Title: The "Never Ending Proposition": Sales Lessons from the Trenches
Abstract: As someone once observed, everybody is in We all have something to sell-an idea, a skill, our charming personality, a set of slightly golf clubs ... whatever. A somewhat smaller universe of people make their living selling. Are bankers in that category? The answer to that seems obvious--of course. If that's true then why are running (and you reading) an article entitled, Building a sales culture? Simple: while bankers by and large embrace the notion that they sell, there is still considerable debate over the approach, how to compensate those who do it, and even what to call it. Thus it was that in late October invited five community bankers attending a meeting of ABA's Community Bankers Council to join us for a breakfast discussion about the importance of building and maintaining a sales culture. WHAT'S A SALES CULTURE, ANYWAY? For the record, does everyone here agree that a sales culture is appropriate for a bank? Fenstermacher: Sales culture is engrained in all of us. I don't think you call get into a business like and not have a sales culture. But most banks are needs-based sellers. We try to explore the needs of the customer and then sell them what they need. Henel: I've always thought of sales as a natural extension of good That's what told our people in the '90s when transitioned from a heavy service culture to a sales culture. Jones: A sales culture has to fit the market and the customers that you serve and the type of business strategy you're executing. We've seen sales cultures all over the spectrum from super aggressive to moderate, but I think in all those situations there has been a focus on presenting products and services rather than sitting back and taking orders. Blanton: We've struggled with as built the bank over the last 14 years. A lot of our original employees were refugees from big regionals. They were turned off by the pressure of a hard sales culture. Recently began a customer relationship management initiative to try and identify our most valuable customers and see how could better take care of their business-anticipate their needs, and be more proactive with what would help them financially. Lins: Being the size that are ($48 million) do a really good job at But if I use the word sales, my employees immediately think used car salesman. So the first of year hired a company to help us instill the concept of right time, product, service. What we're saying to our people is, guys are already doing it just want you to be a little more proactive. Now we've got twice-a-month training where work on listening, dealing with objections, that sort of thing. We do tracking and employees get points--each point is equal to a dollar. There are some die-hards who don't think of themselves as sales people. But I'm saying, we all are. Jones: You've hit it right. You don't flick a switch and all of a sudden become a sales organization. It's an educational process of understanding how you define Several of you have different words than sales. Does anyone actually use that term within the bank? Henel: Absolutely. We have quarterly sales rallies, and coaching sessions and morning sales huddles. If someone starts to get off the topic of sales quickly bring them back in line saying, this is not an operations meeting. Today are talking about sales and only Fenstermacher: The training has to be throughout the organization, because if you aren't a natural sales person, you are sales support. Blanton: As we've gone through our CRM initiative, we've found it's our backroom people who are the most excited. I went to one of their meetings and they were dressed up in all sorts of crazy garb. For them it's a kind of recognition that they really haven't had before. …
Publication Year: 2003
Publication Date: 2003-12-01
Language: en
Type: article
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