This blog entry suggests that whenever you close a sale, you have in your back pocket some sort of request for an upsell. The prospect is in a buying mode and sees your value. So long as your upsell isn’t ridiculous in scope or cost, and so long as your offer isn’t something that should automatically be in your original proposal, you have an excellent chance of being successful.
For instance:
- If you offer an ebook, on sale of ebook offer an upsell for consulting or one-on-one coaching.
- If you design a web site, on sale of design, offer an upsell to integrate it with an e-commerce engine or autoresponder. Or, offer an additional feature that the buyer might not have considered earlier. Or, offer a contract for ongoing maintenance and upgrades over time.
- If you develop software, offer an additional module. Or, offer a contract for ongoing maintenance. Or, offer to staff their IT department with a part-time coder after the project is done. Or, offer to set up the software so that your client can license it out.
There are all sorts of options. What has been your experience with successful upsells?
June 15th, 2005 at 12:54 pm
very true. I (almost) always start a conversation about SEO after closing a deal for a website design.
June 15th, 2005 at 6:45 pm
Upselling the client on hosting works very well.
June 16th, 2005 at 4:04 am
Brendon Sinclair (author of The Web Design Business Kit) offers his Web Design clients a free traffic analysis and SEO report a few months after launch. Of course it comes with his recommendations on how they can improve. It’s a great idea because it gives you another reason to visit the client and something new to sell them each time. You can help improve their performance and/or offer them an ongoing subscription to your Website analysis reports.