What is cross-selling? Cross-selling is the practice of selling additional products or services to existing customers or clients that are about to buy.

Cross-selling is actively promoted as a sales method that works. Most sales methods are not agreed upon unanimously as being good practice but cross-selling gets the support of just about everybody - sales trainers, sales managers, sales consultants, CEO's. Cross-selling works!.

There are multiple reasons why everybody agrees that cross-selling is a good strategy. Here are just a few:

• It costs more to gain an additional customer than it does to keep a current one. This is an old adage that attempts to explain that it costs money to gain new customers. That includes the cost of advertising and marketing. Along those lines, selling to existing customers has no advertising or marketing costs as there is already a relationship. Selling more to existing customers is a cost-effective way to increase sales.
• A customer that has more than one product from a single company is thought to be more reliant on that company and, thus, less likely to take their business to a competitor.
• An existing customer is more likely to have trust for the business it bought from. It is easier to sell more to a customer that has already developed that trust rather to sell to a new person.
• A customer that buys a product will often have a need or desire for a complementary product. For example, a customer that buys a TV may also want to buy a TV stand. It is easier for a salesperson to cross-sell when she already knows what a customer's needs or wants are.
• There are often accessories that complement a certain product that can be sold to existing customers. For example, a customer that buys a washing machine may want to also purchase an extended warranty for peace-of-mind.