Mark Jewell's Blog: Selling Energy, page 300

Going the Extra Mile

Selling efficiency takes perseverance, creativity, and a willingness to go the extra mile. I’d like to share a story today about a colleague (we’ll call him Nick) who went the extra mile to close a sale.

Nick was proposing to retrofit a small city’s street lighting with LED heads. The project made a lot of sense both economically and environmentally. Unfortunately, he faced resistance from the city’s public works director who told him, “Sounds great in theory, but we can’t do it because we don’t know how many street lights we have. The Streets Department knows its records are off, and although the utility invoices us each month for the number of pole connections it says we have, we’re pretty sure it doesn’t have the right count either. Bottom line: we don’t want to take on a project when we don’t really know how many LED replacement heads we need to buy.” 

Now you’re probably thinking, “For goodness sake, how far apart could the city and utility’s estimates of street lights be?  Besides, why not just ask vendors to quote the job with add/deduct unit pricing and make sure the contract limits the total number of fixtures that are authorized for retrofit?”

After advancing these or similar arguments in vain, most salespeople would probably walk away, defeated before they began. Nick, however, was a true sales professional. He wasn’t about to leave this project undone. So what did he do? That weekend he jumped in his pickup truck with a friend who agreed that the task that they were about to undertake was both crazy and cool. The two of them literally drove every street in the area to be upgraded and counted every street light! That’s right. Every darned one of them.

With his newly minted street light inventory in hand, Nick knew he could create a compelling proposal. The city could now rest assured that it had an accurate count. Perhaps even more importantly, the public works director owed Nick and his buddy a debt of gratitude for producing in a single weekend something that neither the Streets Department nor the utility could deliver for years.

Sometimes you have to play the adult in the relationship and go the extra mile to make people play nice. Sometimes you need to do some lateral thinking and serve as the catalyst, because left to their own devices, too many prospects would remain in their respective silos and never get it together. It’s not always easy. However, if you collect the right data at the right time and present it in a persuasive way, you might just turn a skeptical prospect into a true believer. 

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How to Get People to Do Stuff

It’s no secret that psychology and sales go hand in hand. If you understand the principles of human psychology and how to apply those principles to sales interactions, you’re a step ahead of the curve. In this business, it’s particularly important to understand how to persuade people and motivate them to take action.

In Susan M. Weinschenk’s book, How to Get People to Do Stuff: Master the Art and Science of Persuasion and Motivation, Weinschenk breaks down some key components of psychology into “seven drives,” or seven human motivational traits. She accompanies each of these drives with actionable ways to leverage their motivational power. If you’re interested in learning more about this topic, I highly recommend picking up a copy of this book.

Here’s a summary from Amazon Books:

“We all want people to do stuff. Whether you want your customers to buy from you, vendors to give you a good deal, your employees to take more initiative, or your spouse to make dinner—a large amount of everyday is about getting the people around you to do stuff. Instead of using your usual tactics that sometimes work and sometimes don't, what if you could harness the power of psychology and brain science to motivate people to do the stuff you want them to do - even getting people to want to do the stuff you want them to do.

“In this book you’ll learn the 7 drives that motivate people: The Desire For Mastery, The Need To Belong, The Power of Stories, Carrots and Sticks, Instincts, Habits, and Tricks Of The Mind. For each of the 7 drives behavioral psychologist Dr. Susan Weinschenk describes the research behind each drive, and then offers specific strategies to use. Here’s just a few things you will learn:

The more choices people have the more regret they feel about the choice they pick. If you want people to feel less regret then offer them fewer choices.


If you are going to use a reward, give the reward continuously at first, and then switch to giving a reward only sometimes.


If you want people to act independently, then make a reference to money, BUT if you want people to work with others or help others, then make sure you DON’T refer to money.


If you want people to remember something, make sure it is at the beginning or end of your book, presentation, or meeting. Things in the middle are more easily forgotten.


If you are using feedback to increase the desire for mastery, keep the feedback objective and don’t include praise.”

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Weekly Recap, August 30, 2015

Monday: Read Escaping the Price-Driven Sale: How World-Class Sellers Create Extraordinary Profit, by Tom Snyder and Kevin Kearns, and learn how to connect the dots for your prospect without talking price.




Tuesday: Discover five strategies for gaining an understanding of your prospects’ needs. 




Wednesday: Learn why you shouldn't be afraid to challenge your prospects' expectations.




Thursday: Discover three reasons why you should always circle back with recently sold customers.




Friday: Find out what elements make up a compelling elevator pitch.




Saturday: Read this article from the Business 2 Community blog and learn how to maintain productivity when faced with a difficult or tedious task. 

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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Get in the Groove

When we talk about strategies for boosting productivity, we often overlook the fact certain projects lend themselves to productivity – and others don’t. It’s almost always easier to maintain productivity when working on fun projects (or projects that you’re passionate about). When faced with a tedious task that you don’t enjoy doing, you may very well lose your productive edge.

So what can we do to trick ourselves into maintaining a high level of productivity, even when we dread a particular task? The Business 2 Community blog published a list of actionable ways to approach this scenario. My favorite tips from the article include “connecting a task you dislike with one you enjoy,” and “breaking big tasks into smaller chunks.” For their full list of recommendations, read the full article below:

http://www.business2community.com/strategy/8-ways-to-find-your-work-productivity-groove-even-on-tasks-you-dont-like-01308524

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 Perfect Elevator Pitch

The elevator pitch is a concise statement that grabs attention and communicates value, ideally leading to a next step.

You need multiple versions of your elevator pitch, with each one incorporating details that are most relevant to a particular listener. A great elevator pitch would typically include at least a few of the following elements: 

Who you are and how long you’ve been doing what you’re doing
The company you work for, including anything that’s especially noteworthy about it
A product or service you’re currently offering that your listener would likely find interesting
Insights tailored to appeal to your listener’s professional role or industry segment
Companies and customers you’ve served that suggest that your listener’s peers have already benefited from your offerings

An elevator pitch shouldn’t tell the whole story, it should set the hook. Keep the following in mind as you consider what to include in your next elevator pitch:

Who: What appeals to your target customer? What do you want your listener to remember most about you and your business?

What: Express the value of your product or service. What have been the key results or impacts of your company?

Why: Show the unique benefits that your company offers. What makes you stand out from your competition? Why do you do what you do?

Goal: Describe what you would like to ask of your listener – even if it’s just to accept your business card. Your goal should be concrete and realistic.

We all know the importance of making a great first impression. Confident posture, good eye contact and a sincere smile all help. However, when it comes to capturing your prospect’s attention, the first few sentences you say (or questions you ask) can make all the difference in the world. So, invest the time to plan a series of elevator pitches that highlight the value of what you do....and make sure to select the one that’s most appropriate for each 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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3 Reasons to Follow Up

It’s very important to begin nurturing your relationship with a customer immediately after the project you sold is installed. Not only is it a good customer service practice, but it also keeps you fresh in your customer’s mind. There are at least three reasons that you should always circle back with recently sold customers:

You want to make a sure they are happy with the installation – that it matched what you had promised in every regard. If even the slightest aspect of the installation was out of order, now is your time to remedy the situation before it prevents your customer from giving a thoroughly positive review of your offerings if asked by colleagues (or other prospects you may send his/her way).
Following up promptly to ensure your customer is pleased provides an excellent opportunity to ask for a referral.
A follow-up call also affords the opportunity to inquire about segment-specific “non-energy benefits.” More specifically, be sure to ask your customer if he/she experienced any unexpected positive outcome in the wake of the installation. In our efficiency-focused professional sales trainings, we offer case studies of increased productivity, decreased scrap rate, and other positive outcomes that certain types of customers have enjoyed in addition to projected energy savings. Empirical evidence of these non-energy benefits will help you capture the attention of new prospects in the same market segment. 

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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Don’t Be Afraid to Challenge

Too many salespeople tell every prospect the same thing, either because they’re lazy or because they’re not taking the time to evaluate that prospect’s particular situation and needs. As a result, those salespeople fail to deliver messages that truly resonate with their prospects. The result? An unnecessarily low closing ratio.

I remember reading a fabulous story about this concept of telling people what they really need to hear. The story described a sales professional who was offering a complicated service in the context of a complex bid process where the final step was making a one-hour formal presentation to the folks who would ultimately select the winning bidder. His competing bidders had squandered their respective one-hour presentations, essentially reading a synopsis of their proposals.

This final bidder, however, took quite a different tack. In the opening minute of the meeting he said, “Everybody else probably came here and read you their proposal. We have more respect for you than that. We know that you can read. What I’d like to do is spend the next 59 minutes telling you what should have been in your request for proposal (RFP), and how much exposure you’ll have if you select a bidder based on the requirements and evaluation criteria as they now stand in your RFP.”

What do you think happened? Everyone in the room listened very intently. They soon realized how many blind spots they had failed to anticipate when drafting their RFP. Not surprisingly, the original RFP was cancelled, and the one that took its place was very much in line with the changes recommended by this final bidder. Once the new RFP was out on the street, it was an obvious choice to select the bidder who had opened the prospect’s eyes.

This is yet another example of the effectiveness of Challenger Selling. Look for ways to customize your offering to better fit the needs of your prospects, and don’t be afraid to challenge their expectations. They’ll thank you for it in the end.

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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5 Ways to Know Your Prospect’s Needs

In order to sell energy efficiency effectively, you need to become an expert in your prospect’s industry. This means doing some research: 

Read their industry publications
Attend their conferences
Understand the metrics that matter to them (hint: it’s not kWh or BTUs…)
Take the time to understand how your product or service fits their business
Find out what matters most to your prospect (i.e. cutting costs, avoiding accidents, etc.)

As you gain more of an understanding of your prospects’ needs, you’ll be able to step back and look at the full picture. Instead of focusing solely on your piece of the puzzle, you’ll be able to show your prospect exactly how your puzzle piece will positively affect their business as a whole. 

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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Escaping the Price-Driven Sale

Differentiating yourself from your competitors means more than offering the lowest price on your product or service. In fact, bringing price into the picture before you’ve captured the attention of your prospect is a great way to lose a sale. There are countless creative ways to connect the dots for your prospect without talking price (and I’ve written about this on the blog many times). If you find yourself struggling to demonstrate value and connect the dots for your prospect without bringing money into the picture, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Escaping the Price-Driven Sale: How World-Class Sellers Create Extraordinary Profit, by Tom Snyder and Kevin Kearns. It’s a rather dense book, but I’ve learned many invaluable tips from it. If you have the time, it’s definitely worth the read.

Here’s a summary from Amazon Books:

“Do you frequently discount to win business? Do your customers ignore the differentiators you believe you bring to the marketplace? Does your brand seem to matter less to customers today?

“Great products, stellar service, and a strong brand are just prerequisites today. They no longer differentiate. If you don’t do something radically different soon, you will become unnecessary to customers.

“Integrating the most comprehensive research in the selling profession with years of real world application by leading sales organizations, Huthwaite, Inc., creator of SPIN Selling®, brings you Escaping the Price-Driven Sale. This book builds on Huthwaite’s history of providing groundbreaking concepts with straightforward guidance for execution.

“Sellers who master requisite new skills can dominate their market and virtually eliminate their competition. Those who fail to make the adjustment are doomed to irrelevance.

“Escaping the Price-Driven Sale reveals how sellers can become differentiators themselves by providing insight that customers cannot find elsewhere.”

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, August 23, 2015

Monday: Read  Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long , by David Rock, and learn how to maximize your mental performance.




Tuesday: There's a difference between "persistent" and "pesty." Learn how to be persistent without becoming a pest. 




Wednesday: Use visualization to overcome cold call reluctance.




Thursday: Discover seven tips on how to capture the attention and focus of an audience.




Friday: Learn why rapport-building is more effective than relationship-building.




Saturday: Read this article from the Inc blog and discover some actionable ways to keep stress and anxiety from pervading your life.

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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