Virtually every company has multiple products - heck, so do we!  But, getting preoccupied with pushing products can literally lead to failure faster than it will to success!

I've been asked if I could write something about cross-selling.  Maybe I've neglected this area because I've always considered it so ridiculously simple.

When I was in publishing, we sold print and direct-mail couponing - two separate products - almost always in the same sale; but, the 'cross-selling' was less than 2% of the process.   The other 98% was where the real challenge was.

Many years ago I had the opportunity to witness the complete training program of a major Wall Street investment firm.  Over the course of the entire 30-day `curriculum’, I was able to see first-hand exactly why the entire industry was constantly fighting for its life; indeed, virtually every firm was constantly going through bankruptcies and continuous mergers.

The first day’s orientation – virtually all the major firms were conducting the same basic 30-day new broker training– provided a hint as to what was to come.  The company President would welcome everyone and state their position right up front:  “We’re in the product manufacturing and distribution business.”  And, from that moment forward, that’s what sales training was all about.

For the next 30 days, what passed for sales training was a constant stream of `instructors’ from the various product-development areas.  This firm occupied about twenty-five acres inside the World Trade Center and we saw someone from every acre.  We listened to people from managed accounts, unit investment trusts, variable annuities, and every single in-house proprietary fund there was… all of them telling the new brokers how to sell their products and how to ‘piggy-back’ – another way of saying ‘cross selling’ – one sale on top of another.

It was classic.

At the end of the month, every novice broker knew everything there was to know about every single product the company had and was overloaded with binders, books, and notes to reinforce it all.

When sitting around after hours, one novice broker would ask another, “What are you going to sell?”   The other would answer, “I like the UIT’s!” - unit investment trusts, don’t ask – “I think I’ll concentrate on them!”   Everyone was all excited about all their great products and all their really neat brochures.

When they left New York to fly back to their branches across the America, they knew their mission:  Get on the phone and start selling something.

It was a classic marketing mistake:  A product in search of a market - instead of the other way around.   And, it was widespread throughout the industry.  The result was predictable:  Most brokers failed and industry turnover was extremely high.  Not only that, the firms really had to make their money on investment banking because the retail side was failing miserably; mergers were widespread and constant  As soon as a merger took place and new signs went up on the branches across America, they’d enter into another merger and the signs would change again.  It was the only way they could stay alive.

During that entire 30-day program, there was literally NO real sales training, which means there was no real problem-solving at all.  The novices ended-up calling people and pushing product.

Indeed, in many industries today most sales training is still about product.  What’s really amazing is that many are the very industries that find themselves in constant trouble and still in denial – always convinced they’re doing great and always looking for the ‘magic bullet’.     Too many reps are still spending 98% of their time on what really accounts for about 2% of the process.

Product knowledge is a requirement.  So is oxygen.  But, neither of those will make the sale or grow your success.  Product knowledge is a ‘plug-in’ – something virtually ANYONE you hire can assimilate.  Nothing in life is that easy.

Training professionals classify skills as ‘hard skills’ and ‘soft skills’.  The hard skills are things like learning a software program.  Soft skills are things like problem solving, leadership, people skills, etc.   As one CEO once said, ‘It’s the soft stuff that’s hard.  The hard stuff is easy.’

The key to success:  Go ahead and learn all your products; but, don’t confuse that with sales training.

How to ‘cross-sell’?  It’s easy.  If you know sales, it’s nothing but simple product application – and it’s only about 2% of the process.

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