Bank Sales Corner

Business Development Doesn't Take a Vacation: 9 Ideas for Bankers

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Heading to Italy for two weeks in August? Working on getting in beach shape for your vacation? Trying to get your golf handicap below 10? Reading the complete works of John Updike?

Whatever you plan to do this summer outside of work, here are some business development ideas for bankers:

1. Do something nice for your best customers. I'm not talking about sending them tickets to a baseball game or a concert, although that's not a bad thing to do. Let them know you're thinking about their business. If you have something specific in mind-maybe something that would improve the way they manage their cash-visit them. If you don't, visit them anyway.

2. Bone up on the competition. Mystery shopping is not just for branches. Use your network of customers and prospects and COIs to find out what your top competitors are doing with their business customers. Share your insights with your colleagues.

3. Take a product partner to lunch. Get to know your Cash Management rep better. See if he knows anybody on your prospect list. Pick your Wealth Management contact's brain about what she's seeing in the market.

4. Do some industry research. Not the First Research or RMA kind-everybody does that. Visit some trade association websites to see whether you can learn some things that will make you more knowledgeable about the issues facing your customers and prospects. Attend a trade association meeting. 

5. Meet some friendly accountants. Review all the financial statements you have received this year and see whether you know all the CPAs who prepared them. If you don't, ask your customers to set up a lunch so you can meet them.

6. Write an article for a local business publication on a topic that would be of interest to your prospects. Milk it for all it's worth. Before mailing it to the editor, send it to your customers and prospects for comments. After it's published, get a PDF of the file and share it with everybody you know who might be interested.

7. Review your relationship plans with your Sales Manager. What, no relationship plans? Send me an email at nmiller@mzbierlyconsulting.com and I'll get you a template that you can use.

8. Keep improving your professional skills. Be honest with yourself about what you need to work on. If you're a credit wiz who struggles with selling, sign up for a webinar or buy a book on prospecting. If your product knowledge is sub-par, get some tutoring from one of your colleagues. Lousy at negotiating? Take a course.

9. Show your prospect list to your satisfied customers. And to your COI buddies. You might be surprised how inclined they are to help you with your business development efforts. According to a Greenwich survey a few years back, over 65% of business customers would be willing to refer their bankers to others. Most are never asked to do that.

Summer is a time to recharge your batteries. But it's also a time to refocus your energies on how to retain your customers and acquire new ones.

Looking for a suggestion on how to jumpstart your prospecting efforts this summer? Check out our archive of recorded webinars on prospecting at http://mzbierlyconsulting.webex.com/ or call Whit Midkiff at 727-741-0766.

Sales Coaching Pointers from the Masters

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Did you watch the Masters this year? If you're a real Golf Channel addict, you might have heard about the coaches that some of the top professionals turn to for advice. These aren't household names like Coach K, Bill Belichick and Joe Torre; they're more like Jack Lumpkin and Craig Harmon. Who?

Well, these guys are not exactly unknowns. They rank 19^th and 20^th on the Golf Digest list of top teaching professionals. They don't give away advice for free-a week of lessons at Sea Island with Jack isn't cheap-and they do count top PGA Tour types as students. (Not Tiger Woods, though: Craig's brother Butch was one of Tiger's coaches before his fall from grace.)

But most of the people these two teaching pros advise have a hard time breaking 90. They hack and slice their way around the golf course and if they have delusions of grandeur, it's probably more likely about winning the sixth flight of a Member Guest Tournament than the U.S. Amateur.

Coaching average-performers (whether they're golfers or bank sales people) is clearly different from working with high-performers. What Jack and Craig know is the following:

1. While not everybody will become great, everybody can get better-eventually. If better means consistently shooting in the mid-90s, great.
2. There are certain things that you can't coach (e.g. attitude, competitiveness, etc.)
3. You shouldn't try to change more than one or two things at once. (Too much sales training assumes you need to teach everybody everything all at once.)
4. You often have to review the basics with people.
5. Breaking the process down into its component parts can help a lot. (As an aside, that's why slow motion video is now routinely used in analyzing golf swings.)
6. Small adjustments can produce significant improvement.
7. You can only make so much progress in a lesson. For golfers it starts on the practice tee but has to move to the course.
8. Once the basics are in place, it's consistency that matters.
9. Most average-performers are looking for how-tos and techniques, not theories or concepts to improve their golf game or sales skills. They want to develop confidence handling challenging situations.
10. Even the best performers can benefit occasionally from objective, expert coaching.  (Phil Mickelson, the Masters winner this year, has coaches who help him with many different things--e.g. conditioning, diet, putting, sand shots, etc.)

So the next time you're looking for coaching inspiration, think about Jack Lumpkin and Craig Harmon.  They know it's about incremental improvement, consistency and confidence. And they know how to help average-performers progress.

For more coaching tips go to http://www.mzbierlyconsulting.com/tips-for-sales-managers.  You can also check out our archived webinar on Pre-call, Post-call Coaching at http://mzbierlyconsulting.webex.com.

March Madness: Sales Success Tips for Bankers

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When March Madness rolls around, I do more than grab for the remote to check the college basketball coverage on television. I also pull out my copy of "Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court."

John Wooden, the UCLA basketball coach whose teams won 10 NCAA championships in 12 years between 1964 and 1975, is eminently quotable. Here are some that I like:

"Failure to change is often just stubbornness that comes from an unwillingness to learn, an inability to realize that you're not perfect. There cannot be progress without change-even though not all change is progress."

"You must never stand still. You're either moving upward a little bit or going the other way. You can't expect to go upward too quickly, but you can sure go down very quickly...Progress comes slowly but steadily if you are patient and prepare diligently."

"When you are too engrossed in those things over which you have no control, it will adversely affect those things over which you do have control-namely, your preparation."

Perhaps my favorite piece from this collection is Coach Wooden's "Eight Suggestions for Succeeding." At the risk of boring those relationship managers who do not follow sports, I offer them to you as timeless reminders on how to become a better professional.

1. Fear no opponent. Respect every opponent.
2. Remember, it's the perfection of the smallest details that make big things happen.
3. Keep in mind that hustle makes up for many a mistake.
4. Be more interested in character than reputation.
5. Be quick, but don't hurry.
6. Understand that the harder you work, the more luck you will have.
7. Know that valid self-analysis is crucial for improvement.
8. Remember that there is no substitute for hard work and careful planning. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.

I'd suggest that you ponder #7 for a minute. If you objectively evaluate your own professional skills, it often becomes clear what you need to work on. But don't stop there. Ask for some coaching. That will help you improve your sales results and get to the next level.

Visit our website for selling tools and tips for bankers at http://www.mzbierlyconsulting.com. Sign up for our blog at http://www.mzbierlyconsulting.com/bank-sales-corner-blog.  Recent topics include:

• Prospecting for Bankers: Get a Coach
• How to Ask Customers for Referrals
• Relationship Managers: How to Be a Better Resource for Your Customers
• CEOs on Bank Sales Process

Relationship Managers: How to Be a Better Resource for Your Customers

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Many business customers today are demanding a higher level of professional expertise from their bankers. How do you become a more valuable resource for your best customers? Here are a few things to focus on:

1. Stay current on the financial services industry. Even if your market is Main Street you need to know what's happening on Wall Street-and be able to explain it to your customers.
2. Learn as much as you can about your customers-their industries, their major customers, their markets, etc.  (One great way to do that is by attending meetings of their trade associations and reading their industry publications.)
3. Track closely what your competitors are doing. In addition to making sure you circulate this intelligence to your colleagues and sales managers, you might also decide to share this information with selected clients. If, for example, a bank is promoting a new treasury management product, you might alert your best customers to your bank's plans to launch a similar product soon.
4. Develop a specific, written relationship-building plan for your key customers. Introduce others from your organization to them. Research shows that customers are more inclined to buy additional products from their primary bank if they know the product specialists there. Senior managers can also help retain key relationships.
5. Lobby internally on behalf of your customers. Many bankers think first of advocating for their clients on credit issues. But don't stop there: insure that your customers receive excellent customer service from all areas of the organization.
6. Keep developing your own professional skills. To most business customers the relationship manager is the most important person they deal with at the bank. If you're not getting better year after year, you're shortchanging your customers. Don't let them down!

Agree or disagree? What else would you add to this list? Let me know what you think at nmiller@mzbierlyconsulting.com .

For ideas on how to develop your own skills visit http:/www.mzbierlyconsulting.com or call 610-296-4772.