How to upsell your clients

Have you ever just finished a project and wondered: How can I do more for this client? or perhaps you were thinking: Oh darn, now I have to look for new clients.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

The most valuable clients are the ones that stay with you, not the ones that provide one-off projects. So how do you get valuable clients that want to stick with you for the long haul?

In this article, I’m going to give you the benefit of my experience, and hopefully by the end of it you’ll know how to upsell clients, so they’ll never want to go anywhere else.

Would you like fries with that?

At its most basic level, this is a fundamental part of up-selling. If all employees are trained at a fast food restaurant to ask customers, “Would you like fries with that?” and 20% agree, that would increase the company’s bottom line tremendously.  So how do you translate this to the web industry? 

First you need to identify a problem that your client’s having. Ask questions like…

What are the biggest problems you face in your business? This will help you in figuring out which services you can offer to solve their problems.

On the other hand, you can extract information about the clients’ problems through simple conversation.

After you’ve identified a problem, look in your skills toolbox and make an offer by asking…

Is your brand being perceived the way you want it to be? Try to get them to explain their brand to you. Afterwards you can make suggestions on what you can do to make their brand better (eg. Oh I understand that you want to attract gamers, however your logo looks like a law firm or a bank’s. I can fix your logo so that you can better relate to gamers).

Would you like to be at the top of Google? I don’t know one person or business that would say no to that. If you are an SEO expert, then upsell that like it’s going out of style.

Do you want to prevent viruses and hackers from disrupting your website? If a client says no to this, make sure they are aware of the importance of security.

Can I maintain the site for you? Your client is going to need someone to maintain the site, make periodic updates and just make sure everything is running smoothly. Offer a maintenance package or quote your hourly rate and say you’ll maintain it every week or month.

After you’ve confirmed that there’s a problem that needs to be solved and that you have the skills to do the job, close the sale as soon as possible.

Are you trustworthy?
Products are only a tool
Consider this scenario:

Client: Thanks, but we’re going to wait on that. I’ll keep you in mind though.
You: Ok thanks.
Now consider this alternate scenario:
Client: Well, I don’t think our color scheme speaks our tone.
You: Tell me more about that.
Client: I want our colors to look professional and for some reason they just don’t seem to be working.
You: Are you aware that your current color scheme represents fun and warmth?
Client: Now that you mention it, I could see that. Could you help us feel and look more professional?
You: Yes sir. I’m an expert in brand development and understand its principles. Your brand is the face of your company and I can make sure that it’s represented memorably with a timeless logo, appropriate color scheme, company voice and I’ll provide you with a brand identity guide. By doing this, your problems with speaking to your target customers will be solved because the brand will be developed with that niche in mind.
Client: That sounds great! When can you get started?
Destructively persistent
My clients’ shoes are uncomfortable
Conclusion

Clients want to know that the person they’re dealing with is trustworthy, so you need to build that relationship.

Find common ground with your clients so that you can have conversations outside of business. If you can figure out what makes your clients excited, what makes them laugh and what they value, then you’ll have no problems upselling them.

It’s always easier to upsell a client who trusts you and you’ve built a relationship with. Don’t be afraid to chat with your clients.

I know you’re looking to get on to the next job and make that money, but that’s not going to build valuable relationships. These relationships are where the bulk of your business and referrals are going to come from, so handle them with care.

World famous sales expert Zig Ziglar recommends that you only treat products as a tool when up-selling. Instead your main focus should be on the client’s concerns and having a genuine interest in uncovering their problems. This goes back to what I said earlier in that you need to identify a problem you can solve.

Keep your up-selling process nice and simple. The only things you need to learn are how to ask good questions and listen carefully. If you can master these skills, then your clients will start upselling themselves.

You: Before you go Mr. Jones, I can offer you high quality branding materials.

Well that was easy and painless. You weren’t imposing on the client and they’re even going to keep you in mind for further projects, right? Not likely. So what went wrong here? You focused on the products before identifying a problem and didn’t even try to close the sale.

You: Before you go Mr. Jones, I wanted to ask… what frustrates you most and keeps you up at night when thinking about your brand?

At a very basic level, this is a great example of how you can extract a problem from your clients specific to your skills without sounding like you’re trying to sell them something they don’t want. Usually clients don’t even know what they want because they aren’t in touch with their own problems. It’s your job as an upseller to find those problems for your clients by asking the right questions.

Remember not to focus on yourself and what you have to offer until you’ve found a problem to solve and genuinely get your client to talk about the problem, until then, your client couldn’t care less about what you have to offer.

Be persistent, but be persistent about your clients’ problems and not your products. If you’re constantly pushing your products and not caring about your client’s problems, eventually clients will begin to resent you.

All clients care about is what you can do for them. How can you solve their problems and make their life easier? And the more you can identify with that, the more you will build valuable relationships.

Let’s take Web designer Depot for example. There’s a problem, whether you’re aware of it or not, that they’re solving. The problem they’re solving is the lack of information on specific subjects. So instead of saying, “Click on our ads and here’s how you can do it” WDD solves your problem of needing information in order to learn something, find recommendations from experts on various products or websites and more, then they have ads displayed that relate to the information. Which approach do you prefer? Would you like blogs more if they shoved their ads down your throat? I bet your answer is no, and clients are the same.

So again, be persistent but don’t shove your products down your clients’ throats, that’ll get you nowhere.

It doesn’t matter if your clients’ shoes are uncomfortable, you need to wear them anyway.

Try to find your prospect’s point of view and use that as leverage to fit in line with your products or services.

After you’ve asked a client some questions to get them to identify their own problems, find it in yourself to see through their eyes. If you have to, act as if you’re trying to get a girl or guy to go out with you on a date. To do that, you won’t be focusing on yourself because that’ll just turn them off.

Instead you’ll be trying to find common ground and how you can relate to them. Go through this same process with your clients and they’ll see you as more than just a contractor but you’ll be a friend that they can come to about their business problems. They know you’ll listen and genuinely try to make their life easier since you can relate and understand where they’re coming from.

In time, this will all seem obvious and easy to you. You’ll be able to upsell clients and get clients to upsell themselves without even knowing you’re doing it.

What I hope that you’ve taken away from this article is that relationships are your key to upselling. Hopefully you see that by asking questions and trying to identify specific problems, then offering a way to genuinely solve them is the best way to build those relationships.

Just remember that upselling successfully is not about you, it’s about your client.

Credit - Justin Hubbard

Sensational Stop-Motion Music Video

Big-budget music videos involve countless people, crazy costumes, and elaborate sets. But Japanese singer-songwriter Shugo Tokumaru’s song Katachi was brought to the screen in a completely different manner (although it could be argued the process was no less intricate).

The talented Polish animation team of Katarzyna Kijek and Przemyslaw Adamski utilized approximately 2,000 silhouettes extracted from PVCC plates using a computer-controlled cutter. From there, the beautifully detailed, colorful cutouts were filmed frame by frame to create an amazing stop-motion video set to Tokumaru’s happy track. The feats the paper shapes undertake include everything from parade-like marching to choreography that rivals Olympic-standard synchronized swimming.

Appropriately, Shugo Tokumaru’s song title “Katachi” means “shape”, and given the stunning visuals the genius animators produced, I’ll take these cutout shapes over extravagant entertainers any day.

Credit – Stacey Kole

McDonald’s Tries to Make a Happy Meal of the 2012 Olympics

When you think about the Golden Arches, the first thing that leaps to mind may not be zero-fat bodies launching themselves at athletic glory. But McDonald’s is shooting for a spot among the content strategy winners at this summer’s Olympic games.

Case in point: the company’s video short “Rivals” — For the Olympic Spirit in Us All.

http://contently.com/blog/mcdonalds-tries-to-make-a-happy-meal-of-the-2012-olympics-video/

“Para los McNuggets?” says one child to another, pointing at a tree in the distant yellow grass, to which they then run. Presumably the winner gets all the chicken.

“Happy Meal?” asks another little girl of her soon-to-be competitor friend, the sun flushing the sky behind a pair of palm trees on an idyllic sandy beach. They too set off in a neck-and-neck break, all to win a boxed-up supper prize.

At the short’s end, U.S. and German Olympic basketball players stride past the five colored rings, and, yes, they make a french-fry winner’s wager from the bench. Just beyond the lockers, a roaring London crowd awaits them.

“It’s a tough stretch, at best,” says Peter Shankman, chief executive of The Geek Factory, a Manhattan-based social media and marketing strategy firm. He’s not optimistic about McDonald’s effort to link fast food with global champions of sport.

“It’s just not going to work,” he said. “People know what McDonald’s is, and it is what it is.”

You can’t seem to tell McDonald’s that, however. The fast food empire seems intent on altering some of the possible perceptions about its brand.

In an announcement at the start of the Games, company executives said the restaurant chain was making a push not only to celebrate the idea of serving its foods to athletes, but also to promote new menu selections that align the brand with better health.

To help sell that idea, they’re taking the message to social media.

In another YouTube video, McDonald’s Executive Chef Dan Coudreaut is picking out fresh vegetables at a market. He chooses an eggplant — an item that may or may not, one can’t help but think, ever appear on a McDonald’s menu — and then he introduces a cooking segment.

The recipe, created by a young winner of a challenge to incorporate “fun” fruits and veggies ideas into meals, is called ”Champion Chicken Sticks with Olympic Spirit Sauce and Salad.”

Essentially, it’s skewered chicken with a salad on the side, and a soy-and-marmalade dressing. A crowd of children look on as the duo cooks this. “That is awesome,” Coudreaut tells the younger chef.

Other content that McDonald’s is creating for its online marketing of the Olympic sponsorship is at once more conventional and sometime just a bit oblique.

In a film series titled The Best of Our Best, its employees walk about London and do things somewhat connected to themes such as engagement and friendship. There’s nothing to do with food, really.

On Flickr, as posted by McDonaldsCorp, a series of photos shows a Mayor McCheese figurine in front of Olympic events and city landmarks. He’s kind of cute. But he’s not cooking healthy grub.

All of this comes in the context of International Olympics President Jacques Rogge publicly questioning whether McDonald’s, and other products that dwell in the same basic neck of the woods, such as Coca-Cola, can actually synch up with the Olympics as sponsors and prove a good fit, saying there was a “question mark” about the prospect.

Later, however, he told the London papers: the Olympics needs the money. And Rogge subsequently backed down about any questions, citing Coke and McDonald’s as bringing “forward the spirit of the Olympic Games through creative and engaging global programs that promote physical activity and the values that the Olympic Games are all about.”

And that’s the way McDonald’s sees it, as the company told the Guardian in July: “Sponsorship is essential to the successful staging of the Olympic and Paralympic Games and we’re proud of our involvement with London 2012″.

Or, as Chef Coudreaut says, in the company’s content, in connection with his work at the Olympics Park kitchen: “As a food company passionate about innovative tastes and balanced eating, we are doing more to cultivate kids’ and parents’ understanding of food preparation and quality ingredients.”

By James O'Brien, under Case Studies, Trends. James O'Brien writes about content strategy, technology, business, and travel. He is a correspondent for Boston University's Research Magazine.

Pushing Photography to the Edge

A stunning image captured by world-class photographer, Guy Farrow, featuring post production by Leeds-based Turn Key’s Creative Director, Richard Colvill has scooped a prestigious Association of Photographers (AOP) Sun Award.

The photograph features Yorkshire-born professional triathlete, Dion Harrison and is part of a series commissioned for his new website; which has also been designed and built by integrated communications agency, Turn Key. Not only did the shoot require highly skilled photography, but also involved hours of careful post-production work.

With over 16 years design industry experience, Richard Colvill specialises in digital retouching and Turn Key clients include prestigious brands such as Porsche and Sony. Richard and Guy have been collaborating on projects for more than eight years; and this is the third time their combined work has been featured in the awards.

The image shows Dion, jumping through glass and was created to demonstrate his incredible strength and fitness. Richard commented, “The concept was derived to establish Dion as one of the best in his field and was used in the website collateral as a campaign to create serious sponsorship opportunities. We had a lot of fun with the photo shoot, breaking creative boundaries, as well as a large amount of glass! It was definitely a challenge, but the dramatic end result makes it worthwhile and I’m delighted to see the image showcased in the awards.”

The AOP Sun Awards showcase and reward the North’s best professional photography, and all winners see their work displayed in a prestigious exhibition which travels around the UK. Birstall-based Guy Farrow is a leader in UK photography and has now been featured in these awards for over 20.