The best message in this excellent posting comes at the end,where you advise us all to focus on the client's needs, not on simply pushing more product out the door.  The ineffectivenes of doing the latter was pointed out years ago by David Maister as the single biggest reason why cross selling fails. He pointed out that most clients are quite smart enough to distinguish between someone who is really trying to help them and one who is more interested in simply making a sale. (David's blog can be found at http://davidmaister.com/blog/).

The research I did for my book, Cross-Selling Success, confirms this.

For those readers interested in the subject, I address the subject from time to time in my own blog www.HardingCo.com/blog/.  Last week I posted a short piece entitled "Cross Selling a Colleague"  which provides language you can use when you want to shift into sales mode with a client who isn't expecting a sales meeting.

I  have a lot of interest in this subject and would welcome information other research into cross selling.