Everybody knows it’s cheaper to keep a customer than to get a new one. You don’t have to advertise as much, you don’t have to find them, you just keep ‘em happy. Well, how can you apply that to building business?
The trick is to gently upsell them or what I like to call “invitation upselling.” We’ve all met pushy salesmen who try so hard to get us to buy things whether we want them or not. But do you realize that every time you go out to eat you’re being upsold? We typically don’t think of waiters/waitresses as salespeople but next time you go out to eat pay attention. “What can I get you to drink?”, “Do you want fries with that?”, “Did you want the combo?”, “What will you be having for dessert today?”
Invitation upselling is not pushy or annoying. Most of the time we don’t even realize we’re being upsold. “So how can that apply to my small business,” you say? Well here’s the thing, your customers already approve of your product otherwise they wouldn’t be buying it so it’s safe to assume that they wouldn’t mind getting more of it if it were a good value. All you need to do is ask them, “Did you want the regular version or the enhanced version for another $20?”
Assume that they just didn’t choose that version because it didn’t occur to them. Invite them to try it but don’t push. Your customers will thank you for the respectful, helpful approach.
We’ll talk more about assuming the sale and “trying” later.
