Bank Sales Corner

Small Business: Notes on Branch Manager Calling

  

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You’ve decided that becoming a significant player in small business is a priority. You know that you have to “engage” your branch network in the effort. (Engage is probably the wrong word; what you mean is that your branches are key to the success of the initiative or in biblical terms, they (not Moses) will be leading you to the Promised Land.)

How to get your branch managers from here to there is the big question. Here are some notes on what is involved in making the changes necessary in your branch delivery system.

What here may look like:

• You’ve provided a lot of product training in a short period of time; people’s heads are crammed full of new terms, features and benefits, pricing, etc.
• You may have made changes in your staffing model to free BMs to make outside calls but some long time managers may be skeptical about whether that can work.
• Executive Management is very interested in “results”.
• Credit is a big deal—the bank is hungry for earning assets to replace run-off/ paydowns in real estate.
• Your Marketing Area is devising campaigns to promote your small business capabilities—mostly around products and promotional pricing.
• Executive Management is very interested in “results”—soon.
• Some BMs are not sure whether this is going to be fun, easy or even doable; some may be thinking “this too shall pass if I keep my head down.” (There also may be some Regional Managers with the same thoughts.)
• Executive Management is very interested in “results”—this quarter or if you’re lucky, next quarter.

While in the marketplace as a whole:

• Your competition in small business is growing—banks of every size and stripe, credit unions, and brokerage houses all want a piece of the action.
• Small business owners are not enthralled with their primary banking relationships—according to some research studies conducted in 2010, 25-30% are considering changing banks in the next year (but only about 8% actually changed in the last 12 months).
• Demand for business loans is weak—and some of the people who are looking for credit wouldn’t get approved anyway.
• Executive Management at every financial institution you compete with is very interested in “results” also.

What there is may be a little fuzzy, but it probably includes the following:

• Branch Managers are confidently calling on the best businesses in their markets.
• You are able to differentiate yourself from the competition without giving away the bank.
•  You are teaming effectively with your partners in other areas (e.g. Cash Management, Commercial Lending, etc.)
• You are generating results—the kind that Senior Management is looking for.

Let’s pause and review some assumptions:

• All the good small business prospects are taken (i.e. they all have banks that are doing at least an adequate job).
• No business customer is going to leave his bank based on one call from you, no matter how brilliant you are. (If any prospect is prepared to do that, watch out.)
• The relationships that businesses have with their banks have highs and lows, just like any relationship between two parties.
• Today lots of small business customers are not enthralled with their banks.
• It’s hard for small business owners to differentiate your products from those of your competitors.
• Although price is important to business owners, it’s not the only thing that matters in selecting a bank.
• Branch managers want to do a good job taking care of their business customers.
• Executive Management is very interested in “results”—soon.

So what else do you need to consider? 

--This is not just about training. Most adults are hungry for how-tos that will help them do their job better.

--We owe our people certain things:

1. What a good small business customer looks like
2. How much time they should devote to this initiative
3. How we’d like them to call on small businesses—our process if you will
4. How we define “results”
5. What support we are prepared to give them in the way of coaching
6. What other resources we will be making available to them

 --This is really about sales leadership. If sales leaders want branch managers to change, they have to change too.

--Sales leaders have to make choices (see below).

Here are some of the choices that Sales Leaders face:

1. Which markets to focus on
2. How to prioritize which businesses to call on
3. Whether to have different expectations for different branches based on demographics, perceived potential, etc.
4. How fast to go in rolling out this initiative
5. What ‘s negotiable and what’s not
6. Whether to emphasize relationships or products
7. What activities to monitor—and how to do it

 Things we have learned:

• Quantity precedes quality (which means you can’t expect people who haven’t made many outside calls to become confident and even marginally competent until they have 75 to 100 face-to-face meetings under their belt.)
• Relationships matter.
• Your bankers have to be conversationally competent in key product areas; that is not the same as being experts.
• People + Process = Results.
• It takes a village (or at least the active participation and commitment of many parties.)

Agree or disagree? Email me your comments at nmiller@mzbierlyconsulting.com.

Listen to Buck Bierly’s thoughts on why the small business market presents opportunities, and what branch managers and small business bankers need to do to win market share.

Click here to listen to the file on  Are There Underserved Markets?