Ethical methods can’t succeed without PoS

Regarding your article about selling renewables (MW June 29), we recently used our (locally well-known and respected) brand to promote solar thermal energy systems by way of a billing insert.

Regarding your article about selling renewables (MW June 29), we recently used our (locally well-known and respected) brand to promote solar thermal energy systems by way of a billing insert.

The response was within expectations, being better than 1% of total mailings. Each of these responses was then contacted by our partner, which was to survey and give a quote for installation. The cost of the system was low for the industry. And we used

engineers and technicians to do the customer facing survey and quotation, so there was no hard sell. It was a miserable failure with two sales.

I approached another installer of the same system about this failure. They were quoting success rates of better than 30% for qualified leads. The difference? Simple, they had a salesman and a &£2,000 hike in price to fund his commission.

As with any high-value mixed service or product, no matter how good the other parts of the marketing are, if the final point of sale is not effective, the rest is all for nothing.

Simon Mallett

The Duke of Wellington

Woodside Green

Kent