THE OPERATIONAL UPSELL (SUGGESTING ITEMS WITH NATURAL PHRASING)
D EP 84: THE OPERATIONAL UPSELL (SUGGESTING ITEMS WITH NATURAL PHRASING)
Quick announcement, The P&L Podcast is now live. Episode one is called 'Why This Number Belongs to You' and it's free to subscribe. You can find it at app.hiro.fm/channel/the-p-l-podcast. If you're serious about understanding the financial side of this business, this is where you want to be.
You are operating the primary cash register during a busy afternoon shift. Your Store Manager recently instructed the staff to increase the sales of a specific promotional chocolate bar. A customer walks up to your counter holding a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread. Before you process the transaction, you recite the exact promotional sentence your manager told you to memorize. You ask the customer if they would like to add the promotional chocolate bar to their purchase for two dollars. The customer looks annoyed, quickly declines your offer, pays for their groceries, and leaves the store. You feel awkward, and you decide you will stop asking customers to buy additional items because the process feels uncomfortable. You failed to increase the transaction amount because you relied on a mechanical script instead of using situational awareness.
Welcome back to C-Store Legends. I’m Mike Hernandez. Today we are talking about the operational upsell, and how sales associates can suggest additional items using entirely natural phrasing.
In the Dive phase, you are the primary point of contact for every single financial transaction. Your ability to increase the total purchase amount for each customer directly determines the financial success of your shift. However, many sales associates execute this process incorrectly. They behave like automated machines. If your coworker, Thomas, asks every single customer the exact same memorized question regardless of what the customer is actually purchasing, the customers will ignore him. A mechanical script degrades the customer experience and results in an extremely low conversion rate.
To execute a successful operational upsell, you must eliminate the memorized script. You must transition to a strategy called situational suggestion. This requires you to physically analyze the exact items the customer places on the checkout counter and verbally suggest an item that highly complements their current purchase. You must use completely normal, conversational language.
I will give you a specific operational example of how to execute this technique. A customer walks up to your register and places a large, family-sized bag of salty tortilla chips on the counter. A mechanical cashier will ignore the chips and ask the customer to buy the promotional chocolate bar. The customer will decline. An operational cashier will analyze the salt content of the tortilla chips and immediately recognize that the customer will likely need a beverage.
Instead of asking a forced question, you use a natural, informative statement. You look at the customer and state, "I have ice-cold bottles of water in the promotional cooler right directly behind me if you need something to drink with those chips." You did not force a sale. You simply identified a highly probable need based on their physical items and provided a convenient solution. Because the suggestion is highly relevant to their current purchase, the probability of the customer accepting the additional item increases significantly.
You must apply this situational analysis to every transaction. If a customer places a large hot coffee on the counter at six o'clock in the morning, you do not ask them to buy a chocolate bar. You inform them that the delivery driver dropped off fresh pastries fifteen minutes ago, and you offer to add one to their transaction. If a customer purchases a car wash ticket at the register, you naturally ask if they need a physical air freshener for their interior.
When you align your suggestions with the customer's actual physical purchase, the conversation feels entirely natural. The customer feels that you are providing excellent service, rather than simply trying to increase the store's revenue. By executing this specific verbal technique, you will drastically improve your individual cashier metrics, increase the store's average transaction amount, and completely eliminate the awkwardness of the checkout process.
Alright, let’s execute the operational upsell. Your job is to stop reciting mechanical scripts and start using situational awareness to suggest complementary items.
Here is your Solo Quest for this week. "The Complementary Pairing Protocol." During your next shift, completely abandon your memorized promotional script. Instead, analyze the items of your first ten customers. Suggest one highly relevant, complementary item to each of those ten customers using completely natural, conversational language.
I have a "Situational Suggestion Matrix" for you. It is a reference document designed to help sales associates identify the most profitable complementary pairings for standard convenience store purchases, allowing you to prepare your natural phrasing in advance. Text the code word NATURAL to 9 5 6 - 8 9 7 - 9 1 9 2. That’s NATURAL to 9 5 6 - 8 9 7 - 9 1 9 2. Get the matrix. Increase your transactions.
Please check out the YouTube channel @cStoreCenter. I will be adding video shorts and occasional tutorials to help you develop the practical skills you need to develop and promote. Like, subscribe, share and comment to help improve the visibility of the channel. This helps me continue to make content for others in search of training. And if you want to know how the Assistant Manager tracks these specific suggestive selling metrics during the shift, listen to Episode 85 of Survive. I’m Mike Hernandez.
I close every episode the same way, 'Happy Learning.' Those two words aren't filler. They represent everything I believe about development. Learning shouldn't be punishment. It should feel like possibility.
