Up-selling on big items is the best way for a dealership to make a profit. Extra products and extended warranties are good examples of high margin products that can make a sale more valuable.

High margins vs low margins

Generally the low margin items are what you're going to be selling the most of. These are items that are sold for only a small mark up on what you paid for them. This means that you have to sell a lot of them in order to make a decent profit.

High margin items are the ones that all businesses want to sell as each one can come with a hefty profit. This means that fewer have to be sold.

The up-sell must relate to the product

You should know which high margin items work well with your regular sales. There's no point in trying to sell a fuel plan to the owner of a new electric car.

Get to know the product range inside out. This way, if a customer does reject your original up-sell, there will be something you can offer -- even if it's just an air freshener.

Market research

Good market research will tell you which customers are likely to buy from you when you try to up-sell. It'll also tell you what sort of products the customers want.

Pay close attention to your market research. Make sure you get a good cross-section of customers and ask the right questions. If you don't think you can do this justice alone, you should hire a market research company to do it properly.

Staff training

Give staff proper training on the entire product range and not just the cars. Make sure they know how to present items and services to the customers that will use and need them without being too pushy.

Reward your staff

It's important to reward your most profitable staff but be careful not to give them too much incentive to push products to customers who won't want them. Pushy sales people can really put off customers from buying from you. If customers do buy from you but didn't enjoy your selling tactics, they won't be recommending your dealership to friends.

Perhaps reward staff based on their profitability rather than how many of a certain product or service they can sell. This makes them more likely to sell the high margin items to those who will really be interested in them.