Up your profits in a down economy – Post 3

In my last post, I wrote about the importance of improving your selling skills. Without a doubt, it is the simplest way to dramatically increase the value of each sale.

Even if you don’t take the time to go through a professional selling course or book, there are some things you can do to increase the average transaction value.

• Start by identifying your most popular selling products or those that are easiest to sell.
• Select one or more products or services that compliment these products.
• Create “bundles” with special package pricing that applies if the client buys the extra product at the same time as the initial purchase.
• Create a sales script and rehearse the words that you will use to up-sell to a client. Say you own a pet store and a client just bought a training leash for their new dog. You say, “If you are using this for training, I recommend you also get the bookGood Owners, Great Dogs. I think it’s one of the best training books ever written. If you get the book today with the training leash, I can discount the book 10%.”
• It’s that easy. The key is to know what extra value you can bring to your client, believe in the value of what you are offering and ask the client to buy it.

The key is to get used to asking. Will it work every time? No, but it will only work if you ask! Whatever you sell, it is very likely you can add value with additional products. Since you’ve already spent the money to get the client in front of you, you owe it to yourself and the client to insure they have everything they need!