Do you have a product or a service to cross-sell to your customers? Are you finding it difficult to get customers or clients interested in those cross-sells?
More importantly, do you want new cross-selling strategies for how to introduce them in a way customers or clients absolutely can’t resist?
If you do, we’re going to jump into some tips on how to do so.
What’s Cross-Selling vs. Upselling?
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Let’s start with a real quick cross-selling definition.
There’s an upsell and there’s a cross-sell. For what I’m going to explain to you, we’re going to talk about cross-selling. Allow me to differentiate.
Example:
You order a Diet Coke, and I upsell you into the ginormous bucket of Diet Coke versus the small glass that you were thinking of buying.
Example:
Going with that fast food example, I might cross-sell you on dessert to be added to your order. It’s not part of the original package.
It’s not more of something that you were thinking of buying, but I’ve cross-sold you something else that you can add to that order, which again, increases the overall value.
The cross-selling strategies that we’re going to talk about here involve creativity and getting creative in your cross-sell. Now that we have a clear definition, let’s get going with some cross-selling strategies.
Cross-Selling Strategies With Examples
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I alluded to this in the definition, but part of cross-selling strategies includes the assurance that your cross-sells are complementary to whatever it is you are selling.
Let’s say for a moment, you’re in B2B sales selling capital equipment (a large expenditure). A cross-sell may be a service for that capital equipment. In fact, you might not even be selling the service, but you might be asked to cross-sell and introduce the service manager, for example, who can handle that. There’s a good example of a cross-sell in a capital equipment environment.
I often find that sales professionals aren’t prepared with how to present the cross-sell so that the customer or client says,
- “You know what? That’s a good idea.
- Let’s investigate.
- Let’s move on with that.
- Let’s move forward.
- Let’s sign the agreement.”
Stage 1: Be Clear on What Cross-Sell Options You Can Offer
Stage one is making sure that whatever it is you sell you’re clear on what the cross-sells are that you could offer to your customers.
Stage 2: Demonstrate How Your Cross-Sell is Complementary to Your Product
Once you know what those cross-sells are, stage two is determining the language that you’ll use to ensure that they’re seen as complementary.
You can imagine in the example of the fast food restaurant I shared earlier where you place your order, maybe I upsell you into some larger Diet Coke and a larger burger or something, large fries.
The following dialog is not a well-thought-out cross-selling strategy:
- “I’m not sure if you’ve really, I haven’t thought about this. If you want dessert, would you want dessert?
- Do you want dessert? I mean, if you want dessert, we do have these apple pie things here.
- I don’t know if you really want this. Is that going to appeal to you?
- Is that going to convince you that, Hey, that upsell is something I want?
- Or, I could say most people when they buy this meal, they’re hungry. I’m sure you’re here because you’re hungry.
- What you want to complement this with is this apple pie. I’m telling you right now, it adds to the overall impact.
- You’re going to be full, it’s going to last hours and you’re going to get a great value because it’s not that much more, a little bit better.”
I don’t sell fast food, but you get the point!
How about some fries with that?
You want to make sure that you are prepared as a sales professional to introduce the cross-sells in a way that makes sense to your customers or clients.
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I suggest you start by writing down what cross-sells you could offer and then how will you best introduce them. What’s the language you’ll use?
Stage 3: Transition Your Conventional Sale to a Cross-Sell (3 Steps)
Cross-selling strategies’ third stage involves the simple steps I want you to take to transition from your normal conventional sale to a cross-sell.
You’ve mentioned the cross-sell early on in the conversation (stage two), maybe more than once. That’s okay, as long as it makes sense in the dialogue and you’re ready to do so, we’re good to go.
There are three steps to take here:
Your customer has just said, “Yes, Shawn, I do want to move forward with that capital equipment purchase.”
Step 1 – Tell Your Client You’re Including Cross-Sell Options in Your Proposal
Say, “Great, I’m going to send you a quote. Now, a couple of things I want to mention to you. I’m going to include some examples of that service plan I mentioned to you earlier.”
Step one is you’re saying to your prospect at this point, “Hey, I’m going to include some cross-sell options for you.”
Step 2 – Give Your Client Multiple Cross-Sell Options in Their Quote
Step number two of your transitional cross-selling strategy is to submit the quote with the cross-sell options very clearly. Not just one cross-sell! (Avoid saying “Here is your service package” or “Here is your apple pie”.)
Include different options because options move people into considering what they should do versus giving them a yes/no.
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So, I might offer a 12-month service plan. I might offer an option for a 24-month and a 36-month. Providing options and ways to take a look at this overall proposal helps them determine what best fits them.
When you present cross-sells, present options.
Step 3 – Bring Up the Cross-Sell Options in Conversation
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Let’s go to the third step I want to share with you.
This is when we have our follow-up conversation where we review that quote together, and before you’ve made your decision.
Here’s the point. The third step is during the conversation where you’re reviewing the quote together, you say to your prospect, “Did you have a chance to look through the quote?” And they say, “Yeah, I’ve got some questions.” Great!
“Did you also consider those cross-sell options?” (And you can call them cross options) or you could say, “Did you also consider those service options that I mentioned?’
What you can also say then is, “Did you also consider those service options that I included as part of this package as part of your consideration?”
(6:37)
So that’s a third step, because I want to bring this out in the conversation we’re having.
Just to recap, three steps to move from the conventional sale to that cross-sale is to
- Mention before you submit the quote, that you’re going to include the cross-sell on the quote.
- Provide options for cross-sells. It’s not a take it or leave it, it’s which one would you like? And,
- When reviewing the quote with your prospect, you bring that up in the conversation. You say, “Did you get a chance to review these different service options or different options I shared as part of that service package?”
Okay, those are the three steps to transition from a regular sale to a cross sale.
Cross-Selling Tip: Handling Objections to a Cross-Sell
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Now, one last tip I want to share with you.
What if the prospect says, “Nah, this is good. You’ve given me some good things to think about it. Let me get back to you.” (That’s more of an objection. And I have other videos on that.)
But if you’re faced with that, if you’ve shared and done all the steps we’ve discussed to this point and they say, “Let me think about it”, you simply respond with, “Great. May I ask a quick question?
They’re going to say, “Okay”.
You say, “Which part of the quote of the proposal, which part of our conversation would you like to think through?” And then you don’t say anything else. That’s it. Which part of our conversation, or if they’ve reviewed the quote, you’ve gone through it together, which part of this quote would you like to think through?
What’s going to happen is they’re either going to say to you, “What do you mean by that?” Which is good. It opens up the door for further conversation to allow you to flush out what the real issue is.
Or they say, “Well, it’s this part”, which again, they’re pointing to a possible objection.
For example, they might say, “Well, you know what? It’s this service package. I’m not sure if it’s the right thing for us.”
Say, “Oh, interesting. Which part of the service package do you think is not the best fit for you? I might be able to give you some recommendations.”
Notice what I did there indirectly. This is the way to flush out the objection. I want you to make sure if they say, let me think about it, you follow up with those steps to ensure that you flush out whatever the real issue is so that you can address it.
And once you’ve got that done, once you’ve addressed that issue or presumed that they don’t want to think about the way to go, you sign the deal immediately.
And here’s what you say. “I appreciate the chance to work with you. I’m going to get started on this right now. Let me get some information from you.”
You want to lock that sale in any sale by starting immediately and telling them you’re starting immediately and have some questions. You can ask them to start things immediately, right?
And again, there are videos on closing the sale where I expand on that, but I wanted to share that here.
There are steps that you can use to ensure that your cross-sells are more interesting and more creative. Ultimately you close more cross-sells when it comes to your customers or clients.
If you have personal cross-selling strategies that you use, just drop a comment below and I’ll make sure to respond.
© Shawn Casemore 2024. All Rights Reserved.
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