Bank Sales Corner

What Got You Here Won't Get You There: Bank Sales Leader Edition

  

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A new book by Marshall Goldsmith, Don Brown and Bill Hawkins entitled “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There in Sales” lists 16 habits that can trip up even the most experienced salespeople. It includes some that may surprise you—throwing others under the bus, never having to say you’re sorry, and explaining failure are three that I had never thought of before. The authors provide practical pointers on how to remedy them, which may help you give up these bad habits.

While there’s plenty of food for thought here for sales leaders, I suspect that there’s a sequel out there for them. This is, after all, based on Goldsmith’s blockbuster business best seller “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There” for aspirants to the C-suite.

If they wrote one for bankers, what would it include? Here’s a start on the habits and behaviors that hold many first-line sales managers back:

• Relying on a few heroes to make your team goals
• Letting average-performers determine which prospects to call on
• Coaching only people who are behind in their goals
• Holding sales meetings “only when we need them”
• Thinking everybody should  “just work harder”—sales isn’t rocket science after all
• Believing that money motivates everybody
• Failing to invest in training for themselves and their teams
• Waiting to be invited on sales calls
• Not keeping their recruiting hat on at all times
• Grousing constantly about the competition
• Losing patience
• Going through everybody’s pipeline in team meetings
• Always believing your team members’ post-mortem comment on lost deals that it was really “all about price”
• Engaging only in water cooler coaching
• Failing to show up enough in your remote offices
• Worrying about stuff you can’t control
• Not scheduling 1 on 1 time with all your team members on a regular basis
• Not giving timely feedback
• Avoiding confrontation
• Not delivering consistent messages
• Thinking “good credit skills” qualifies a banker for a sales leadership role
• Shying away from coaching “seasoned veterans”

If you’re looking for insights into how to tackle any of these habits, here are two suggestions that won’t cost you anything:

1. Get some feedback—or what might even be better, “feed forward” (another Goldsmith term)—from your team or from another sales leader. 
2. Check out our blog on sales leadership at http://www.mzbierlyconsulting.com/bank-sales-corner-blog/

If you’re looking for more specific tips on what successful sales leaders do, join us for our November 21 webinar on Coaching Commercial Relationship Managers in Challenging Times.  For more information go to http://www.eventspan.com/event/2011-11-21-strategies-for-sales-leaders.

You can register online at https://mzbierlyconsulting.webex.com or call Susan Lersch at 610-296-4771 to sign up for the session. We accept Visa and MasterCard for online payments. We offer discounts for 3 or more lines from the same institution. If you can’t make the live sessions, a recorded version will be available 24 hours after the live webinar.