Credit: james.gordon6108 on Flickr

As freelancers, the main thing we can sell is our services. Clients come to us because they want a particular project completed and we have the right skill set to accomplish it. But the truth of the matter is that we have a little more room to maneuver, at least when it comes to what we sell. We can upsell and cross sell our services to further establish our relationship with our clients and improve our bottom line.

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How to Balance Your Internet Life with Your Real Life

Hi, I’m Carl, and I’m a blogger.

I really started blogging back in 1997 when I created an e-mail newsletter for the newspaper. I would start each daily e-mail with some personal insights then list the day’s headlines. I didn’t know it but it was blogging.

I thought I could quit whenever I wanted. But I kept posting updates. And that led to Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Report Writing 101: How to Write a Report in 7 Easy Steps

If you want to create your own content to build your online business, writing a report is a great place to start. Whether you decide to offer it for free or for a price, a report is a powerful tool to leverage into a larger subscriber list and potential future sales. Continue Reading

Image by Richard Moross.

This post is part 4 of 5 in our four-author series on perfect pricing and rates.

Getting ready for a seminar I was presenting in February, I needed to get some t-shirts printed in a matter of days. I had the files ready to go and was looking for a service that could run off a quick batch for giveaways.

As I surfed around, I stumbled upon VistaPrint.com’s website and, being somewhat obsessed with sales processes, started to play with it.

I was blown away by the way they cross-sell products.

I wanted to see just how much they would try to cross-sell me, so I uploaded an image and went through the process of ordering a T-shirt, in an effort to see just how much extra stuff they would try to get me to buy.

Here’s what happened. Continue Reading

Image by visualpanic.

This post is part 3 of 5 in our four-author series on perfect pricing and rates.

As I step up to the counter to place my order for a tall skim-latte at Starbucks, the woman behind the counter immediately responds with, “would you like to make that a grande for only 50 cents more?”

I thought for a moment, then bit on the up-sell and went for the bigger-one.

I then heard the barista repeat the same process with the next five people behind, asking each one if they’d like to bump up one-level from whatever they ordered. Three out of five did.

So, if every person behind the counter in this Starbucks was trained to ask this same question, that simple act would effectively increase the gross-revenue of the location by 60%. If it started with $1 million, then, asking the question would raise revenue to $1.6 million.

Why do you care? Because…

Up-selling also works phenomenally with many types of freelance work. Continue Reading