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TAPS–Trusted Advisor Prospecting System: Making the Process “Sticky” (part three of three)

When last we left our hero, Janice, she had introduced you to TAPS– Trusted Advisor Prospecting System, a process she has implemented to put some rigor and discipline around getting bankers’ feet on the street with businesses that don’t bank with them at this point. If you recall TAPS involves:

Oh please. We’ve done this at our bank before. I’ve been involved in this type of regimented approach several times in my career. We did training like this a few years ago. STOP. How many of you are STILL executing the process? Produce the letter? Do you even know where the training manual is? Training du jour is commonplace in our industry. The linchpin that connects any training and tools to bottom line results is the sales manager. It’s no different with TAPS and Janice knew that.

“I’m fortunate to have five team leaders that flat out ‘get it’,” says Janice. “I also have an advantage in that three team leaders came with me from the other bank and they are all very competitive. They wanted some bragging rights around TAPS. They had been through a similar process before and it didn’t work. They knew it was because the system did not become a part of the bank’s DNA. They were determined not to let that happen again.”

TAPS into Team Meetings

Meetings are held Mondays at 7:30 a.m. They last 45 minutes. This allows the banker to hit the streets by 8:30. Meetings are “get to go” versus “have to go.” Rather than go around the room and bore each other with what is or is not really in our personal pipeline, Janice’s team leaders focus on strategy, what’s working and what’s not, best practices, and even a “success tip of the week.” As of this printing Janice is considering assigning her bankers a sales book to read each quarter. Team leaders would discuss chapters of the book each week during the meeting.

TAPS now occupies a section of each meeting. Managers discuss what letters went out last week and why bankers selected them. They want to know how First Research is being integrated into the process and what new Google News Alerts bankers are employing in their overall sales strategy. There are “skill drills” around telephone appointments and voicemail issues. Janice has found these to be the two key appointment getters or killers. This component of the meeting lasts no longer than 10 minutes. Janice indicates it is just enough to keep the energy around TAPS high and the peer pressure to do the process equally significant.

“As bankers we spend over 30% of our time in meetings. Why not make them engaging and action-oriented?” points out Janice. “Our meetings aren’t perfect but they are sure better than going around the room and playing ‘liar’s poker’. That’s a complete waste of time.”

One-on-Ones

Each week, team leaders “check in” with each of their bankers around the TAPS process. She collaborated with her managers to develop some questions about outcomes, activities, and behaviors around the process. Some are “rear view” questions, some of “windshield” questions, and some are general strategy questions. Improving appointment rates and holding firm to the bank’s mantra of “value first, products second” are the foundational elements of these queries. Team leaders were taught to listen for certain things during these one-on-ones that let them know the banker is or is not on track.

“The process takes no more than 15 minutes,” says Janice. “It is going pretty well now. Early on I think our bankers saw this as a punishment. Since the strategies their team leads are suggesting are helping them get more appointments, they now see it very differently. This whole system is all about changing behavior and in a team setting people can hide. There’s no place to hide here.”

When the team leads/associates one-on-ones are completed, Janice does them with each of her direct reports. “We are geographically disbursed and because of the many hats I wear, there is no way I can get out to the field as much as I would like to inspect TAPS. I talk to my team leaders all the time but the isolated 15 minutes we set aside each week allows us to focus on why we are all here: to help our bankers get better, to optimize the customer experience, and to maximize the return to shareholders.”

Telephone Observations

It is very common for a manager and a subordinate to make a joint call. It is much less likely that a manager listens in on a telephone appointment call. At Janice’s bank it is a matter of course. Each month, team leads listen to associates when they make appointment calls. To allow a manager to listen to both sides of the conversation, he/she is in the conference room. The banker calls the phone number of the business and quickly links the manager into the process for a three-way call. The manager keeps his/her phone on mute and takes notes on a TAPS Telephone Observation Template. This guide isolates the key telephone call behaviors bankers learned in the TAPS class. This process allows the manager to hear in real time what words the banker and the prospect are exchanging. This observation also includes listening to a voicemail or to learn how the banker works with the gatekeeper.

“Talk about freaking out,” she indicates. “This was almost a deal-breaker for some of my bankers, not to mention my team leaders. They were all pretty nervous about it, so we eased them into the process. We did lots of practice at team meetings and let them work on their own for about 30 days before we started the observations. It’s still the most difficult part of TAPS, but we won’t stop. It’s helping. Plus, our team leaders can’t coach telephone calls unless they observe them.”

Coaching

“We see coaching as a collegial exercise here and it occurs every month for 30 minutes,” states Janice. Team leaders isolate a skill they want to coach, prepare for it using some coaching guidelines Janice unveiled, execute the coaching, and help the bankers create a brief action plan for the next 30 days.

Janice’s managers are coaching constantly, but the TAPS coaching is more formal. She feels it is necessary to help bankers get traction with the system.

“The key was to help my team leaders to focus on one item to coach versus trying to do it all. Remember, my people were pretty green when it came to prospecting and I didn’t want my managers to throw too much at them at one time.”

Of course, Janice sits in on some of those coaching events and then coaches the team leaders too. Finally, Janice has professional coaches work with her team leaders and her bankers. “I always heard that bringing a sales coach could improve performance by as much as 88% and I was leery about it. Now that my people trust their “Tactical Coach” it is working well and I’m getting a great return on that investment.”

Connecting the Sales Management Dots

One key to Janice’s early success with TAPS is not only the accountability she has placed into the environment but the way the managers are making linkages to each of their own routines. Team leaders are using their observations and coaching to ask better “check-in” questions. Their work every week with their associates helps form the basis for team meeting agendas. “When the sales manager creates a tight performance chain around this or any process, the links [routines] get stronger over time. Our industry needs to stop the ‘tick marks’ for the sake of the ‘ticks’. This is about making more sales. That doesn’t happen because people do a bunch of random activities,” concludes Janice.

The Results

Did you all go to this page first to see how TAPS is working? It makes sense. We all want to know that what we put into the environment shows some tangible results. First comes context-setting. The Direct Marketing Association estimates that $166.5 billion was spent in 2006 on direct marketing that generated more than $1.93 trillion in sales. Response rates, however, continue to drop and the latest numbers indicate a less than 1.5% response to a typical direct mail campaign. E-mail marketing metrics include open rates at an average of 26%, click through rates of 30%, and purchases at a 2.8% rate. Finally, we Americans are barraged with more than 3,000 advertising messages each day. In this sea of sameness backdrop, Janice launched TAPS.

After six months of actively working the process, her bankers are generating appointments at a nearly 40% rate. Her younger bankers have embraced the process and some of the veteran “lenders” continue to struggle. She has bankers that get four appointments out of five letters sent and she has some that have yet to book an appointment from TAPS. Most importantly the bank has booked millions of dollars in new deposit, loan, and fee business from clients they may never have touched without TAPS.

“In the first month, one of my bankers sourced a $500,000 loan, two significant DDA opportunities, and an $800,000 401(k) by using TAPS. Needless to say, he is sold on the process,” she says.

Here’s part of what a young banker wrote to Janice in an e-mail. It is important to note that TAPS was this banker’s first sales training workshop.

“After the TAPS class and the follow-up coaching, my hit rate has jumped significantly–it’s getting close to 50%. I am amazed! This has made the biggest difference for me because now I have seen that I can be successful.”

The Rest of the Story

TAPS presents and creates challenges, pure and simple. While Janice has had no turnover to this point, she sees that as a distinct possibility. Some of the veteran bankers that thought TAPS would go away, along with the sales management oversight, have begun to get restless. Some bankers see the system as “hokey” and “challenging from a time perspective.” Sourcing leads is new to her people and Janice continues to work to provide leads to supplement the micro-sourced leads.

Getting bankers to change their behavior on telephone calls has been a struggle. Janice is still not seeing as much telephone call preparation as she would like and bankers forget to use the job aids she provided from time to time.

“The biggest issue I have to deal with is that bankers expect immediate gratification from TAPS. This is not a magic wand or a prospecting pill. This takes time and discipline. This is especially challenging when low performers try to foist their lack of success onto bankers that are trying to make TAPS work. We’re dealing with this every day,” she says. “Like every bank, we have many competing priorities that land in the life of our bankers and our managers. We’re committed to TAPS, however. It’s become a part of our culture.”

Another Newsletter to Consider

Lana Chandler writes a great monthly newsletter she calls Branch Managers Letter. This eight-page monthly bulletin targets sales, service, operations and lots of other issues that branch managers face on a daily basis. BML has been in publication since 2002. There is a fee but it is a minimal annual investment. To learn more go to www.BranchManagersLetter.com.