Sales Success for Banks and Credit Unions

Sales Success…

Enormous Dependency on Training, Tracking and Leadership

Today's financial institutions want sales from the business development team. The frontline, branch managers, lenders and call center personnel all have sales responsibilities that you cannot afford to ignore. And, if your offer trust, treasury management, investments, insurance and mortgage, you have to obtain buy-in from all areas to funnel referrals to these income-producing areas.

You won't get what you want unless you first provide what is required!

What is the formula for sales success? It starts with planning and next moves to training. The frustration and disappointment will be huge if you don’t create plenty of both.

No one is comfortable doing something they don’t know how to do. Very few of us are comfortable doing something we rarely do. And, if we are expected to do something we aren’t well trained to do and that isn’t tracked, encouraged and celebrated, you can count on your sales team floundering.

Well-done training is a must. The training curriculum must include all aspects of key selling techniques. That includes the entire how to - from profiling who needs what to setting appointments. Without training and tracking, the sales team will overwhelm you with excuses and complaining. Excuses and complaining are popular deal killers when you try to implement a consistent, meaningful sales culture.

Everyone expected to contribute to business development must be well-trained and held accountable. Momentum and traction come with putting all the pieces together, and it starts with training.

Sales expertise must gain the same importance as compliance, accounting, deposit operations and loan processing. It’s a well known fact that compliance officers must have ongoing training, leadership and accountability! And, exam outcomes are tied to the compliance officer’s performance review. What would you say about a financial institution that didn’t track every aspect of the lending function and outcome? You’d say it is a reckless and poorly run company!

Any change, expectation or new technology that is to be implemented successfully will be seriously dependent on project management and training. The transition will be painful and morale will hit the ditch when planning and training are ignored or done poorly, no matter the circumstance.

All of the training on our magnificent planet is regrettably not going to improve your sales metrics if you don’t know what those metrics are, what they should be, and whether or not you’re moving in the right direction. You want to assess and measure before and after the training to gauge effectiveness.

Want more discussion on this topic? Tune into a free webinar on Tuesday, April 20 at 2 PM CST. Go to http://www.nsscorp.com/Performance%20Improvement%20Exchange.htm to sign up!

Don’t miss this FREE opportunity to explore training solutions that can boost sales at your organization.

honey@interaction-training.com