The Upsell: Would You Like Fries With That
You approach the counter at most fast-food places, and you’re bound to hear that innocent-sounding question. Others say, “Would you like to super-size that?”
Are you ready to “super-size” the services you give to each of your clients? Increasing the number of services you provide for each client means you get paid more by each one. You need fewer clients when the ones you have provide more income for you and your family. Since you will need less clients, you spend much less time marketing and more time providing billable services, such as accounting and tax.
“Upsell” Is Key To Your Success
We call the process of getting more from each customer “upselling” them. The process is easy when you already have an excellent working relationship with them. Fast-food places make much more money just by asking you to super-size your order or to add fries to it. Apply that same idea to your business. If you do accounting for a client, add tax services. It’s a natural upsell. When you do a client’s accounting, you best know their books. You are in a unique position to help them set up their accounts so they pay less taxes.
As long as you offer related services, the upsell is easy and natural. Often, all it takes is mentioning that you can do additional services besides the ones you provide for a client now. When you learn to provide tax services, let your clients know that you can provide additional benefits to their company. Small businesses don’t like to have to explain their finances to both an accountant and a tax preparer. When you do both for them, you make their life easier. This is an advantage you have as their accountant over any other tax preparer, so use it to your advantage.
Other Services You Can Offer
In addition to tax services, you can provide such services as:
- Finance Document Preparation
- Notary Public
- Word Processing
- Income Tax Planning and Preparation
- Payroll Preparation
- Collection Letter Preparation
- Check Writing
- Telephone Support
- Management Consultation
- Software Support and Training
One of our students, after reading our Loan Application manual “Financing a Small Business”, offered to help her client prepare all their loan documents. She enjoyed doing it so much, she offered it to all her existing and prospective clients and found a whole new source of revenue, that even eclipsed her monthly billings for bookkeeping.
How To Start Upselling Your Clients
Before you can begin to add services you offer to your clients, you will need additional skills. If you know accounting now, get training in tax with the Professional Tax Preparer program to really increase the amount you collect from each client. If you haven’t started your accounting training yet, you can get a much better price by purchasing tax and accounting training together as a bundle.
Click HERE to Learn How Much More You Can Make By Offering Tax Services to Accounting Clients
Again, using adding tax as an example, you need to know how to approach your clients to sell them on the idea of additional services. Not all of us have sales background. Focusing your message on benefits to the customer is key. Your client wants to know, “What’s in it for me?” With proper training in tax preparation, you will show them areas where you can cut their taxes and keep more of the money they earn.
We make it easy to sell clients on the idea of bundling tax and accounting services. We have prepared a step-by-step guide to showing clients how additional services will save them more money than the services costs.
Click HERE to Learn How to Sell Clients on Having You Do Their Taxes Too
