There are countless reasons that a proposed energy project might not be approved. Rather than trying to predict which objections might surface during the approval process, ask your prospect to provide you with a sneak preview of what lies ahead: “What barriers have you faced in getting your projects approved in the past?”
Assuming your prospect has been with the company long enough to have witnessed a project or two pass through the approval process, they will likely possess some inside information that will help you preemptively neutralize objections. Perhaps they didn’t have enough staff to manage the last project. Perhaps they had a negative experience with an efficiency project. Perhaps they lacked reliable information on the specific efficiency measure being proposed. Perhaps they lacked funding for the engineering and/or the implementation. Whatever the reason may be, give yourself a leg up on the competition by discovering it ahead of time.
If your prospect doesn’t know what barriers prevented projects from being approved in the past, feel free to suggest some common ones to jumpstart the conversation. They may wind up revealing strengths and weaknesses of the organization that they otherwise would not have thought to mention.
