Here is the good news. The hardest sale you will ever make to a customer is the first one. With the first sale, if you deliver on your promise to the customer, you establish a mutually-beneficial relationship. The customer gets what he or she wants, and you get what you want. Also, once you have received a "yes" commitment from a customer, it's easier to continue the positive pattern of continued "yeses". The customer finds it hard to break the affirmative sequence. You then will have the opportunity to Upsell them.

Upselling refers to when you help a customer decide to buy a little extra or up-grade slightly the final purchase. A car dealer, for example, might inform customers at the time of ordering about upholstery protection and undercoating. A shoe salesperson might suggest that when you buy a pair of shoes that you also use some weather protectant spray. These are usually small purchases that the buyer doesnt have to put a lot of thought into. The bonus is they can be extremely profitable for you as the sales person and for your organization.

Following are three key tips to effectively upsell your customers.

1. Up-sell where it makes sense. Say a customer purchases an e-book from your website. Instead of trying to upsell your customer on a $3,000 seminar, ask if he'd considered purchasing a $97 teleclass that teaches the work from the e-book.

2. Use sales incentives. Once you've received the first sale, offer a discount on the second item. Give the customer a 10% discount off their first teleclass. Sometimes a very small price break is enough to get that extra sale.

3. Identify buying patterns. Take note of how many customers who purchase e-books also buy teleseminars. This kind of information tells you what items to pitch and when. Your grasp of market research will impress potential buyers as well: telling consumers that 90% of the people who buy e-books from you also buy seminars might tip them towards making that extra purchase.

The best part of upselling is that its practically effortless. Since its done after the customer has decided to go ahead with a major purchase, the hard part of the sales conversation has already been done. Youve already established rapport, identified needs, summarized, presented benefits, asked for the order and handled objections. Upselling is just presenting the information in a by-the-way assumptive manner.

Also, make sure that you include an upsale opportunity in your autoresponder within your shopping cart. For example, someone buys an e-book. In your autoresponder, thank them for their purchase and ask them if they would like to register for the teleclass on the same subject for a discount.

So if it is so easy, you might be asking, how can I go wrong?

The 3 biggest mistakes in upselling:

1. No attempt is made to upsell. I can hear it now as I write this article. I hate to sell, I dont want to bother people, and the ever popular They are probably going to say no. This upselling business might all sound a bit contrived, but let me introduce another perspective to look from assuming that you only provide top notch products and services that can make your customers life easier and more enjoyable.

If you had information or a product that could help people improve the quality of their life, wouldnt you actually be doing a disservice to them to not offer it. You would actually be withholding valuable information from them. And here is the thing they do have the right to say no. AND you are in business. If you dont offer or sell your services or products to prospects, you wont have a business much longer and then all the people who need you wont have access to you.

2. The salesperson comes across as being pushy. How can you avoid this? Being assumptive is the key. Youve got to assume that the customer will naturally want your product or service. Begin the upsell with a brief benefit, and then if possible, add something unique about what youre selling. To avoid sounding pushy, particularly if the upsell requires some elaboration, ask for the customers permission to describe it.

3. The upselling is made in an unconvincing manner so the customer generally refuses. This issue really links back to the objects made in number one, which is you dont feel comfortable selling, so you dont really make an effort. If you believe in your products and services, let the buyer see your passion. If you dontit is time to go back to the drawing board.

Copyright 2005 UpLevel Strategies