Sell again after the first sale 25 of 25 in this group
SOP 236
Upsell more of it, more help with it, or better
What this page is for. Use it when you need something to sell a customer after the first purchase and are unsure what it should be, or when the upsell you have in mind sits a long way from what they bought. It carries one deal in which the choice of upsell was put to the customers themselves; the pair of upsells named as the ones that win; a way to present buying more as a saving locked in; what selling more means for a product and for a service; and what selling better can mean, with the points this page adds to the service levers set out on SOP 72. Before any of it, make sure a customer's worth is really what holds the business back; the test for that is SOP 225 — Pick your war and check lifetime value is the constraint.
SOP-236-Upsell-more-of-it-more-help-with-it-or-better.md
1. A business with nothing else to sell
The company. In one example, a dealmaker was set to do a deal with a company, a deal that did go through. It sold one product to consumers, and the whole path ran by itself: selling was automated, there was a checkout page, and delivery was automated as well. It is called basically media arbitrage: once you know the numbers in the funnel, you can keep turning up the ads and, in effect, make money on demand. Nothing recurred and nothing continued; the model was to buy ads, sell, and keep the gap.
The weak points. The front-end product brought customers in readily, but it was the only thing on offer, so each customer bought once and left, and nothing recurred. The company also leaned on one main marketing channel: if an account was blocked or a campaign failed, the business took a real hit. Revenue was volatile.
What a back-end product does. Both sides agreed a back-end product had to be added, with a pair of jobs: to stabilize revenue and to grow it. It stabilizes because, even when fewer new customers arrive, the ones you already have could still spend. It grows because, when new customers do arrive in healthy numbers, the ones already on the books could still spend. At best the business earns more; at worst it holds level. If priced right, the projection was, revenue would double with just one customer in five buying the back end, and the extra cash was to go into scaling the advertising further.
No steering. The company rose fast but had nothing to steer with. Both sides agreed that what it needed was one more thing to sell, and nothing beyond that; everything else met so much friction that it went nowhere.
2. The founders' idea, and why the dealmaker opposed it
Their upsell. Right at the end of the deal, the founders told the dealmaker they finally had their upsell: it would teach their customers how to start a business like the founders' own. They wanted to sell something they felt passionate about, which was granted to be respectable, but which had nothing to do with the business they ran. The dealmaker saw it as a nightmare to market, to brand and to sell, and so far from the core that they may as well have launched a second company.
The plumber. To put it in context, picture a plumber who is fixing your sink and then leans back out to offer to help you set up a plumbing firm of your own. Probably not the obvious next thing to sell.
The objection. The dealmaker opposed the idea because it left the customers' next problem unsolved. The reasoning: customers who like what you sell want more that is like it. The main reason: nobody had bought the first product out of a wish to go into marketing and sales, and the new product felt too far from the core one.
Their answer. The founders said the campaign and the product were already built, they were fairly sure their passion for it would come through, and they may know the customers better than the dealmaker did. The dealmaker granted the point but would not do the deal unless they came round to it. The argument went back and forth and almost wrecked the deal.
3. Ask the customers
The test. As a last attempt, the dealmaker proposed asking the customers: put both offers in front of them and see which one they pick. The deal turned on which offer the customers took, and it is called a huge gamble.
The result. The survey went out. One offer clearly won, and it was the dealmaker's: more of the thing the customer had just bought. The founders' offer was not that. Two readings of the margin appear: 85 percent preferred the dealmaker's offer over theirs; or, with no percentage figure, the vast majority had chosen it, and it was not even close.
What came of it. Customers plainly preferred an offer close to the one they already knew and liked. The deal went ahead with the dealmaker's offer as the upsell. It reportedly raised what each customer was worth and let the company spend more on advertising, across every channel, at a profit.
4. The pair of upsells said to win
If you aren't sure what your upsell should be, whatever your business, two are offered, called the highest-converting offers of all time: more of the thing they just bought, and more help with the thing they just bought. They are summed up as "more and better": those are the two options.
Put in one line, the favorite upsell here of all time is: more of what they just bought, or more help with it, delivered with quicker results and less risk, effort and hassle, at a higher price.
A ranking of the pair, with more help placed first and a better or newer version after it, appears in section 3 of SOP 152, the page on selling a second product. The wider choice between more, better and something new is section 2 of SOP 66 — Run the classic upsell and choose the moment.
5. Present more as a saving locked in
If you are in the more game, one suggestion is to frame it as locking in guaranteed savings. If you can lock in 20 percent off goods you are sure to need later, it works like a 20 percent return this year on the money. Ask what in the market pays a guaranteed 20 percent: probably not much. So if you know you will use it and will buy it anyway, you might as well stock up in bulk today.
The same logic, applied to what your business buys from its own suppliers, is the last of the delivery-cost levers on SOP 127.
6. What more means
- For a product, think in units and size: a bigger burger, or more burgers. Literally more of it, either a larger one or a larger number; those are the two ways to sell more from a product's side.
- For a service, think in units of time, such as extra months of service, and the like.
Bulk, frequency and size, each with its upsell and its downsell, are laid out in section 3 of SOP 72 — Generate tiers and downsells from the quality vectors.
7. Better, for a product
For a product, quality comes down to the ingredients, the materials you use, the manufacturing (how well the thing is put together), and finally its design and packaging. These are its true quality, and obviously there is also all the messaging, story, narrative and the like that you wrap around it. For products, the question of how to raise quality is, in this view, fairly simple.
8. Better, for a service
With services, people get kind of confused, which is why there are so many examples here, set out as kind of a full list of the options that could be found for service businesses. Each lever, with a premium end and a cheaper end, is tabled in section 4 of SOP 72; the table below keeps the order used here and gives what is said under each here, and several rows repeat ends that SOP 72 already carries.
| Lever, in order | What this page adds |
|---|---|
| Speed of response | Some people get lost on how to make things faster; there are a lot of ways to build speed into the quality of the service: at a given tier or upsell, you reply in minutes rather than hours or days |
| Speed of delivery | Priority instead of a queue or a two-week waitlist; same day or next day rather than next week |
| Time availability | Call whenever or come whenever is stronger than set times or set hours |
| Days of the week | Monday, Wednesday, Friday against every day |
| Times of day | Office hours of 9 to 5, set against round-the-clock cover, 24 hours |
| Amount of time | Support calls capped at 15 minutes against calls of unlimited length; 60-minute support calls are then given too |
| Location | For brick and mortar, one location against every location you own |
| Cancellation | Reschedule whenever you like; one airline kind of adds this as a quality premium, called one reason people like it, set against rescheduling or rebooking fees |
| Staff-to-customer ratio | One-to-one, one-to-many or many-to-one; five people on one account, for instance |
| Communication method | Text, chat support, video call, live call, asynchronous: each is its own tier of service |
| Who provides it | The owner in person, set against a long-standing, very capable, well-proven employee, set against someone new |
| Live or recorded | For those of you with any media-related business |
| In person or remote | Still wildly underrated, in this view |
| Do it yourself, done with you, done for you | The route up the value chain |
| Expiration | Works forever, for life; works for a period; or works only at set times |
| Personalization | Generic, from a set of three to five avatars, or built just for the one customer |
Selling risk, speed and ease as upsells of their own is covered in section 5 of SOP 231.
Provider qualifications. Tiers of service matter. Talking to a partner at a law firm costs more, and your own business has its equivalent of a partner. Look at the professions that could be called tried and true, accounting, law and management consulting: businesses of 50 or 60 years, household industries. Look to them, because very smart people there have already worked out billing methods that frame value well, and a big part of that is telling clients who will be on their case: a partner, or the owner, or whoever it is. Not all services are equal, obviously; the reason you are in a service business at all is that you believe you do it better than others, and that still holds inside your own business.
In person or remote. It can unlock a great deal of value for many of you.
Do it yourself, done with you, done for you. This is how you climb the value chain, if that is what you want. You can pretty much add a zero at every one of those steps, usually: $100, then $1,000, then $10,000; or else $1,000, then $10,000, then $100,000, depending on your line of work. Adding a zero to the price of the core offer itself is a separate exercise, run in section 7 of SOP 231 — Build the next sale into the offer and anchor high.
9. What this page does not decide for you
- The size of the win. Two readings appear: 85 percent; or the vast majority, and not close. Each is carried as stated.
- Whether more help counts as better. The pair is summed up as more and better, and what follows turns to quantity and quality. Not established on this page.
- The back end's price. One customer in five is said to be enough if it is priced right. This page gives no figure for that price.
- How often the pair works. This page gives no figure for how often the two convert.
- The amount of time. 15-minute calls are set against unlimited length, then 60-minute calls are named. Which is the premium example: Not established on this page.
- Communication methods. They are listed as tiers without saying which is higher. Not established on this page.
10. The checklist
| Step | What to do |
|---|---|
| 1 | Check whether customers buy once and leave with nothing more to buy; in the deal of section 1, both sides agreed a back-end product was needed to steady revenue and grow it |
| 2 | Where you and a partner disagree on the upsell, do as the dealmaker did: offer both and let customers choose |
| 3 | If you aren't sure of the upsell, start from more of what they just bought, or more help with it |
| 4 | Keep the upsell near the core product and aimed at the customers' next problem |
| 5 | If you sell more, one way to frame it is as a guaranteed saving on what they will buy anyway |
| 6 | For a product, sell more in units or size; for a service, sell more in units of time |
| 7 | For a product, raise quality through ingredients, materials, manufacturing, design and packaging, and the story around them |
| 8 | For a service, go through the levers in section 8; moving from do it yourself up to done for you, you can usually add a zero at each level, depending on your line of work |
| 9 | Tell clients who will be on their case, the way the long-established professions do |
11. What this page does not cover
When in the customer's journey to make an upsell is on SOP 222 — Script the upsell at each point of greatest deprivation. Anchors are on SOP 231. The drill that runs every way of raising a customer's worth over anything in front of you is SOP 232. Repeat purchases, and how onboarding and reminders drive them, have their own page, SOP 235.
Savings claims in advertising and consumer-protection rules are not covered on this page.
Terms defined on this page
- Back-end product
- A further, usually pricier product sold to existing customers, often about five times the core offer. It steadies revenue when new customers slow and grows it when they return; if around one in five buys, revenue can double.
- Do it yourself, done with you, done for you
- Three levels of how much work falls on the buyer: they do it with what you hand over, you guide them through it, or you do it for them. Each step up can usually carry about ten times the price, depending on the field.
- More, and more help (upsell pair)
- The two upsells that convert best: more of what the customer just bought, or more help with it, ideally faster and with less risk, effort and hassle, for more money.