make the organization easier to manage?” and “Will what you are offering make the enterprise more valuable?” You can be sure that the Board of Directors, which hires the CEO, has those two key performance indicators in mind as it assesses the CEO’s effectiveness over time. Hence, it should come as no surprise that reframing your value proposition to resonate at the frequency of those two metrics should be music to your CEO prospect’s ears.

At the same time, if a decision-maker at any level is unconvinced that you have a viable solution, it doesn't matter if it's free. I was talking to a colleague recently whose company implements “direct install” programs for utilities (i.e., the utility pays 100% of the cost of putting the equipment in). He shared with me that their success rate for direct install was just 70%. So, the next time you think that price is the answer, remember that 30% of this energy professional’s prospects typically say “No!” even though the offer involved zero dollars out of pocket! (In actuality, “cost” is not just the dollars required to do the deal. The time and effort that the prospect must invest in being sold to could actually be a greater “cost” than the “price” of the proposed project.)

I often return to Seth Godin’s hierarchy that non-owners in a B2B environment use to make decisions. If the product or service you’re proposing is perceived to be too risky or inconvenient, if it won’t bring praise or power to the buyer, or if it’s simply not fun to pursue, then the fact that it’s free won’t matter.

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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Weekly Recap, February 21, 2016

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Monday: How to spend your first 10 minutes at work for a productive day.   




Tuesday: Predicting what's on your prospect's mind can help position you to address any questions ahead of time. 




Wednesday: Read up on how to close the sale without rebates. 




Thursday: Is your elevator pitch memorable and repeatable?  
 

Friday: Use the Rule of Three to help your elevator pitch stand out. 




Saturday: Watch this TED talk by Judson Brewer on "A Simple Way to Break a Bad Habit." 

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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