How to Sell More: Pursue All Four Ways to Grow Your Sales - Part 2

That is the big question in business.  On a daily, monthly and annual basis, we ask, how can we grow our sales?  This blog post will focus on four ways to sell more to your existing customers.  Part 1 covered planned and impulse purchases.  Part 2 will cover upselling and cross selling.  We will save the topic of attracting new customers for another day.

Upselling – the opportunity to sell a better solution

Upselling occurs when you introduce a customer to a better version of their planned purchase and you move them up to a higher value purchase.  An example of this is moving a customer up to the luxury model of a car vs. the base model.  For your customer, the upsell solution and sales approach needs to offer value and be a better choice—but at a higher price. 

Is your team trained on how to do this and do they apply this approach daily? Upselling is a skill to learn and it can be taught.

Successful upselling often comes from an appeal to the emotions, self-image and/or senses to move a customer from the planned purchase to an upsell alternative.  Letting your customer see, touch and experience the upsell alternative will help you engage your customer in envisioning the purchase and use of this new option.  Getting a customer to sit in the luxury model car helps them experience and envision themselves with that choice.  Just showing a brochure with different car models would be much less effective.  Does your sales team help customers envision the difference the better product will deliver?

Does your team know your customers well enough to suggest the relevant upsell products that will resonate?  Presenting an alternative that is not relevant or does not offer more of what your customers value will indicate you do not understand or value your customer’s needs.

Upselling works when executed well as it is seen as a win-win.  A recent survey of hospitality businesses by Caterer and Hotelkeeper magazine showed that 87% found that upselling was either a “fairly effective” or “very effective” part of their business strategy and did not turn customers off.

Cross selling – the opportunity to enhance the experience

“Would you like fries with that?” is one of the most well-known and effective cross selling questions.  Does your team ask the right questions when closing a sale to add to the size of the purchase?  Cross selling is getting your customer to add related products or services that will enhance their experience with their planned purchase.  If you are selling a fishing rod and reel, you will want to cross sell fishing line, bait, fishing tools, etc.

Effective cross selling requires a solid understanding of your customer’s needs.  Why are they buying your product?  How and where will they use it?   Research on your customers’ purchase decision criteria, product use or at least an analysis of buying patterns will help you identify what items to cross sell with each other.  Even capturing insights from customer conversations can help provide insights.

Are your cross sell suggestions relevant and do they add value to the use of the planned purchase?   A well-chosen recommendation can result in a sale or at least a belief that you are working to provide value to them and just not sell them more. 

Two ways to help close a cross sell include:  offering three choices at different price points.  With choices at different prices, customers can chose a solution that is most right for them.  If the middle solution is on target for your customer’s needs, it will often be chosen.  The second approach is to communicate that there is a rational need to make the choice today—communicating a short-term sale price or limited inventory can create a sense of urgency to close the sale rather than having it deferred to another day.

Training your team to anticipate and execute cross selling is a good way to sell more every day.  Providing your team with research insights on what to cross sell with different products will make them even more effective.

All leading to the Future Sell

If you develop and practice each of these selling techniques in your business, you will not only increase your likelihood of selling more on each transaction, you will create one more selling opportunity—the future sell—based on the good will and trust that you gain from your customers by understanding and satisfying their needs.  Good selling!

This blog was originally posted by GrowthSpring Group on the MENG Blend website.

GrowthSpring Group is a marketing strategy, market research, and innovation firm focused on accelerating your sales and profit growth. We help you identify new business growth insights & opportunities and execute winning strategies & plans. www.GrowthSpringGroup.com

How to Sell More: pursue all four ways to grow your sales – Part 1

That is the big question in business. On a daily, monthly and annual basis, we ask, how can we grow our sales? This blog post will focus on four ways to sell more to your existing customers. Part 1 will cover planned and impulse purchases. Part 2 will cover upselling and cross selling. We will save the topic of attracting new customers for another day.

Sales training teaches the obvious fact that to sell more to a customer, you either have to get them to buy more per purchase transaction or get them to buy more frequently. Easy to say, but, in our fragmented media environment and our multi-channel retailing world, it can be difficult to engage your customers and close a sale, let alone sell them more. The intent of this blog post is to not to provide all the answers for all markets, but to get you thinking afresh about these basic approaches to your current customer base.

Plannned Purchases

The easiest way to grow sales should be to close the planned purchase. Customers want to and plan to buy products like yours—your product is an intentional purchase. You need to be prepared to capture that planned purchase and not lose it. It should be easy…but consumers leave stores every day without making a purchase and customers choose your competitor’s products over yours. Many companies/sales people act just as order takers and will just take orders that come to them. Companies that take the time to get to know their customers can then offer solutions that are aligned with the customer’s wants and needs. Whether selling online or offline, creating value through a customer-specific solution and a great user / selling experience can win and keep customers.

Where in these key steps might you strengthen your sales process?

• Qualifying a customer – what do they want to buy and when?

• Identifying needs – what is motivating the purchase – both rational and emotional purchase drivers

• Presenting solution – what is the recommended solution that is a good fit for the customer’s wants and needs. Explain the value of your solution vs. alternatives.

• Handling objections – give information to address concerns regarding your recommendation

• Call to action – Ask for the sale

In some categories, you have the time, the staffing and the opportunity to hold these sales discussions. But in most consumer sales, you must rely on your packaging, POP materials and your marketing communications. Take time to think through how you can get better consumer purchase decision information through ethnographic and behavioral research, shopping basket and purchase data analysis. Use these insights to better present your sales information. Where are the leverage points? What new information and message points can be more persuasive that your current communication?

If the first category is planned purchases, all other purchases must be unplanned purchases. We will discuss three ways to sell and close unplanned purchases. These include impulse selling, upselling and cross selling.

Impulse Selling—the opportunity to introduce value

All of us have been in a store to buy one thing and ended up buying an additional item by seeing it on display or on sale and adding it to our shopping cart. For today’s discussion, impulse purchases will be defined as an unplanned purchased that has nothing to do with our planned purchase item or category. Impulse purchases are driven by new information presented to customers while they are shopping or making another purchase.

Are you using all of these approaches to gain impulse sales?

• A new product the customer has not seen before

• A featured item (in store on display or signed at shelf, online, on a menu or in a sales brochure)

• A price discount or promotional item

• Prompting consumers to remember key consumable/refill products they need

How are you leveraging new information and location to win impulse purchases?

Information—are you providing the right information about your products to create an impulse purchase? A reduced price sign will often prompt an impulse sale. Highlighting a new product attracts attention and trial. Telling your product’s story can help trigger impulse buys vs. competitive products. Tell them what this product is, why it is right for them and why it is a good value. Consumers respond to products that tell authentic stories.

Location—are you placing target products and/or product information where your customers will easily find them while shopping or researching other products or services? At retail, you can place products on secondary displays or use signs and packaging to call attention to your products. If you do not sell your products at retail, locate information about your products in targeted, relevant places to be discovered by your customers and prompt a purchase decision.

In Part 2 of How to Sell More, we help you assess whether you are doing all you can to upsell and cross sell your customers to enhance the value you offer and the experience your customers have with your products and services.

This blog was originally posted by GrowthSpring Group on the MENG Blend website.

GrowthSpring Group is a marketing strategy, market research, and innovation firm focused on accelerating your sales and profit growth. We help you identify new business growth insights & opportunities and execute winning strategies & plans. www.GrowthSpringGroup.com