A step-by-step guide for your cross-selling process

Winning new customers is great, but by no means guarantees growth in revenue after the initial project is completed. Take your chance and start your cross-selling activities already before the existing sales opportunity comes to an end.

Here is a step-by-step guide for your cross-selling process

Step 1 - Do an excellent job with your open opportunity

You won’t get an internal recommendation if you don’t do a good job. But don’t just cross your fingers and hope it turns out well. You need to be reviewing your running project regularly and ask the customer about how the project is going in his opinion:

• Are we being thorough in our approach to the work?
• Is our communication of results clear and easy to understand?
• Are we meeting deadlines?
• Are our people accessible?
• Do we listen carefully to what you say?
• Do we relate well to your people?
• Are we keeping you sufficiently informed about progress?
• Do we tell you in advance what we are going to do?
• Do we notify you promptly of any changes in scope and seek approval?
• Do you think our fees are appropriate for the work?
• Which improvements would you like to see from our end in our cooperation?

The very fact that you are asking as you go along and responding to the answers is likely to make the customer more satisfied.

Step 2 - Review and visualise the relationship status

Draw up a list of all the influential contacts you have and the people you would like to work with by department or business unit. Then rank each person with one of the following colours:

• Green: These are people you have done a good job for and who have influence. They will become your Ambassadors.
• Grey: These are potential decision makers for your different product or service offerings and who know little or nothing about you yet. They may be spread across several departments, business units or countries.
• Red These are people who are aware of you and have a negative view or are known to be keen on your competitor.
• Yellow: These are people who know you and are at worst neutral towards you or have some positive view of you.

You may need to workshop these relationships with your colleagues in order to draw up a spreadsheet or something similar so that you can visualise the relationships. Then you plan your approach strategy.

Step 3 - Your Approach Strategy

You have been asking your customer the questions above throughout the project. Towards the end of the project, it's time to ask for a recommendation adding one more question: ‘My understanding is that Mr. Grey in Department XYZ is responsible for …… Could you please introduce us to him?’ 

If you are an ongoing supplier, choose a regular review to pose this question. What you are looking for is an introduction from one of the people you have identified as GREEN – we call them Ambassadors – to a GREY - someone who might be able to open you the door for new sales opportunities within the company.

It may be that you want an introduction for yourself, or for a colleague. Often you will want to sell a different product or service to another business unit or another country. In this case, your first meeting may involve you and your Ambassador or it may be just the relevant expert from your organisation and the target. We refer to this as cross-selling rather than up-selling which is selling additional products or services to an existing customer.

Step 4 - First meeting

Treat this as you would for any first meeting– and we all know just how vital first meetings are. You will have a Meeting One-Pager and carefully considered questions, You will minute the meeting and follow up effectively and thoroughly.

! A tip ! - Relationship Development Plan and Dashboard

This approach can be developed into a fully-fledged Relationship Development Plan and measured using a Relationship Dashboard. The dashboard is based on the process of identifying green, grey, red and yellow individuals in business units, departments or countries you want to target.

As soon as you are confident someone is a green person, ask him or her to introduce you to a person marked as grey. If a person is yellow, you need to do what you can to turn them green. Reds need to be worked around, countered or converted to yellow.

It is important for managers to support this sort of activity. If you only reward people for their own sales, they are unlikely to do the sort of Account Development work required to support the team. It has to be built into the Opportunity Reviews / Deal Pit-Stops and in their evaluation.

How do you make sure you get the best out of your existing customer business?

Pierre Martin, blue frog GmbH & Phil Kreindler, Infoteam Sales Process Consulting AG

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