Mark Jewell's Blog: Selling Energy, page 294
October 31, 2015
The Key to Email Productivity
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To-do lists are great, but if you know you can complete a task very quickly it’s usually best to do it right away and be done with it. The same principle can be applied to emails. Most of us get too many emails each day to realistically respond to all of them immediately. It follows that we should respond right away to the ones that we know will only take a minute or two of our time, and save the more time-intensive ones for later (unless they’re very urgent, of course).
I found an article published on the LifeHacker blog that suggests a quick and easy way to determine if an email requires a short or long response (or no response at all) based on the subject line. Consider using their proposed system to speed up your email routine:
http://lifehacker.com/the-most-common-two-minute-emails-you-can-deal-with-rig-1575888009
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October 30, 2015
Enter with Confidence
The human brain is constantly making snap judgments, many of which are instigated by the subconscious. The minute you set foot in a room, the people around you begin to form opinions about you based on visual clues, such as your clothing, posture, facial expression, and so forth. When it comes to professional selling, you want that first impression to be an absolutely positive one.
So how do you avoid projecting a suboptimal first impression? The process begins before you ever set foot in that room. You must first prepare yourself mentally and physically so that you can focus on the task at hand when you arrive. LifeHack published a great blog on the subject. I highly recommend reading the article and thinking about how you might apply some of these strategies in preparation for your next meeting or presentation:
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/how-walk-any-room-with-confidence.html
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October 29, 2015
Remember the Cap Rate
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When you’re selling an efficiency project in a commercial landlord/tenant setting, one of the most valuable (and frequently omitted) pieces of data that you should consider in your financial analysis is the property’s capitalization (or “cap”) rate. Why is cap rate so important? Let’s use a hypothetical scenario with a cap rate of 10% to demonstrate:
Let's say you invest one dollar per square foot on an efficiency project that yields roughly 35 cents a square foot in savings per year. What’s the payback? Some people would say three years. A three-year payback is decidedly unsexy; many people wouldn’t even think of approving a project with anything over a two-year payback. (Such myopic focus on simple payback is silly; however, that’s a topic for another blog.)
If you add 35 cents per square foot per year to the net operating income of an income-producing building (e.g., through higher base rents, increased tenant attraction/retention, or decreased landlord share of operating expenses), a cap rate of 10% would help you support $3.50 more per square foot in asset value. Using the “Direct Capitalization Approach to Appraisal,” you would divide that incremental NOI by the 10% cap rate. How much did you invest to do this? One dollar. How much did you increase the value of the building? Three dollars and fifty cents. Now that's a sexy investment.
The minute you make these connections with a commercial real estate player, it becomes a whole different conversation. Remember, it’s not just about the simple payback period. You should always be looking for ways to create value for your customers, and this is one of the many ways you can accomplish that goal.
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October 28, 2015
Unlock the Doc
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Students often ask me what format is best to use when sending a proposal digitally. While it may seem like a good idea to send a locked document (as a way of protecting intellectual property), I think it’s almost always better to send proposals as an unlocked PDF. Why? In an ideal situation, the person to whom you send the proposal will send it to other decision-makers in the chain. Since you took the time to create perfectly worded prose, you want to give them the privilege of copying and pasting directly into their management memo and give them the credit for having written it.
In most cases, the person you send your proposal to is not really getting approval for you; they’re getting approval to do the project. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether the persuasive language from your proposal is attributed to you or to the person passing your message along internally, as long as it works! Once your internal champion gets approval, they’ll come back to you and say, “Great! We got the project approved.”
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October 27, 2015
Tips for Your Sales Pitch
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Every efficiency sales professional should have a handful of elevator pitches prepared, each one customized for a specific audience type. Here are some things 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”
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October 26, 2015
The Psychology of Selling
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Successful sales professionals know how to use emotion, logic, and skillful questioning to help their prospects realize the value of their product or service. Subtle differences in the way you present yourself and your offerings can have a significant subconscious effect on your prospect’s response – and ultimately, on their decision to buy.
If you understand the psychology behind professional selling, you’ll be better suited to help yourself (in your demeanor and presentation) and your prospects (in their decision-making process). One of my favorite books on the psychology of selling is (aptly) titled, “The Psychology of Selling: Increase Your Sales Faster and Easier Than You Ever Thought Possible,” by Brian Tracy. This book covers a variety of topics, including how your self-esteem affects sales performance; how emotion and logic affect your prospect’s decision to buy; how to neutralize sales resistance; and much more. If you’re interested in the psychological aspects of the sales process, I highly recommend picking up a copy of this book.
Here’s a summary from Amazon Books:
“Double and triple your sales – in any market.
"The purpose of this book is to give you a series of ideas, methods, strategies, and techniques that you can use immediately to make more sales, faster and easier than ever before.
"It’s a promise of prosperity that sales guru Brian Tracy has seen fulfilled again and again. More sales people have become millionaires as a result of listening to and applying his ideas than from any other sales training process ever developed.”
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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October 25, 2015
Weekly Recap, October 25, 2015
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Monday: Read Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness, by Jeffrey Gitomer, and get advice on how to overcome your fear of rejection, how to avoid arguing about price, how to use your passion to your advantage, and much more.
Tuesday: Learn three strategies for effective and impactful storytelling.
Wednesday: Learn how to overcome the objection that "the project is too small to be worthwhile."
Thursday: Secure your future success by thinking long-term, particularly when it comes to prospecting and self-improvement.
Friday: Learn why you should accept (and use) anonymous referrals.
Saturday: Read this article from the LifeHacker blog and get 10 tips on how to stay focused and avoid distractions.
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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October 24, 2015
No More Distractions!
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There are a wide variety of things that can derail your productivity, but one of the biggest and most common culprits is distractions. Staying focused on the task at hand is not always easy, particularly if it’s mundane work that you’d rather not be doing in the first place.
LifeHacker published a blog with 10 strategies for staying focused and avoiding distractions. Of their suggestions, my favorites are: scheduling your day; silencing excessive notifications; and, breaking down your tasks. Read the full list here and consider giving some of them a try next week at work:
http://lifehacker.com/top-10-ways-to-defeat-distractions-and-get-your-work-do-1580198318
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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October 23, 2015
Anonymous Referrals
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We all know how important referrals are for bringing in new business. I’ve had students ask me whether or not anonymous referrals are worth using. My answer? Absolutely. Referrals can work regardless of whether or not the source is revealed.
You might have a client say, "There's a guy on the other side of the town that does the same thing that I do. I happen to know because one of his employees just joined our company. They have the same problems that you just helped us fix. You know what? Don't tell him I told you. Just go over there. I bet you'll get a sale out of him."
Your client may be referring you anonymously because he doesn’t want to disclose that he actually has inside information about the other person’s business. Or maybe he doesn’t want it to be held responsible if the job doesn’t end up working out. Regardless of the reason your client chooses to remain anonymous, you should always take the referral. Maybe you’ll end up getting the sale…maybe you won’t. However, it’s far better than taking a shot in the dark with a random prospect!
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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October 22, 2015
Think Long-Term
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When business is booming and you don’t have much free time on your hands, it can be difficult to motivate yourself to plan ahead for the future. I can tell you with confidence that the most successful people in this world find a way to dig their well before they’re thirsty, even when they’re very preoccupied with the present.
So what kind of planning should you be doing to secure your future success? The two things that people often avoid when they’re too busy are prospecting and self-improvement.
Prospecting: “I’ve got too much work on my plate to be out networking and generating new leads.” Does this sound familiar? Even when you have more business than you can handle, it’s crucial that you set aside some time to seek out new prospects, especially if your sales cycle is long. Just because you’re having a successful month or year doesn’t mean the pattern will continue indefinitely.
Self-improvement: A lot of people think that they don’t have time to read sales information or improve their skills because they’re “too busy making their numbers.” Don’t fall into the trap of complacency. Schedule some time each day or each week for self-improvement. Read self-help sales training books and blogs, take a professional sales training course, find new ways to increase your productivity – there are dozens of ways to improve your skills; you just need to motivate yourself to continue growing and improving.
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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