Today, we’ll continue with two more examples that address the following questions (again, through the lens of an HVAC sales professional selling “smart valves”), which would allow you to stack the deck in your favor and get the wheels spinning in your mind:
- Why should a particular prospect or group of prospects be interested in what I have to say?
- How might I reframe the value so that it resonates specifically at their frequency?
- Where might I reach my prospects once I determine that that's the message I want to deliver?
Premier Owners (End-Users)
Why?
- Premier owners are opinion leaders. Getting them on your side is a very good strategy, especially in commercial real estate where most people are sheep (and I say that affectionately because I used to work in commercial real estate).
- Premier owners typically have engineering prowess and they are the people who most appreciate technology like smart valves.
- You get the benefit of scalability. Once you get a premier owner with a large portfolio to prove the effectiveness of your product at his own site, you've now got a lot of other buildings that they could extend that success into.
How?
- Look for the intersection of engineering expertise and green press releases. Assume that you have a premier owner who has been in the press a lot for sustainability. They're happy to be featured for laudatory efforts in sustainability, and this would be a great case to bring to their table.
- Look for premier owners who are frequently featured on green conference panels. The most vocal premier owners are the ones that you want to associate with, because if the technology doesn't work, they'll tell you; and if it does work, they'll be your canary. They’ll get the satisfaction of sharing a success story with their peers, and you’ll get the benefit of increased exposure.
Where?
- Hines has a wonderful reputation for being a premier owner when it comes to mechanical engineering. In fact, Jerry Hines, their founder was a mechanical engineer before he started this global multibillion-dollar real estate operation.
- Liberty Property Trust has had noteworthy accomplishments building LEED®certified, award-winning buildings, and they have a pronounced penchant for all things green, sustainable, and energy-efficient.
- S. Green Building Councilis a good watering hole for people interested in using cutting-edge technology to make the built environment better.
Capacity-Constrained Systems
Why?
- Smart valves might obviate the need for new equipment.
- Budget-minded prospects might appreciate the benefits of smart valves as an affordable alternative to higher-priced, harder-to-maintain efficiency solutions.
How?
- You could focus on the fact that smart valves might help compensate for the reduced capacity of aging coils.
- You might also focus on the reduction in cooling capacity in the wake of required refrigerant change-outs.
- If your prospect is predicting an increase in cooling/heating loads, you could emphasize the fact that they would likely have more cooling capacity in the wake of installing smart valves.
Where?
- Network with mechanical service contractors and data center designers – especially ones that are brought in to expand existing data centers.
- Write and present a paper virtually about how to solve the problem of satisfying a need for increased capacity without having to add a new chiller and other costly physical plant items. That gets the word out there that this is not your first rodeo and that you have a better solution to a problem that the industry often faces.
