While rooting around on my hard drive today, I stumbled across an oldie-but-goodie. Two years ago I appeared in the CPA Marketing Report with a marketing idea called Cross-Sell Bingo. If you're a professional services provider, it's really simple to implement.
Suppose you are the Marketing Director at a CPA firm, and you just can't get your partners to cross-sell the firm's practice areas. Make a grid listing your top ten clients across the *TOP* of a piece of posterboard. Down the *SIDE* of the posterboard, list your top ten service offerings like so:
- Tax consulting & compliance
- Mergers & acquisitions
- Financial planning
- Business valuations
- ... and so on.
Fill in the grid by coloring in the offerings that your top ten clients are currently buying. What remains are the open areas of opportunity.
Now post this incomplete board in the break room where EVERYONE can see it. Tell EVERYONE that when the bingo card is filled, EVERYONE in the firm gets a $500 bonus (or trip, or fancy dinner, or whatever sufficiently motivates your team). Naturally, EVERYONE means the receptionist, all of the managing partners, the marketing staff ... EVERYONE. Make a big deal out of the empty squares at staff meetings.
Pretty soon, ALL of the inter-office brainstorming will start to surround the empty BINGO squares. And the partners who aren't cross-selling the firm's practice areas are asked -- or nudged -- by others in the firm if there's anything they can do to help so that the whole team wins. Try it. It works!
____________________________________________
Q: Need the number of a recruiter who "gets it?"
A: Download Harry's contact info for future reference.
