You may have heard about the story of how that simple and straightforward question has increased the annual revenue of a McDonald’s franchise owner more than $200.000, back in the 1970s and has made the company millions of profits since then.  Come to think of it, one of the most effective marketing tools ever, came out from these six words.

The idea behind it is simple and that is to put an extra to a core product, which in McDonald’s case is the Bic Mac.  Marketing campaigns manage to attract customers that are ready to spend their money, as they are about to place their orders.  The challenge at this stage is to upsell, which is always a delicate issue, as it is crucial that the customer just sees what else is in offer, rather than feel pushed.

With this question McDonald’s practically managed to “disarm” the customer, as they usually get a positive answer, without the customer even get to the point to wonder how much this is going to cost him/her.  After all, they are just fries!  And who doesn’t like fries?

The issue now, is how this can be applied to any other shop/business, which for sure have several extras that can be added to their basic product/service.  The answer is simple: Just make things easy for the customer.  With suggested add-ons and bundles, clients save money, as the products cost less than buying individually.  They also save time, as they don’t have to do all the hard work of choosing products.

To achieve that, we need primarily to understand what drove these people in our business in the first place, our customer’s journey from lead status to order placement.  If we pay attention to the sales process, then most of the work will be done and it would be much easier for us to come up with upselling suggestions that would perfectly match our core products and make our customers lives easier.

So, what is your $200.000 question?