January has been a busy month of sales seminars, sales
training and motivational speeches so I hadn't had any time
to think what I was going to write about this week until
about half an hour ago...
I was sat at my PC in my home office, tidying up some
emails when one of my good friends called. It's been a
while since I have spoken to him so I was delighted to hear
from him. After a quick catch up we quickly focused our
attentions onto setting the world to rights! He said that
he has something he thought I would be interested in
hearing...
This story starts with my friend's 18 year old son who is
currently enjoying a gap year, getting his head down and
working. He has a job in major UK supermarket and he is
really enjoying it.
Based in South West London the store he is working in is
busy, affluent and diverse. It's not huge but it's a decent
size. They have around about 150 staff and shifts would
mean that at any one time there might be 40 or more people
working in the store.
Like most retailers the store chain in question are keen on
their customers owning and using store cards. This creates
loyalty, allows the store to compile details on personal
shopping habits and group trends and, perhaps most
importantly, allows them to extend credit to their
customers.
And as any business who has cards like these knows,
customers on credit are worth far more than those paying
cash!
So back to our little store...
Like most stores they have targets and goals and their most
recent "push" is on encouraging customers to sign up for
more store cards. Each member of staff, whether
individually or as a group, is trained to "upsell" these
cards and are then let loose on the customers. Not
particularly ambitious, their target number of take ups is
4 cards per week... for the whole store.
So for the next week our young hero, despite not being on
the till much of the time, asked every customer he could if
they would sign up. Despite his lack of experience or
formal sales training and techniques our hero signed up...
18, in one week. Now I have to admit that I have no idea
how this rates or how many you or I would have signed up
but it is obviously well over the target of 4 that was set
for the whole store.
At the end of the week our young salesperson goes on his
holidays, returning two weeks later to find out that in his
absence the whole store, 150 people remember, have upsold
exactly ... zero.
Zero in 2 weeks. So what do we learn from this?
1. Upselling and cross-selling to existing clients is
critical if you want to sell more and make more money.
Clients who have already bought off you, who are in a
buying mood and who believe in and see value in what you do
are great prospects for upselling and cross-selling. There
is every possibility that they will buy something else if
you make it known to them.
I remember as a young salesman one of my best clients
buying something off someone else. I rang him to ask why he
had not bought from me and he told me that he would have
but that he was unaware that I could help in this area!
Ouch! I never made that mistake again!
2. Know what you can upsell and cross-sell.
Up to date knowledge of what you can upsell is critical.
Upselling the wrong or irrelevant products or services will
just alienate your clients. Upselling and cross-selling the
right stuff at the right time is your duty. How many times
have you bought something only to get it home and realise
that you wish you had bought the more expensive option
because it has features or benefits that you would have
preferred. If only the salesperson had told you about it!
A reader rang me yesterday to tell me that he was running a
short training session on upselling. The first thing that
he had done was outline for his team all of the options
they had for upselling and how these would benefit the
client. This knowledge is critical if you want to maximise
your sales.
3. Make sure that you ask.
Perhaps the biggest block to upselling is that salespeople
do not ask. Maybe they feel scared. Perhaps they feel
cheeky. Maybe they think that they don't have the right.
Perhaps they "already know" that the client will say, "No".
Whatever! The biggest problem with upselling, as with
asking for referrals, is that most salespeople quite simply
just do not ask.
Call it the McDonalds affect if you like... you have to
ask! They upsell on everything and they get a lot of "Nos"
but they also get a lot of "Yeses"! You need to make just
asking part of your sales process too. You could
significantly increase your sales results over night.
Yesterday morning I met my sister and her kids in the
afternoon. I only wanted a cup of tea. As I ordered the
woman said, "I've just baked some home-made scones. They're
still warm. Can you smell them? Would you like one whilst
they're still warm?"
"Yes please". An easy sale!
4. Learn how to "ask" properly.
Once you know the benefits of upselling and cross-selling,
know what to upsell and commit to asking you need to
improve your upselling techniques. McDonalds ask if you
want a bigger drink or fries but they have no idea whether
you are thirsty or hungry or neither. That's fine in
Mcdonalds, they don't have the time but you do. And you
have the relationships to do this too.
As you are selling ask questions that uncover the need for
an upsale. They needn't be complex but they do make a huge
difference to the relevancy of your upsell and the final
result.
When booking keynotes I don't just suggest that people buy
the books or audios as well, I ask a few questions first to
identify what exactly is needed and how it would add
benefit for my client.
5. Keep it simple.
I've said it before and I will say it again but 80% of
selling is about turning up, maintaining the right attitude
and playing the game.
Many salespeople walk in to my seminars and demand the
advanced stuff because they are so experienced yet, when
you follow them around, they have forgotten or are not
doing many sales basics.
Without the basics you are screwed!
My friend's son may not know the intricacies of selling
yet. He may not have the skills or the experience. He may
not be as subtle, as sophisticated nor as cunning as his
more experienced friends yet. But subtlety, experience and
cunning are no substitute for action and if he keeps on
taking action he will outsell his more established but less
proactive peers.
----------------------------------------------------
To find out more about author and motivational speaker
Gavin Ingham and to join his free Sales Success newsletter
visit http://www.gaviningham.com now.
No comments:
Post a Comment