Mark Jewell's Blog: Selling Energy, page 305

Weekly Recap, February 8, 2015

Monday: Read Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization, by Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solom, and learn how to develop a customer service plan that will result in a high level of customer satisfaction.




Tuesday: Learn why it's important to follow up immediately when someone gives you a referral.




Wednesday: Use visual words to make your elevator pitch more memorable.




Thursday: Think about who you want to target at a networking event and research their industry ahead of time.




Friday: Learn how to stand out from the crowd at a networking event.




Saturday: Read this article from the Entrepreneur blog and discover ten "mindsets" that can have a great impact on a person's ability to reach his or her potential. 

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Frame of Mind

There is a strong correlation between mindset and success. While we may not have a whole lot of control over our innate abilities, we do have control over our frame of mind. If your innate abilities alone are not allowing you to achieve the success that you desire, it might be time to consider how your mindset affects your performance.

An article published last week on the Entrepreneur blog suggests ten “mindsets” that can have a great impact on a person’s ability to reach his or her potential. Some of my favorites from this list include “choosing courage over fear,” “adopting self-chosen goals,” and “accepting challenges.” Take a moment this weekend to read all ten suggestions – each one is worth thinking about!

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/242261

 

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Stand Out from the Crowd

Yesterday, we talked about how to target the right people at a networking event. Today, we’re going to discuss a strategy that will help other people find you at a networking event.

Suppose you’re at a large networking event and you meet someone who works in an industry that you’re not targeting (we’ll call this person Jack). You decide that it’s not worth it to spend a lot of time talking with Jack, so you suggest that he talk to Allison (whom you met earlier at the event). Allison works in the same industry as Jack, and you think that it might be beneficial for the two of them to meet. So what do you do? You probably start scanning the room, trying to find Allison so that you can point Jack in her direction. The problem is, this particular event is so large that you can’t find Allison.

What if Allison were wearing something that made her stand out from the crowd (let’s say it’s a yellow hat)? Even if you couldn’t find her, you could tell Jack to walk around the room and look for the lady wearing the yellow hat.

Now, what’s the point of this hypothetical story? When you’re networking, wear something that distinguishes you from the crowd. Not only does this make it easy for someone you met to send another person your way; it also makes you more memorable (and the benefits of being memorable are numerous).

One word of caution: Don’t wear something so unique that you look out of place. If you’re trying to sell heavy equipment, people have a predetermined notion of what a person who sells heavy equipment should look like. If you walk in with board shorts, bare feet, poorly manicured nails and Birkenstocks and you’re trying to sell someone a reengineered chiller, you may be easy to remember and easy to spot; however, you’ve got a big credibility gap to overcome. 
 

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Targeted Networking

One of the keys to successful networking is knowing exactly who you want to target ahead of time. You have to visualize your dream prospect. Are you looking for vendors to partner with? Are you looking for building owners? Property managers? If you’re going to a building owner’s networking event, think about what subset of building owners you want to meet. For example, are you looking for owners of large buildings or small buildings? Are you targeting owners who have properties nationally or just locally? These are the types of questions you should answer before you step into the room, and the answers will help focus your time at the networking event.

Once you know who you want to target, immerse yourself in the current events happening in their industry. This will give you something to talk about when you approach your targeted prospects. If there’s a big regulatory imperative affecting their industry, for example, that’s a nice thing to open a conversation with.

So how do you know what’s going on in your prospects’ industries? Research! Subscribe to their trade journals. Read their blogs and forums. Read the analyst reports from Wall Street. If you do a simple Google search, you’re bound to find a variety of reports from private and public sector sources. All of this information is very valuable to have, and it will help you maximize your networking time.
 

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 Jewell Insights, Mark Jewell's daily blog on ideas and inspiration for advancing efficiency. Sign up at SellingEnergy.com.”

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Visual Words

To continue last week’s discussion of effective elevator pitches, today we’re going to talk about visual words and how they can be used to make your pitch more memorable. What’s a “visual word”? It’s any word that conjures up an image in a person’s mind when they hear it.

People often ask us why we call our Efficiency Sales Professional Certificate™ graduates “ninjas.” We chose that word because it’s visual. When you hear the word, you see a stealthy, agile, alert, and centered individual. People know what a ninja looks like, and it doesn’t have a negative connotation (at least for most people). I’ve been asked, “Why don’t you call an ESP graduate a ‘guru’? Isn’t that a more fitting description for an expert?” 

The last time I saw a picture of a “guru,” it was a dude wearing a loincloth sitting silently under a banyan tree with his eyes closed, presumably deep in thought. Not exactly the best image for a sales professional.

When you’re working on your elevator pitches, come up with some visual words that are relevant and appropriate. It will make your pitch more memorable (and as a result, it will make you more memorable, too!).

 

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 Jewell Insights, Mark Jewell's daily blog on ideas and inspiration for advancing efficiency. Sign up at SellingEnergy.com.”

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Referral Follow-Up

When someone gives you a referral, it’s important that you follow up immediately – not only to thank them, but also to find out why they gave you a referral. You might think that it sounds self-deprecating or overly modest to ask “Why?” Actually, it’s not. You want to know which aspects of your sales delivery mechanism impressed that person enough to refer you.

Your client may say, “Oh, you were Johnny on the spot. You got to my request quickly, and I actually have a friend who could really benefit from your service right away. You've got to call him today.” Or, they may say, “What I really liked about your approach is that you were really patient with me. Even though it took us six months to decide, you were there every step of the way.” Or, “You were the only company that had both this and that.”

So now you know going into it how you’ve been praised by the referrer and you can highlight those attributes when you actually get in touch with the person to whom you were referred. It tells you what they most value about your business at that point in time. It is invaluable information to have in hand before calling the referral, so don’t be afraid to ask (right after you say “Thank you!”).

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 Jewell Insights, Mark Jewell's daily blog on ideas and inspiration for advancing efficiency. Sign up at SellingEnergy.com.”

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Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit

Throughout my career, I’ve discovered firsthand how valuable it is to provide top-notch customer service. Like anything else, quality customer service is an investment – it takes resources, time, and money; however, the end result is a happy customer (and as we all know, happy customer = repeat business + referrals). Additionally, your customers are less likely to seek out one of your competitors for their next project.

So how do you develop a customer service plan that will result in a high level of customer satisfaction? In Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization, Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solom provide a wealth of actionable strategies for building a customer service-focused business. If you’re interested in learning more about how to provide stellar customer service, I highly recommend picking up a copy of this book.

Here’s a summary from Amazon Books:

“In a tight market, your most powerful growth engine and your best protection from competitive inroads is this: put every thing you can into cultivating true customer loyalty. Loyal customers are less sensitive to price competition, more forgiving of small glitches, and, ultimately, become ‘walking billboards’ who will happily promote your brand. In Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit insiders Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon reveal the secrets of providing online and offline customer service so superior it nearly guarantees loyalty. Their anticipatory customer service approach was first developed at The Ritz-Carlton as well as at Solomon’s entertainment and technology company Oasis, and has since proven itself in countless companies around the globe from luxury giant BVLGARI to value-sensitive auto parts leader Carquest, and everywhere in between.

“Now, readers can take the techniques that minted money for these brands and apply them directly to their own businesses. As Ken Blanchard writes, ‘Leonardo and Micah's philosophies, rules, and winning examples of service excellence will make you want to implement their suggestions immediately in your own organization.’ Filled with detailed, behind-the-scenes examples, the book unlocks a new level of customer relationship that leaves your competitors in the dust, your customers coming back day after day, and your bottom line looking better than it ever has before.”

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 Jewell Insights, Mark Jewell's daily blog on ideas and inspiration for advancing efficiency. Sign up at SellingEnergy.com.”

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Weekly Recap, February 1, 2015

Monday: Read Unleashing the Ideavirus: Stop marketing AT people! Turn your ideas into epidemics by helping your customers do the marketing thing for you, by Seth Godin, and learn how to create ideas that your customers will want to share with others.




Tuesday: Discover your true competitive advantage by analyzing your competition. 




Wednesday: Learn why it's important to get out of your comfort zone and talk to strangers.




Thursday: Avoid using "fluff" words in your elevator pitch to maximize its effectiveness.




Friday: Learn how to pique your prospect's curiosity with your elevator pitch.




Saturday: Read this article from the Forbes blog and discover 13 techniques that you can use to ensure that your prospects perceive you as a likeable person.

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 Jewell Insights, Mark Jewell's daily blog on ideas and inspiration for advancing efficiency. Sign up at SellingEnergy.com.”

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Likeable Habits

Successful efficiency sales professionals are likeable people. Why? Because you can’t build good rapport with a prospect if he or she doesn’t like you as a person, and having good rapport is crucial for success in sales. While being likeable may seem like an innate personality trait that cannot be taught, it’s actually very easy to develop habits that will ensure your prospects perceive you as such.

An article published on the Forbes blog this week suggests 13 techniques that you can use to ensure that your prospects perceive you as a likeable person. I want to point out that even the nicest, most genuine people may not be perceived as “likeable.” It all comes down to how you are viewed in the eyes of an outsider. I recommend reading this article and thinking about the various strategies the author recommends. It can never hurt to be more likeable than you already are, so consider giving some of these ideas a run for their money!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2015/01/27/13-habits-of-exceptionally-likeable-people/

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Pique Their Curiosity

Yesterday, we talked about why you should rid your elevator pitch of “fluff” words. Today, I’d like to share a strategy for improving the effectiveness of your elevator pitch by piquing your prospect’s curiosity. If you can come up with a really compelling statistic that is easy to understand and that makes your prospect eager for more information, you’ll be on the right track to a great pitch.

Last year I heard about a solar hot water system that could provide up to 1,000 gallons of hot water to a small dairy farm. It paid for itself in about 18 months (assuming California propane costs at the time) and was projected to last for 20 years.

So if someone asks you what you do for a living, your pitch could be something like: “I specialize in giving small dairy farmers free hot water for 18 and a half years.” Is anybody going to walk away from that? No, because you piqued their interest with a compelling statistic. (Note that the words “free” and “half” are very effective at capturing attention.) 

At this point, they’re probably going to say, “What do you mean? How do you do that?” You can respond, “We have this solar hot water system that pays for itself in 18 months and lasts for 20 years; hence the typical farmer can get 1,000 gallons of hot water for free for 18 and a half years.” Bam. Two quick sentences.  One to capture attention and a second one to explain the value proposition in more detail.  If the person you’re talking to is at all interested in solar hot water, he or she will likely elect to continue the conversation to learn more.

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 Jewell Insights, Mark Jewell's daily blog on ideas and inspiration for advancing efficiency. Sign up at SellingEnergy.com.”

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