“Would you like fries with your order?” No doubt you’ve heard that question a million times. Especially if you have young children who ‘help’ you choose where to eat. That phrase may irritate the hell out of us – but it does dramatically increase the turnover of a certain chain of restaurants.
Why do you think they do it? Is it because they care about their customers and whether they have ordered enough to eat? I don’t think so. It’s doubtful if their motives are that altruistic.
No. It’s purely about increasing sales, and therefore profits.
It’s called ‘Add-on Selling’, and that particular company not only pioneered but mastered the technique of getting you to buy more than you intended. And if you can apply it to your business, you can watch your business skyrocket without the need for any advertising, special promotions, discounts or any other business-building tools you can dream up. Imagine how difficult it would be to increase your turnover by 25%. (If it wasn’t difficult, why haven’t you done it already?)
How does ‘Add-on Selling’ work? Easy. It’s a matter of disciplining yourself to think ahead one step beyond the purchase your customer is making right now.
Let’s say you have a sports store and a customer is buying a new pair of football boots for his son. Once the new boots have been chosen, it would be logical to suggest a new pair of shin guards or comfort insoles with the purchase. Or boot cleaning products, or spare studs and laces. Products they will have to buy eventually anyway – but probably somewhere else. Why not have them buy those items – now – from you. They are only about one quarter the price of the boots and are an easy addition for the customer since it is not a lot of extra money. But it has increased your turnover by 25%! As simple as that. And even if you only succeeded half the time, if you did that with every second customer, your sales for the day would be up by 12.5%. Every day!
How much would that mean to you at the end of the month, end of the quarter, end of the year? A substantial amount, I’d bet. And what did it cost you? Precisely nothing!
Every time a customer makes a buying transaction with your business you suggest an additional, complimentary product to go with it.
How about a butcher shop? When a customer buys a chicken, they will also need seasoning mix, or stuffing, or gravy mix. If you have those products on hand it’s an easy question to ask your customer what they are going to stuff the chicken with. Or what they are going to do about gravy. Hey, presto – you have the solution ready for them. It’s an easy buying decision for your customer because it won’t cost very much extra, and they have their wallet or purse out already. An extra 15-20% profit for you. Do that with every second customer and watch your profits explode!
Or your timber yard. Find out what your customer is going to do with the timber through the judicious use of open questions, and suggest that your customer will also need nails, screws, glue, hammer, saw and spirit level. Or whatever. And, of course, you have them there for your customer to take away with them saving time later on. Advantage to them, advantage to you. Win/Win.
Or a wedding shop – now there is a goldmine. Once the dress has been chosen, there’s the shoes, underwear, jewellery, make-up, cosmetics, wedding cars, speech writer, and of course all the men’s outfitting. Your imagination can run wild with that one, not to mention your turnover.
Get the picture? This is the easiest way to increase your business – starting today! There is no special equipment you have to buy, no elaborate training to attend, no particular stock to order and no extra staff to hire. You have it all there already. And it costs you absolutely nothing!
The next area of no-cost increased sales is equally simple to do. Package selling. What is package selling? Putting together groups of products that go to make up something larger than each of the individual products themselves.
Take the example we used before of the timber yard. You group together the joists, decking timbers, nails, screws, glue, measuring tape and spirit level and a set of easy-to-read instructions to build a garden patio in one afternoon. The ‘DIY Outdoor Centre’ will cost your customer less as a package than the individual components would if bought separately, but you have a bigger sale value as they are buying everything from you. And they are buying the convenience.
Or if you sell cars. Your ‘Sports Package’ could consist of sporty alloy wheels and special tyres, a sports steering wheel and go-faster stripes; your ‘Family Package’ could be a roof-top luggage holder, DVD player with games console and a car fridge; your ‘Executive Package’ could be tinted windows, cruise control and stackable CD player. And two dozen golf balls! The options for this industry are virtually endless, limited only by your imagination.
What about those people who sell kitchen appliances? Your ‘Breakfast Package’ could have a kettle, toaster, coffee maker, and omelette pan; the ‘Bakers Package’ could be a set of mixing bowls, cake tins, wooden spoons, icing kit and oven gloves; the ‘Steak Lovers Package’ would be a ridged pan to give the striped effect on the meat, tongs, steak knives and mustard selection.
You get the idea. Whatever you package together is a good deal for the customer, not only in terms of the cost of the package, but also the fact that they get everything they need in the one single purchase. They save money and you make sales of a much larger value to each customer. And your profits go up. Again, Win/Win.
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