Enhancing Your Customers Journey With Upsells
Upselling. It’s a part of the sales process that stresses people out more than the actual booking itself. Most people think upselling is giving customers more than what they initially contracted—beyond what they actually need.
I get a lot of people coming to me worried about the upsell process, which is understandable because of the ideas surrounding upselling. The belief that you’re giving them more than what they want, though, just isn't the case.
An upsell is just intended to be an added enhancement to the journey if they're interested in it.
A lot of people think that you need to upsell right at the very beginning. Your upsell offers are most beneficial to your customers when they are strategically placed within their journey with you.
Here’s an example from my experience as a wedding photographer. You book someone at your rate. As they're going through the process of planning their wedding, they realize they want more time than what they initially booked with you, or they decide they want a guest book, or a close relative won’t be able to make it and they want to send them an album.
People are experiencing the process of going through a wedding as they're planning. Meaning: it’s hard to upsell them right at the very beginning when they don't know what they need. Months into it, when they've had the experience of having their engagement photos and when they've planned their seating and when they know where they're getting ready, that’s when it makes sense to offer, “I just wanted to run this by you. I know that you said that getting ready with your girls was the part that you were most excited about on the day. Would you be interested in adding an hour earlier just to make sure that we're really hitting that out of the park for you?”
Upselling is really just meeting people where they're at. I find that when you do it that way, all you're doing is kindly offering a suggestion to enhance their experience, and they can take it or leave it.
It's all about just making sure it's the right time.
Developing Listening Skills
The key to knowing it’s the right time: listening to your customer.
When you really think about at the end of the day, what is going to make someone a better salesperson? The only thing that I feel like I constantly need to be improving and growing, is listening better, and really refining my listening skills.
Every customers journey will be different, but there are also similarities between them all. Both of these somewhat contradictory aspects are important for listening, to help enhance your customer’s journey.
For example: I have been a wedding photographer for 12 years at this point, and for a bulk of that time I have been in the Pacific Northwest. If you know anything about the PNW, its that Sasquatch lives here, we take coffee very seriously, and it rains. About half the year is spent dealing with rain. But weddings still happen, despite the wet weather.
I started to realize a lot of my clients were asking about umbrella’s—specifically, what type of umbrella would look best in photos?
When I realized that this was a recurring question from multiple clients, I was able to incorporate a suggestion to a photogenic umbrella for my couples.
When to incorporate that suggestion takes more listening. Each couple has a different journey when planning their weddings. They have different stressors, they have different wants, they have different family, they have different everything. Knowing when to drop those suggestions comes from listening to your clients as you meet with them throughout that process. They will tell you where they are at in their journey, whether they explicitly say that or not.
Automation
“But Ellie, how do I deliver these upsells?”
All my upsells are automated emails that I send. I don't actually physically do the upsell, unless I happen to be on the phone with them seeing something and making a suggestion to them. I'm able to automatically drop these upsells at a really beautiful time for them, at a pacing that works really good based on what I was able to really glean from their inquiry form, the first call, and from other interactions throughout my time with them.
These automations can be built in to either your email services or your CRM software, like Dubsado*.
Many people will ask me if you do like a follow up call after that? And that is the beauty of my process: all I needed was that initial inquiry form, and that first call to get me everything that I needed to strategically deliver those upsells in a good way.
It really just comes down to knowing what to look for, knowing how to be a good listener. When you're able to do that, they are not only going to respond to your upsells, but they're genuinely going to feel understood and feel like you got their back on something, and they're going to be happy to pay you for it.
Shifting the mindset of upsells from “Ew, this is something they didn't want,” to “This is an enhancement to the experience that can really deliver more enjoyment and more fulfillment in working with me.” And that is what has given me a lot of the motivation to do these things.
If you want to learn more about my sales process, and upselling in particular, The Business Conservatory program has multiple trainings on this! Check out more about The Business Conservatory here.
*This link is an affiliate link. If you sign up for Dubsado through this link, you’ll receive 20% off your first month or year, and I receive compensation as well.
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