How to Increase Sales by Cross Selling

Today more than ever companies are looking to increase revenue. They are realizing that they need to give their sales agents the tools to succeed and are doing so.

Sales professional recognize they may not get a change to do business with the client in the future and are looking to cross selling to make more sales.

What is Cross Selling?

Cross selling allows your customer to find out about additional products or services that complement their current purchase. Cross selling or upselling shows your customer that you are looking out for their best interest.

I believe your job as a sales professional is to provide your customer with the right options that will help them be a success. This is how to become the greatest salesperson at your company.

An organization that meets and exceeds the customer’s needs will be more productive and profitable. To become productive and profitable a company understands the importance of teaching their employees how to of making a great presentation.

Why We Need to Cross Sell

As the sales professional, you know of all products and services your company offers. Your job is to present the other products and services as an option for them to consider. You will succeed in cross selling products and services when you understand the customers wants and needs. Not only for today but for the future.

As the sales professionals, you need to understand that cross selling can promote customer loyalty. The more the customer buys from you, the better the change they will become a long-term customer.

There is a major advantage of cross selling that belong to the company you work for. If you are the business owner then you will also enjoy this fact.

When you cross sell products you can reduce the amount of money the company is spending to acquire new customers. Even if you are not the business owner you can appreciate that it cost money to attract the customer to the business.

Why Sales Representatives are Unwilling Upsell

As a sales professional, we all want to have a successful day and make more money. So, what stops some of us and what drives some of us to tell the customer about other options they have?

I believe many sales professionals, as I once was, are not willing to ask because they don’t want to come off as being pushy.

The truth is you and I do ourselves, and more importantly our customer, a disservice when we do not offer them complementary products of services. The reason we are not asking is all due to our mindset. As a professional sales person, we need to develop a success mindset.

Once we do we develop a success mindset, we understand the importance of cross selling different items to our customer. You need to understand that if they are willing to buy one product or service from you, then they are willing to purchase others.

If we don’t tell them about other items, the customer can go make the purchase from our competition. This will mean lost revenues for your company lost sales and commissions for you.

Knowing When to Upsell

In the sales process, it is important to listen to what the customer is saying and not saying. They will give you verbal and non-verbal ques.

I believe it is essential to know a few things about your customer. First get to know the customer’s personality type. Get good at recognizing those traits. Then you can ask questions and sell based on their buying style.

Second, in your sales presentation you must learn how to close customers at different points in the sales process. This can only happen when you ask good questions and listen to that they say. You can then use their answers as the reason they should purchase with you.

As a sales professional, you will at times be required to pick up the phone and talk to previous customers. There are opportunities to let the customer know about new products and services your company offers.

During the conversation, you ask the right questions to find out how your current products and services are working for them. During this they may bring up some problems. The problems they bring up are opportunities. Cross selling is an opportunity for you to let them know who you can further help them and eliminate those problems.

The Process to Cross Selling

The process for cross selling products or services is different based on if the customer is a new customer or if they are an existing one. But there are some similarities in the approach.

Do not ask the customer directly if they have a product or service, if they are an existing customer. Your job is to know what they have purchased from your company.

The new prospect or existing customer can be asked if they have heard of product or service, XYZ. If they have you don’t offend them. If they have not it give you an opening to tell them more about this amazing product.

From my sales experience, I found it beneficial to give them two benefits for the product for them or their company. I also found it valuable to tell them what their advantage would be over their competition if they had our product.

Allow them to ask you questions. If the customer is asking questions this shows interest on their part. Depending on your relationship with the customer it can be to your advantage to share some testimonials.

Customer is Interested

There will be two occasions the customer is interested. First, they will be interested in adding the product to their current purchase order.

Second, they will in interested in the future. Let’s assume you have asked the right questions and determined that the customer will not move forward with the purchase today

You can still get the sale in the future. Ask the customer if you can stay in contact with them. This will help you build rapport and stay top of mind if your customer needs anything.

It is important to call customers when you say. Many sales professionals say, I’ll call you, but don’t. This is a major dropped step. When you do this you lose credibility with the customer.

As you build rapport you start to find out more about the customers’ business and needs. When you call the client, make sure you have something of value to say. They are busy but are willing to take call if they can enhance their business in some way.

When the customer if ready to move forward they will let you know but keep in mind the process of closing the sales. You will not get the sale, if you don’t ask for it.

Approach to Cross Selling

While cross selling involves talking about, promoting and selling other products or services, you must believe that you are providing a service others are not prepared to offer.

With new or existing customers, you can upsell products or services as an add-on or upgrade. I believe cross selling is not hard to do. It’s like a muscle, you must work it out often for it to grow.

I believe you can learn how to upsell by getting good at recognizing what the customer needs as well as learning how and when to introduce the add-on or upgrade.

There are 5 points to remember when cross selling any product or service.

1. Get good at explain the good or service in a non-technical way unless you know you are talking to someone who will understand the technical jargon.
2. Get the customer to express that they have a concern and need help addressing that problem.
3. State the financial opportunity the customer will have by adding on or upgrading the product. Also let them know of any consequences they may experience.
4. After you advise the customer of the suggested product that will solve any problems, make sure you advise them of the additional cost.
5. Lastly, ask for the sale once you have overcome any price objections.

If the customer says “No”, it could be that they don’t understand the value, they could be considering your competition for a similar product or they can’t afford the additional cost right.

Summary

If we are not cross selling different product and service to our customer, how will they know about them? I know as a professional you do not want to leave it up to chance.

When you ask the right questions, you leave the door open for good results. Those results can lead to opening out new opportunities in different networks.

This means increase sales for the company and not to mention towards a sales quota, if you have one. Your company can see an increase in revenues which mean just by doing your job you can get a raise, share in profits, a promotion or maybe you get sought out after another company who wants to pay you more to come work for them.

Take Action

Are you working on your cross selling techniques or is cross selling new to you?

Leave a comment below and check out other articles in this post to help you become better at the sale process.

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