How to Generate Revenue Through Up Selling and Cross Selling

Online, May 6, 2014 (Newswire.com) - In many circumstances, it has been often found that the sales professionals get completely engrossed with a single product and totally ignore other possibilities to address the customers' needs.

Cross-Selling

Cross-selling generally occurs when the sales representative has more than one type of product to offer consumers that might be beneficial to them. Some fields in which cross-selling is most evident include those of the banking and financial services industries. Banking customers may go into the bank and sign up for a checking account and later be sold various investment vehicles such as bonds or CDs as part of a retirement plan. Investment firms do much of the same, starting off clients within a specific investment product that they need and then later identifying additional needs that their company can meet on behalf of the client.

Up-Selling

Up-selling differs somewhat from cross-selling in that the salesperson is not so much concerned with selling an additional product to generate additional commissions, but rather with selling a higher-end version of the product the customer originally came to buy. The automobile salesman often engages in up-selling by showing the customer multiple versions of the same product. Each version may differ in quality, starting with a base model and progressing through more luxurious models with additional features.

One of the main differences between up-selling and cross-selling is in the approach that the salesperson takes when engaging in either method. When cross-selling, the salesperson identifies a definite need that the customer has and fulfils that need by recommending an additional product. Up-selling is somewhat less need-based in its orientation and typically involves the salesperson building value in the product being offered. In other words, a car customer may not need the top-of-the-line SUV with leather seating and a full entertainment centre, but the up-selling salesperson can help that customer see the value in having it by painting a picture of how much more comfortable the family vacation will be with these additional features.

In many ways, cross-selling and up-selling are similar in that they each offer customers additional value than what they would have otherwise received had they only bought what they were initially looking for. Some salespeople make the mistake of cataloguing features of these additional products, rather than building value, or showing customers how they will benefit from these additional or higher-quality products. A successful cross-selling and up-selling salesperson will be able to paint a picture of the value that the customer will receive so that the customer will be able to visualize the benefits of making the purchase. Up-selling benefits the customer by providing higher quality, while cross-selling adds benefit by providing additional quality.

Every sales professional should be trained thoroughly about all supplementary and complementary products and their benefits and features. Advance's Professional Selling Skills program can be an ideal training course to be attended by sales professionals across all hierarchies.

About Advance UK:

Advance is an online sales training academy, Established in UK from past 20 years. Advance provides e-learning and performance support for global and small to medium-sized businesses and individual independent learners.

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