Cross-Selling Like A Professional: How To Drive Sales & Make Clients Happier!

What can be really frustrating for a sales manager is when the good talent ditches the organization and is replace by raw potential aka newbie salesmen. These rookies tend to be so very ecstatic about their first actual sales that they take no note of how much more they could have achieved with a little more research and client understanding. Well, for all of you who are still green out there, here are a few tips of how to effectively cross sell.

A lot about successful cross-selling depends on how complimentary your products are and how effectively you can pitch them. For maximum effectiveness, ensure that the cross-sold product directly compliments or enhances that initial purchase. A good example is how salesmen will usually try to sell you a shoe care kit when you purchase a new pair of wingtips or the way software salesman will try and sell you upgrades and extra modules.

Study a customer’s past purchases and you will get a pretty accurate idea of how big to go when you attempt a cross-sell. Does the customer usually buy additional products that enhance the functionality of the original one? If they do, chances are they’ll be more open to buying additional products again. Has the customer purchased car accessories and an iPod? You might want to suggest that they buy a portable iPod dock too! In fact, there is now software that allows you to automate this system of recommendation.

Create a landing page that displays your most popular products. Hell! Create a landing page that lists your most popular product accessories too. Chances are, you’ll be able to drive up accessory sales in tandem with full-blown products, e.g., skins with phones, funky laces with sneakers, audio-reactive lighting with speakers, etc.

Do not under any circumstances, skimp on the customer service. Good service drives sales like you wouldn’t believe! And what does bad service do? Well, let’s just say there are more than a few ecommerce sites that I wouldn’t be willing to visit again, let alone buy from.

Approach clients using a targeted method that takes into account everything from past buying behaviour to age-range, income and marital status. This will allow you to profile each customer, build a behavioural model and determine exactly who among your customer base is a suitable candidate for the cross-selling process.