Now that they have "sales culture," bank marketers are (or at least by the time they get to this year's BMA national conference) feeling good. And they should.

Most have put in place all the sales tools prescribed by the industry's sales gurus such as tracking, sales training, and incentives. But unfortunately, many banks are still missing the key point of sales management.

Once the sales management infra-structure is in place to support sales, sales management isn't over. It's just beginning. Someone has to manage sales.

With sales direction left to chance, many banks are selling their way out of business. Sales time, and thus salary dollars, are frequently invested in the wrong customers and prospects, and the best sold products are often the least profitable.

Bank selling is now progressing full speed, but someone in the bank has to drive this marvelous chariot. Here's how to do it.

Make People Accountable
Managers don't manage sales and sellers don't sell when those roles conflict with other job roles. The resulting "paralysis" creates uncertainty. And that robs them of accountability, focus and motivation.

The best success stories in commercial business development, mortgage origination, and retail selling have almost always been stories of dedicated salespeople who can concentrate on selling and dedicated sales managers who can concentrate on sales coaching.

To make selling manageable, organize your sales force for clear sales or sales coaching accountability.

Turn the Reward System Upside Down
To keep costs down, most banks key their sales incentives to front-line selling, and sales managers are paid very little to manage sales. To get the best bang for your incentive dollars, give your managers significant incentive to manage sales before you consider in-centives for the people they manage.

Stop "Damaging" Your Sales Force with Sales Training
Uncomfortable with selling, most bankers rely on outside vendors to train their sales people to sell. That's fine as long as you manage the sales training process.

Outdated sales training that emphasizes products and presentations at the expense of customer focus, or that isn't customized to the real world you sell in, can damage salespeople for life. Give your sales training credibility by using your best field salespeople to help conduct your sales training.

Stick With What Works
People learn to sell in the field, not in the classroom. That's where they learn what works in their real world of selling. Managing sales requires paying constant attention to what works for your best producers so these strategies can be reinforced in sales coaching.

There are five different types of selling that take place in a bank, and each requires a different personality makeup for maximum effectiveness.

The best sales organizations actively recruit people directly for each type of selling, even when they don't need salespeople. Bank sales managers won't be tough on performance if they know it will take three months to replace an employee who leaves.

Well motivated sellers want to know they've joined a company with high standards, and poorly motivated sellers won't persist in a demanding environment. Use your new hire orientation to establish corporate values and high expectations, and manage the orientation process with enough "hoops", tests, and evaluations to weed out low performers before they hurt you.

Most bankers track performance with sales reports. You can move from counting sales to managing sales by investing more of your coaching time in pre-call planning than in post-call reporting.

Review Sales More Frequently
Most banks manage sales with monthly tracking reports. The best sales organizations manage sales on a weekly or daily basis so they can take advantage of the power of short-term goal setting and time management.

Selling what the boss wants sold for maximum profitability doesn't have to conflict with customer-focused selling. It simply requires identifying and selling to the right customers who want these products.

Manage the actual sales of target products and new target relationships, not just sales ratios. You can increase sales ratios a hundred basis points and lose your shirt.

No one ever said selling can't be fun. In fact, the one trait we see consistently in our in-depth interviews with top sales producers is how much fun they have selling. Hoopla and recognition works, so use it.

Sales management isn't about motivating salespeople. It's about removing obstacles that demotivate them. Even cowboys know to feed their horses before they feed themselves.

Banking's New Success Story
In recent months, it has been suprising to find successful sales organizations such as DuPont and General Foods trying to understand the banking "miracle" of transforming non-sellers into sellers. They have similar problems to banking in helping engineers and technical people develop the willingness to sell.

This emerging success story for banking will have a happy ending if bank marketers will simply view "sales culture" as the beginning, not the end, and begin to manage the sales process for maximum profitability.