Make Money by Specializing? Bank on it.

In an interview in the New York Times, the Chairman of ING Direct shares explains why his company specializes and avoids cross-selling:

Q. Does the question simply become one of pricing, of being able to offer the highest return?

A. In every country where we are, we have competitors offering higher rates than we offer. But you've got to be very careful, because, you know, consumers are smart. We have a product offering that has no commissions, no minimum, no tricks. Does the competition offer any tricks, like ties to something else that you have to do to be there, or a minimum balance, or a minimum usage? We have to be better than the next most comparable alternative.

For us, cross-sell is not what we want to do, because we want to keep it simple. We know that out there, the largest pool of earnings in the retail banking world comes from savings and mortgage — those are the only two things that we want to do. If you try to cross-sell too many products, you confuse the clients about what you are and your costs escalate exponentially.

Here are three questions every small business person should be able to answer: 

1.  What is your most pofitable service or product?

2.  If you focused exclusively on selling that service or product, could you sell more?

3.  What’s stopping you?

I’m not suggesting that small business owners abandon their passions to concentrate on making the most money possible, but I do believe that most business owners — and this goes double for lawyers — don’t even know what their most profitable service or product is.  Answer the first question, then the second, and finally the third, and you may be on your way to a more profitable business.  And if not, at least you’ll understand the trade-offs you are making in your business and your life.