Art Of Upselling & Cross-Selling

With the very kind permission of Scott Hallman, I am delighted to bring you my second blog on his Tuesday Profit Tips™ to help you Build-Grow-Manage-Profit™.

Point of Purchase Add-on Sales on Steroids!

EVERY business should master the art of upselling and cross-selling at the point of purchase. It not only skyrockets your profits but it better serves your customers as well.

A Whopping 1,322% Increase in Sales in Less than 4 minutes!

About a year ago I finally decided to buy the Miracle Blade knives from the infomercial…just too tempting at $29 for the knives that cut anything, are guaranteed for life and have a screaming chef promoting them. So sales = $29 plus shipping of $10 = $39 baseline.

The person took my credit card (timing is critical) and then proceeded to up/cross/side sell me 10 times – literally.

Would you like the wood knife holder for 19.95? How about a second set to give as a gift? You also get a $50 discount coupon at Wal-Mart (as I recall) - that then becomes a reoccurring $19.95 per month credit card charge for a club of some sort (one year =$240)? What express shipping would you prefer? …another extra $14.95…for a grand total of $334!

That is an extra $295 or a 1322% increase over the original purchase.

Now I do not advocate the intense pounding I received as I said, “no thank you” but they certainly did a lot of things right here.

If you are a member of the Small Business Growth Club then you can learn 10 elegant methods for implementing, and then optimizing an upsell-cross sell point of purchase system. It can easily add 10-30% to your existing business profitability.

It’s ALL about implementation™! So focus on upsell-cross-sell this week and profit.

To your success,

Scott D Hallman
CEO
Business Growth Dynamics, Inc

Thank you Scott for this Tuesday Profit Tip.

I have a couple of points I'd like to add.

The first Scott mentioned is that up-selling and/or cross-selling is often in your client's interest and that's certainly the approach that I'd recommend.

When you know what is it that your client or customer really wants to achieve, you have the chance to look hard at the product the customer is trying to buy and ask "Is it really in their best interest to buy this product?".

If not, I would say that you have a moral obligation to upsell your customer to a product that may be a little more expensive but will give them the benefits that they want. (see Jay Abraham strategy of preeminence for more information about how putting your customer first opens the door to opportunities for you)

It is the same with cross-sells. What is it that your customer needs to get maximum benefit from your product? The easy example is a set of batteries, a spare battery or a battery recharger.

The second point I'd make it to look around you and see what you can learn about up-selling and cross-selling. Practice Jay Abraham's concept of Tunnel Vision.

The reason I recommend and promote the Small Business Growth Club is that as well as introducing you to a profit-building technique, Scott brings you the specific steps to implement the idea in your business.

It is only by taking purposeful action that you will build a bigger, better business with more profit.

Update - June 2008

I have worked through Scott Hallman's module on up-selling and cross-selling in the Small Business Growth Club and it is excellent.

Scott provides plenty of up-selling and cross-selling examples in different trades, broad concepts for finding the up-selling and cross-selling opportunities in your business.

The Small Business Growth Club then moves on to include a ten step detailed implementation plan so that you can identify opportunities, craft your offer, test and measure your way to extra profit.

Think it won't be much in your business?

You are probably wrong. I have seen statistics quoted that around 30% of people will buy something extra if it is offered and/or explained in the right way. It's not just McDonald's who apply the up-sell and cross-sell and there is probably a massive hidden profit opportunity in your business, just waiting for you to tap into.

This is one of the first strategies I want my clients to implement when we start working together.