How Much Money are You Leaving on the Table as a Speaker?
This is an excerpt taken from ABCs of Speaking: Your Building Blocks to Speaking Success by Bret Ridgway, Adryenn Ashley, and Caterina Rando.
I recently attended an event and ran across a speaker I have known for several years as a for “fee” keynote speaker only. Let us call him Ted for the purposes of this story. Ted was excited because he had finally completed his first product he could sell from the platform, and he realized he would not have to rely only on his speaking fee to generate income.
It was a nice looking product consisting of a six CD set along with an accompanying workbook. When Ted is on the stage he wowed the audience and his product was really in hot demand at the back of the room sales table. He probably sold 20% of the audience on his program, which he had every right to be happy about.
But then I noticed the event promoter over to the side of the sales table kind of slowly shaking her head. She did not say anything to Ted immediately, but I was pretty sure I knew exactly why she was shaking her head because I have seen it many times myself at other events.
Ted had done a fantastic presentation. The audience had really responded well to his content and then to his end of talk offer for his CD and workbook set. So, he had a hungry crowd lined up at the back table to invest in his $197 CD and workbook set. So that is what he sold them—his $197 set.
What I am sure the promoter was shaking her head about what that Ted seemed to have no grasp of the concept of an upsell.
I have seen upsells online work so well that 95% of the people took the upsell.
What Is An Upsell?
An upsell is the offer of an additional product or service at the time someone is placing their order. The most common example that people can relate to is the “Would you like fries with that?” line you get at McDonald’s
TM when you order a Big MacTM. McDonald’s knows that a large percentage of the people will say “yes,” and they will make additional profit from that customer on that transaction.
In the world of selling from the platform it is when you have them at the sales table in the back and they have already pulled out their credit card and are placing an order for your product or service. What additional product or service could you offer them that would be of great value to them?
If you truly have additional products or services that could improve their situation you are, in reality, doing your customers a disservice by not even making them aware of it.
Upsells are very popular in the online world. When you are going through the online checkout process you will frequently see a message pop up to the effect of “since you are buying Product A, today you are eligible to also receive Product
B for just ‘x’, a savings of ‘y’ off versus buying the products separately.” You then have the option of adding that item to your shopping cart.
I have seen upsells online work so well that 95% of the people took the upsell. I have also seen situations where the product offered as an upsell was priced at 5X the price of the original product offered, and it worked very well. What you can upsell is really only limited by your own creativity.
Think about infomercials. The $9.97 gadget you initially ordered typically turns into a $60 sale because of the upsells that they offer when you call in to place your order.
So, what can you upsell during a live event at the sales table? Remember, they are already in a buying mood, so take advantage of that positive momentum and offer them something additional to purchase.
