How and When Should You Be Upselling?
There’s a difference between Top-Down Selling and Up-selling. Do you know the difference? How and when should you be upselling to bring unexpected results to your couples and customers. How can you go about offering new and better experiences to your customers, event after they’ve formerly said, No?
Listen to this new 11-minute episode for ideas on how and when you can upsell, without being pushy.
Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:
- Apple Podcast:
- YouTube: www.WeddingBusinessSolutionsPodcast.tv
- Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3sGsuB8
- Stitcher:
- Google Podcast:
- iHeart Radio: https://ihr.fm/31C9Mic
- Pandora:
Below is a full transcript. If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at [email protected] or contact me via text, use the short form on this page, or call 732.422.6362
Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review (thanks, it really does make a difference). If you want to get notifications of new episodes and upcoming workshops and webinars, you can sign up at www.ConnectWithAlanBerg.com
– How, and when should you be upselling your customers? Listen to this episode and find out. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. I’m Alan Berg. And I want to talk to you today about upselling. First, let me define what upselling is. Upselling is helping someone have results based upon other products and services that they didn’t originally ask for. Now there’s a time and a place to do that. And depending upon your category depending upon your sales style, depending upon how many times you’re going to have contact with customers is how and when to upsell them. Now, upselling is a little bit different than Top-Down selling, which I’ve spoken about, written about extensively in my books and doing my sales training. Top-down selling is when you’re making the initial sale, selling them to the results that they want not the budget that they came with. So you might offer them a higher package than they thought they wanted, or a higher price because there are more things involved because they need those results. They want those results in order to get those results they have to pay for those things.
So my preference is that you sell them those things up front. So you don’t have to go back and upsell later. And if that’s what’s working for you if you have nothing to sell them after the initial sale then you don’t need to list into this episode. Or maybe you do because maybe you want to learn how to profit more. So Top-Down selling is you don’t present the customer with anything you listen, which is really important. That’s why my most popular book is called “Shut Up and Sell More Weddings and Events”. Those of you on YouTube. There’s the orange cover over my shoulder here. There’s the caterer edition, the DJ edition, right there. Those of you’re not the watching video, you can see them on my website, ShopAlanBerg.com or on Amazon, Audible, Kindle, tambien en español.
Okay, so Top-Down selling is listen to them find the results that they want. Present them with a solution for those results. Tell them how much that’s going to be ask for the sale. And if they say it’s too much you start taking things away and working your way down. That’s Top-Down selling. Upselling is offering them other experiences, other solutions, other things that they didn’t initially buy when they bought from you. Right, when they bought your a la carte or your package or whatever it was you sold them. And then later offering them other things. Now it’s really important to do this because even if they said no when they first bought, doesn’t mean they will say no again. According to The Knot and WeddingWire their annual study of couples, their newlywed study, couples go over their budgets by 30 to 40% about three quarters of couples go over their budgets. And the average over their budget is 30 to 40%. And as they say down South: “bless their hearts”. So, but the reason is this.
I actually had an experience of speaking to couples at a bridal show. And I was speaking to couples. I normally speak to the vendors but I was speaking to the couples. And I said, you set your budget based upon a dollar amount you wanted to spend not for the results you want to get because you don’t know what those results cost. And that’s why all of us as consumers and especially people who are planning events they don’t know what things should cost. And they set their budget. They just pull a number out of thin air and they set a budget, maybe based on a survey they read or a one couple told me they made it based upon their income. They just picked the number based upon their income. I didn’t ask what percentage, but that was their answer. We did it based upon our income.
But all budgets are made up. There’s an author, Phil M. Jones. He has a lot of Audible originals and sales books. I love listening to him on audio because he it’s in his own British voice, but he said “All budgets are made up”. And it’s true. We recently had an HVAC unit put in our bedroom. We added a third zone onto our house. And when it came time to figuring, should we do it or not? I said to my wife, you know what? I think it’s going to be $5,000. And I had nothing to base that on, zero. Nothing to base that on other than, I don’t know, maybe it’s about $5,000. And the first quote came in at like $6,800. I was like, ah, crap. Let me get another quote because maybe that one’s not right. This is what couples are doing to you. This is what customers are doing to you. When they don’t know they get another quote. The other quote was close to the first one. Now I knew I was wrong. Now I have a choice. In my case I can’t buy something lesser because I can’t cool two thirds of the bedroom. That’s not an option. I have to cool the whole bedroom. Or at least my wife’s side of the bedroom. I’m happily married. But I couldn’t do that. I wanted to cool the whole bedroom. So therefore I had to either not do it at all or raise the budget.
And this is what couples are doing with you. This is what companies are doing with you. So sometimes they’re trying to stick to their budget. They stick to their budget, but some things that they want aren’t in there and they’re compromising. But if you ask them later when the budget then is already blown because now they’re looking at other services. So if you’re a venue or a dress, you’re probably first and then catering, photography. And then they work their way down and everybody’s got their own timeline. But there’s some pretty similarities. If you read the timelines online. If you’re a little bit later and they’ve blown the budget, well what if you came back to them? What if you were the venue and you came back and offered them something that they didn’t buy initially but maybe now they want. Upgraded linens or upgraded experiences or food stations or things like that if you’re caterer, you know, experiential things or an upgraded bar.
Once the budget is blown maybe we’ll blow it a little bit more. And what they might realize is that the money that they’re looking to spend may not get them the experience that they want to have. And that’s why when you’re selling and upselling, you shouldn’t be selling stuff, you should be selling the experiences. Now one of my clients is selling three times as many photo booths as he ever sold because he’s not selling photo booths. He’s asking them: “Have you thought about something fun for your guests when they’re not on the dance floor?” And all of a sudden they’re thinking about, hmm let me give them something fun when they’re not on the dance floor or lawn games all right, something like that. Or up lighting is not about digital wireless LED lighting. It’s about matching their theme and color and having it bathe the room in those colors. So if you think about, when should you do this in every conversation you want be asking them questions you don’t want to be selling stuff. You want to be asking them questions, which will lead to those things that they might want to buy to solve those problems or to provide those experiences.
So if you’re a caterer and you were to ask them have you ever been to an event where dinner’s done, cake has been cut, dancing’s really good, and you could use a little something? You could just use a little something or maybe you been in an event where they’ve come out with a a cart with some sort of a really local food item or something fun. And everybody goes crazy because, oh, look there’s an ice cream bar over there right now or there’s pretzels because we’re in Philly. And if you ask a question, have you ever been to a wedding event where you’re a little bit hungry later and they go, yeah, you say, well, let’s make sure that doesn’t happen with your guests. What fun things should we do? And now you’re working with them and they’re going to spend more money because they want that thing. So when should you be upselling? You should be upselling at every conversation you have by asking a question. Don’t worry if they say no today they might say yes later. Aunt Sally, might say, you know what? I don’t want to buy you guys another set of towels. Is there something I can get for you? And if they go, you know what? That espresso bar, we were going to do an espresso bar but we kind of hit our budget on there. Would you want to, you know, do the espresso bar? And all of a sudden Aunt Sally pays for the espresso bar and now they do it. But if you don’t ask again, the answer is always no.
Those of you watching on video you see these little signs that I hand out when I’m doing sales training and stuff. And when I’m at a trade show, if you see me at any of the trade shows, cater shows, wedding and beer whatever, you can get these at my table. “If you don’t ask the answer is always no.” So what is upselling? Upselling is offering the customer experiences and solutions that they didn’t already pay for giving them the option to say yes but don’t sell the stuff, sell the outcomes. When should you do it? Every conversation you have is an opportunity to do that. It’s just asking a question. And one of the best ways to do it is to ask a question that provides a potential negative that is solved with that. Like the photo booth, something fun for your guests when they’re not on the dance floor is the negative is, oh, what are they going to do when they’re not dancing? Here you go, something fun. Little bit hungry later? Here’s the snack. A surprise, you know, if you asked them, so have you guys thought about some ways that you’re going to give a surprise and delight to your guests, just out of left field. Something that they’re just going to go crazy. And if they kind of look at you like Scooby-Doo like woo, my friend, Brian Walter says, what? Now you can provide them with solutions and they pay to eliminate problems. They pay to provide experiences for themselves and for their guests. So when should you do it every time you have a conversation don’t worry if they said no before. Just ask them questions. If you don’t ask the answer is always no. Thanks for listening.
I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [email protected]. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:
- Apple Podcast:
- YouTube: www.WeddingBusinessSolutionsPodcast.tv
- Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3sGsuB8
- Stitcher:
- Google Podcast:
- iHeart Radio: https://ihr.fm/31C9Mic
- Pandora:
©2022 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com
