New customers to your business may not be familiar with the products or services you are offering. This can cause great confusion and even indecision when they are reviewing your offerings.

To be successful in selling to customers, you need to transport the customer from their current state of mind to an understanding of what you are selling. You need to speak the same language as the customer.

My wife and I recently ventured into a local Mexican restaurant, Tio Dan’s Puffy Tacos. We’d never been to this restaurant before and aside from the name of the place, which clearly told us what their specialty was, we didn’t know anything about it.

Tio Dan’s menu was a full color, laminated, self-proclaimed “food book” that had pictures of every single entree they serve. These weren’t fake marketing pictures; they were real pictures of actual food they had prepared.

By looking at the menu, you got a good sense of what you’d be eating. You didn’t have to guess what a particular dish was based on an unfamiliar name because what you saw is what you’d get.

Tio Dan understands that not every customer that comes through his door knows what he sells or what the items on his menu are. He helps overcome that hurdle by showing customers what they can buy in terms they can understand.

How can you help your customers better understand your product or service? Perhaps you can show them the end result (a picture of food in our example). Or use an mental anchor that connects what you offer to something the customer already understands.

When your pay depends on customer service, go the extra mile.

Here is a tale of two restaurant servers. One earned a nice tip, the other lost it.

A week ago, my team at work and I went to Macaroni Grill for lunch. The waiter, Luigi (yes, that was his real name, he proudly informed us), was the best waiter I’ve had in a long time. He was very courteous, attentive, and treated each of us with respect.

As we ordered our meal, we told Luigi that we’d all be on separate checks. His sincere response was, “Thank you for telling me, I really appreciate that.”

I thought this was nice but didn’t think much more about it until we had an opposite experience a week later.

To celebrate the upcoming wedding of a co-worker, a large group of us (about 18) went to lunch at the Kona Grill. We made reservations ahead of time so they were very aware that we were coming. Our server took care of our minimum needs but nothing more. When it was time for the check, we asked if she could do separate checks. She indicated that would be too difficult and left the whole check with us to divide up.

Our group spent the next 15 minutes passing the check around, scrounging up cash and writing notes with credit cards of how much to charge on each.

After the check had gone around, we counted up the money to realize that our server was not going to be getting a good tip. Everyone had paid for their lunch and indicated they tipped but the total amount of cash didn’t constitute a nice tip on top of that.

If the server had done separate checks or in some way facilitated our payment, each person would have likely given the appropriate tip that was somehow lost in the anonymity of a group check.

A little extra work from this server would have dramatically improved her earnings for that lunch hour. Instead, she took the easy route and was probably wondering why the stingy tip.

Contrast this with our friend Luigi, who took our needs into account and earned himself a nice tip.

When you are serving your customers, you have a choice: Do the bare minimum or go the extra mile. The extra mile is never easier but it is full of rewards and happy customers.

You may start to see patterns in customer behavior and attributes. This may lull you into feeling like you can start treating customers the same. However, that doesn’t mean that you can treat the next guy in line the same as you treated the customer in front of him, even if their buying behavior is identical.

Be careful if you find yourself falling into this over-generalization trap.

Just because customers look the same, doesn’t mean they are the same.

Customers may look alike because of numerous reasons. For example, different customers may have similar:

• buying patterns
• product preferences
• technical support issues
• product return habits
• purchase methods (credit card, cash, etc.)
• deadlines
• warranty needs

My wife and I have identical twin daughters. (Yes, being a dad of twins is an adventure.) But even though our daughters look alike doesn’t mean they are the same person. Each has her own personality and mannerisms that make her unique.

These differences show up in how each daughter reacts to her environment, her needs, and even how she expresses herself.

Your customers can often be like identical twins. When you serve enough customers, some of them start to look just like the last one you served.

Before you jump to conclusions on the type of customer you have in front of you, make sure you have enough data points to confirm your classification before you proceed. Customers are often annoyed when you jump into a solution or sales pitch for something that doesn’t apply to them!

Identify the basic needs certain classes of customers have. If you can guarantee you’ve got a customer that fits that mold, by all means pull out the standard response as a starting place for servicing their needs.

If you aren’t sure what type of customer you have, ask questions.

You’ve got your best chance to make a little extra money from customers when they are in the process of buying from you. They’ve got their money out and already trust you enough to buy.

Should you try and upsell them a higher priced product? Or cross-sell them an additional product?

Absolutely.

We recently needed to get our roof replaced. The contractor provided us with an estimate that included the basics and then threw in three line items of extras.

Upsell is More Than Price

These extra upsells had no accompanying explanations other than their name and price.

To us, that just looked like several extra hundred dollars. Why would we want to spend that?

When I called up the contractor’s office, they explained the purpose of two of the three items. We were convinced of their necessity and agreed to those upsells.

The first thing a customer will see with an upsell is the price. Help them get past that point or you’ll never make the sale.

Benefits of the Upsell

On a subsequent phone call, I spoke with the owner of the roofing company. In a matter of minutes he convinced me to buy the upgraded shingles for my roof. He highlighted the benefits of the product: higher quality, longer lifespan and contrasted that with the cheaper shingles I had originally selected.

Personal Discount

To incentivize me even further, he discounted the original upsell price in half because of several personalized reasons why I could qualify: we live close to their shop, my paperwork is in order, etc.

In the end we walked away with a new roof with all the upsells that were originally on the proposal.

Tell Me Why

The keys to the upsell were not just in the product listing but in the why behind it.

Remember these steps in your upselling efforts to your customers:

• Explain why their life will be better with the more expensive option
• Outline how the cheaper option will actually cost them more money in the long run
• Describe the consequences of the cheaper product and even the odds that they will occur
• Give the customer an “insider” feel by customizing and personalizing your discount to them (even if you give it to everyone)

Upselling a product to a customer that is already purchasing will greatly help grow your revenues and profits. Keep your selling process personal and helpful and your customers will choose the upsells and upgrades you offer.