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Engineering a Successful Sales Culture

by Honey Shelton, BOL Guru
Guru Bios

Bankers in search of the competitive edge are striving to implement a progressive sales culture

Today, most bankers clearly recognize the need for instilling a sales culture. The demand the customer and the competition is placing on the industry is fierce. Our customers have never had so many choices or such a wide array of distribution outlets, and they have never been more sophisticated in their thinking and expectations. The competition is in Wal Mart, the Internet, the grocery store, and every street corner, not to speak of, the mail box and the FAX machine.

Answering the "why" question

For starters, the bank must examine the motivation for initiating a sales culture. The old adage, "haste makes waste," is most apt to describe a slipshod approach to a sales culture. Before the bank needs to concern itself with the "how to" aspect, it should examine closely the "why to". Hopefully, the motivation stems in great part from the commitment the bank has to customer service.

Savvy bankers understand the sales culture movement is a tall order and slow to formulate. In a world that has a hard time focusing past the next quarter, bankers can resist hearing that engineering a sales culture is much like constructing a high rise building. Everything counts if you want to do it right. A crack in the foundation discovered after the fact can be costly and discouraging.

The top of the bank is famous for desiring rapid results and may even question or demand how long it will take to implement a sales culture. The honest answer will be it can take months, and many cases, years.

Either hire a professional to organize the effort or assign it to someone who is a people person, a problemsolver with vision and one who has the time to develop the sales culture plan. The organizer will need the cooperation of many to succeed in developing a plan that will be endorsed and carried out by the masses.

All department heads and persons directly responsible for the sales culture should act as a team to develop a mission statement. The plan will incorporate the mission statement at every turn as it addresses strengths, weaknesses, goals, objectives, strategies, timelines, and budget.

Begin With a BANG!

Once the mission statement is adopted and the plan is approved, it is time to begin moving the sales culture from an ambition to a reality.

Kickoff the program with a bankwide breakfast hosted by management announcing the conversion to a sales culture. In some cases, the announcement comes in the form of a threat or ultimatum..."you will do this or you will not work here." Fear motivates people to run, hide and get even. The only benefit to the fear approach is it will usually silence the anti-sales staff members. It will not motivate them to support it.

Hire a band or a disk jockey, wear tee shirts, hang posters, have a slide show, have an exceptional athlete put in a guest appearance. Have fun and create excitement. If you don't think crowd noise and fans are essential to achieving tough assignments you might want to interview Rudy Tomjonavich or Hakeem Olajawon. The kickoff is just the first of many sales rallies yet to come.

Call for Commitment from the Start

This is the ideal time to issue a Launch Kit for everyone. Review the material at the kickoff to minimize speculation and misunderstanding. It also communicates the "call for commitment" from everyone by asking each employee to sign a sales culture awareness letter that specifies the training schedule and solicits the cooperation and support in pursuit of the mission statement. Each person will receive a photocopy of the signed letter.

Launch Kit

Mission statement

Goals

Training Strategy Outline

Questions & Answers

Sales Culture Awareness Letter

The questions and answers sheet can include questions the employees most typically will wonder about. Here is another case where input from all the sales captains and parties responsible for leading the sales culture will be invaluable. Avoid sabotage and mind reading, communicate what is, what will be, the how's, why's and who is behind the sales culture decision.

Questions to be Answered

  • Is everyone expected to sell?
  • When and where will training take place?
  • Who will cover my job while I am being trained?
  • Will I be compensated for sales I make?
  • What if I miss a training session?
  • Why is the bank initiating a sales program?
  • Is this a temporary thing, like an advertising campaign?
  • What if I am not successful in selling?
  • Is my supervisor expected to sell?
  • What if two or more of us "sell" to the same customer, who will get to be credited for the sale?


The Know How

Research indicates only 5 percent of banks provide employees with sales training and more than 50 percent of all front-line personnel are unfamiliar with bank products and lack adequate brochures and manuals for reference. Though enthusiasm and lip service are important to a sales culture, they will not be sufficient. To ensure people know how to sell they must be trained in sales techniques and product knowledge. Sales training introduces people to the concepts and skills selling requires, coaching integrates the skills to new behavior on the job. The training strategy will call for supervisors to be trained in coaching employees so a high comfort level can be attained in the sales environment.

Training Issues

  • Design of the program. Will the bank purchase an off-the-shelf training program or create their own? Will testing be a part of the design? If an employee doesn't pass the test, what will be the next step?
  • Conducting the training. Who will conduct it? An in-house trainer or an outside consultant?
  • Scheduling who and when. Who all will attend and who will attend first.

Ideally, all supervisory personnel will complete training sessions first in order to coach the staff after they have attended training. How will positions be covered while staff personnel are attending training? Several options can be considered: Saturday or night training sessions, employ temporary help to staff during business hours while others attend training or only pull a few from every area at a time. How will new employees or employees who missed sessions be trained?

Addressing training issues will require the commitment from every person in management. It is not uncommon for the program to begin to backfire due to the strain training sessions can have on staffing. Make every attempt to guard against the negativity that can be generated from not approaching training in a realistic and mandatory fashion. Keep the training sessions lively and fun.

Utilize a wide variety of training strategies including role play, video taping of the participants, games, quizzes and case studies. Require participants to shop other financial institutions and report back the sales and service ability they observed.

Training Agenda

Product Knowledge
Overcoming Resistance to Selling
Coaching the Sales Team (supervisory personnel)
Who to Sell What to
When & How
Do's and Don'ts
Think like a Customer
Coping with Rejection
Selling Success to Existing Customers
Soliciting Referrals
Developing New Customers

Tracking

There are various forms to tracking sales. The approach your bank elects will be tied to budget and computer support. Manual tracking is the least expensive method, but the most cumbersome. Employees will be required to track the number of referrals they acquire and to follow through to see if the referral matures into a sale. The coordinator of the sales culture program will generate a reporting process to reflect the results weekly, monthly or quarterly. Results should be communicated bank-wide at sales rallies to keep the team informed of the progress.

Consult with your data processor to see what support is available. There are several consulting firms around the country that sell sales tracking software for banks.

Whether it is a sophisticated approach or done manually, tracking is what gives a sales culture creditability. When compensation is tied to sales, the staff tends to be highly efficient in supplying the bank with tracking.

Recognition and Reward

Sales rallies and newsletters are two of the most powerful ways to recognize sales efforts. Everyone appreciates a pat on the back and an acknowledgment of a job well done.

Recognition Tips

  • High sales personnel are invited to be honored at the directors' meeting
  • Take high achievers photo with the CEO and display in the lobby
  • FAX or call employees ASAP when news of an accomplishment is known
  • Do on-the-spot quizzes concerning products and reward with cash
  • Have drawings at sales rallies for gift certificates or prizes
  • Keep supervisors and upper management on their toes to be certain their efforts and accomplishments are communicated to the staff
  • Have quarterly luncheons for high achievers and invite a highly motivational speaker such as a area high school coach or minister. Ask all the honorees to say a few words about what they did to qualify to attend.


All of us ask the same question when a change is introduced, especially one that is intended to improve the bottom line. "What's in it for me?" There are those among us who would say the answer is simple, "You get to keep your job!" People who excel at sales want to receive monetary compensation for it. That is why typically they are selling real estate, computers, automobiles and insurance. Bankers who buy into a sales culture and perfect selling techniques must be compensated for the results.


Compensation Options

Prizes
Time off
Paid per referral
Paid per sale made
Stock compensation
Incentives tied to team goals
Incentives tied to sales goals per individual
Compensation tied to a percentage of salary
Minimum sales performance required to qualify for incentive


Keep On Keeping On

As the sales culture matures and begins to dig its roots remember to water it. The commitment to this type of endeavor is ongoing. Employees will need refresher training annually and sales rallies monthly to keep the interest, skill and enthusiasm high.

A former banker, Honey Shelton, president of InterAction Training Systems, is a nationally recognized speaker in the banking industry and repeat presenter for the Kentucky Bankers Association.

First published on BankersOnline.com 8/23/04

First published on 08/23/2004

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