Business by Design this month reports on the "upselling" lesson design professionals can learn at fast food restaurants.

THIS MONTH:
+ May I Take Your Order?
+ Add-on Selling at its Best
+ The Terrible Ten Selling Sins of Design Professionals

May I Take Your Order?
“Do you want cheese with that?”

“Do you want fries with that?”

“Do you want to biggysize your order?”

McDonalds and Wendy’s and Burger King make millions of dollars each year by asking those questions after their customers place their orders.

There’s a lot design professionals can learn from the add- on selling techniques they hear at the drive-though windows.

Too bad so many of those design pros forget or simply choose not to ask upselling questions. By doing so, they leave thousands of dollars on the table.

One group that has mastered the art of the upsell is the nation’s leading window fashion professionals. By asking customers about everything from lift controls to finer fabrics to decorative hardware, they generate outstanding additional revenue.

Add-on Selling At Its Best
As Bruce Knott sees it, the key to add-on sales is selling “convenience, ease of operation, style and fashion.”

“It’s easy to sell the bells and whistles if you talk solutions and benefits, rather than price,” says Knott, the sales training manager for Springs Window Fashions and a designer for more than 30 years. “Clients will upgrade to cordless shades, for example, if you mention the child safety issue.”

LaVelle Pinder, one of America’s leading window fashion specialists, uses the “touch and sell” approach to maximize her sales.

“Once I put expensive fabrics and trims in customers’ hands, they buy them,” she points out.

Pinder, like other top pros, focuses on “the look” rather than individual products in her discussions with clients. She regularly includes bedding, lamps and other items in that look.

“If I add fancy pillows to the sketch of a client’s bed, I know she won’t take them out,” she says.

Deb Barrett, an award winning designer and, like Pinder, a Window Fashions Magazine columnist, also believes in selling her expertise rather than itemizing her products.

“I automatically quote higher priced drapes and other items, rather than give options,” she notes.

Can clients afford more expensive window treatments?

Jamie Gibbs, a designer whose work has been featured in books, magazines and newspapers worldwide, looks at it this way: “If someone can spend $800,000 on a piece of junk house, they can afford us.”


The Terrible Ten Selling Sins of Design Professionals
The Superstar Selling System for Design Professionals, my new product featuring two CDs and a workbook, provides you with what you need to know to sell like a winner.

The program recommends that you avoid, at all costs, these “Selling Sins:"

1/ Failing to Chart Your Course. A design professional without a sales plan is like a ship without a rudder.

2/ Failing to Market Smart. What’s it matter how good your firm is if only you know about it?

3/ Failing to Qualify Prospects. If they can’t afford you price, you can’t afford to waste your time.

4/ Failing to Play Doctor. You need to find out what really hurts. Hint: It isn’t your price.

5/ Fear of Price Objections. Welcome them! They’re buying signals

6/ Cutting Your Price Without Cutting Your Service. If they want to pay less, you should provide less.

7/ Failing to Ask for Referrals. Ask, and ye shall receive. Don’t, and you won’t.

8/ Failing to Upsell. Excuse me you left something on the table: money.

9/ Failing to Ask for the Sale. How else can you seal the deal?

10/ Failing to Sell Yourself. The most important sale you’ll ever make is the personal one.