Do you want fries with that? It’s a cross sell that we’re all familiar with. You placed your order and now you’re being asked if you want a side of something else. There is a reason that major corporations use this popular tactic – it works. You’re already a customer, they have you there, and when ask if you want something else, you realize that you just might.
Cross selling eliminates the challenge of meeting a new customer, initiating a new conversation, opening a new door. The door is open, the customer is engaged and buying, so are you asking your customers what else they need? Are you suggesting a side?
According to McKinsey, cross selling can increase your sales by 20% and profits by 30%, so it’s worth implementing this sales tactic. You might be more comfortable selling traditional services or working within a specific solution set but start asking about other solutions and you’ll discover what else you can sell. Knowing what your customers want and need is what will keep you in business and growing.
Make Cross Selling Easy
If you’re a TBI partner, breaking into new solutions is easy, using the resources available to you. Some key things that you need to be taking advantage of are:
- NEW cross sell guides: Learn how to start the conversations around cloud infrastructure and security with UC customers.
- FREE training through UTBI: Watch self-paced, easily digestible videos on everything from selling next gen solutions to more in-depth technical know-how.
- Technical expertise from Tech Gurus: Lean on a team of certified solution architects and engineers for cloud infrastructure, communications, cybersecurity, and more – these subject matter experts have been featured in Forbes, TechTarget, Security Magazine and InformationWeek!
- Partner Marketing Center: Send one of the pre-made email campaigns, say around cybersecurity, and see what interest your customers have – it takes 10 minutes!
Focus on Popular Solutions
There are common IT solutions that we know businesses today need and are purchasing, like cybersecurity, cloud and communications. The fact is if your customers are not buying from you, they are buying somewhere else. That doesn’t need to happen. It doesn’t require a heavy lift on your part or in-depth training to start selling next gen solutions. You just have to start the conversation (the new cross sell guides tell you exactly how) and once you identify interest or openness, pull in TBI to support you. Our team is here to help you close the sale, that’s the benefit of working with us. To do this pull in your CM or call on the Tech Gurus. This team is dedicated to emerging technology and their purpose is to help you close more sales in these areas.
Examples of Cross Sell Opportunities
UCaaS > CCaaS
Customer: Restaurant
Situation: BBQ restaurant chain was opening a new location and was interest in UCaaS for this new location only.
Cross sell: The partner engaged a TBI Tech Guru to discuss the customer needs and determined that the customer needed UCaaS for all locations. When talking through their challenges, it was discovered that the customer could really benefit from having a CCaaS platform with webform and chat capabilities to improve the customer experience. Additionally, the customer is now looking into CPaaS to create automation around customer interaction.
Backup > Disaster Recovery and Desktop as a Service
Customer: Entertainment venue
Situation: Amusement Park suffered an outage in which their onsite backup failed. They were looking to find a better backup solution that they could rely on.
Cross sell: The partner engaged a TBI Tech Guru and was able to determine that for the customer’s business model and what they were looking to achieve, they needed more than backup as a service. The customer implemented full disaster recovery and expanded the sale into desktop as a service for greater security, redundancy and support.
Email Security > Training, Endpoint Protection and Identity Access Management
Customer: Supplier
Situation: An electronic parts supplier was the victim of a security attack in the form of ransomware through phishing attacks.
Cross sell: The partner engaged a TBI Tech Guru who started with penetration testing to determine the baseline of the business’ security. From there, it was clear that the customer would benefit from security training (human error is a top security risk!). Then, the customer setup endpoint protection and identity access management (IAM).
Network > Security, Voice and Mobile Device Management
Customer: Healthcare provider
Situation: A healthcare provider was suffering from complex IT billing, inefficient bandwidth, and leadership pushing for cloud applications, most recently a migration to Office 365.
Cross sell: The partner engaged a TBI Tech Guru who was able to discover unsupported hardware, leading to serious compliance concerns. A SD-WAN solution was implemented which expanded to include network security and voice refresh with mobile device management.
Talk to Your Channel Manager
If you want to sell more next gen or emerging solutions, reach out to your Channel Manager and talk through it. They are equipped with the resources to get you started and comfortable having these conversations with your customers. Again, don’t focus on being an expert or feeling like you have to know it all. You have all the technical resources backing you through TBI and our providers.
