Take the Guesswork out of Selling Energy—A Clear Path to Recurring Revenue for Technology Advisors

Energy is one of the most essential, and most overlooked, revenue opportunities sitting right inside your existing book of business. As a technology advisor, you already have trusted relationships with decision-makers who pay energy bills every single month. Unlike the complex, multi-month sales cycles you're used to in technology, energy is fast, transactional, and surprisingly lucrative. If you've been looking for a new income stream that leverages the customer relationships you've already built, without learning an entirely new industry, selling energy might be your best-kept secret.

To successfully sell energy, you don't need a background in energy. You just need the customer relationships you've already built.

Here’s everything you need to know to get started.

TL;DR

Selling energy gives technology advisors a simple way to create fast, recurring revenue from existing customer relationships, while helping businesses lower one of their biggest ongoing costs. Here’s how to get started quickly.

How selling energy works

At its core, energy referral and reselling is the business of connecting commercial and industrial customers with competitive energy suppliers. In deregulated energy markets across the U.S. and Canada, businesses have the power to choose their electricity and natural gas providers, and that's where advisors come in.

The supply chain works like this:

Utility → Supplier → Advisor → Business Customer

As an advisor, you sit between the energy supplier and the business customer. Your role is to shop rates from multiple suppliers, find the best deal for the client, and earn a commission on the margin. Think of it like the technology procurement you already do. Except the product is electricity and natural gas instead of cloud subscriptions and connectivity.

“No experience is required to start selling energy to your customers.”

Platforms like Broker Online Exchange (BOX), an AppDirect company, make this a simple, turkey process. BOX is the largest, most flexible retail energy network in North America, meeting the needs of commercial customer advisors and referral partners by providing direct access to North America's top energy suppliers and markets. No energy experience is required to start selling energy to your customers.

Why should a technology advisor sell energy?

You’ve already nailed the hardest part of any sales motion: the customer relationship. Every business you advise on technology also pays an energy bill, often a significant one. Energy gives you a way to deepen that relationship and increase your revenue per customer without competing with your existing technology offerings.

Here's why the model is so compelling for technology advisors specifically:

• It's fast. If you're used to SaaS sales cycles that drag on for weeks or months, energy will be a welcome change. Energy is fundamentally more transactional than almost any other cross-sell motion. You can discover a customer's needs and close the deal on the same day. In many cases, it's literally a one-day close.

• It's incremental. Energy doesn't replace anything in your current portfolio. It's a net-new revenue stream layered on top of the relationships and conversations you're already having.

• It's recurring. Energy contracts typically run 12–36 months, generating predictable monthly recurring revenue, a model technology advisors already understand and value.

The numbers don't lie: BOX reported well over 12,000 same-day closes in a single year. That's thousands of transactions where a customer was discovered and closed the same day. That kind of volume doesn't happen unless the model works.

The predictability factor: Help customers stay ahead of rising energy costs

With energy lifecycle management, you can access rates from the leading suppliers for all the electricity and gas solutions your customers need to help them stay in control of their energy costs.

• 65% of energy buyers find supplier contracts complex, making it hard to compare terms

• 20% of energy spend can be wasted when businesses lack a buying strategy for locking in rates at the right time

• 15% of SMB energy spend can be saved with the collective purchasing power normally only available to large companies

AppDirect’s energy brokerage platform simplifies energy management, unlocks the best rates, and help customers leverage real-time competition.

What energy solutions can you sell?

Energy procurement services span multiple categories that you can sell to both commercial accounts (SMBs) and industrial accounts (large-scale manufacturing and operations). These include:

• Electricity—Commercial and industrial power contracts

• Natural gas—Heating and operational gas supply

• Renewable energy—Solar, community solar, LED lighting, and more

More energy solutions you can sell

• Energy efficiency—Update existing building infrastructure like lighting and HVAC systems to reduce energy consumption and improve the comfort satisfaction level for building occupants.

• Water management—Optimize water flow to save money at the meter and utilize smart metering to stop leaks in real time and safeguard against facility damage.

• Waste management—Find the most effective waste and recycling solutions to reduce costs, improve sustainability, and streamline facility operations.

• Electric vehicle solutions—Install leading turnkey certified charging stations and a flexible, open, and cloud-based software platform for managing the EV Charging ecosystem.

• Building management (sensors and IoT)—Securely access and monitor how energy is being used in your building to control and proactively address areas of concern from anywhere via cloud-based software solutions.

• Distributed generation—Deploy on-site generation such as solar to save on energy rates and reduce environmental impact. Take advantage of tax incentives and rebates to lower out-of pocket-expenses.

Where can you sell energy?

Energy deregulation isn't available everywhere, but it covers a massive market. BOX is licensed in all deregulated states across the U.S., including major markets like Texas, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and many more. There's also limited availability in Canadian provinces like Alberta and Ontario.

This means you can sell across a large geographic footprint without needing to manage individual state licenses yourself. BOX is licensed in every deregulated market, and as a BOX advisor partner through AppDirect, you are allowed to piggyback off BOX’s licenses. There's no additional licensing or certification you need to obtain on your own.

View all deregulated markets

Prospective customers who need energy solutions

If your technology customers operate out of office buildings, warehouses, manufacturing facilities, retail locations, or data centers, they're strong energy prospects. Plus, they're already in your CRM.

How do you get paid?

This is the exciting part, and it will feel familiar. advisors earn sales commissions from selling electricity and natural gas by adding advisor fees or margins to retail energy supplier rates. In deregulated energy markets, retail energy suppliers offer rates to advisors for their customers with the energy supplier's margin already built in. The advisor, in turn, adds a fee to that rate and then offers the total price to the customer.

Your payment options

With BOX, you always get your commissions when you want them. We provide flexible residual and upfront payment plans with highly competitive splits. The two primary commission structures are:

• Residual payments: Monthly income based on actual customer consumption (when available), paid for the life of the contract

• Upfront payments: A lump-sum advance on the total contract value, paid shortly after the deal closes

The sales process—It’s simpler than you think

You don't need to become an energy expert. Selling energy follows a straightforward four-step process, and BOX handles the heavy lifting:

1. Document collection

Collect key customer information including their utility invoice (which identifies the customer, rate, and current supplier) and sign a Letter of Authorization (LOA) to access historical usage data.

Pro tip: Next time you're meeting with a technology customer, simply ask for a copy of their energy bill. That's all it takes to get started.

2. Pricing and proposal

BOX collects competitive pricing from its supplier network and provides a bid sheet with market insights and savings analysis.

Pricing can come as Matrix Rates (preset prices updated daily) or Custom Pricing (tailored to larger accounts using 1,000+ MWh). You don't need to understand energy markets. BOX does the analysis for you

3. Contract execution

Generate the agreement with the winning supplier, review terms with the customer, and execute via e-signature.

4. Submission and confirmation

BOX conducts a quality control call to verify all details, submits to the supplier, and upon acceptance, the deal is confirmed and enrolled.

For smaller customers, this entire process can happen in a single day. Larger commercial accounts may take weeks due to additional approvals, but the fundamental motion remains simple.

Who should you approach? (Hint: your existing customers)

As a technology advisor, you already have access to the right contacts. The best people to talk to about energy are the same decision-makers you already engage with for technology:

• C-Level executives—They control budgets and make decisions

• Business owners—They feel the impact of energy costs directly

• Facilities directors—They manage the day-to-day utility relationships

Add these energy discovery questions to your conversations

• What is your current strategy for managing your energy expenses?

• Do you have a contract with a third-party electricity supplier? What's the end date?

• How have rising energy costs impacted your business operations?

• With your growing technology infrastructure, have you looked at locking in better energy rates?

Every business pays an energy bill. That's what makes this conversation so universal — and so natural to add to the technology conversations you're already having.

The ROI of energy: Real savings, real results

The value proposition to businesses is clear: you help them save money on a cost they're already paying. There's no new product to adopt, no change in workflow — just a better rate.

For your customers, this positions you not just as their technology advisor, but as a trusted business advisor who's looking out for their bottom line across the board.

Why partner with a platform like BOX?

“BOX partners can potentially earn 25–50% higher commissions than any other partner in the network.”

Going it alone in energy brokerage means managing licenses, supplier relationships, pricing tools, and back-office operations. Partnering with a platform like Broker Online Exchange removes those barriers:

• 90+ top-tier vetted supplier partners including names like Engie, NRG, Constellation, Shell Energy, and NextEra, delivering best-in-class solutions

• Proprietary software, MyServiceCloud (MSC), with real-time pricing, CRM capability, and live market analysis

• Dedicated account managers who work deals from start to finish, so you always have an energy expert in your corner

• Strategic Solutions team for large accounts over 4,000,000 kWh annually

• BOX partners can potentially earn 25–50% higher commissions than any other broker partner.

• No energy experience needed. BOX provides the training, tools, and support to get you closing deals quickly

The bottom line on selling energy

Selling energy is one of the most accessible, fast-moving, and lucrative opportunities available to technology advisors today. You don't need a background in energy. You just need the customer relationships you've already built, access to the right platform, and the willingness to ask one extra question during your next customer meeting.

With energy demand projected to grow significantly over the next decade — driven in part by AI, data centers, and electrification, the intersection of technology and energy has never been more relevant. Your customers are going to need help managing these costs. Why not be the advisor who provides that help?

Get started selling energy today

Apply to become an advisor today and unlock your energy revenue stream.

More reading

Read these recent blogs for more insights into selling energy:

• Boost Revenues from Every Technology Deal with Proven Cross-selling Techniques—72% of revenues are generated from selling to existing customers, and advisors who sell into multiple categories generate 2-3X more revenues on average. Learn how to spot cross-selling opportunities and build offers that drive bigger deals.

• How to Easily Win Lucrative Energy Deals—A Guide for Advisors—Exploding energy demands and market complexity are creating lucrative opportunities for advisors. Discover practical steps to integrate energy solutions into your portfolio that drive revenue growth and stronger customer relationships.

• AppDirect and Broker Online Exchange Unite, Fueling Advisor Growth—Energy sales are one of the most exciting growth opportunities for advisors, yet many haven’t fully tapped into this lucrative market. This blog explores how AppDirect’s acquisition of Broker Online Exchange (BOX) positions advisors at the forefront of one of the fastest-growing and most vital markets.

*This blog is for informational purposes. Energy deregulation availability varies by state and market. Commission structures and earnings will vary based on deal size, margin, and payment plan.*