Take this challenge:

What else can we cross-sell to our clients?

By Dr. Sharon Gotteiner

It’s not about selling extended or better products and services. It’s about selling additional solutions next to the ones we already do. Can you come up with any additional solutions? 

Imagine you were selling hamburgers, but no coke, fries, or ice cream. How would that affect your financial performance? Of course, you would not benefit from the additional revenue that such additional products would generate. But it may come to much more than that: You would sell fewer hamburgers due to your inferior offering. Clients would prefer the brands that sell the other optional products over your one product. Therefore, the implication of maintaining an extended offering goes beyond higher levels of sales and to the company’s competitive position.

The question is what else you could sell to your clients when they buy your current products or services. Here are 10 questions to help you spark an answer:

1. What else do your clients need when they order your products or services?
2. What will make their lives easier when they use your products or services?
3. What will improve their experience with your products or services?
4. If your clients are forced to buy the type of products or services that you offer, what can you offer to comfort them?
5. What do your clients buy just before or just after they order your products?
6. Are there any additional types of products or services offered by your competition?
7. What makes potential clients prefer your competition?
8. If you are selling to other businesses (B2B), what additional product or service will help your clients increase their sales?
9. What do clients intend to do with the rest of their related budget?
10. Lastly, which complementary product or service would be more difficult for your competition to imitate or introduce?

Simple questions indeed, but uneasy to answer. If you manage to get a sense of relevant direction, please take it to your direct manager, as this is not something you should overlook. It’s better to feel embarrassed for coming up with a silly idea than being left with the doubt that you ignored an idea that could have positively contributed to your workplace.

Next, examining such ideas will require the involvement of additional departments or divisions, such as marketing, operations, and even R&D. For example, the marketing department may be required to validate such a direction by surveying clients over their interest in such a complementary product or service. If potential demand gets validated, operations may be required to estimate related costs. Or R&D may be required to estimate the cost of development. Then it will have to go back to marketing or sales to consider its price, financial feasibility, strategic implications, ability to sell, applied regulation if applicable; top management involvement may even be required. It’s a long way, but it can start with you.

Can you think of any additional product or service that your company can offer?

Good luck! 

© Dr. Sharon Gotteiner, Corpocheck.org . All Rights Reserved. This publication is intended for individual use only. Please consider joining the Enterprise Plan for integrating our materials with the organizational innovation process in place.

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