Stop the Tricks if You Want the Treats Rant
By The Rantmaster (aka Jack Hubbard)
Halloween is a great time of year. This celebration of sugar and costumed merriment was originated roughly 2000 years ago by the Celts. Their New Year was on November 1. Sacrifices were common on the day before and people would dress up in animal skins and pelts as part of the ritual. Trick-or-treating is said to have started in England during the eve of All Saints’ Day when beggar children went door to door asking for "soul cakes" in exchange for prayers for their dead. Trick-or-treating was imported from European immigrants who came to the new land. During the Baby Boom of the 1950s, popular culture embraced the neighborhood door-to-door tradition we know today.
Sales professionals seek treats in the form of win-win partnerships with clients and referral sources. But help me understand: even in this supposed era of trust, why are so many salespeople trying to use tricks to get them?
Go to Google and you will see what I mean. There are 107,000 hits for the phrase “getting around the gatekeeper.” Imagine trying to manipulate and sleazalate the very person that can help you break through to the decision-maker. There are 23,400,000 hits for “sales tricks.” One prominent author suggests that in a voicemail the salesperson should say his/her name, give the phone number, start talking about a great best practice or bottom-line number, and then hang up about ten seconds into the message—just at the most important portion of the success practice. This is supposed to make the prospect curious enough to call back? Maybe it will, but is that a way to establish trust? Even if the prospect never knows you chose to hang up, those bad Karma train wheels have been set into motion.
There are tools out in our industry that we generically call “profiles.” Some contain a section for personal information. That process became popular in conjunction with the Harvey McKay classic, Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive. The challenge is that while many organizations require a certain number of these things to be filled out each week, few are talking about what to do with the information to show the partnership they are trying to create. Instead information is simply being accumulated about the customer’s family, hobbies, interests with the primary reason being to sell more products. It’s almost a quid pro quo: I send an article about beagles (because you have one and love dogs) to you and you are expected to buy the home equity loan from me. I send you a birthday card (I send one to everyone on my list whether they want one or not) and you should refer me to one of your best clients. Instead of using chicanery as a means to make a product sale, why not use the information gathered about your best clients and prospects to show value and create trust? Do that, make it from your heart, and you will never have to worry about where your next treat is coming from.
Recently I was on a joint call with a banker. He had asked lots of product-focused questions (he’s behind plan on loans, you see). When it was my turn, I asked questions like: “how do you stay current with trends and best practices in your industry?” The banker was looking for a sale, I was looking to model a partnership.
On the way back from the call, I asked the banker how he used First Research, bizjournals.com, or Google Alerts to find articles about the industries of the firms he calls on. “I send an article along with my letter or I may leave one after the first call,” he said. This was his fourth call on this prospect and when I asked what he did to show value between calls or as leave-behinds on subsequent calls he looked surprised. “I am supposed to do that every time? I only use those articles as door-openers.” So this banker who attempts to differentiate himself through value and who sets the trust bar pretty high early in the process, drops the ball after the first call. When it comes to staying with the value process, he’s missing the point. “Too hard to do,” I inquired? “Takes too much time,” he replied. I wonder how the prospect felt about the first article and the fact that he received no others.
Put whatever mask you want on them, dress them up in a costume and put some lipstick on them, no matter: when salespeople use scripts, memorized ways to “handle resistance,” and articles as door-openers, a trust-based sales environment can never occur. Relationship development is not about tricks. To get the candy, you need to treat the buyer with great respect that comes from your heart.
Here’s to getting and to giving treats, throughout the year.
Your Onboarding Strategy: What Would Charles Green Say? (Part Two of Three)
By Ron Buck, Executive Vice President
A few weeks ago Charles Green helped St. Meyer & Hubbard launch its new Virtual Learning Lab series. We are all big fans of Charlie around here. He embodies “thought leadership” and his presentations always get my wheels turning. So, on the heels of his great presentation, I feel compelled to apply his philosophies to the process of Onboarding, specifically to your Onboarding strategy.
Our research over the past six years, with 350 financial institutions, indicates that existing Onboarding strategies are not working as intended. In fact, our research shows that new customer retention and growth numbers have actually deteriorated despite all the multi-step Onboarding efforts. We studied over 200 financial institutions that had a multi-step Onboarding strategy and here is what we found: over the past six years, the average 90-day retention rate has decreased from 88.2% to 86.8%, and the average products-per-new-household ratio has decreased by over 15%. Despite all the efforts, results are getting worse. In fact, our research shows that Onboarding has been torpedoed by low customer trust, a result of the wrong orientation and poor execution.
For those that have read the Center for Excellence Six Disciplines of Execution white paper or attended one of our webinars on this subject, you may remember the traditional business formula of strategy times execution equals results.
S x E = R
Strategy x Execution = Results
I think Charles Green would tell you that trust is a hidden, but vital, variable in this formula. You can have a great Onboarding strategy and execute it well, but still get derailed by low trust. High trust could serve as a performance multiplier.
S x E x T = R
Strategy x Execution x Trust = Results
Above all, success in business requires two things: a winning competitive strategy and superb organizational execution. Distrust is the enemy of both. Just look at the math. Let’s suppose you have an excellent Onboarding strategy and a strong ability to execute. The following chart illustrates that the net result can be either torpedoed by low trust or multiplied by high trust. In other words, customer distrust is very expensive.
Onboarding allows us to determine the cadence of our conversations based on mutual expectations. The quality of our conversations is what Charles Green talks about. All customer conversations provide relationship managers and customers safe opportunities to exchange words, take actions, and share mutual orientations toward the others’ successes. Building trust is a two-way effort. Charles Green talks about the following Trust Equation:
C + R + I =T
S
Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy = Trust
Self-Orientation
So how does this apply to Onboarding?
Throughout the organization, there are many views of the purpose and tasks of Onboarding. I have talked to many sales and marketing executives who view Onboarding as a series of steps (2-2-2-6) to improve retention or cross-selling. Many times, sales management views Onboarding as a personal note in two days and a call in two weeks. The marketing staff typically views Onboarding as a series of direct mail campaigns during the first months of the relationship. Too frequently, both sales and marketing are eager to sell the customer as many products as they can, as fast as they can.
Charles might suggest that Onboarding is a time to focus on the customer’s needs and the bank’s motives rather than focusing on the bank’s desire to sell products. By giving the customer a gift of its time and attention, the bank gets what it wants: retention and growth. Relationship managers should be prepared with their words and their actions to build credibility and reliability. Specifically, if the relationship manager says she will call in two weeks, she should call and make an honest attempt to connect with the new customer in that timeframe. If there is a fulfillment issue with checks or another problem, she should know how to resolve the problem and quickly take action. In this way, trust and execution are inseparably linked.
So, how do we measure trust?
Performance (or lead) measures are those indicators that are predictive of results and influence-able by the frontline employees (for example: two-week follow-up). Trust, then, is an important performance/lead indicator of all sales results.
Performance scorecards for the new Onboarding process should include four lead measures that are determined during a customer survey, taken 60 days after the new account is opened. Customers are asked specific questions related to the trust equation, scoring their responses on a scale of 1-10. Scorecards reflecting goals and customer feedback are compiled at the individual, branch, regional, and organizational levels.
As with other lead indicators, trust is predictive of the desired results and directly influence-able by the relationship managers. When we incorporate trust into this method of keeping score we keep the focus on the customer’s needs and place a premium on credibility, reliability, intimacy, and orientation.
The new Onboarding strategy certainly includes the tried-and-true personal note, call in two weeks, initial direct mail campaigns, but also an important customer survey in 60 days to measure the customer’s level of trust. The level of trust will gauge the words, actions, safety, and focus during the new account opening process and the first two months of a relationship, the predictors of 90-day retention rate and products-per-new-household.
Next month I will share Charles Green’s ideas on the 60-day survey.
Virtual Learning Lab Replay and What’s Next in November
On October 9, Charles Green honored us by kicking off our Virtual Learning Lab series. More than 1,100 people joined us for this inaugural session. A replay of Rebuilding Customer Confidence - Three Strategies for Becoming Trustworthy is now available in the Members Area of www.stmeyerandhubbard.com. Simply sign up as a member and you can access both the audio and slides from Charles’ outstanding program.
Join us for the FREE November program!
Using Actionable Sales Data to Drive 2010 Results
Presenter: Jim Dickie, Managing Partner, CSO Insights
November 3, 2009, 9:00-10:00 AM Central Time
Dirty Little Secrets, the New Book by Sharon Drew Morgen
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I became a fan of Sharon Drew Morgen the moment I started reading her first bestselling book, Selling with Integrity. Not only does she write in an edgy fashion, her focus is the buyer not the seller—very cool. Her eighth book, Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it, is her best work yet. Don’t believe me. Last I checked it was 25 on the Amazon list and it was just released one week ago. It presents an insightful look at people and internal systems that foster buying processes, not bank-focused sales processes. People are tired of gimmicky sales books that offer nothing but |
Whatever Advice You Give, Be Short
By Jerry Hocutt, Author, Speaker, and Sheriff of the Sales Posse
Nike is the hands-down best at following Horace’s advice when they say “Just do it!”
Jerry Hocutt’s new sales blog, www.SalesPosse.com, is dedicated to 150-word quick tips from experts around the world to help people do their jobs better. There are hundreds of tips on prospecting, networking, body language, negotiating, generating referrals, marketing, and leaving voicemails to name just a few. We posted one of the first tips when we wrote about 25 before 8.
Sales Posse is free. Learn which handshake makes customers suspicious, how to remember names better, and the two commands from the Millionaires’ Magician to create compliance. Managers learn how to use an apple to make the applicant earn that second interview and discover why they remain behind their desks when firing employees.
Can you get valuable advice in only 150 words? This entire article is only 144. You decide.
Industry Knowledge: The Value of Brevity
By Lee Demby, Senior Vice President,
First Research, Inc.
Lee Demby called the office recently. Lee is Senior Vice President at First Research and he has been working with sales professionals in financial services for 12 years now. We were talking about how the words “brevity” and “industry intelligence” do not seem to go hand-in-hand. We bemoaned the fact that most industry intelligence sources provide long reports with several tables of data and elevator analysis of what is happening in an industry. Many of these reports are at least 30 pages, if not closer to 100. Most of these sources are writing with company librarians, investment bankers, or analysts in mind—individuals who believe the more, the better. They are fine for internal use, but what about when bankers want to use them to show value to the marketplace?
Top performing sales pros reach that pinnacle by learning how to engage decision-makers with topics they want to talk about…how to generate greater revenues, how to proact to market opportunities, ongoing challenges they face running their businesses. Top performers are very efficient in how they find these “hot buttons” and “success practices.” Most would agree that one of the key competencies that takes a “B” performer to the “A” level is the ability to efficiently find strategic topics of discussion to drive more productive conversations with clients, prospects, and COIs.
First Research is the perfect tool for this pithy world we operate in. From the new Executive Insights chapter, to the succinct articles available in Recent Developments, to the ability to access trade publications at the click of a button, First Research remains the standard by which all other industry intelligence tools are measured. Thanks for reminding us that shorter can be better, Lee.
What Salespeople Need to Know, But Don’t
A Blog Post by Dave Stein, CEO and Founder,
ES Research
While Dave Stein is not perhaps a household name in banking, he is certainly well known internationally as a world-class consultant, writer, speaker, and researcher. Dave writes a blog that is totally targeted to sales, sales management, and learning initiatives. The link below takes you to one of his recently delivered thought-provoking posts.
http://www.davesteinsblog.com/2009/09/01/what-salespeople-need-to-know-but-dont
You can connect to ES Research and learn more about the great work they do by clicking the link below. Thanks for reaffirming the philosophies that help St. Meyer & Hubbard help its clients every day, Dave.
Short Time Investment Gets You a 200-Page Report
Our colleagues Barry Trailer and Jim Dickie at CSO Insights asked us to inform you that they had launched their 16th annual Sales Performance Optimization study. Past results have been featured regularly in Harvard Business Review, Business Week, Entrepreneur Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Inc., CRM Magazine, and many more. We encourage you to take part in the new survey. In return for your time, CSO Insights will send you a copy of the full 200+ pages of analysis when it is published in January 2010 so you can tap into the insights of your peers to optimize the performance of your organization. In addition, you will be able to immediately download CSO Insight’s new Sales Management 2.0 e-book upon completing the survey. To take part, click on the following:
Register for Conversation Signposts
So much packed into one publication! Yep, we throw a lot at readers every month. That’s because you asked for it. In fact, more than 15,200 sales professionals receive Conversation Signposts and they actually use this stuff instead of having to read commercial after commercial about the workshops, books, and tapes for sale from other newsletters. We continue to make you think and provide resources to help your people help their customers..
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Jack Hubbard Bob St. Meyer |
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