A fascinating thing happened last week. 

 I was leading a half-day workshop for the Renaissance Executive Forum in New Jersey. We did an exercise where the participants were asked to write out as many of their product and service offerings as they could get on paper.

 They then gathered with their co-workers to compare their lists. 

 While debriefing as a group, one company owner expressed his great surprise that on the lists of three people at his firm, only three offerings were written down more than once. 

 That is, out of 38 total products, only three were thought about by more than one person. Less than 10%. 

 His people simply didn’t know — or think about — the different products the company can sell to people. 

 I frequently talk about your customers not knowing all that they can buy from you. 

 But do your people know all that they can sell customers? 

 Are you talking about it?

 Are there lists they can reference? Not catalogs, or web site listing. But top-of-desk-or-taped-to-the-bottom-of-the-computer-monitor lists? 

 Are these lists categorized? If they’re buying this, then offer these three items? 

 Do you have meetings analyzing what customers are buying today, and what they can  buy tomorrow? 

 Customers can’t buy it if they don’t know you sell it. 

 And, critically, salespeople can’t offer it if they aren’t aware of it. 

 If you’d like help implementing systems to ensure sales teams are offering ALL of what you can sell to customers, call me directly at 847-459-6322 or simply reply to this message.