Nine steps for upselling in any small business

Let’s just begin with an understanding of what upselling is – it can be defined as “being asked at the time of your purchase if you would like something of a higher grade, quality, or size than you are about to purchase”.

We have all heard, “Would you like that supersized?” – McDonalds are genius at upselling and have paved the way forward.

The majority of business owners don’t realise this, but 34 per cent of customers will buy more if they are asked to, people are already in the right frame of mind to be buying so it can be a reason to have something bigger, better than they were originally after.

It is vital you go into upselling prepared correctly and not come off as too pushy,  as that will have the opposite effect.

Here are nine steps you can use to successfully implement upselling in your business.

1. Work out your upsell options

Make a list of all your products. Match up products to those which are similar but of a higher grade or size. Choose your top three, then narrow it to the top one – this will be your upsell focus for the day/week/month.

2. Have scripts ready

Write out a few scripts for your sales staff to use. Allow them to choose the script which feels the most natural to them, or you could allow them to produce their own. Include the benefits the higher quality product has in all scripts.

3. Plan a visual display

People like to see products; it increases the consumers desire to buy. Make it attractive and telling a story about the product where possible.

4. Ensure you have enough of the product required for the upsell

You must be prepared for superstars amongst your team who will do everything to achieve results, don’t let them down by not having the product for them to sell.

5. Motivate your staff

Have a competition scoreboard, where they can highlight their sales as they go, this will bring out the competitors amongst your staff, and will encourage all to be involved. It will also help you see which staff could do with extra help to achieve.

6. Be enthusiastic about it yourself

Staff want to know you are excited about the process as well and you are there for support if they need. Give constant encouragement during the process and share results at various times, this will keep all interested.

7. Choose the date

Plan the day/week or month you will be doing the upsell activity.

8. Who will be the responsible person?

You need to choose a staff member to be in control of the process. To ensure the tallies are being recorded correctly, everyone is participating, the product is displayed and not running out, most importantly, keeping record of the winners.

9. Have a reward

The reward for a job well done is a way to encourage all to participate, but it doesn’t have to be large, staff just love the competition. Some ideas could be a movie ticket, a massage, a night out axe throwing, this could vary on the size and the effort of the upsell.

All that is left now is to implement and watch those sales go up in the process – have fun.