“Do you want cheese with that?”

“Do you want fries with that?”

“Do you want to biggysize your order?”

McDonalds and Wendy’s and Burger King make millions of extra dollars each year by asking those questions after their customers place their orders.

There’s a lot design professionals can learn from the add-on selling techniques they hear at the drive-though windows. 

Too bad so many of those design pros forget or simply choose not to ask upselling questions. By doing so, they leave thousands of dollars on the table.

One group that has mastered the art of the upsell is the nation’s leading window fashion professionals. By asking customers about everything from lift controls to finer
fabrics to decorative hardware, they generate outstanding additional revenue.

As Bruce Knott sees it, the key to add-on sales is selling “convenience, ease of operation, style and fashion.”

“It’s easy to sell the bells and whistles if you talk solutions and benefits, rather than price,” says Knott, the former sales training manager for Springs Window Fashions. “Clients will upgrade to cordless shades, for example, if you mention the child safety issue.”

LaVelle Pinder, one of America’s leading window fashion specialists, uses  the “touch and sell” approach to maximize her sales.

“Once I put expensive fabrics and trims in customers’ hands, they buy them,” she points out.

Pinder, like other top pros, focuses on “the look” rather than individual products in her discussions with clients. She regularly includes bedding, lamps and other items in
that look.

“If I add fancy pillows to the sketch of a client’s bed, I know she won’t take them out,” she says.

Deb Barrett, an award winning designer and a Window Fashions Magazine columnist, also believes in selling her expertise rather than itemizing her products.

“I automatically quote higher priced drapes and other items, rather than give options,” she notes.

Can clients afford more expensive window treatments?

Jamie Gibbs, a designer whose work has been featured in books, magazines and newspapers worldwide, looks at it this way: “If someone can spend $800,000 on a piece of junk house, they can afford us.”