TAPS – Part Two

Last month we introduced you to Janice, an executive manager who moved from a mega-bank to a more community-based banking organization to lead a team of 20 business bankers that sell in the $2-10 million sales space. Janice came to her new digs with some pre-conceived ideas about outside selling including the high cost of cold calling and blitzes. Her experience indicates cold calls are not only time consuming but they leave a toxic impression on the marketplace. Worse yet, Janice found a statistic that suggests organizations that focus on cold calling have a very high sales force turnover rate – in some cases up to 75%. This hidden cost of cold calling caused Janice to create a systematic “workstyle” change for her bankers. She called it TAPS – Trusted Advisor Prospecting System.

Here system involves several steps:

Janice introduced her 20 bankers to the process in a one-day classroom format. She was wise enough to include sales assistants in the workshop too. She crafted tools for her sales managers (more on that next month) to hold them accountable to coach TAPS and to keep it alive every week. Finally, since the bank had no Sales Force Automation to track calls, one of her team leaders created a TAPS tracking approach on Excel. Everyone agrees it is only a stop-gap measure but Janice knows if the system is not measured the energy around the process wanes and eventually TAPS becomes that “flavor of the month” everyone has experienced.

Micro Sourcing

Prior to the workshop, Janice made her bankers aware of the type of business she was looking for. Like most banks these days, Janice’s organization is desperately seeking deposits. They also want C&I loans and some treasury management fees are nice too. Janice has seen this before, however. Focusing on the product does not help build trusted relationships. So instead of thinking inward, Janice had her bankers look at their markets from a client perspective and come up with firm that has cash, needs cash and needs to speed the cash through the business. Her bankers selected 50 businesses in their territories that did not bank with them but that they wanted as clients. This created some “skin in the game” for these bankers versus simply having them prospect from a list.

The TAPS Letter

Janice went to libraries and bookstores seeking ideas on the perfect sales letter. She had seen letters written by bankers in the past. They focus on the bank, its size, its branding and value proposition, its services, blah, blah, blah. Janice suggested “if these letters aren’t appealing in any way to me, how would they land in the life of the prospect in a positive manner?”

When she Googled “sales letter” she got over 42 million hits. She found 20 books targeted to sales letters and none of them hit the mark. Finally, she simply thought about what she would want in a letter if she were the business owner with limited time to read them. She had learned in a previous life that the business person takes no more than eight seconds to read a letter from someone they don’t know.

She liked the idea of a quote for a headline and she felt some type of graphic positioned next to the headline would grab attention. She wanted her letter to have three paragraphs:

She also felt a PS was needed as part of an action process. This post script would let the prospect know the banker would be calling “expect a call” it says, and a unique time for that call either before the gate keeper arrives at their desk or after they leave in the evening. Why the unique time? “When people get a letter from a banker, it’s usually pretty stuffy. I wanted something that would differentiate us so I asked the bankers to try 7:47 AM or 5:18 PM in their letters. They thought it was crazy but after doing TAPS for five months and having success with our unique approach, the bankers are convinced the odd time works for them. Go figure.”

Her letters would be sent in a bank envelope which was hand written and stamped. These letters would not have labels and there would be no postage meter. “We wanted these letters to be personal,” Janice states.

Janice asked her bankers to send out only five letters each week. She felt that would be a number they could live with given their many other competing priorities. These letters were to be printed on Friday afternoon by the banker (or their assistant) with the following Monday’s date. The banker would take envelopes and stamps home, address the letters over the weekend and drop them in the mailbox Monday morning on the way to the office. This maximized time and ensured the process would be done each week.

In the workshop Janice unveiled concept and the letters. She provided 15 fully scripted letters that her bankers would tailor to meet their needs. These time-saving letters prevented the process from collapsing and allowed Janice to build one TAPS process not 20. It also eliminated the “I don’t have time to do this” or “I am not a good writer” excuses. While she did allow minimal customization she did not allow the banker to remove the PS or to simply suggest “they would call on Tuesday in the morning.”

For the workshop, Janice had bankers bring information about one of the prospects they had sourced. She also created some case studies for her bankers. During this portion of the class, a team of bankers would look through the letters and match the letter they felt would be best for the case study. Then, individually, each banker took their own prospect and actually created their first TAPS letter using one of the 15 templates provided.

The Correspondence – a mid or late week touch with Value

Statistics told Janice it usually takes 10-12 touches before a prospect will even agree to see a sales person. Janice wanted to shorten that process so she built a second touch into TAPS the same week the letter landed on the desk of the business owner. She also wanted to provide some flexibility for her associates so she simply made the banker accountable for a note (a snail mail something) that would be sent Wednesday or an e-mail/fax with something of value on Friday. The language in this second touch has continuity with the letter.

Janice asked her bankers to register for the Google News Alerts. This free service allows her bankers to insert key words about a company, an industry. This concept lets Google search the web 24/7 for matches and lands e-mails into the mail boxes of bankers when something is located. Yes, her bankers got more e-mails than before but they were amazed to find White Papers, articles and other value-focused snippets about things that were constantly occurring in their targeted industries. They, of course, found great articles and ideas from First Research. The Recent Developments and Executive Insights tabs provided a fountain of information. Finally, they all registered at bizournals.com to received targeted articles each Monday from 300 business journals from around the nation.

In class, armed with this industry intelligence the bankers linked a value message to the letter from their case study and then created the value message for their own prospect.

Things were starting to come to life and bankers were beginning to see that TAPS just might work. “They liked the idea that this was a very different approach than they had every seen and one banker even suggested that if it was new to her it would be new to their prospects,” suggested Janice.

The Telephone – Gatekeeper, Voice Mail, Decision Maker

Janice does not believe in writing or reading from a script. It isn’t natural. She also knows that unless you give the banker some parameters, they fall back to product and price conversations when they try to secure appointments. So she created some job aids for the following:

Janice wanted her bankers to ask questions versus make statements on the telephone. “Generating curiosity is something bankers aren’t very good at. So we had to get them to practice some things in class they were very uncomfortable with. For example. I believe that leaving your name and phone number at the end of a voice mail forces the prospect to listen to the entire message. If the message if powerful and thought provoking, the prospect may just call the banker back.”

This portion of the class took nearly one-half of the entire day. Bankers got into teams and used their case study to develop bullet points to land if any of the three scenarios were to occur. Then, they got into triads with bankers working on other cases and in a round robin format they would practice talking with the gate keeper, voice mail and decision maker. They would then work on their own prospect and do the round robins a second time. Janice was dismayed at what she saw and heard.

“They hated doing this but it was perhaps the best part of the class. For the most part they were awful. My team leaders could readily see the need to continue to coach their associates and the vital need to observe them monthly during their phone appointment times. Without coaching I knew they would fall back into their comfort zone.”

Off-Peak Voice Mail

TAPS is a two-week cycle. The first week is the letter and note/e-mail/value fax. The second week the phone is in play. When the banker gets a “yes” or “no” to their phone appointment attempts, it is clear as to the next step. What if the banker never connects with the prospect? Janice installed the Off Peak component as a “one final touch” approach before the banker recycles the prospect. Janice created 15 job aids that connected somehow back to the 15 letters. When there was no communication with the prospect during multiple phone call/voice mail message attempts, the banker leaves a voice mail either late in the evening on the second Thursday of the cycle or early in the morning of the second Friday. The reason is simple; the voice mail is typically time stamped. The message has the banker’s name and phone number at the end.

“Think of it. How many bankers call at 9:37 PM or 5:47 AM with a unique message with a value statement or a curiosity question,” says Janice. “This was hard for our bankers to do and some hated the concept so much they would put extra effort into trying to reach the prospect during the week. That’s fine with me. One banker does get creative though and on his message suggests he is a Wealth Care Specialist and that he wants to diagnose the “Fiscal Fitness” of the business. Your readers may think that’s a bit hokey or over the top but prospects call this banker back all the time. Isn’t that what we want?”

Did they practice this in class? You bet. The banker left their manager an off-peak voice mail and they and their manager listened to the message the next day in terms of tone, speed, believability etc.

The Final Friday Fax

At the close of business the second Friday of the cycle, the banker was taught to send a unique final fax. Janice simply took one of those “while you were out” message pads and made it full fax size. She took something from the initial letter and made that the headline of the fax. Instead of the boxes saying “call me back” or “urgent” she had the boxes indicate benefit words that would catch the attention of the prospect. Then, she created some suggested messages for the bottom of the fax that was synergistic with the letter. These faxes are sent to any prospect that did not communicate at all with a banker that week.

At this point you might be thinking about SPAM. Janice was concerned about that as well but the bank’s legal counsel let the process go forward since at not time during the process is a produce, service or rate ever mentioned. This process is all about the client.

“Don’t think this was easy. It took lots of time to develop the process and some time to get team leaders and bankers to believe this would work. It’s not perfect and it’s not the only way we prospect around here,” suggests Janice. “It is working, though. One prospect liked the concept so much he asked our banker to come in an make a presentation to his sales meeting.”

What about the results? How is this bank keeping TAPS alive and making it part of the DNA? What is the role of the Team Leader? Stop back next month for part three.

Micro Business Survey

Small business initiatives have become commonplace in our industry. The Micro Business niche is comprised of firms that typically have $2 million or less in annual revenues with four employees or less. Please take less than six minutes to complete the survey below about how your bank is approaching Micro Business. We’ll report the results of this unscientific study in the March 2007 newsletter.

http://www.smhtechnologies.com/surveys/micro/microsurvey.htm