As consumers, we get offered upsells all the time:  the car rental company offers upgraded insurance packages, the furniture retailer suggests scotch-guarding the fabric, the fast food joint wants to super-size your meal, the electronics store offers extended warranties, and so on.

So why do most small business owners cringe when it’s suggested that they should be utilizing upsells in their day-to-day interactions with their customers?

Many of us tend to think we’re being pushy salespeople or we’ll make our customers angry at us for wanting more of their money or time.

It’s all in how you approach it.  If you have created products and services that truly help people, then telling them about something else (an upsell) that could increase their satisfaction or help them faster or easier is almost your duty.

Unless you’re upselling in a really obnoxious or annoying way, most people will either upgrade and say thanks for the great offer or just say “no thank you”.

Of course, only some clients will take advantage of the upsell offer but if you don’t let people know about it, then you’ll have no one buying your add-ons!

Take a look at all the different components of your marketing strategy to identify areas where it makes sense to let the customer know about an upsell product or service:

• the thank-you page in your shopping cart can list other products people may want to buy
• the email to people providing the download link to an electronic product they’ve purchased can have a suggestion for the next ebook that would most benefit them
• an insert in a workshop/seminar binder telling them about some products and services they may find beneficial in implementing what they’ve learned at the seminar
• a thank-you email after purchase, telling people about a membership club or teleseminar series they may benefit from as well
• a flyer inserted in the monthly newsletter mailing informing people of an upcoming seminar or teleseminar

Don’t be afraid to upsell your customers - just do it in a helpful, non-pushy and authentic way, and watch your revenue increase.

I remember when my business coach talked about creating products and services that would be ongoing and provide recurring revenue.  At the time, I was just starting out and getting one little ebook created and off of my plate was proving to be an arduous task.

The thought of doing something on an ongoing basis scared the heck out of me!

But now that I’ve gotten some marketing tactics running consistently and smoothly (well, most of the time!) and have a few products and services to offer people, I’m re-looking at the thought of ongoing services to offer.

Who doesn’t get excited when you hear the words “recurring revenue”?!  Especially for us small business owners who have experienced the whole “feast or famine” nature of doing business at some time.

But it’s not just the money that gets me excited; it’s the fact that I would have loyal, stick-around clients and customers that I could really have a meaningful, rewarding business relationship with.  To me, it’s always been really satisfying to see people progress and learn over a period of time, and get to share in their triumphs and missteps and really see them grow.

There are many examples of ways that you can “sign up” clients for a lifetime:

• set up a members’ only blog or forum
• send out a CD every month
• sell a subscription to your monthly newsletter
• have a membership program
• have ongoing coaching calls
• have a “book of the month” type of program
• have a teleseminar series

There are many ways to offer ongoing help and assistance to your prospects and customers - you’re limited only by your imagination and your target audience’s needs!  So start brainstorming today and reap the rewards of recurring revenue and an ongoing connection with people.

It’s pretty hard to have a relationship with somebody if they don’t ever hear from you!

That’s why the cornerstone to creating an ongoing marketing relationship with your prospects and clients is to build a permission-based email list.

Only when people have given you their permission to market to them, and you have their name and email address, can you start to have any kind of business relationship with them.

In order to build a hot and steamy list….or at least a satisfied and happy list of prospective and current customers, you need to strategically use every point of contact with people.

Here are some suggestions on different ways you can get people to opt-in to your list:

• make sure you have an opt-in box/sign-up form on the top of every page of your website
• advertise your opt-in form when you ship products - include it in a postcard or a colored one-pager included in the shipping box/envelope
• include a “send to a friend” option with your ezine, special reports and so on
• have the link to your free-giveaway/ezine sign-up form in your resource box at the end of any articles you distribute to article submission sites and other people’s ezines
• give information on how people can sign up for an email subscription with all your print ads and direct mail
• have your opt-in message and box on your shopping cart pages when people purchase something
• have email signatures on all email being sent out by you and employees to have a one-line blurb about signing up for the company email newsletter or free report
• include information and link to your ezine/free report opt-in page in any press releases you send out
• add sign-up information to invoices, warranty and product registration cards
• have call center and sales staff ask people if they’d like to receive ezines and informational emails - whenever they’re talking to a prospect or customer over the phone
• promote your free-giveaway and provide sign up information at all your in-person meetings, workshops, trade shows and presentations
• promote your ezine or free special report in consumer and trade publications, other company’s publications, industry sites and directories
• add the opt-in box to any reports, white papers and registration forms you send out
• include information on how to opt-in to your ezine or free-giveaway on any surveys you send out to people

As you can see, there are many places of contact with your prospects and clients where you can tell them about your free-giveaway, special report or ezine subscription. Take advantage of these opportunities to add people to your email list - so that you can ensure a profitable and productive marketing relationship between you.

A free-giveaway is a vital first step in marketing your business and building a list of prospects that you can turn into customers and clients.

Once you create your free-giveaway, you don’t need to touch it again.  Remember, there will always be new people who “discover” you - new people you’ll be getting into your marketing funnel, pipeline or pyramid (however you think of it).

Your free-giveaway is aimed at this constant stream of new prospects and is the vehicle you use to build the marketing relationship with them, build credibility, earn their like and trust and convert them into loyal clients and customers.

So your free-giveaway will always exist as a stand-alone and entry point into your marketing system for the majority of your list.  This doesn’t mean, though, that you can’t build on the work you’ve done with your free-giveaway and leverage its power.

Another word for this is re-purposing your work.  That’s what smart marketers and business people do:  take the time and money you’ve invested in something and re-purpose it to use in conjunction with, or as another marketing tactic or product and service.

For example, with your free-giveaway you can take out pieces of it and write articles around it, blog posts and ezine content.  In this way, you spend the time once on creating your free-giveaway but you take parts of the content and re-purpose (or recycle) it to use in other marketing strategies that you employ.

Smart marketers, like yourself, know that the power of leveraging new marketing tactics with existing strategies is the way to get the most out of your time, expertise and resources.

Schedule a few minutes today to see if you are utilizing the power of your free-giveaway to the fullest.