The Five Ingredients to a Sale (Part 2)

by Shana Fong on June 21, 2011
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Source: ACCA Contractor Excellence

The first part of this article covered the first ingredient in detail, so this part will cover the remaining 4 – who you represent, your product, the price, and time.

Who You Represent
This ingredient is quite often missed, as we quite often assume (wrongly) that as we are talking to a particular customer, it must mean that the customer is happy with the company – why else would the customer be in contact with me?

In every business, there is competition, and with competition comes comparisons. Your customers will want to compare your company (who you represent) with other companies selling a like product or service. You need to be able to sell your company to your prospective client.

So how is this done?

Remember the main steps to a sale as outlined in the first part of this article? Which of these steps is the best one to highlight your company.

The answer is: Service!

The best way to incorporate this vital element is to flow directly from the trial close. For example, if you have just completed a world class feature/function/benefit presentation of your product, and asked a question like, “So, on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is that you want to go ahead with this now, where are you?

Your customer may answer, “Well, subject to the price being right, it could well be a 10.” So, now you can follow up with, “Before I get you some great numbers, allow me to share with you the most important reason so many people do business, and continue to do business with us here at World Class Business.

Then share your service program with them. Do this with a “Why Buy Here” book. This is normally a 3 ring binder with plastic sleeves, holding documentation about your services and business. It could contain copies of letters from satisfied customers – an “evidence manual” if you like. You could include photographs of the service team – make it personal. If any of you would like help in putting something like this together, please contact me. You could take it a step further by filming your team and your facility and either play it or e-mail it to your client.

In this industry, your clients know that it is not just a matter of if; it is a matter of when they will need to use your service operation. They need to know that they will be looked after when this happened and they also need to know who will be looking after them. This will make both parties feel good about who they are dealing with. And, this one step will set you apart from your competition, because your competition is not doing this – they are all about selling the product and not the business!

Product – As I said in part 1, this is probably the easiest of the 5 ingredients to master.

The reason I make that statement is that you will normally have your presentations well rehearsed in order to either satisfy a concern or create a need and want to purchase.

The main steps to a sale for this ingredient are the interview, selecting the product or service, and the feature/function/benefit presentation.

If the interview is done correctly, you will know what your customer is looking for, his or her rough budget, and their “hot buttons.” Hot buttons are benefits, and normally come in the form of safety, performance, appearance, comfort, economy, and durability.

Once you find out these hot buttons, you can now tailor your presentation to match what the customer wants.

Remember this – customers will normally buy what they want – this may not necessarily be what they need.

Our job as salespeople is to help customers to buy. That is different from selling. Let them know about your product or service, give them options and allow them to make an informed decision.

Price.

The steps to use to sell the price of the product are:

All of them!

Why? Because very rarely is a sale about price. It is all about value. If a customer does not see particular value in your product or service, then in order for you to still make a sale, you will need to cut your price.

Where will customers see value? They need to see it first and foremost in you, so make sure you follow the guidelines I went through in part one. You need to make sure you select the right product or service to present to the customer – something to fit his budget, and more importantly, something to fit his wants and needs – this is where the interview and product selection come into play.

The feature/function/benefit presentation is hugely important in building value – remember that customers buy benefits, not features, so make sure you don’t talk about a feature without talking about what that feature will do for your customer.

The evidence manual will build value, too – the more value you build, the less important the price becomes.

Once you have the value built to match the price – you have sold this vital ingredient.

Time.

Why is time an important ingredient?
You have to sell your customer that now is the best time to make this purchase. You do this by talking about any specials or sales you have going on at the moment. You need to create the sense of urgency – this could be done by explaining what could happen if your customer put off the purchase until a later time – how much could it potentially cost? Customers are more afraid losing something, so use this fact to create urgency.

To recap – you need to sell yourself, the business you represent, the product itself, the price of that product, and the fact that there will never be a better time than now to make this purchase.

If you miss the sale, look back to see which of these 5 ingredients is missing – it will be one or more of them.

Sales & Lead Generation: Webinar & Tips from Sales expert

by Shana Fong on June 14, 2011
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Join Efficiency First for their next webinar to learn how to improve your close rate, increase average project size, and more.

Sales & Lead Generation
June 16th, 2011 @ 12:30pm EST/9:30am PST
Is your conversion rate from audit to retrofit not as high as you want? Are you relying solely on a government funded program’s marketing campaign to get you through? Is your average job less than $8,000 per home? Then this is the Webinar for you. Learn from sales professionals about increasing your lead generation and improving your bottom line. Learn how to build relationships with lead generation sources including real estate professionals, single measure contractors, etc. Qualifies for 1.5 BPI CEUs.

EF Members: CLICK HERE TO LOG IN TO YOUR ACCOUNT & REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR.

Non-Members: CLICK HERE TO REGISTER & PAY A ONE TIME FEE FOR THE WEBINAR.

The Five Ingredients in a Sale

by Shana Fong on April 26, 2011
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Source: ACCA Contractor Excellence

Most salespeople have been trained on certain steps to a sale. It may have been a 10-step selling system, maybe a 12 or 13 step selling system – they are all pretty much the same, as selling really hasn’t changed since the beginning of time when Eve was sold on taking the apple from the serpent.

The main steps to a sale are as follows:

  • Meet and Greet
  • Interview – build rapport – investigate
  • Select a product or service
  • Present that product or service
  • Demonstrate that product or service
  • Trial Close
  • Service & Parts
  • Negotiations
  • Close

Let’s now discuss the ingredients.
There are five ingredients that every sale must have. In other words, you as a salesperson must sell these 5 things. They are:

You – you must be able to sell yourself first and foremost. Not many people will buy what you are selling if they don’t buy you first. Yet if you sell yourself, a lot of people will buy whatever you are selling!

Who You Represent – Why buy here? You must be able to sell your customer on buying from your place of business. There are other vendors out there selling similar products with similar prices, so why should they buy from the company you represent? A professional salesperson will honestly believe that they are representing the very best company in the field, and therefore believe in that company. Selling that company then becomes easy. If you don’t think you represent the best – change companies!

Product – You need to be able to sell the product – this is probably the easiest of the 5 ingredients – use the presentation step in the steps to a sale above to do this. As with your company – if you don’t believe you are selling the best product, do something about it.

Price – If you can’t sell your potential customer on the price of the product, go back to the product itself – have you done the best possible presentation of the product? Remember that customers buy benefits, not features. Build value in the presentation and demonstration stages to help sell the price.

Time – Customers need to hear that there will never be a better time to buy this product or service than right now – you need to sell them on this fact by creating urgency.

I am going to discuss each step in more detail – this article will cover the first one, and the others will be covered in more detail in a subsequent article.

Selling You
Your customers will judge you initially using 3 of their 5 senses. They will look at you, smell you, and listen to you.

So, how do you look? Did you shave today? Do you need a haircut? What do your clothes look like?

How did you look when you went on that very important date with someone you wanted to impress? What did you do to prepare for that date?

Here’s what I think – you went to extreme lengths getting ready, chose your clothes carefully, asked other people for their opinion, showered, shaved (guys as well!), clipped fingernails, ironed clothes (yes, that contraption that plugs into the wall and hisses), polished shoes, and put on some “smell nice.”

Why did you do that? Because you were trying to sell yourself – that’s why! You knew that the person you were hoping to impress was going to look at you and assess you. You knew they were going to smell you and assess you. You knew that they were going to listen to you and assess you. You also knew that in order for any relationship to develop, you needed to pass these tests, so you went all out to impress. Anything less just wouldn’t do.

Here’s what else I think – you don’t go to these lengths each and every day for potential customers. Why? Probably because you think you are a good enough salesperson that you can still win your customers over without having to go to so much trouble. You see we are a lazy bunch, us salespeople. We like to do as little as possible in order to gain as much as possible.

What would happen if we made the very best first impression every time, every day, without fail, no exceptions? Are you willing to even give it a try? What is the worst that can happen? Absolutely nothing different than now, right?

How else can you sell yourself? Use the steps to a sale above – the first couple of steps are crucial. You must conduct a professional meet and greet – introduce yourself, allow the client to establish eye contact with you – maintain a sincere smile – have a firm, professional handshake – control your voice.

Conduct a professional interview/fact finding/rapport building session. Allow the client to do most of the talking – the more they talk, the more they will like you. This is not a time to sell, it is a time to allow the customer to get to know and like you. This needs to be a conversation like you are talking to a friend – not an interrogation.

Work hard on selling yourself – all the ingredients are important – I happen to believe that this is the most important of the five, you sell yourself and the world is yours.

IAQ: Marketing Myth or Money Maker?

by Shana Fong on April 18, 2011
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Source: ACCA Contractor Excellence

Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way first: Do you agree that energy-efficient homes can seal in and recirculate the same germs, allergens, and chemicals?

Do you agree that this can also cause health issues for occupants within the home?

Did you know that during a recession people spend more time at home?

If you answered “yes” to all three questions, then I bet you will agree with this next one: When you look inside a customer’s air return and see what appears to be a weasel wearing a Snuggie, the homeowners:

(a) have not changed the filters since the Clinton administration; and/or
(b) have nostrils that look like tiny versions of the air return. But I’m not going there.

The point is, you know all this, but your customers don’t. Thus, the largest issues facing IAQ in HVAC are your credibility and their awareness. No one wakes up and says, “Man, what a beautiful day to have my ducts cleaned.” Unlike preventive maintenance (which people recognize as a plausible need), IAQ has both the specter of skepticism and the lack of evidentiary proof needed to go along with it.

You can say, “Your ducts need cleaning,” or “UV lights will protect your coils” all day and have a hard time convincing anyone who doesn’t have sinus problems, allergies, or other health issues that this is a valuable service. Silly them. And considering how HVAC sold IAQ initially, silly us.

Selling healthy air doesn’t require a degree in molecular science. Ever heard of asthma? About 23 million Americans wish they hadn’t. A full 6.8 million of those are children who have parents who are worried sick as well. They’d much prefer to avoid the 19 million doctor, hospital, and emergency room visits spent trying to avoid death by asphyxiation. Ask them if clean indoor air is about microbes and formaldehyde and the technicalities of UV treatment.

Nope, it’s about cleaner, healthier air. Period.

Now consider, asthma is just one of hundreds of problems linked to IAQ. As a heating and cooling professional, that makes you uniquely positioned to both build your business and provide a beneficial and potentially life-saving service.

So what are they buying? They’re buying problem avoidance. It is not a thing; it is a benefit that erases sizeable doubt, fear, and concern with a healthy alternative. Kind of like breathing clean air.

You’re poised to offer problem avoidance and even a cure for certain airborne menaces. Aside from the obvious health benefits, a shorter supply of recession-era leads points toward maximizing each one with higher transaction sizes. Further, with the maintenance of UV lights, super filtration, humidifiers, and other better air solutions, you can lock in more customers.

How to Offer IAQ Now
Bad economies don’t improve air quality or health concerns. Allergens and molds refuse to invest in 401(k)s. So, please, don’t let the economy’s condition or your frightened competition make you think these concerns are equated. Position IAQ not as equipment, but as a packaged path to better health. Sell it against missed work, doctor visits, pharmacies, medication, family wellness — not microns and density depletion.

On a service call, you can offer a point-of-purchase healthy air solution based on an IAQ survey. Many of our clients sell humidifiers, UV lights, and filtration with or without duct cleaning jobs, straight from this survey.

For more complex solutions, consider utilizing in-home IAQ monitors, which help replace the doubt factor with scientific data. The sales cycle is a bit longer, but they can make the sale for you while they collect the data. Offering a free IAQ test has opened thousands of doors for our clients, who merely park the monitor for the appreciative prospect, and return with a diagnosis and options.

Always remember that customers will get what they want, whether it’s from you or from your competition. I find it sad to go into so many homes that have $499 “room air purifiers,” while stacks of superior solutions lay at your distributor’s warehouse. Once again, technical supremacy, greater reliability, and more longevity will not sell — if poorly marketed.

Though the HVAC industry has had IAQ solutions for years, it took Sharper Image and Oreck to show us how to sell over a billion dollars of equipment all without a single service appointment. How? Fact-based fear, evidentiary proof, and piles of compelling testimonials positioned their “solution” as an easier and less expensive alternative to illness and poor health. Oreck’s infomercials are marketing seminars — take notes.

Finally, ask yourself, what are you selling and why. Are you selling hardware (technical) or software (benefits)? IAQ benefits are huge for homeowners and contractors. This is especially true while others pull back on marketing or lower prices just to get the sale (creating their own worsened economy). But when you offer upsells, you create differentiation, enhance margin, and increase average transaction, while winning a longer-term customer with a higher lifetime value. Upsells are smarter than ever.

IAQ is right for the times. Customers are more health conscious and want to preserve dollars wasted on unnecessary doctor visits, more medications, and unpaid sick days. You can offer a superior whole-house solution easily, silently, and out of sight. They’d rather pay you for this anyway; all you have to do is effectively market it. And isn’t that a breath of fresh air?

EGIA, BPI, and Efficiency First are proud to announce the Business Performance Makeover Contest!

by Shana Fong on April 6, 2011
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EGIA, BPI, and Efficiency First are inviting Home Improvement, Home Performance and Energy Efficiency Contractors from across the country to enter for a chance to win a yearlong “Business Makeover” bundle of prizes consisting of a wide range of business services worth up to $50,000 or more. The prize package may include:

  • Website design
  • Payroll and accounting services
  • Marketing and sales consulting
  • Manufacturer and distributor networking
  • Building science training
  • Software
  • Tools and equipment
  • Business development consultation
  • Energy efficient services and products

The winners will be announced on Earth Day 2011 (April 22). The actual prize packages will be determined based on an extensive evaluation of the contractors’ business and other criteria.

The Business Performance Makeover Contest will be conducted nationwide to find two contracting firm owners that want to dramatically grow their businesses in 2011. Owners of home improvement, home performance and home energy efficiency-related installation companies will enter to win online by answering questions about their current business and 2011 plans for growth. An advisory board comprised of industry professionals and contest sponsor organizations will assist EGIA, BPI, and Efficiency First staff to select the two contractors with the greatest potential to demonstrate business growth. The winners will be a traditional single-measure home energy efficiency contracting firm and one comprehensive home performance contracting firm.

Learn more and register at www.egia.org/contractorcontest2011

Join us at ACI!

by Shana Fong on March 11, 2011
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We’re less than three weeks away from ACI National Home Performance Conference, our industry’s biggest event. If you were at the conference last year in Austin and went to our opening night party (complete with Wild West entertainment), you already know just how fun this conference can be. Oh, and there will also be plenty of learning opportunities too.

Recurve is all over ACI again this year. Here are the sessions and other places you can catch us at. We would love to talk to you!

TUESDAY MARCH 29

Home Energy Summit

8:30am-10:00am
Engaging Markets and Private Capital To Achieve Our Long-Term Goals
Matt Golden, Recurve’s President and Founder, will be kicking off the second day of the Home Energy Summit, which includes heavy hitters such as Katherine Hogan of the DOE, Dian Gruenich formerly of the CPUC, and Commissioner Karen Douglas of the CEC.

2:45pm – 4:00pm
Breakout Session: Effects of Program Design on Delivery by Contractors
Adam Winter, SVP and cofounder of Recurve, will be co-leading a breakout session along with folks from WellHome, Distinct ENERGY Performance, and more.

– –

WEDNESDAY MARCH 30

1:30pm-3:00pm

Beyond Your Certification
Matt Golden will be helping session attendees plan a successful business strategy post-BPI certification. Joining him will be Tiger Adolf of BPI, Courtney Moriarta of WellHome, and Sam Flanery of Michigan Energy Savings.

3:30pm – 5:00pm

Optimization of Performance Financing Through Innovation
Another appearance by Matt Golden, this time alongside Sammy Chu of Long Island Green Homes and Dan Kartzman of Powersmith, to speak about LIGH program’s integration with Recurve Software and Powersmith home energy upgrades as an example of program design success.

– –

THURSDAY MARCH 31

10:30am – 12:00pm

Energy Upgrade CA: Game Plan for Market Transformation
Another breakout that Matt Golden is participating in, this time teaching attendees about how the Energy Upgrade California program is leveraging federal stimulus dollars to grow the building performance industry and create jobs, while addressing the typical challenges that programs face. He’ll be joined by Leif Magnuson of the EPA and several others directly involved in the program.

1:30pm – 3:00pm – in the foyer of the exhibit hall
Join Chris McClellan, Sales Manager at Recurve, for an in-depth demo of Recurve Software. He’ll show you how Recurve Software helps you do more energy audits every week, generate accurate savings predictions, and present polished reports and proposals on-site. At the end of the demo, he’ll also be giving away a tablet to one lucky winner! So be sure to visit us on the tradeshow floor at booth 601 to sign up for a free trial of Recurve Software and enter the contest.

3:30pm – 5:00pm (a very busy timeslot for us!)

National Policy Update
Yet another session with – you guessed it – Matt Golden! Get an update on current national and state trends in public policy, including HOME STAR, utility data access, ARRA funded programs and California state financing recommendations for programs in wake of PACE. The session will also cover how contractors can get involved in upcoming program opportunities. Other presenters include Stephen Cowell of CSG,, Rick Gerardi of WellHome, and Kara Saul-Rinaldi of the National Home Performance Council.

A Hard Look at Software: The End Users’ Perspective (Panel)
Chris McClellan will be discussing how software can help you streamline your business operations while increasing sales and improving quality of service through real-life examples of how users have successfully integrated various software solutions into their day-to-day operations. Chris will be joined by Skye Dunning of Building Performance Specialists and Elise Brown of Evergreen Home Performance.

Selling Home Performance: Where Mastic Meets the Sheet Metal
Jason Bowers, Recurve Local Operations General Manager, will be teaching contractors how to increase close rates and sell larger work scopes, along with Casey Murphy of ICF International and Eric Howarth of EGIA.

– –

Don’t forget to come visit us for a software demo, to enter our contest (we’re giving away THREE tablets!) or just to say hello on Wednesday & Thursday during the tradeshow hours. We’ll be holding down Booth 601.

How software can help contractors doing energy efficiency, HVAC, and more

by Shana Fong on March 2, 2011
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As featured in Green Building Journal, Matt Golden, President and Founder of Recurve Inc., discusses the role that software plays in the contracting profession, and how professionals today need targeted applications. Software solutions lead to a variety of benefits including reduced audit times, reduced costs for customers, and an increase in accessibility among professionals.

The key to home performance he says is a holistic approach to the problem. Software applications today need to be flexible enough to appeal to all types of business, ranging from the small-scale insulation jobs to high-end retrofits. In the end he is optimistic about the direction the trades are heading, and offers up advice to professionals looking to take the plunge into software.

The Most Powerful Contractor Marketing Weapon

by Shana Fong on January 21, 2011
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(Hint: You Already Own It)

Source: ACCA

An old saying states that people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Don’t let your familiarity with the saying make you numb to its far-reaching business power.

Like many of you, we’ve been involved in numerous contracting projects over the years. We’ve built a home, renovated six buildings, and hired for all sorts of projects from retiling to roofs to remodeling a kitchen. We’ve had some go wrong, such as the sheetrock job that looked like a drunken rhinoceros careened off every wall. We also had a tile setter mix boxes of tile mid-job, creating a really nice two-tone effect that he defended as stylish. Thankfully, these miscues are in the minority.

The majority of the contractors have been exceptional. Yet there’s one trait among even the good ones that causes their rehire rate to be barely higher than that of the rotten ones. This mistake totally short circuits future calls and referrals, and it’s costing you a fortune, even though the power to correct it exists in your company, right now, today.

The mistake is ignoring the relationship.

See, a bad contractor (whether he knows he’s bad or not) doesn’t get a callback or referrals due to poor work. And a good contractor most often doesn’t get a callback or referrals because of inattention to his customers. Same result, for entirely different reasons.

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind
Think of your past friends and relationships. The most common reason they’re in the past and not the present is you fell out of touch. You might have even been a good friend with much in common, yet if not in touch, you’re not on the friend list. There are even figures to back this up. According to a Good Housekeeping survey of those who purchased from contractors:

  • Thirty-seven percent said the relationship was the most important reason.
  • Twenty-two percent said it was because you stayed in touch after a previous purchase.
  • Fourteen percent were referred by a friend or family member.

Add those up, and 73 percent of your sales have some relationship tie-in.

Unfortunately, most contractors just service them, bill them, and hope for the best.

So, how do you rank in terms of customer relations and retention?

With minimum retention efforts, you get a call, and it’s answered by the nearest minimally trained receptionist. You schedule, show up, do the work, present the invoice, then go home. No follow-up is attempted. You assume, “If they need me, they know how to reach me.” Unless you live in a town with exactly one contractor, good luck.

With average retention efforts, your call handling quality is dependent upon who answers. You deliver what you consider fair — no more, no less. Techs are intermittently trained. Some customers get an agreement offer, some don’t. Your CSR may make a call-behind or send a thank you note, but this is not systemized. Newsletters and follow-up range from spotty to nonexistent. You dabble with improvement but with little lasting change. Customers feel the inconsistency and migrate away. Repeat calls and referrals suffer miserably.

With maximum retention efforts, you categorize poorly trained employees as unethical business. You answer the phones consistently and make consistent high-quality presentations. Follow-up is automatic, starting with happy calls and a thank you card that contains a referral request. Seasonal newsletters go out like clockwork. Your website, value-building ads, forms, and leave-behinds are not purely sales pieces (though they boost prices and closing ratios) but educational customer-awareness tools. Customers get outbound messages from you — online and offline — eight to 14 times per year.

If you’re in the maximum category, congratulations. You also probably dominate your market and not by coincidence. Yet for the others, don’t make this too hard. Start simply with two things:

  1. The thank you note and call. Even the most basic thank you note (automatically generated and about 45 cents worth of effort) tells customers they’re valuable. It’s so easy to do and so easy not to do. Most choose the latter.
  2. A newsletter. Since thank you notes are transaction based (and thus sporadic or potentially forgotten between visits), you must have at least one calendar-based item. A quality newsletter sent out two to four times a year will position your company branding as different from perhaps 90 percent of the other contractors in town. That’s an incredible advantage for not much money.

Start where you can. Your customers, company, and profits deserve the boost.

Turn More Audits into Sales: The Basics of Selling Home Performance

by Trey Muffet on July 9, 2010
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At Recurve, we’ve found that every technician who performs home energy audits is also a sales person. And the first rule of sales is, “When you’re talking, you’re not selling.” In other words, if you’re not a good listener, you won’t truly understand your customer’s needs and concerns.

When I first started at Recurve, I was so excited about building science that I couldn’t contain my enthusiasm. I found myself talking nonstop to customers about some pretty technical stuff—like the complex physics behind duct leakage, or the finer points of buoyancy forces and the stack effect. But over time, I realized that all of my lecturing about building science wasn’t motivating many customers to buy. It became clear to me that most customers buy retrofits to address specific problems they are experiencing with the comfort, energy efficiency or indoor air quality of their homes—not because they’re worried about pressure differentials in their heating ducts.

To accelerate sales, you need to do what I did: Stop talking at your customers and start asking more questions. And bear in mind that not all kinds of questions are equally effective. Asking open-ended questions (questions that can’t be answered with a simple “yes” or “no”) is the best way to gain trust.

Here’s an example of the kind of closed question we avoid asking our customers:

Q: Is your home uncomfortable in the winter? A: Yes

An open question goes more like this:

Q: How would you describe your comfort level during the winter? A: It’s terrible! We’re all bundled up half the time, and the house is very drafty, but we don’t like to run the heater too much because the heat doesn’t seem to stay inside anyway.

Notice that with the open-ended approach, you’ll end up gathering a great deal of information that can be used later to support your recommendations to the homeowner. “We’re going to seal up and insulate your attic. What that’s going to do is cut down on the drafts you told me you feel in the winter, and help your home hold the heat longer. You’ll be more comfortable, and you’ll save on your heating bills.”

The more you can get your customers to open up, the more you’ll learn about their real motivations. We’ve found that the majority of homeowners will tell us at the beginning of the process that they want to achieve X, and end up making a decision to buy because of Y and Z. The key to getting to these “real” motivating factors is to ask open-ended questions that will reveal more about what the customer is experiencing. We have found that linking one open-ended question to next in a natural, conversational tone builds trust—and trust leads to good relationships.

Are you listening yet?