Upselling strategy: How to exploit sales potential
UPSELLING STRATEGY: HOW TO EXPLOIT SALES POTENTIAL
Upselling strategy: Generating additional value
What do prospective customers really need in order to optimally solve their challenges and pain points? All sales activities in value-based selling revolve around this question. Because only if the added value is right can the initial opportunity first become a deal and then a joint success story. Salespeople must constantly qualify for this! What is actually behind the lead's apparent problems? Shouldn't the solution be more fundamental, for example to put the processes on a healthy footing instead of just treating the symptoms of profound deficits? The ideal offer for the individual application is derived from these answers.
And this happens quite often: Leads are interested in a particular product and contact your team asking for more information and advice. During the collaboration, however, it turns out that a higher-quality product delivers the better business case. A clear case for upselling!
The job of the sales force is to consistently exploit these opportunities to sell a more expensive product. After all, the leads already have a basic intention to buy a product. What is needed now is a convincing argument that proves the additional added value of the upselling option - and boosts sales performance with the increase in turnover. How do you consistently exploit this potential? With your own strategy for upselling.
Building on existing potential with an upselling strategy
Cross-selling and upselling are two important drivers of sales performance - and indicators of a sales team's efficiency. Regardless of whether they are selling additional products or services to the initial offer or convincing interested parties of a higher-priced option, salespeople must be able to recognize and consistently exploit these opportunities. The upselling strategy should ensure that customers skip the initial product and go straight for the higher-value product.
This pays off - for both sides! After all, the sales department uses the acquired lead and its willingness to buy to achieve the most attractive deal possible. This makes the costly acquisition of new customers all the more worthwhile. The lead also benefits: instead of an unnecessary stopover via the product of their original interest, they receive the optimal solution directly. This is the result of the advisory work of the salespeople, who work with the lead to put together the optimal offer and can back up its added value with figures. A few success factors ensure that your upselling strategy also transports this target image into reality.
Upselling strategy: success factors
In value-based selling, the added value for the lead is the starting point for all activities of the sales team. The upselling strategy must not contradict this, but must fit into this framework. Only then can salespeople remain convincing when upselling and work towards the best possible deal with personality and expertise.
1. communicate the value convincingly
Leads come to their first meeting with sales with an idea in mind. They have gathered information online, received marketing documents or listened to podcasts. After the first stage of their buyer journey, they have considered a possible solution from your product range - with added value as the decisive factor, of course. However, the sales force sees the ratio of added value to additional price as even more positive with an upselling solution? Not so easy to convince potential customers of this! The upselling strategy must ensure that the sales team can conclusively communicate the value of an upselling option. If the other party gets the feeling that the sales team is simply interested in making more sales, this can backfire. Possible consequences: Sales staff fall out of their role as advisors and leads change direction.
2. build trust
Upselling is a stress test for the relationship of trust between sales and leads. What sales staff painstakingly build up via the individual touchpoints can easily be lost again if they make mistakes when upselling. The strategy for upselling must therefore take the relationship perspective of sales into account. Leads will only be receptive to upselling if the basis of trust is right. A coherent argument for the added value is essential - but it is only effective if the other party is open to it. When communicating, sales professionals should therefore use tools such as social proof to present their upselling offers in the right light.
3. use sales psychology
Salespeople can also utilize sales psychology in the upselling strategy in other ways. What about pricing? Prices in the B2B sector are always dynamic to a certain extent. Sales teams can take advantage of this factor. The important thing is that the prices of the upselling solution must fit the business case. Think about the economic buyer on the customer side. To convince this stakeholder to buy the higher-value solution, there must be no doubt that it is the most economical option. By creating scarcity in the upselling offer, you can create additional incentives for a quick decision. For example, salespeople can mention the capacities of their project team and carry out backward scheduling - a technique that no playbook should be without. The system should be up and running by the end of the year? In order not to jeopardize the deadline, a decision needs to be made soon!
4. bring the pain into focus
Of course, the upselling strategy is intended to make targeted use of sales potential on the sales side. But in their activities, salespeople must never stray too far from the starting point - and that is and remains the lead's pain. After all, this is the fundamental motivation of the conversation partners: Overcoming pain, finding solutions to pressing challenges in their own area of responsibility and thus improving their own situation in the long term. What can the lead gain by marketing the upselling option internally? If leads support a higher-priced solution, they will ultimately have to withstand increased scrutiny and criticism from other stakeholders. Champions must therefore be in no doubt that the upselling solution is the best option.
Upselling strategy as a performance boost
The upselling strategy puts into practice what all decision-makers want from their sales team: Always remain open and understand the problems of leads as well as possible. Only then can salespeople ultimately identify the best product or service for the individual use case of their prospects. However, this is not the end of the story: only when this message reaches the lead does the deal come within reach. This is what upselling is all about. Once the right option has been identified, salespeople must remain true to their role: Develop business cases, build trust and prepare champions for their role when going through the decision-making committees.
