On a recent sales training course we discussed why so many of us salespeople do not cross sell or up sell. How can we learn to develop sales techniques that will improve our prospects of increasing sales?
We believe that the main difficulty faced by so many sales people is that they sell the product as opposed to selling to the needs and wants of the client. We find from speaking to many sales agents on various Selling Skills Courses that most salespeople who product sell have made up their mind before even speaking to the prospect about what they are going to sell- thereby having no regard to the customers actual requirement…
The problem with this approach is that we end up trying to sell products to customers who may not have a need for the product and we often don’t even discuss other products that may be required by the customer. We need to improve this process and produce products to customers based on their actual need.
Product selling reminds me of fishing with a fishing rod, you may be lucky and you may catch one fish on the end of the rod, however, if you fish with a net you may catch numerous different types of fish.
An effective technique we use on our training courses as we believe it simply delivers results is when selling remember to use the acronym ALLA which means:
Ask relevant questions
Listen to the answer
Learn from the answer
Act accordingly
When I first started in sales many years ago I was in the Life Assurance Industry and my goal was always that when I was in front of the prospect I would establish what they needed and then sell the relevant products. As well as this I would try and ensure that on an ongoing basis I would try and establish what other products could be needed.
When selling Life Assurance there would always be other products such as Pensions, Illness Protection, Business Insurance, Education Planning, etc- as with all businesses there is potential to digress from one product to cross sell and upsell.
True, effective salespeople have learnt that it is important to try and establish the needs for the full product range as opposed to leaving products on the table for your competitor to pick up. They provide solutions to their clients.
Nowadays with the internet people are so used to buying add on products, if you go to Amazon.com they will always have a pop up box that says ‘people who bought this also bought this’.
Probably the first masters of add on products in my lifetime was the burger bars, years ago Burgerland and other burger bars did not sell meals as such. People used to just go in and get a cheeseburger and chips, but automatically the member would say ‘what drink would you like with that ?’ even though the drink was an add on cost, most people automatically responded by saying Coke. It becomes second nature…if you know how.
By keeping up to date with sales techniques your sales process will improve along with your add on sales!
So, to summise- when you are out selling, sell the full range of products you offer- if you do not you are leaving easy sales on the table for the next salesperson to pick up.
