Selling a new business line is one form of Cross-Selling. It reminds me of a story I once heard from David Maister, author of Managing the Professional Services Firm.

Imagine you're at your dentist and she says to you as you're having your root canal done, "Say, I have a bookkeeper in the back office who does my books. He has some free time on his hands. Maybe he could do your books!"

Now, first of all, I'm not really interested right now in interviewing an accountant. And if I were, why would I go to my dentist for accounting services?

This may sound silly, but put yourselves in your customer's chair. Do we sound like that dentist. She violated two of Tim's three keys. Yes I am a current client. But I don't really see the logical connection between root canals and financial services. And, frankly, that is not my most important need right now.

To add to Tim's three keys, we should carefully and skillfully diagnose our client's needs with the client before we prescribe. I call this collaborative diagnosis. Once we truly understand the client's concept, then we may be able to talk about how our solutions may fit that concept. If we fail to do this, we sound more like that dentist trying to gain some revenue from an underperformaing resource, than someone truly interested in the client's problems first.