Verb
[kraas sel·luhng]
Cross-selling, in sales, is when a customer is persuaded to add an additional, complementary product to their purchase. Cross-selling is important because it boosts overall revenue and can also increase the customer's satisfaction since the related product serves to improve their experience with the product initially being purchased as well.
The key to cross-selling is o understand the customer's needs and anticipate a product that would help improve their experience with that product or service. Cross-selling is not effective and can lead to dissatisfaction is the complementary product is irrelevant, inappropriate or incompatible.
Cross-selling is similar to upselling, which is when a salesperson persuades a customer who is already making a purchase to opt for a more premium option.
An example of cross-selling in B2B SaaS would be a company that sells their CRM to a customer also marketing a document-management technology that would help support the function of that customer's business.
Example: Rick, a sales manager at a SaaS company for invoicing software had a big day. He made a sale of his company's software to a large client who wanted to improve the workflow of their accounting department. Rick also sweetened the deal by cross-selling a partner company's subscription management software.
Noun
[ko-mish-in ray-t]
A commission rate is the reward or payment associated with either a percentage of sale or payment. In partnerships, partners can earn commission on either qualified leads or on closed sales. The commission rate is the percentage of the value of that lead or sale that is paid to the partner.
The commission rate you offer should depend on how much the partner is involved in the sale, as well as how much work they’re doing to maintain the client over time. For example, you may choose to give affiliates a commission of 15% for one year, but give resellers 30% for the lifetime of the account, because they're doing much more work to sell and maintain that account over time.
Example: Giro's partner program paid a commission rate of 25% to resellers, who did more work to close a sale, and 15% to affiliates, who did less work to produce leads.
Noun
[ch-ann-ul part-ner]
A channel partner works with another organization to market and sell their products or services through indirect channels. Channel partners may be vendors, affiliates, resellers, value-added resellers, agencies, retailers, managed service providers, systems integrators, or other such entities. Channel partners normally undertake co-marketing efforts together.
Channel partners work together as part of a channel partner program, which help companies sell more product to a wider audience through indirect channels. A company can work with different kinds of channel partners simultaneously.
Example: Lana worked with two kinds of channel partners, affiliates and referral partners, to sell and market her company's software.
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