“The hardest thing is to take less when you can get more.” — Kin Hubbard

Part of the human condition is to take more than we need just because it’s offered. During college, I worked at the Casual Corner one Christmas and this is where I learned the art of the upsell. We were trained to ask customers if they wanted a pair or two of stockings with that suit or offer the sweater set in multiple colors. I later perfected my technique while waiting tables at a restaurant known for its fine dining.

Allow Wikipedia to elaborate, “Up-selling is a sales technique whereby a salesman attempts to have the consumer purchase more expensive items, upgrades, or other add-ons in an attempt to make a more profitable sale. Up-selling usually involves marketing more profitable services or products, but up-selling can also be simply exposing the customer to other options he or she may not have considered previously.”

“Examples of up-sales are adding side dishes to a food order, selling an extended service contract for an appliance, or selling luxury finishing on a vehicle. A common technique for successful up-sellers is becoming aware of a customer’s background and budget, allowing them to better understand what the particular person might need. Many companies teach their employees to up-sell products and services.”

I once recited the story of a server upselling a friend on the $38 crab cakes (as an appetizer) at Houston’s restaurant where the average entrà ©e costs between $12 and $20: Their server asked if they wanted an appetizer and when they said, “Sure, what do you recommend?” The savvy server said, “We have these fabulous crab cakes that are an entrà ©e but many people split as an appetizer.”

How can you pass up fabulous? So they said yes. My friend didn’t inquire further but noted that the crab cakes were listed as “Market Price” on the menu. The crab cakes lived up to the recommendation but when the bill came, they were $38 and happened to be the second-most expensive thing on the menu.

That was some upsell. As consumers, I suspect we’re just used to it. Upselling permeates every aspect of consumption. From the now-defunct McDonald’s offer of “Would you like to Supersize that?” to the Best Buy worker pushing the extended warranty as she’s ringing up that Plasma television.

Anne Kadet had an interesting commentary on this topic recently in SmartMoney. She writes, “Maybe it’s part of the deal we got when we left the Garden of Eden, or maybe the phenomenon developed during the Middle Ages, along with bubonic plague. But somewhere along the way, we came to accept the upsell as a fact of daily life. There’s no such thing as a simple transaction these days ” everything’s an opportunity for a business to sell us something more. It’s gotten to the point where if the bank’s rep fixes our account snafu, we’ll patiently endure the home-loan pitch that follows, the same way we’ll listen to an endless story from the boring neighbor who lent us his power drill.”

“But upsell tactics work. Strange as it sounds, surveys show that, typically, 15% of customers actually want to hear additional offers. Unfortunately, the only way to reach those folks is to upsell everyone.”

Why do these type of sales work? Because the person upselling makes the assumption that the customer wants what they have to offer. Kelly O’Neil, author and marketing guru explains how this works: “The best part of upselling is that it’s practically effortless. Since it’s done after the customer has decided to go ahead with a major purchase, the hard part of the sales conversation has already been done. You’ve already established rapport, identified needs, summarized, presented benefits, asked for the order and handled objections. Upselling is just presenting the information in a ‘by-the-way’ assumptive manner.”

Consumers want more. Or companies just make that assumption and the tactic is effective. At its core upselling touches on excess and quite possibly buying more than we really need.

In a column in The New Yorker magazine, James Surowiecki mentioned an experiment conducted by social scientists in an apartment building. He writes, “One day, they left out a bowl of M&M’s for people to take, with a small scoop beside it. When, the next day, they left a much larger scoop, people took two-thirds more M&M’s. People could have taken just as many M&M’s on the first day; they just would have had to take more scoops. They took more the second day because the larger scoop sent a message that that was what they were supposed to do.”

The above illustrates how as humans we are conditioned to take more than we need just because it’s offered. But is it really that hard to just say no! Back to Kadet’s article… here’s how she suggests we sidestep the more sophisticated upsell coming from banks and other service companies: “I consulted etiquette expert Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners. She advises saying, ‘Thank you, but I’m not interested. Can we please just get on with our business?’ Ouch! But she’s right. You don’t owe the company your undying attention.”

“No thank you” is probably the more appropriate response when the kid at Burger King asks “Would you like fries with that?” Keep in mind, whether it’s fast food or Citibank pushing the extras, just learn how to say no. The upselling isn’t going to stop anytime soon.