Four Conditions for Cross-Selling Success

Planning to cross-sell? Check conditions before venturing out.

Cross-selling is the holy grail of business development. Who doesn't want to grow the pie with promising clients? When working with lawyers and BD teams to cross-sell, I encourage them to look for—or cultivate—four conditions before attempting to pitch an existing client on a new line of service.

Condition 1: Strong internal relationships matter. Effective cross-selling teams have good chemistry. They like and trust each other—enough for one lawyer to open the client relationship to another lawyer. Clients feel this rapport, and it's magnetic.

If you have your eye on a client that you know a colleague in another practice already serves, pause for a moment. Set aside all the reasons you think the client will be happy adding your services to the relationship. Instead, consider your colleague as a prospect. Use the REAL criteria to evaluate the fit.

If you don't already enjoy a strong relationship with the colleague who owns the client relationship, start there. Begin the development work to build a strong internal relationship before pitching the client. This early investment will make your cross-sell more appealing to the client and help make the value more clear (see Condition 3).

Condition 2: Cross-selling lawyers should have mutual interest. It will never be enough for Lawyer B to see the potential benefit of a cross-sell if Lawyer A (who owns the relationship) doesn't also see it. In other words, both lawyers (or all lawyers) engaging in a cross-selling effort should jointly see the value to the client and themselves.

If compensation or incentives aren't right, then it might not happen. If Lawyer A doesn't think highly enough of Lawyer B, doesn't trust Lawyer B, or doesn't think the firm is credible to pitch Lawyer B's line of practice according to the client's standards, then it's likely not gonna happen.

Lawyer A needs to see the value and benefit and believe the cross-sell is in the client's best interest. Otherwise, why would Lawyer A stick out their neck to promote Lawyer B and the new team? Without this alignment, the game is over before it starts. Sorry, Lawyer B.

If you are running into this in your firm, return to Condition 1 and start there.

Condition 3: The cross-selling whole should be greater than the sum of its parts. This is where superpowers emerge. Teams that cross-sell successfully do so because they and the client can see above-and-beyond value in the expanded relationship.

It is hard to change lawyers or firms. If clients are happy enough with a current arrangement—for example they have their franchise work with Firm A and their employment work with Firm B—then the cross-selling firm must be able to articulate what new state of legal bliss will materialize under the new relationship.

What will the client gain, by bringing both practices under one roof, that they simply couldn't get any other way? Examples may include increased value, greater legal protection, or easier/improved communication. Whatever the superpower, it likely needs to be more compelling than "streamlined billing."

Condition 4: The client must want it. In the starry-eyed enthusiasm of the cross-selling pitch, lawyers often assume the value of a cross-sell is obvious to the client. Alas, it is not. If it were obvious, the client would have initiated the discussion. (And sometimes they do.)

Before launching into a cross-selling exercise, evaluate the client's likely reciprocal interest. If they are happy with their franchise work at Firm A and employment work at Firm B, as described in Condition 3, then what will make them want the cross-sell?

Before testing a cross-sell on a client, refine Condition 3 in order to answer Condition 4 for yourself. If you aren't quite there, revisit the conditions for alignment and consider which of these to weave into your cross-selling efforts.