Upselling existing customers can be the key to keeping your business growing as you continue to offer value to them. Most business owners know that retaining existing customers costs significantly less than obtaining new customers and that customers will go out of their way to buy a particular brand or work with a specific person—even if it costs more.
Even with this information in mind, many businesses structure their sales process to bring in new customers rather than selling to the customers they already have. While it’s vital to close new deals and bring in new customers, it is equally vital and often more cost-effective to provide greater value to your existing customers.
Recently, Adi Klevit and Jim Padilla, CEO of Gain The Edge, discussed how Jim works with business owners to strengthen their upselling processes and improve their offerings for existing customers. Below is a summary of their discussion. You can listen to the entire podcast here.
How to Perfect Your Upselling System
Here are the step-by-step instructions that Jim and Adi discussed during their interview:
1. Identify your ideal customer.
You have many customers/clients. However, some may still require the use of products/services you have discontinued for others; some may have more support needs than you feel comfortable providing and more. While you value all of your clients, it can be helpful to identify the characteristics that make up an ideal customer for your business.
2. Map out your ideal customer journey.
Now that you know your ideal customer, it’s time to map out the journey you want them to have with your business. Here are a few ways to get started with this journey map:
- Observe the journey your existing customers take.
- Send out surveys to determine what next steps/additional products your customers take after working with you.
- Examine your offerings to see how you can provide more value to your customers.
Once you have this information, mapping the ideal customer journey should be straightforward.
3. Determine any additional offerings.
You may currently offer an introductory package that fits many client needs, but some customers need a la carte offerings. Or, you might want to expand your product line to help a broader customer base with customized products.
There are many ways to add additional offerings. I am sure you are already thinking of a few ideas. Jot them down and determine what your existing clients need based on the surveys you performed in step 2.
4. Determine how you will offer upselling services.
Some businesses are better able to provide additional services when partnering with another company, while others can expand their offerings or manufacture new products in-house. Determine how you will offer new products/services to best fit your business model.
5. Establish the services/products.
Now that you know what you will offer and who your partners should be, build out those products/services.
6. Map how you will communicate with existing customers about these products/services.
You have to communicate consistently with your customers to gain their participation in your journey. Map out how this will be done. You can talk to your customers through email, phone calls, texts, social media messages, online groups, in conferences, via a webinar series, and more. The point is to make them feel heard, share what you are doing, and get them excited for the new release. The communication that you provide needs to show that you care about them and the issues they are encountering. Even surveys that show you where they fit into your sales process are valid forms of communication.
7. Create internal SOPs that prioritize client communication.
This makes the all-important customer communication piece vital to your company culture.
8. Communicate with your clients.
Be sure to use the best communication methods that work for your clients. These might be email, social media, text, and other platforms. You must share your messages and be ready to respond to sales inquiries, chatty communication, and more through multiple channels.
9. Make it easy to buy/join the queue for the product or service release.
You must make it incredibly easy for your existing customers to buy or prepurchase the product/service. This is a vital part of the process and will help you capture more sales than you might realize, as customers will also refer their friends, family, coworkers, networking partners, and more to your new product/service release page.
10. Put a sales funnel in place for those who are not at the right stage for an upsell.
Not everyone is in the right stage for an upsell. Perhaps a customer just bought your product, or they are in the midst of pivoting their business. Perhaps you are a realtor, and your customer just switched jobs, so they won’t be able to take out a loan for an investment property for several months or a year. There are many reasons that this might not be the right time for an existing customer to buy. That is why you must have a sales funnel ready to catch anyone who is interested in the new product/service in six months, a year, or longer. Getting an upselling system in place will not only help your business grow, but it will also help your customers get the products/services they want from their favorite brand—your company. Be sure to establish an upselling system as you continue to build out SOPs and your manual of processes and procedures. If you need help establishing working business systems, look no further! Contact Business Success Consulting Group today for a free initial evaluation.
