Conversation Signposts

Notes from 35,000 Feet

By Jack Hubbard
Chief Experience Officer

I’ve just concluded a marvelous trip to San Antonio and Houston speaking on behalf of two local RMA Chapters. Both during and after the programs, I fielded lots of really interesting questions about the state of sales in business banking. We also receive intriguing e-mails from our readers who have similar questions. So, from the home office in seat 14A on American Airlines Flight 346, here is Conversation Signposts for April 2006.

What is the most important role a Relationship Manager plays in 2006?

I’ve never been much for MVPs or Best Picture awards. Who could say that Crash was better the Capote, Good Night and Good Luck, or any movie (except SAW2) for that matter? And, all we can say for certain of MVPs is that likely no Chicago Cubs player will be holding that trophy this or any other year. Sure, Curly talked about “just one thing” in City Slickers, but today’s RM is responsible for waaaay too much to point to one most important role. As the questioner continued to press the issue, I acquiesced and suggested that if I were an RM (there’s a scary thought), my most important role would be to put buyers and sellers together. Things such as compliance, policy adherence, and living by banking regulations are givens. Beyond that, people hire their bankers to help their companies become more productive, to help take it to the next level. And, since becoming a trusted advisor is something bankers are striving for, what better way to prove that than to introduce business professionals in your portfolio to one another?

Some banks have accomplished this quite creatively. Two well-known Midwestern banks sponsor regular networking events where a select number of clients attend an evening program with the express purpose of getting entrepreneurs to get to know each other. One does it in a dinner setting, another over drinks and heavy snacks. The goal of each approach is to get people to meet, exchange cards, and ask questions like “what do you do?” Some might call it speed business dating.

Some banks are less formal, encouraging individual RMs to listen on calls with one ear to learn about what the bank can do to help and with the other for opportunities to refer business to other clients in the portfolio.

Now, let’s be clear; this needs to be done carefully and judiciously. If you have three commercial printers in your portfolio, if you don’t know your client well enough to refer, if your bank has rules against this…well, you get the idea. And, let’s not create another tracking form to make some more tick marks. When portfolio-networking is done well though, everyone wins. Your clients win with additional business, you’ll be a hero and likely get some additional referrals back, and the bank wins by living its message of creating a best-in-breed client experience. In the final analysis, a phrase I heard from Zig Ziglar many years ago says it all: “You can get anything you want in life if you are willing to help other people get what they want”.

You can teach a turkey to climb a tree but it’s better to hire a squirrel.

Yep. Jeff Ward, an Executive Vice President at First Citizens Bank in North Carolina (and one of the better sales managers I’ve ever met), suggested that to me over a decade ago. I still use it in speeches today (Jeff said I could) because it paints a powerful visual of the vital nature of getting the right associate on the rope.

Hiring sales bankers is an art but you can increase your likelihood of hiring the right candidate if you look for skills needed for 2006, not 1966. One thing that most forward-thinking sales managers do is ABL (Always Be Looking) for great candidates to put on their teams. At one bank, sales managers encourage RMs to ask questions on calls like “who are the good bankers calling on you in this marketplace?” These sales managers understand that putting potential employees in their candidate funnels is almost as important as putting loans in the pipeline.

It is important to clearly understand what you want these new bankers to do when you start renting their time. If you seek a portfolio manager, don’t try to attract someone that loves to prospect. If you want a sales animal, don’t assume because she manages a large portfolio across the street that a) the portfolio will commute over with her and b) that she built the business.

Asking better questions is another key too. It’s not that your candidate wasn’t candid with you. Maybe you just asked the wrong questions. Do you ask:

How much business are you generating through your own proactive sales efforts versus the amount you inherited from other portfolios?
How do you go about getting telephone appointments with pre-clients?
What is your appointment hit rate?
Talk about the diminishment rates in your portfolio.
What is your close rate with pre-clients you source?
What sales book are you reading now?
A pre-client is asking you to cut your price. How do you deal with that?

Finally, what about testing? The Predictive Index is not foolproof, but it and others like it go a long way to help determine if the human you are about to invest time and money in, is right for your team.

Your ideas are really different than I’ve learned in sales classes before. How will my clients react if I use them?

Life is interesting, especially if you live it, but there are no guarantees. Sure, some of what we introduce in speeches, schools, and training classes are “out there”. It’s all about execution and finding out what works for you. It’s a fact, though, that if you continue to use tired old “consultative selling techniques”, memorize scripts, or believe that the number of calls you make is proportional to your success, you won’t get very far in this changing business landscape. Nearly 85% of business executives built their businesses because they are good at selling. The other 15% got out of the way and let the salespeople do their work to build revenues.

A quick example: I made a call with a banker last year (I really want to tell you her name because I’m so proud of her, but confidentiality prevents that) and she asked these amazing questions that we prepared for and practiced before the call. These were not the same blah-blah questions the business owner was used to hearing from his current banker. He loved the questions and he responded by opening his soul about one of the most important things in his life: his business.

We left his place of operation with a great sense of HOW to win his trust and what we needed to do during the next conversation. We left behind PowerResources, a list of amazing sales and marketing books. Nothing else. No marketing materials, annual reports, pitch books. This wasn’t about the bank. It was about him and his firm and we needed to prove that. The next day, the banker showed up in the business owner’s office and gave the gatekeeper a copy of The Little Red Book of Selling. Why? The business owner is an avid reader of sales books but he hadn’t read Jeffrey Gittomer’s classic yet. The next day, the banker sent a Conversation Recap (not some meaningless, generic thank you letter) reprising what happened on the call (his issues and challenges not banking products).

Fast forward six months when the business owner (the newest client of our banker) opens four DDAs (one for each of the companies he owns), two loan relationships, and a treasury management solution and he’s moving his 401(k) over with 167 participants. Sure there were many other calls made to bring home the business, but when the bank CEO asked the owner why he chose the bank, his answer was “We had to do some due diligence, but you had me at the book list and the Conversation Recap. We’ve implemented both strategies for our salespeople. We never thought a banker could be that creative.”

There is no 100% solution. This is sales after all–an art in which a new painting is started every time a new call is made. People will hang up on you, throw you out of their offices, and not buy stuff from you. Those will be few and far between though. The respect you wish to get from your clients and pre-clients begins with the props you give yourself. When you look in the mirror and see a professional advisor versus a pusher of loans and DDAs…you have already begun to win.

ABA School of Bank Marketing and Management: A Proud Faculty Member for 20 Years

In 1949, 50 bankers broke new ground in banking. These innovators invested $50.00 and two weeks of their time at Northwestern University for the first School of Bank Marketing and Management. Then it was known as the School of Financial Public Relations.

The names John Garver, Hugh Bernard, and William Singletary might mean nothing to you, but they mean everything to today’s bank marketing professional. They were pioneers, difference-makers. Thanks to their vision and fortitude, more than 8,000 bankers have had the opportunity to expand their marketing knowledge and gained a competitive advantage as graduates of this great school.

Instructors like the incomparable Kent Stickler, Lance Kessler, Bill Hippensteel of Compass Bank, and many more are annually given the privilege of exchanging ideas and sharing their unique talents and knowledge. In 2006 I celebrate my 20th anniversary as an instructor of this amazing school. I’m also a graduate and I’m happy to tell anyone that attending SBBM was a career-changing experience.

It all happens again on June 23-30, 2006 at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois and if you haven’t registered and you are in need of a marketing “check-up from the neck up”, what are you waiting for? Only a few seats are left. Heck, the BankExec simulation alone is worth the investment.

For information more about the ABA School of Bank Marketing and Management, please go to http://www.aba.com/Conferences+and +Education/SCH_BMM.htm or contact Perette Bonner 1-800-BANKERS or pbonner@aba.com. See you in Evanston.

Ask the Coach

By Dwight Lampley
Executive Vice President

“Joint calls are an important part of my job as a Business Banking Manager. What are some things to think about when I’m in the field with my people?”

This is a challenging skill and we do make a good number of joint calls with our clients. Before I get on the road with the banker and his/her manager, I want to know a few things:

Why are we making this joint call?
Where is your associate in the sales cycle? Where is the client/pre-client in the buying cycle? (Truthfully, I don’t see much in the way of benefit if a sales manager goes on an initial pre-client call. The goal of that call is discovery and if RMs can’t do that skill, they shouldn’t be putting their feet on the street.)
What is the goal of this call today?
What role will you take as the sales manager?
What skill do you plan to observe?
What verbal or physical signal will you use to know your RM is in conversation trouble and needs you to jump in?
How will you debrief the call?
What coaching and follow-up is needed?
What do you need to do to be more effective on joint calls in general?

Making joint calls is an art. Some pitfalls include not knowing what to observe, taking over the call, not allowing RMs to get themselves out of a jam, not isolating one or two key skills you want to coach, you talking too much after the call on the debrief, no coaching or follow-up.

Here are several ideas to make your joint calling efforts more effective:

Go Strategically– at the time in the sales cycle when you can be most effective.
Know Your Role– understand this BEFORE you get to the entrepreneur’s office.
Know Maximum and Minimum Call Goals– without this pre-call information I would never even go on the call.
Know Questions to be Asked– which ones you will be responsible for.
Discuss Anticipated Resistance– if this is a presentation call, discuss with the RM before the call what might happen and how they and you plan to deal with it.
Listen and Redirect– you are the “big dog” (it says so on your business card); don’t let your title influence who runs this call. If a question is directed at you and you know the RM can answer, say “that’s a great question and Jane (our RM) has dealt with that issue before. Jane, tell Mr. Johnson about the time you…”
Take Notes– about the RM so you can review them during the debrief.
Review Socratically– let the RM talk about the call and ask lots of questions like, “When you asked the question about ______, what did you notice in the pre-client’s body language? How would you ask that question differently this time?”
Coach and Follow Up– make the RM accountable for improvement, with your help of course.

Joint calls are a necessary routine for sales managers. Take a balance sheet approach, with the left side focused on what the business owner is discussing and the right side targeting how you can continue to help improve the performance of your associate.

Come See Us: May/June 2006

Here is where you will see St. Meyer & Hubbard associates in May and June 2006:

May 2006

2nd: Michigan Bankers Human Resources Conference, Jack Hubbard
5th: Montana Bankers Association Marketing Conference, Jack Hubbard
16th: Virginia Bankers Association Retail Conference, Jack Hubbard
23rd: ABA Commercial Lending School, Jack Hubbard
25th: RMA Las Vegas Chapter, Jack Hubbard

June 2006

6th-7th: Indiana Bankers Association MEGA Conference,Jack Hubbard (two presentations)
8th: Southwest School of Banking, Dallas, Texas, Jack Hubbard
14th-16th: ABA Stonier School of Banking, Jack Hubbard
28th: ABA School of Bank Marketing and Management, Jack Hubbard

People with Hang-Ups, Call 847-717-4328

847-717-4328 provides a Sales Conversation Thought for the Week. Everyone has certain hang-ups in life. Listening and hanging up on the phone number above happens almost 100 times a week. Call and find out why.

		Notes from 35,000 Feet By Jack Hubbard Chief Experience Officer I’ve just concluded a marvelous trip to San Antonio and Houston speaking on behalf of two local RMA Chapters. Both during and after the programs, I fielded lots of really interesting questions about the state of sales in business banking. We also receive intriguing e-mails from our readers who have similar questions. So, from the home office in seat 14A on American Airlines Flight 346, here is Conversation Signposts for April 2006. What is the most important role a Relationship Manager plays in 2006? I’ve never been much for MVPs or Best Picture awards. Who could say that Crash was better the Capote, Good Night and Good Luck, or any movie (except SAW2) for that matter? And, all we can say for certain of MVPs is that likely no Chicago Cubs player will be holding that trophy this or any other year. Sure, Curly talked about “just one thing” in City Slickers, but today’s RM is responsible for waaaay too much to point to one most important role. As the questioner continued to press the issue, I acquiesced and suggested that if I were an RM (there’s a scary thought), my most important role would be to put buyers and sellers together. Things such as compliance, policy adherence, and living by banking regulations are givens. Beyond that, people hire their bankers to help their companies become more productive, to help take it to the next level. And, since becoming a trusted advisor is something bankers are striving for, what better way to prove that than to introduce business professionals in your portfolio to one another? Some banks have accomplished this quite creatively. Two well-known Midwestern banks sponsor regular networking events where a select number of clients attend an evening program with the express purpose of getting entrepreneurs to get to know each other. One does it in a dinner setting, another over drinks and heavy snacks. The goal of each approach is to get people to meet, exchange cards, and ask questions like “what do you do?” Some might call it speed business dating. Some banks are less formal, encouraging individual RMs to listen on calls with one ear to learn about what the bank can do to help and with the other for opportunities to refer business to other clients in the portfolio. Now, let’s be clear; this needs to be done carefully and judiciously. If you have three commercial printers in your portfolio, if you don’t know your client well enough to refer, if your bank has rules against this…well, you get the idea. And, let’s not create another tracking form to make some more tick marks. When portfolio-networking is done well though, everyone wins. Your clients win with additional business, you’ll be a hero and likely get some additional referrals back, and the bank wins by living its message of creating a best-in-breed client experience. In the final analysis, a phrase I heard from Zig Ziglar many years ago says it all: “You can get anything you want in life if you are willing to help other people get what they want”. You can teach a turkey to climb a tree but it’s better to hire a squirrel. Yep. Jeff Ward, an Executive Vice President at First Citizens Bank in North Carolina (and one of the better sales managers I’ve ever met), suggested that to me over a decade ago. I still use it in speeches today (Jeff said I could) because it paints a powerful visual of the vital nature of getting the right associate on the rope. Hiring sales bankers is an art but you can increase your likelihood of hiring the right candidate if you look for skills needed for 2006, not 1966. One thing that most forward-thinking sales managers do is ABL (Always Be Looking) for great candidates to put on their teams. At one bank, sales managers encourage RMs to ask questions on calls like “who are the good bankers calling on you in this marketplace?” These sales managers understand that putting potential employees in their candidate funnels is almost as important as putting loans in the pipeline. It is important to clearly understand what you want these new bankers to do when you start renting their time. If you seek a portfolio manager, don’t try to attract someone that loves to prospect. If you want a sales animal, don’t assume because she manages a large portfolio across the street that a) the portfolio will commute over with her and b) that she built the business. Asking better questions is another key too. It’s not that your candidate wasn’t candid with you. Maybe you just asked the wrong questions. Do you ask: How much business are you generating through your own proactive sales efforts versus the amount you inherited from other portfolios? How do you go about getting telephone appointments with pre-clients? What is your appointment hit rate? Talk about the diminishment rates in your portfolio. What is your close rate with pre-clients you source? What sales book are you reading now? A pre-client is asking you to cut your price. How do you deal with that? Finally, what about testing? The Predictive Index is not foolproof, but it and others like it go a long way to help determine if the human you are about to invest time and money in, is right for your team. Your ideas are really different than I’ve learned in sales classes before. How will my clients react if I use them? Life is interesting, especially if you live it, but there are no guarantees. Sure, some of what we introduce in speeches, schools, and training classes are “out there”. It’s all about execution and finding out what works for you. It’s a fact, though, that if you continue to use tired old “consultative selling techniques”, memorize scripts, or believe that the number of calls you make is proportional to your success, you won’t get very far in this changing business landscape. Nearly 85% of business executives built their businesses because they are good at selling. The other 15% got out of the way and let the salespeople do their work to build revenues. A quick example: I made a call with a banker last year (I really want to tell you her name because I’m so proud of her, but confidentiality prevents that) and she asked these amazing questions that we prepared for and practiced before the call. These were not the same blah-blah questions the business owner was used to hearing from his current banker. He loved the questions and he responded by opening his soul about one of the most important things in his life: his business. We left his place of operation with a great sense of HOW to win his trust and what we needed to do during the next conversation. We left behind PowerResources, a list of amazing sales and marketing books. Nothing else. No marketing materials, annual reports, pitch books. This wasn’t about the bank. It was about him and his firm and we needed to prove that. The next day, the banker showed up in the business owner’s office and gave the gatekeeper a copy of The Little Red Book of Selling. Why? The business owner is an avid reader of sales books but he hadn’t read Jeffrey Gittomer’s classic yet. The next day, the banker sent a Conversation Recap (not some meaningless, generic thank you letter) reprising what happened on the call (his issues and challenges not banking products). Fast forward six months when the business owner (the newest client of our banker) opens four DDAs (one for each of the companies he owns), two loan relationships, and a treasury management solution and he’s moving his 401(k) over with 167 participants. Sure there were many other calls made to bring home the business, but when the bank CEO asked the owner why he chose the bank, his answer was “We had to do some due diligence, but you had me at the book list and the Conversation Recap. We’ve implemented both strategies for our salespeople. We never thought a banker could be that creative.” There is no 100% solution. This is sales after all–an art in which a new painting is started every time a new call is made. People will hang up on you, throw you out of their offices, and not buy stuff from you. Those will be few and far between though. The respect you wish to get from your clients and pre-clients begins with the props you give yourself. When you look in the mirror and see a professional advisor versus a pusher of loans and DDAs…you have already begun to win.

		ABA School of Bank Marketing and Management: A Proud Faculty Member for 20 Years In 1949, 50 bankers broke new ground in banking. These innovators invested $50.00 and two weeks of their time at Northwestern University for the first School of Bank Marketing and Management. Then it was known as the School of Financial Public Relations. The names John Garver, Hugh Bernard, and William Singletary might mean nothing to you, but they mean everything to today’s bank marketing professional. They were pioneers, difference-makers. Thanks to their vision and fortitude, more than 8,000 bankers have had the opportunity to expand their marketing knowledge and gained a competitive advantage as graduates of this great school. Instructors like the incomparable Kent Stickler, Lance Kessler, Bill Hippensteel of Compass Bank, and many more are annually given the privilege of exchanging ideas and sharing their unique talents and knowledge. In 2006 I celebrate my 20th anniversary as an instructor of this amazing school. I’m also a graduate and I’m happy to tell anyone that attending SBBM was a career-changing experience. It all happens again on June 23-30, 2006 at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois and if you haven’t registered and you are in need of a marketing “check-up from the neck up”, what are you waiting for? Only a few seats are left. Heck, the BankExec simulation alone is worth the investment. For information more about the ABA School of Bank Marketing and Management, please go to http://www.aba.com/Conferences+and +Education/SCH_BMM.htm or contact Perette Bonner 1-800-BANKERS or pbonner@aba.com. See you in Evanston.

		Ask the Coach By Dwight Lampley Executive Vice President “Joint calls are an important part of my job as a Business Banking Manager. What are some things to think about when I’m in the field with my people?” This is a challenging skill and we do make a good number of joint calls with our clients. Before I get on the road with the banker and his/her manager, I want to know a few things: Why are we making this joint call? Where is your associate in the sales cycle? Where is the client/pre-client in the buying cycle? (Truthfully, I don’t see much in the way of benefit if a sales manager goes on an initial pre-client call. The goal of that call is discovery and if RMs can’t do that skill, they shouldn’t be putting their feet on the street.) What is the goal of this call today? What role will you take as the sales manager? What skill do you plan to observe? What verbal or physical signal will you use to know your RM is in conversation trouble and needs you to jump in? How will you debrief the call? What coaching and follow-up is needed? What do you need to do to be more effective on joint calls in general? Making joint calls is an art. Some pitfalls include not knowing what to observe, taking over the call, not allowing RMs to get themselves out of a jam, not isolating one or two key skills you want to coach, you talking too much after the call on the debrief, no coaching or follow-up. Here are several ideas to make your joint calling efforts more effective: Go Strategically– at the time in the sales cycle when you can be most effective. Know Your Role– understand this BEFORE you get to the entrepreneur’s office. Know Maximum and Minimum Call Goals– without this pre-call information I would never even go on the call. Know Questions to be Asked– which ones you will be responsible for. Discuss Anticipated Resistance– if this is a presentation call, discuss with the RM before the call what might happen and how they and you plan to deal with it. Listen and Redirect– you are the “big dog” (it says so on your business card); don’t let your title influence who runs this call. If a question is directed at you and you know the RM can answer, say “that’s a great question and Jane (our RM) has dealt with that issue before. Jane, tell Mr. Johnson about the time you…” Take Notes– about the RM so you can review them during the debrief. Review Socratically– let the RM talk about the call and ask lots of questions like, “When you asked the question about ______, what did you notice in the pre-client’s body language? How would you ask that question differently this time?” Coach and Follow Up– make the RM accountable for improvement, with your help of course. Joint calls are a necessary routine for sales managers. Take a balance sheet approach, with the left side focused on what the business owner is discussing and the right side targeting how you can continue to help improve the performance of your associate.

		Come See Us: May/June 2006 Here is where you will see St. Meyer & Hubbard associates in May and June 2006: May 2006 2nd: Michigan Bankers Human Resources Conference, Jack Hubbard 5th: Montana Bankers Association Marketing Conference, Jack Hubbard 16th: Virginia Bankers Association Retail Conference, Jack Hubbard 23rd: ABA Commercial Lending School, Jack Hubbard 25th: RMA Las Vegas Chapter, Jack Hubbard June 2006 6th-7th: Indiana Bankers Association MEGA Conference,Jack Hubbard (two presentations) 8th: Southwest School of Banking, Dallas, Texas, Jack Hubbard 14th-16th: ABA Stonier School of Banking, Jack Hubbard 28th: ABA School of Bank Marketing and Management, Jack Hubbard

		People with Hang-Ups, Call 847-717-4328 847-717-4328 provides a Sales Conversation Thought for the Week. Everyone has certain hang-ups in life. Listening and hanging up on the phone number above happens almost 100 times a week. Call and find out why.