Cross-selling explained

Master this technique and watch your sales increase by 10% or more overnight.

Cross-selling is such a powerful yet easy way of increasing your average transaction value, and in turn, increasing your profits.  The most commonly known example is “McDonalds”. The cashier at Maccas always asks, “Would you like fries with that?”  Or maybe you've walked in to a ladies fashion store before to buy a dress and you've walked out with a dress, cardigan, earrings and shoes - all because the salesperson did a fantastic job of recommending other products to you.

Cross-selling means recommending other items from “across” your range to a new customer as they purchase. 

It doesn't cost you anything to implement and it takes absolutely no time to get going. All you need to do is train your sales people and you can start profiting from this strategy immediately.  For instance:

• if you sell silver jewellery you might also cross-sell a jewellery cleaning cloth.
• if you are a restaurant you might recommend extra side dishes with the main meal.
• if you are a mechanical repair workshop you might recommend a wheel alignment when people come in for a quick service on their vehicle.

Most business professionals spend most of their time generating leads for their business.  Very little effort is spent on getting the most from the leads and customers they already have.  Employing this “cross selling” strategy will have a dramatic effect on your business.  Before you start cross-selling, it's important to know what the starting point is. In other words, know what an average sale is worth to your business.

One of the most beneficial things about this strategy is that you're actually doing your customers a great service by implementing cross-selling measures.  You see, people visit your business because they want a certain result. They select a product or service because they believe that this product will give them the results they're looking for. They often aren't aware of all the different options of which they can take advantage to achieve their desired outcome. 

You and your salespeople obviously have a lot of expertise in recommending all the solutions that are likely to best meet a customer's needs.

Correct?

Well, it makes sense to give these customers the advice that helps achieve these results in the best way possible for them. And in doing so, recommend the add-on products that will help them do that.

Make sense?

After all, customers come to you for help. If you don't give it to them and recommend the all of the options and additional items that can achieve that for them, you're actually doing them a disservice. And every time you fail to do that, it's another sales opportunity you have missed!