If at first you succeed, sell, sell again
By Jenny C. McCune • Bankrate.com

In the play called "Selling," most business people believe the production is over when they are paid for their goods or services. Actually, that's only Act One.

Smart companies parlay the first sale into additional ones through what's commonly referred to as upselling, cross-selling, add-on selling or supersizing. It makes the sales play much longer -- and more lucrative.

Known in the trade as the "Do you want fries with that?" strategy, Jacques Werth, president of High Probability Selling of Dresher, Pa., says that phrase that helped McDonald's supersize its sales by nearly 40 percent. Basically, you sell a customer an item and then add onto the sale by getting the customer to buy another product or service.

"First thing you have to do is accept the concept that if somebody bought from you a minute ago or a year ago, they are the best prospect for sales," says Werth. The sales consultant says that on average upselling can increase a company's sales by 32 percent.

Four steps to added sales
Although these are easy sales to make since they come after the hard work of completing the initial transaction, small companies often drop the ball.

"They don't train themselves to do it," says Gene Fairbrother, president of MBA Consulting in Coppell, Texas. "Or they're scared of coming across pushy."

Sales experts say supersizing sales is easier if a business breaks down the process into four basic steps.

First, assess your business offerings. What goods and services does your company sell and what should it offer? For example, if your store sells lawn equipment, what would make good add-ons? Consider lawn mower accessories, equipment service warranties, other landscaping tools or even grass seed. The person selling your company's goods or services needs to have a firm grasp of add-ons and when they are applicable.

Next, evaluate the customer's needs and budget. If a shopper is buying a digital camera for the first time from your consumer electronics shop, see if he would be interested in a card reader that would make it easy to transfer images from the camera to computer. Or maybe the customer just needs extra memory and a camera case. Either way, it's additional sales.

Third, educate the customer by explaining what the add-on is and why it would be a beneficial purchase. Consider producing at-a-glance product charts or brochures that quickly and easily explain add-ons.

"To supersize your sales, you have to have documentation that's easily followed and shows the products and services that you produce," says Landy Chase, president of Landy Chase Inc., Charlotte, N.C.

Finally, ask for the sale. This can come in the form of a phone call, a direct mailer or person-to-person just after the sale. "The most effective way is by phone," argues Werth, author of High Probability Selling. "Just offer the product, tell them two or three features about it and ask them if they want it," Werth says. "It takes 30 to 35 seconds."

Not everyone will take you up on your offer but enough will to increase your sales. And if a customer says "no" once, don't take it as a "no" to all future offers. Keep on asking unless a customer expressly says that he or she would prefer not to receive such solicitations.

Target your customers
Upselling efforts also are likely to be more accepted if you target the offer to the customer. Make sure it's something that interests the customer and, adds Werth, "Keep changing your offer."

"Make your upsells based on what the person has already purchased," says Tom Antion, president of Tom Antion & Associates, a marketing firm based in Landover Hills, Md. "Don't recommend the same product to everyone. If somebody bought a blue widget, ask them if they'd like the companion green widget. Don't just try and sell them the gray watchamacallit because you have extras of those. What's key is to sell what they need."

Businesses also should take advantage of customer follow-up efforts to supersize sales. "Think of it more as customer service," Werth says. "You are not just making a call in which you are trying to convince someone to buy. You're just checking in to see if there's something else they want that you offer."

Similarly, sales trainer Chase says that most salespeople fail to expand sales because they don't do a good enough job expanding a relationship with the customer. They work solely with a purchasing agent and make no attempt to talk to the people in the company who actually use the product or service.

Or a sales rep will make a lame attempt to determine who the decision makers are by asking, "Who else can I sell to in your company." Instead, the question should be framed more along the lines of, "I'd like a better relationship with your customer so I can understand your needs better so I'm interested in talking to the people who use my product."

MBA Consulting's Fairbrother says small-business owners can use add-ons to help clinch the initial sale. For example, throw in an extended warranty to get the customer to buy a new computer.

Antion uses add-ons to turn passersby into purchasers on his Web site. If an online visitor clicks to leave the site, up will pop a box with a special offer. "This is an exit strategy, a way to get money out of people who are leaving," Antion says.

While supersizing sales is a good way to immediately boost sales and profits, the effort can produce longer-term business benefits. "It's a way to bond with a customer so that the sale you make today also becomes a sale for tomorrow, next week and next year," Fairbrother says.

Jenny C. McCune is a contributing editor based in Montana.

-- Posted: Oct. 2, 2002