Energy Management company - How to get it off the ground?

Mr Benevolent

My brother has a degree in Energy Management and has just set up an energy management company in the last few weeks. Basically he goes into companies and shows them how to reduce their energy bills by more efficient lighting, heating, energy tariffs etc. That's the theory anyway. He started off a month ago knocking into houses but hasn't had any takers , for obvious reasons. However, he has done one or two restaurants, saving them a projected 7500 over three years.

There's a problem though - getting sufficient business to enable the company to break even (or make a profit) in the next two months. That's where I come in. I've been drafted in to to do phone sales/appointment setting. I do have some sales and plenty of call center experience.

What I'd like to know is which approach to use to get the business? I'm aware of the ground rule - ask for the sale. Also, can anyone suggest any other ways of drumming up business for the company? Finally, has anyone a rough ballpark on what to charge? My brother is talking about charging e250 for the complete visit, report and 6 month revisit - this seems rather low to me.

I've run on a little long, but thanks for your help in advance.

nellyshark

Some off the top of my head (prob being done already).
Business card with contact and website details.
Inserts in the local paper and/or local advertiser.
Prob the best way is for existing businesses to refer him to others, maybe some discount or promotion.
Contact a shed load of electricians too to notify them of the service to hopefully relay to customers.
Depending on the market he is targeting, either go to trade shows or get a pitch at a local farmers market with tonnes of flyers and cards and showcase to generate leads.


Re pricing I don't know

Mr Benevolent

nellyshark wrote: »

Some off the top of my head (prob being done already).
Business card with contact and website details. Done
Inserts in the local paper and/or local advertiser. Done
Prob the best way is for existing businesses to refer him to others, maybe some discount or promotion. Done
Contact a shed load of electricians too to notify them of the service to hopefully relay to customers.
Depending on the market he is targeting, either go to trade shows or get a pitch at a local farmers market with tonnes of flyers and cards and showcase to generate leads.


Re pricing I don't know

Good idea re: electricians, I'll get him to chase that up.

scull2009

e250 seems alot for the savings of 7500.
Things like this can be found online.
Surely he could charge e100 for the 2 visits.

There is a thing which is done in the North of Ireland and I think the South called an EPC Energy Performance Certificate - I am sure you know about this already. They are charged at about £40 usually.

The outcome of the EPC is that the surveyor gives you a rating for your house and also tells of improvements you can make to the property to make it reach a better rating.

nellyshark

Confab wrote: »

Good idea re: electricians, I'll get him to chase that up.

Maybe affiliate with some BER technicians too

tombom112

You could try direct mail, not a spray and pray job, but go to golden pages and get businesses that you think would benefit.Then get some postcards 4x6 and say something like " hey "biz owner" we save joe blow 7000e a year what can we save you, for free consult blaa blaa" or something a bit better than that. this way anyone interested will call you. usaully a mail like that would convert at between 1% to 5%, depends on how you target them.
As far as how much to charge, i dont know but you test by raising the price each time till you find the right price.

TheWaterboy

Testimonials are one of the biggest things I think...If he can show on his website that Joes Restaurant down the road saves 7500 euro per year becasue of the direct advice your company gave then that is a big advantage.

Personally I wouldnt think 250 euro is overly expensive - but he needs to be able to justify to the client what they are getting for this 250 euro.

Has he a website - put up a link so we can have a look

tomED

I think it's a great idea and wish you the best of luck with it. The major problem I see is selling it to the potential client.

From a business owners perspective, they want to see that you are legit and you can in fact save them money. So as others have said testimonials will be a great asset.

Others have complained about the cost - I actually think €250 is to low. Two visits (depending on where the client is based) will easily take 1-2 hours and then you draft up a report too, which I assume will take another hour. All this without taking into account the expenses costs, petrol, paper etc etc. AND you are going to save them thousands per annum??? €250 a year is way too cheap.

But as I said the hurdle will be convincing them that you can save them money. Why not offer a €50 (or free) report on their existing usage and give them an estimate cost savings, then take 10% of what you have saved them? In the examples you give, that would be €750 - I'm sure both you and the client would be happy with that.

PaulPinnacle

tomED wrote: »

Others have complained about the cost - I actually think €250 is to low.

That was my initial thought too. It might be a good entry price to build up the client list (and gain the testimonials), but I can't see it being sustainable in the long run.

tomED wrote: »

Why not offer a €50 (or free) report on their existing usage and give them an estimate cost savings, then take 10% of what you have saved them?

While I agree this is great in theory, it might be a little more troublesome in practise.

As energy costs are dynamic and will change naturally (depending on usage/demand/equipment/etc.), I can see 'some clients' (you'd hope to avoid them, but they pop up from time to time) who refuse to acknowledge any saving from the work done "No, but our energy bill is the same" (even though their usage has gone up 30% from the previous year) or else "but the reduction was due to new equipment I purchased, not the changes you made" (even though it would be a combination of the two).

It wouldn't be too difficult to prove either/both wrong, but if he gets to the point where he's spending significant time 'proving savings for clients' or in legal disputes over payments.... it would be far from ideal.

I'm not saying it wouldn't work, but just something that needs to be looked at with care.

In terms of getting it 'out there', he really wants to hit the large energy consumers. A check on the EPA website will give a list of all the IPPC licensed facilities in the local area. These (in general) would be relatively large consumers of energy and would benefit from an audit like this. Businesses always love having some good PR in terms of 'going green', so when it comes with financial savings too... he's on the right track.

tomED

PaulPinnacle wrote: »

While I agree this is great in theory, it might be a little more troublesome in practise.

Well I look at that very simply, don't do business with that sort of client. In this sort of consultancy service, the client needs to trust and have mutual respect for you. If you aren't getting that, the don't do business with that company.

That's why I would have an initial, "let me prove myself" model, to try and build trust.

I don't know this business, and what you say makes sense, prices will obviously fluctuate over time. So in that scenario, wouldn't it be best to charge a % of the annual saving and review it every year to see if additional savings can be made. If during that year a supplier increases their prices, I would assume it is up to confab's company to inform their clients of this and suggest an alternative provider or whatever the case may be.

Whatever confab decides to do - if someone could prove to me that they could save my business €500 a month, I'd gladly give them €600 for their help!

Mr Benevolent

TheWaterboy wrote: »

Has he a website - put up a link so we can have a look

Link

The website is only up a few weeks but is geared towards the original idea - domestic energy management, which it turns out is not very popular in a recession. I'll have a chat with my brother and get it changed to a more corporate look.

Thanks for all the great ideas so far.

infamous

250 is too low, id approach it as a percentage of any savings you make the company 10% perhaps, i know with the likes of rates advisors they take up to 25% of savings.

PaulPinnacle

tomED wrote: »

That's why I would have an initial, "let me prove myself" model, to try and build trust.

Looking at it as a potential customer, I love the idea. It gives an instant "this guy obviously has confidence he can get me good savings", so a major selling point. Just one to look at with care on how it's used.

I'd assume (it might be worth carrying out some market research on it, even if it's a limited sample size, to back up the assumption) that he'd have more success on the corporate end than the domestic one. The costs/savings are at a far higher level so his cost provides a much higher 'value for money' proposition.

Topper1

Hey Confabs brother here.

Just wanted to thank you's for the reply's. Id appreciate any other suggestions.

Topper1

nellyshark

Is there any info about potential savings on the site?

PaulPinnacle

nellyshark wrote: »

Is there any info about potential savings on the site?

+1. Big time.

Some of the comments below might seem 'negative', but I hope it's taken as constructive criticism and not as an attack. Hopefully some of it is helpful.

The site gives a 'brief' (really needs to be expanded upon) overview of the 'facts', but very little in terms of the 'benefits'. You need to write the website copy from your customers point of view, not telling them 'what you do' (at least, not 'just' telling them that) but focus on 'how what you do will help them'.

DCI Energy provide a survey and report, both of which are included in the price.

This should really be more along the lines of "DCI Energy will carry out a detailed survey of your home, produce a report specifically for you and provide detailed guidance on how you can reduce your energy consumption and your costs!" for your clients to understand exactly what they're getting. It's basically saying the exact same thing, but the language used has a major impact on how it will perform (the same general comment applies to 90% of the information on the site, not just that one line).

I'd also suggest that the information in general is just too short/brief. There is nothing on the site to suggest that you really know what you're talking about (I'm not for a second suggesting you don't, but there's no information up there to show it/prove it at the moment). On a website, it's all about the content.

I'd personally suggest looking at rewording most/all of the site. Things like the 'general tips' are just too generic at the moment. Add in additional information more specific to the Irish market (e.g. forthcoming carbon taxes, etc. [you'd know the information relevant here far better than I would]), showing that you're 'up to date' and have expertise in the sector. (Even better if you could include a blog to keep the information bang up to date and comment on relevant news articles etc, but that will depend on if you have the time to do it right. You want to catch what users are searching for. A recent blog post for "poolbeg incinerator" for example, detailing energy related comments to incineration, could have provided a lot of traffic)


A few other slightly more technical points:
(this is from a super quick glance, so don't consider it as a comprehensive [lots of stuff I won't have spotted] review. But a few things to add to the list to consider.)

Landline number(s): Seeing just mobiles is a major turn off. You can pick up a 'VOIP in' number relatively cheaply these days (and divert to mobile) if you don't have one to use at the moment.

Address: You give it clearly on the 'contact us' page, but I'd suggest adding it to the footer on all pages (even if it's in a non striking font/colour). Having the information front and centre helps build trust. If users have to go searching for it, an extra opportunity for them to decide to just not bother.

Privacy: I'm never a fan of filling in a 'contact us' form if there isn't a 'privacy statement' available to view. Most users won't actually read it, but having it there may give them more confidence in the site.

Title tags: One of the easiest ways to improve your search engine optimisation, but currently underused. On your home page, your title is "DCI Energy Homepage". If someone is searching for "DCI energy", you should have this naturally on your site more than enough for you to appear well on the results (with some site updates and general SEO work). Put in keywords that you hope to rank for such as "Energy Management | Reduce Energy Bills | DCI Energy" (I'm not sure what terms he is hoping to rank for, so that's just a sample, more work needed to come up with the real terms).

Header tags: On the home page, you have the main header tagged as a h3. This makes little sense to be honest. If it's done to provide the formatting of the text in a certain way, much better to tag it as a h1 (which it is) and then use the CSS to get it to appear as you wish. Again, header tags provide SEO benefits so be sure to use them (properly). There are lots of pages with no header tags at all, which isn't a good idea (or at least failing to make the most of the options available to you).

Alt tags: None of the images currently have 'alt' tags (alternative text used if, for any reason, an image doesn't/won't show [e.g. browser has images turned off]). This has issues both in terms of accessibility and in terms of SEO. As a default, always apply alt tags to images you use.

URLs: A good few of the URLs appear to have used a type of 'shorthand' used to make them shorter. If a URL has keywords contained, this provides SEO benefits for those keywords. Using "/etips-g.html" rather than "/energy-tips-general.html" hurts your chances of showing up for the search term "energy tips". (Going back to the 'title'... using "Energy Tips | General" rather than "General Tips" would again help)

I'm sure there are a million other things that would help improve performance (as there are on 99.9% of sites), but if you tackle some/all of the above it'd give you a good start.

Focus on the customer. What do they need to know for them to understand why/how you can help them. Then give them that information (and in an SEO friendly way so that they can actually find it).

Mr Benevolent

Thanks very much, that's a huge help.

Topper1

Thanks again Paul.