If you read my last two blog posts (see “Energy Efficiency Drivers, Part One” and “Energy Efficiency Drivers, Part Two”) you know that people are motivated by a wide range of efficiency drivers. The ones I discussed are only the tip of the iceberg, and as an efficiency sales professional, it’s your job to determine all the possible drivers for your product or service in your target market. One of the best ways to do this is to talk to your previous customers and find out what benefits they experienced in the wake of the project. You may discover that your customers are enjoying benefits they didn’t originally expect to enjoy, and you can leverage this information when convincing a new prospect to buy. If you’re going to take this route, you need to know which benefits can be quantified, and which benefits can be monetized.
A few years ago, I was privileged to be a speaker at a utility awards ceremony. The utility was recognizing folks who had received the largest rebates in the preceding year. In this case, the top award went to the president of a large gourmet vegetable farm. In his acceptance speech, the president graciously thanked the utility for giving his company $2.7 million in the preceding year to make his brand-new greenhouse more efficient from a natural gas perspective. He was quick to note that the biggest savings came not from the reduced gas bill, but rather from the increase in crop yield. It turns out that the demand control ventilation system they installed in the greenhouse to accomplish the gas savings actually allowed him to control the CO2 levels in the greenhouse more accurately. This resulted in a 15% higher yield of the vegetables that were being grown in that greenhouse.
As you might imagine, the 15% increase in crop production was incredibly valuable for his business (as it would be for any other similar business). If one of your existing customers tells you about a great side benefit like this one, you would be crazy not to make use of it. Quantify and monetize the benefit so that you can leverage it to not only capture the attention of similar prospects, but also improve the financials of similar projects before requesting capital.
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