READY FOR UPSELL
KEY INDICATORS FROM CUSTOMERS
Upselling uncovers opportunity in economic downturn.
In today’s challenging economy, finding new sources of revenue is becoming increasingly difficult. As pipelines dry up, sellers must fine tune their skills and learn to identify additional revenue opportunities with existing clients to meet quotas and grow revenue. By learning to effectively upsell to existing clients, sales teams can find new opportunities for revenue and reduce the risk of churn, even in a struggling economy.
Clients are ripe for upsell when they expect high value at low effort.
Upselling is easier said than done. Successful upselling and cross-selling efforts are focused less on capturing new revenue and more on creating new value for existing users and clients. For a client to be receptive to an upsell offer, they need to be convinced that the new offer will be valuable, by either increasing total product value or decreasing required effort to achieve said value.
Because of this reality, it’s critical for sales teams to know what creates value for their clients, what makes their lives easier, and what gets them excited to spend more on a product.
If you want to better understand your buyers and customers, implementing a win-loss analysis, customer experience analysis, and churn analysis program can help you gather feedback throughout the customer journey and create a continuous feedback loop.
High value and low effort are seen through:
PROPERLY SET AND SOLD EXPECTATIONS
Seeding the field for upsells begins at the first call with a prospect. In competitive deals, some sales reps may feel the urge to slightly exaggerate or overstate their company’s capabilities. But this temptation should be avoided at all costs.
Properly set expectations can increase the perceived value of a product up to 70% post-sale, and can reduce the expected effort by up to 90%!
At first, this might seem like drastic advice. How damaging could slightly exaggerating to close the deal really be?
If you’ve ever purchased a product only to discover that it doesn’t work nearly as well as advertised, you’ll understand how misrepresentation impacts the buyer. When a sales rep overstates and oversells a product or service, they create heightened expectations that will never be met. As buyers become clients, misaligned expectations turn to doubts and frustrations. Buyers begin to question whether a renewal is worth it, and the potential for upsell dwindles.
Overstating a vendor’s capabilities might secure short-term revenue, but it effectively eliminates most future upsell opportunities and can threaten renewals.
EFFECTIVE CHANGE MANAGEMENT
As properly setting expectations eliminates potential self-sabotage for future upsells, effective change management can create early wins that set a positive tone throughout the client relationship. This foundation increases the likelihood of future upsells.
Effective change management efforts can increase perceived value by up to 80% and reduce expected effort by
up to 87%
By helping clients get off to a running start, driving adoption and alignment for strategic initiatives, and delivering meaningful, early results, sales and customer experience teams set client relationships on the right trajectory to make future upsells effortless.
Involving the correct decision makers early and often can increase perceived value by 72% and reduce expected effort by 84%
One of the best ways a sales rep can impact change management perceptions is by engaging with the correct decision-makers.
By involving key decision makers and stakeholders, sales reps can set up accounts for easier post-sale change management efforts by creating high-impact partners who act as internal champions and promoters to help drive adoption.
By doubling down on efforts to connect with the right stakeholders before closing deals, sales reps can secure key points of contact to serve as receptive audiences and allies to future upsell offerings.
COMPELLING ROADMAPS AND FUTURE OFFERS
While delivering clear current value is foundational to creating upsell opportunities, future perceived value creates excitement and anticipation that can be critical to closing them.
Compelling roadmaps and future offerings can increase perceived value by up to 79% and decrease perceived effort by up to 77%
Emerging trends indicate that this is likely due to future value helping to overcome minor existing product concerns. If a client perceives an existing gap in a product, a clear roadmap with a relevant and aligned value proposition can mitigate their concern and in some cases actually generate excitement for coming updates and features.
And by bringing clients behind the curtain to see the future of a vendor’s product can create clearer stakes for both parties that bind them together in strong, durable partnership.
HELPFUL? SHARE WITH OTHERS!
UNSURE IF A CLIENT IS READY?
SEEK A REFERRAL OR RECOMMENDATION
If you’re not sure if a client is ready for the upsell pitch and can’t determine their perceptions of the above indicators, one last indicator of client seeing high value with low effort is recommendation likelihood.
Clients who were likely to recommend a vendor were up to 77% more likely to see high value & low effort
There are two key reasons for this: first, the obvious consideration is that people are more likely to recommend a vendor they like. But another, more significant reason is that the same processes that reps use to ask a client to act as a referrer or recommender can be used to create stronger partnerships that fuel future upsell opportunities.
For a client to feel comfortable offering a recommendation, they have to be willing to put their relationship on the line to some extent. It often requires a high level of trust in the platform and sales and customer experience teams to recommend a vendor to a friend or peer organization. By converting clients into partners in conveying product/service value, reps can continue to build trust that this value will grow over time.
So if you’re unsure if a client is ready for the upsell conversation, consider seeding the ground with a conversation about referrals and recommendations. This can create opportunities for sales reps to reaffirm their desire to act as a supportive partner while showing upcoming value-adds in a low pressure environment.
Ready to win more upsells?
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