If your catalog is large enough, you can possibly have a product that will work for a customer even if it is not your headline offering. These wedge products can get your foot in the door to establish your business as the go-to resource for future offerings. This article will provide advice for carrying, promoting, and selling wedge products.
Product Catalog
The portfolio of products that your company offers should augment and enhance the experience provided by your flagship products. For example, if you are offering Unified Communications as a Service, you should also offer the things that can enhance or facilitate that product set. This includes, but is not limited to, networking services, Internet access, and accessories for the devices that are used for the products. This includes the technical aptitude to install these products, as an add-on or included in the price.
Become the Resource
Once you have established yourself as a trusted adviser for the first product, make yourself a resource for other products. Provide tips and advice even for things you don’t sell, and make yourself available to the customer to build that relationship.
Promotion
Phrases like “Your Complete Solution” go a long way to build trust in your business. If you are in a position to offer everything a client would need or want in the vertical you are known best for, these other products come along naturally. You might offer Internet access as a low profit margin product in order to capitalize on other service offerings, or your installation can be deeply discounted when included with new service, for example.
While the lion’s share of your marketing should be about your flagship product, it never hurts to run an advertisement here and there about what else you can do.
Selling the Wedge
Every time your sales professionals approach a potential client, they should be ready to disqualify the prospect. This not only saves time, but also energy chasing a whale that cannot be brought down. But, through the discovery process, if one of the periphery products can be sold, so be it. This forms the wedge that gets you in the door. Nail the piece of the puzzle that prevents the main sale from going forward, and you are in a much better position than any other competitor in terms of trusted advisor and advocate.
Once the wedge is set, you have a current customer who, provided they are treated well, will remain loyal when they are ready to add more from your suite.