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Members of the 6Sacademy are proud to be Independent Consultants with the finest and most respected retail energy supplier in the country; Ambit Energy
Learning what NOT to do from the competition …
And why “A” stands for Ambit and Awesomeness!
December 13, 2013
If you’ve been building an Ambit business for more than 10 minutes, you’ve probably heard one important phrase more than once. But it’s more than a phrase ... it’s a commitment. It’s so important to the Ambit business model that it’s permanently affixed to the wall at the corporate office:
"Never sacrifice integrity for growth."
Unfortunately, not every company subscribes to that commitment. I want to share with you some marketing material from a competitor that I received in the mail yesterday that illustrates this point.
Perhaps you’ve received one of these letters yourself and I’d be willing to bet that your customers and potential customers have received them, too.
In fact, I spoke yesterday with a business partner who was asking a couple of neighbors to save money by becoming a customer. Their questions centered on comparing Ambit to this particular competitor because they had just received the same marketing letter.
It’s important that we know what the competition does so that we’re prepared to present Ambit’s strengths in the best way. Personally, I try never to speak poorly of the competition. When you're working from a position of strength as we are, partnered with the finest and most respected retail energy provider in the nation, we can focus on Ambit's strengths and let our prospects do their own simple comparison.
Okay, let's look at an example:
Click the PDF icon to the right (or HERE) to open the marketing letter and follow along.
The letter announces the offer to "Lock in our Low Rate into 2014*!" That asterisk, by the way, leads to a footnote that's full of great information such as, "Savings are not guaranteed ..."
The letter shows Central Hudson's rate as 7.81 cents per kWh.
Let's call that an "apple."
Then it shows our competitor's rate as 6.79 cents per kWh with some snazzy yellow highlighter just so you don't miss it.
The question is, what kind of fruit is that? Is it also an apple or is it, perhaps, a lemon? It is yellow, after all...
The average reader will naturally assume that this is a simple side-
The casual (and perhaps less-
Ah ... but then we get to the fine print and, as is often the case, the devil truly is in the details.
Now, to be fair, the letter does provide enough information for the reader to determine that what they are reading is an invalid comparison but that requires the reading of all of the fine print, the foot notes, asterisk and a little research.
The rate our competitor shows is their current four-
The reader is left to assume that the Central Hudson rate is likewise the current rate.
It's not.
It's a four month average, which I suppose is fine. But it is not for the preceding four months as you might expect. No, it's an average of the months of July, August, September and October ... when the rates were naturally higher during peak air conditioning season!
So, is this an apples-
Of course not.
Deceptive? I think you can be the judge of that.
Let's take a look at Central Hudson's actual rate for December HERE.
It's 5.877 cents per kWh.
What this means, of course, is that if the reader of this letter chooses to lock into this competitor's 4-
So, why would this company make the decision at the corporate level to put stuff like this out there?
Obviously, because it makes them look good when, in truth ... not so much.
Does this piece of marketing illustrate our competition's commitment to integrity?
It sure does. They don't have one.
At Ambition 2013, as he has in several opportunities in the past, Jere Thompson, Jr. has asked us to avoid the temptation to exaggerate Ambit's savings and benefits. And the truth is, we don't need to! The savings are real and the benefits are many. We don't need to do anything more than tell the truth.
Our outstanding corporate partner understands that the best way to protect our businesses and our customers is to choose the path of highest integrity.
Our competition, by contrast, has made a fundamental decision to play on ignorance and misrepresent the figures in their own marketing pieces in an attempt to gather customers.
And if that works, they'll send you a pre-
There is no question: We are partnered with the right people, at the right time, with the right opportunity.
Now, go make the most of it!
