Articles

What makes one Calling Officer more effective than another? If you knew the differences in strategies between your average performers and your peak performers, you could pass those secrets along to others in your organiza-tion, and increase your earnings.

In the tough commercial banking market, a Calling Officer isn't effective as a banker unless he or she is also effective as a salesperson.

Whether the objective is to increase fee income from an existing account, to switch the relationship of a tough prospect from a competitor, or to gain the cooperation of support staff within the bank, a Calling Officer has to sell to achieve his or her best performance.

In sales training and in in-depth interviews with hundreds of top performing bankers across North America, The Schneider Sales Management, Inc. has identified national patterns in what works and what doesn't work in selling commercial banking products and in training commercial bankers to sell.

Our research proves no one knows the secrets of selling your product better than the people who are succeeding now in your own sales environment.

In you're looking for calling strategies that work, you need to look first at what your most successful Calling Officers are doing right.

Innovative bankers such as Training Managers Greg Sharp and Ellen Coons of Suutheast Bank of Florida have found they can change "number crunching", risk-avoiding sales behavior of many Calling Officers by using their best per-formers as coaches for their entire sales organization.

THE MOST IMPORTANT SALES SECRETS ARE THE SIMPLEST
The first you discover in interviewing top performers is they have difficulty in describing how their behavior is different than the strategies of other Calling Officers. They assume everone does what they do and. of course, other bankers don't. In selling, little differences such as fast follow-up or learning the jargon of a particular industry mean a lot and only an experienced interviewer can draw out these subtle differences in behavior.

The most surprising secret of commercial bank selling is that almost every top performer I've ever interviewed has emphasized how much fun he or she has in selling. Even though these Calling Officers typically work more hours than other bankers, they thrive on meeting new people and on "doing deals". In contrast, their less successful counter-parts frequently think of selling as demeaning or as anxiety-provoking.

" In selecting a bank, chief financial officers consistently rank relationship issues such as willingness to lend and fast response by the account officer as more important than product issues.. ."

Above all, we've learned that the most important strategies used by effective commercial Calling Officers are simple, flowing naturally from the bank selection criteria of the companies they call on.

In selecting a bank, chief financial officers consistently rank relationship issues such as willingness to lend and fast response by the account officer as more important than product issues such as credit pricing and range of products.

Clearly, the relationship between the account management team and the financial officer is one of the critical perceived differences between banks.

Banks lose more accounts by poor service and by poor account management than by credit pricing. That's why peak performers spend more sales time on calls building relationships, solving "nonfinancial" problems and getting information than in giving information.

THE BEST SELLERS SELL RELATIONSHIPS, NOT PRODUCTS
While there are differences in strategies from person to person and from market to market, most effective commercial bankers seem to have at least these selling strategies in common:

* They sell with purpose to solve problems. Like IBM sales representatives, top commercial bankers talk of their selling as a service mission to identify the objectives and problems of their clients and to propose a relationship involving substantial added value. This is in direct contrast to the emphasis most bankers place on product sales and cross-sales, a perspective which tends to distract sellers from the truly significant opportunities available to them at the moment of their sales call.

* They project energy and personality. On their sales call, top performers consciously project energy and confidence, and they go out of their way not to appear "tentative". Intuitively. they've learned they have to make themselves memorable to set them apart from the large number of Calling Officers seen by financial officers today. They also want to look as though they have the energy to get things done. fast.

* They focus on the person before the facts. Top performers display a good deal of agenda flexibility and style versatility on sales calls in direct contrast to the structured agenda theories taught in traditional officer call sales training. They don't stray from their call objective, but they focus on the person, the relationship, and the feel of the sale rather than on their presentation. As a result, their presentations evolve from the customer's objectives, and they meet less resistance.

* They're always restocking their sales pipeline. The top performers we've interviewed sustain a "prospecting attitude". They continuously identify new prospects in magazine articles, social settings, referral contacts and other sources outside the bank's prospecting system. They don't rely on the bank to provide them with prospects. Knowing that it may take three years to land a major corporate banking relationship, these Calling Officers eliminate wild peaks and valleys from their selling by continually adding new prospects to their prospect pipeline.

* They sell through third parties. Top performers rely heavily on third party referrals, including those from within the bank. Referred prospects are four times as likely to buy as other prospects, and top performers take advantage of these statistical odds by targeting referral sources for extra sales attention.

"Top performers listen much more than they talk on their sales calls.. ."

* They're organized and disciplined. Contrary to popular stereotypes about salespeople, top performers sell in an organized way. They discipline themselves to make quality calls on a well-focused list of target prospects, and they invest extensive preparation time in learning about the companies and the people they call on.

As a result of being well-organized, they spend their time with the right prospects -- the companies and decision-makers that represent both high potential and high probability of doing business with them. They also discipline themselves to follow up these contacts with sales letters and prosposals that are written and rewritten until they sell.

* They sell the bank. Top performers sell their ability to deliver the entire bank, and they spend considerable time selling to inside support staff to get things done for their customers. They take a long-term view of business development and, as a result, they establish stronger, multiple buying influence relationships with each of their clients.

* They set goals. To focus their selling, top performers set personal sales goals, account relationship goals, and goals for individual sales calls. To increase their chances for achieving these goals, they also set step goals that will lead them to their larger goals, although they seldom formalize their process in writing.

"Over 50% of effectiveness in selling lies in salespeople gaining the mental toughness to sell consistently from the customer's viewpoint, to spend their time where they'll get the greatest payoff, and to do what they know they should do in the face of resistance."

As a result of this planning, their sales calls have a planned progression to them, with each call having a specific objective that leads to a next step toward their overall relationship objectives. They walk away from their sales calls with something, even if it's a personal account for the principal, or a definite date and purpose for the next call.

* They listen more than they talk. Most people think of salespeople as talkers, but top performers listen much more than they talk on their sales calls. The best Calling Officers probably spend less than 30% of their sales time talking. As a result, they're much better than other salespeople at recognizing unexpected opportunities and subtle shifts in customer reaction, and they're more versatile than other sellers in adapting to the relationship needs of their customers.

* They're direct and up-front with customers. Top performers are direct about what their bank will and won't do, and they won't allow themselves to be put in the position of making hurried commitments. They confront sales objections immediately, and they raise expected objections themselves before those objections become serious, sales-stopping issues.

* They sell results. Top performers sell results and product applications. They don't get overly bogged down in product details. To establish value and offset price disadvantages, they also work hard to establish themselves, their products and their bank as clearly different than their competitors.

HOW TO TEACH BANKERS TO SELL
Effective sales training requires both knowing what you want your salespeople to do and knowing what works best in your real selling environment. Sales training can actually damage sales performance if it destroys the confidence of salespeople or if it teaches "fail safe" selling formulas that cause sellers to lose their customer focus.

Salespeople learn how to sell in the field, not in the classroom. That's where they can apply what they know and receive feedback and coaching. The best organizations assure the success of their sales training by building a sales coaching network to support their Calling Officers in the field.

No one knows the secrets of selling your bank better than your own top performers. Progressive banks such as Southeast Bank have moved away from packaged sales training solutions to a new emphasis on custom design of their sales training based on the successful selling strategies of their best performers.

By designing their sales training around the perceptions and successful strategies of their best sellers, these banks are able to pass on the secrets of their selling successes and to address the mental toughness issues of selling in their sales training. Over 50% of effectiveness in selling lies in salespeople gaining the mental toughness to sell consistently from the customer's viewpoint, to spend their time where they'll get the greatest payoff, and to do what they know they should do in the face of resistance.

Our research demonstrates that many Calling Officers fail because they never give themselves a chance to succeed. For example, they may avoid calling on the real decision-maker, avoid scheduling group sales presentations, avoid following-up pending sales persistently, or avoid confronting difficult objections immediately simply because they' re overly concerned about the customer's possible negative reaction. If done properly, based on research of your best sellers, sales training can give salespeople the confidence and insight to overcome their imagined limitations and sell consistently at peak performance.

As you work together with your Calling Officers to increase their sales, I wish you "The Feel of Success®". Better selling will result in better account retention, more sales of the right products to increase your income, and higher sales production per Calling Officer which means better earnings for your bank.

Schneider Sales Management Inc.
5340 S Quebec Street, Suite 265N
Greenwood Village, Colorado 80111
Phone: (303)221-4511
Fax: (303)221-4650
Email: info@schneidersales.com

Copyright 2006, Schneider Sales Management, Inc.
All Rights Reserved

[Company Profile] [Sales Development Solutions] [Conferences/Speeches] [Newsletter/Articles]
[Strategic Alliances] [Sales Tips/Fun Stuff] [Career Opportunities] [Contact Us]