Article at a glance:

Refocusing the sales force to cross-sell

• An industrial-products company struggled to penetrate a new group of customers demanding bundles of products from different business units.
• Assembling these bundles was a challenge. Incentives did not encourage cross-selling, and business unit leaders and salespeople alike believed that collaborative efforts would place valuable customer relationships at risk.
• The company jump-started its cross-selling efforts by understanding the sales reps’ deeper motivations and addressing them through disciplined communication, role modeling, skill building, and support systems.