The sales team is your responsibility as the team leader. Your goal is to have them offer more of the right products to the right members at the right time. To accomplish this you hire and fire, set standards (minimal, at the very least), set goals, create rewards programs, and train and coach along the way.

 

But will all this be enough? If you want extraordinary results, you have to do more.

When you put on your trainer's hat, you must concern yourself not only with what you will teach, but also with how it will be learned by your salespeople. After all, the best sales training in the world will be wasted if your salespeople cannot retain and apply it.

 

How do people learn?

 

Adult learning has been studied for years. Many ideas can be borrowed from basic psychology that can have a profound effect on the amount of information that can be absorbed, retained and used correctly. It is how you present the ideas during training that makes all the difference. It must be fun, interactive, high energy, and repeated so the adult learner grasp the concepts. Next, they must practice with roll playing and real life interaction with members. People need to feel the exhilaration of small successes interspersed with the inevitable mistakes they must make while acquiring new concepts and skills. This concept is analogous to sports. In short, celebrate the small wins.

 

Visualize anyone trying to improve their golf game (or any other sport). For example, a golf pro (coach) analysis’s and evaluates the performance of a student the pro will offer suggestions for improvement and why these changes will work. Without the why the student won’t learn, and if they don’t learn they won’t make the correct adjustments.

The coach could make suggestions with regards to the grip of the club, the swing, the stance, or the importance of mindset (how to relax just before you swing.) The coach can see the awkwardness of the performance and how it can be modified, as well as having to think about the steps to alter the behavior. Initially the student will regress rather than improve. However, by doing the right practice the right way the student will improve and ultimately have a marked improvement in their game. The problem lies with human nature’s desire to take the path of least resistance. When you step out of your comfort zone, and your behavior is modified that creates discomfort, and human beings tend to revert back to what used to feel comfortable. The same is true with service selling.

Be patient with your coaching, it takes time, recognize and reward small successes. Do it early and often. Never underestimate the power of recognition and reward. It can outweigh the pain of doing the new thing differently, until you can learn the new thing well. And then finally you can say "Ta Da Success."  Yeha!

 

Asking question uncovers the prospect's pains, wants and desires.

The great loan officers asks tons of questions.  A great doctor asks tons of questions.

Questions put you in control, and give you a clear picture of the members needs.

I love questions.

Most salespeople don't go far enough with their questioning. Its not just about open versus closed questions. You need to take it further. Find out how they want to use your services in detail. Find out what excites them. Find out what they are afraid of. Find out the one or two important things that are driving them to make the purchase or the loan.

Asking questions offers the potential to increase rapport and build stronger bonds faster with your members. When you ask a person what is important to them, they feel more known and understood by you as they answer.

Members want to be heard, asking questions helps you make your member feel heard.

Hear your members, asks careful, friendly, but probing questions.

 

 

 

An effective sales culture remains an elusive goal for many credit unions. Here are the steps to take the mystery out of the process.

    * Setting sales goals and expectations for each branch and for each employee, and effectively tying the two together

    * Ensuring your best performers are recognized for their success – hero’s, stories and demos, that I talked about in an earlier blog.

    * Getting the results you truly want by integrating incentive compensation plans with profit and sales objectives (if you want a free incentive white paper, please email me.)

    * Improving revenue growth through effective communication at all levels of the credit union

    * Tracking sales and service for better measurement – the 3 M’s if you don’t measure it, you don’t monitor it you can’t manage it.

    * Using job descriptions and performance evaluations to direct and evaluate success

    * Making sure your incentive compensation program motivates your staff and rewards superior results, not merely the performance of day-to-day duties

* Have weekly sales meeting, if you don’t have weekly sales meeting, you can’t drive    the culture.

Repetition is the key to success, weekly sales meetings, staff training, hero’s that demonstrate success with stories.  (hero's, stories and demo's that I talked about earlier)  And read your service success stories at every meeting, get employees fired up about service. If you are not providing great service, you can’t be great at sales. It’s a culture thing, they all have to work together.

“Selling to everyone indiscriminately is bound to create bad matches and bad orders.”

From “The New Strategic Selling” by Stephen E. Heiman

One of the biggest mistakes I observe is the lack of communication at credit unions. When management starts a cross sales culture they tell the employees to “sell.” Unfortunately, employees interpret this to mean, “I guess I must sell to everyone.”  This is where the failure to communicate begins. There are several things that need to be done to clarify this situation.

1) Identify your process.  Train employees on how they should sell.  What is the process you want them to learn and practice?

2) Let them know we are not standing on a street corner in Tijuana, Mexico.

3) We listen first, serve the members basic needs, and then listen again for sales opportunities.   I call it listening twice. Listen the first time for service, the second time for opportunities.  Listen twice, listen often.

No one wants the credit union to be like a street corner in Tijuana, Mexico.

Let me explain, a few years back we went to San Diego for vacation with my family. So we decided to venture across the border to visit Tijuana, Mexico for an afternoon. Tijuana is an interesting place, and the street vendors are ferocious. One man approached me with a necklace. I love my wife, and I love buying her trinkets for her when I travel. He offered me a necklace, my wife was walking ahead with my children, I wasn’t doing a good job keeping up with the family. I was window-shopping intently. So a street vendor offered me a necklace for my beautiful wife.  I mustered the courage to say ‘no thanks.’  Needless to say he followed me for the next 4 blocks. Off and on he would continue to make his pitch. I would cross with street he would cross the street and follow me. Yes, a little creepy, and just this side of stalking. Finally after 4 blocks I thought, ‘buy it and get rid of him.’  The price had declined by over 300%, and I bought it. He was charming, persistent, and just this side of creepy, but I bought the necklace.  He probably sold it for more than he really wanted in the first place. The price dropped by 300% and I still feel like I was taken. Go figure? But there is one thing I will never forget, I never wanted to do that again. I don’t want to be chased down 4 blocks in Tijuana, Mexico by a street vendor. Did my wife like the necklace?  Not really, she saw what happened, it was not the kind of memory she wanted when presented with a gift. Go figure?  What did I gain?  Not much other than a story for a blog years later.

Be careful when you start the service selling process that you don’t become a street vendor from Tijuana, Mexico. Communicate with your employees; tell them ‘this is not what we are looking for from you.’ Don’t let the first steps of a service selling culture be a long walk in Tijuana, Mexico.

Have you ever seen a credit union act like a street vendor from Tijuana, Mexico?  What is your view of the cross selling cultures at credit unions?

email me for a free  copy of  a white paper  "How to  Create a Service  Selling Culture"  roryrowland@yahoo.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where to get started in the sales process?

Last week I was talking with a client about how to get their sales process started. She didn’t really know where to begin. 

The first question is strategic. Do you and the other senior managers really think you need a sales culture?

Who is going to lead the process?  It needs an angel. A very passionate angel.

Once you have the angel identified, then you have to go after getting the process started.

But while we were talking you could tell she didn’t want to make any mistakes. Have you ever seen a child learn how to walk?  I have heard a child falls 1,500 times before they master the skill of walking.  After they master it, it looks easy. Please don’t be afraid to start because you don’t want to make any mistakes. Here is a quote from Billy Joel

“You better believe there will be times in your life when you'll be feeling like a stumbling fool. So take it from me: you'll learn more from your mistakes than anything that you could ever learn in school.”

Billy Joel

 Tell me stories of you failures with regards to starting a sales process and what have you learned?

  

 

 

I am just finishing up on my first book ever.  Yeah!

The book is titled “My Best Boss Ever.”

It is a collection of stories of people I have met and interviewed all over the country.  In planes, airports, and conferences where I have presented I asked them this simple question, “Who is your best boss ever and why?”  Not a perfect boss, but your best boss.  There were tons of great stories from people and amazing lessons.  Here is just one of the stories that is included in the book.  It is designed to be a guide for managers on what employees look for from their managers.  The stories have softened my spirit and reaffirmed my belief in leaders who truly care.

My best boss had the great mantra, “Never say what they can say, never do what they can do.”

When talking with an employee, he said that asking questions and listening are a managers most powerful tools.  He once told me, “If you ask, you can never say anything wrong.  If you talk too much, you can put yourself in a position where the wrong thing pops out.”  Observing him, I saw that he always was asking questions about the family.  He didn’t do this to solely keep from saying the wrong thing; he did it because he cared.  He was always asking, “How is this project going?  Do you need any of my help?”  He would allow us to describe our situation while he pulled up a seat and listened intently.  He would even seek us out to ask our advice on certain situations he was presented with.

He taught me that coaching means asking questions, not just gathering facts.  He would truly hear an employee’s suggested solution—their feelings—and see how he could work the new perspective into the master plan.

The second part of his advice was as strong as the first.  He would show us a job and then would hop out and switch the chair.  He would make me sit down and then he would have me show him how to do it. I remember him showing me how to use the computer system when I first started at the company.  He entered some orders so I knew the process, but then handed me a stack of ten, switched the chair,  and watched me input them to make sure I did it right.  It wasn’t intrusive; he was merely being there for me if I had any questions.  He also complemented my ability to catch on quickly and my accuracy in typing.

When I asked him one day to explain how he developed his mantra, he replied, “Our objective is to develop employees.  Asking them questions challenges them to think harder and more broadly about issues.  That enlarges their perspective and improves their reasoning skills.  But more importantly, it allows them to buy into the whole process.”  By asking questions, the employee says it, not the manager.  That way, the employee learns it, and the manager learns about the strengths and abilities of the employee.

In developing employees, you want to make sure that you ask questions, listen. Great sales coaches listen, and advise. Please remember, ‘never say what they can say, and never do what they can do.’  

Last month I was in Seattle, Washington, and I parked my car and wanted to walk to the fabled Pikes Place Market. When I went outside it was raining.  Now you are not surprised that it was raining in Seattle. Who would have thought? However, since I was traveling I didn’t pack an umbrella. I needed to buy one as I was going to be spending a fair bit of time walking around and I wasn’t in the mood for getting drenched.

Being the researcher that I am when it comes to making purchases I decided to check out a number of options for umbrellas before buying one. I started with a larger department store (it was right next to the place I parked my car).

I couldn’t find anyone to ask where is ‘umbrella department’, so I set out on my journey to discover the ‘umbrella department.’

After about 15 minutes of searching up and down floors and in different sections I eventually found it hidden away in an obscure corner on an upstairs floor. I was frustrated and flustered by the time I found them and wasn’t really too impressed with the range or prices (they started at $30). I guess they were nice enough umbrellas to look at but I wasn’t in the mood after my hike around the store to fork out that much for an umbrella. It seems no one else was impressed by the location or the range because in the 5 or so minutes that I was there testing what they did have, I saw no one else shopping for umbrellas despite the heavy rain outside.  It was Seattle; you would think they would want to sell umbrellas.

I left the department store (without making a purchase) and proceeded down the street that the department store was on. Within a half block, I saw a guy with a bit of a crowd around him. Near Pikes Place Market is a tourist area, and the tourists were buying umbrellas. He was standing outside of a discount shop next to a massive stand of umbrellas with a massive A frame sign that said ‘UMBRELLAS $10'.

As I approached him I was fascinated to see people digging around in their pockets for loose change and handing him money in exchange for an umbrella as they walked by (barely stopping). The umbrellas he was selling were all black and quality (not the best as you’d expect for $10) and virtually no one was stopping to check out whether they were any good or not.

As I stopped to watch him sell the umbrellas I was amazed to see how many he sold in just a few minutes. He was selling so many that other sales people came out to help, bringing with them more boxes of umbrellas to sell. The scene couldn’t have been more different to the umbrella department I’d just been in.

Over the next few weeks, we will examine the ‘umbrella sales.’  And what can we learn from this scene with regards to service selling at the credit union? Write in what the department store did wrong and what the sidewalk salesman did right.

 

 

The Eight-Step Selling Process

 

Here are the eight steps every Service Sales Representative should use when working with the member.

 

1. Listen to the member

 

2. Be adept at discovering their problems and needs

 

3. Diagnose their needs based on your product knowledge

 

4. What is the underlying emotion?

 

5. Brainstorm possible solutions

 

6. Identify the best two possible solutions

 

7. Prescribe the two best solutions for customers

 

8. Aid them in the final decision

 

Why is this important to revisit?

 

Because I was coaching an employee lately and they were in a sales slump. They had several strong months, and then hit a snag.

 

I asked, “Are you using and following the steps we taught?”  He said “sure.”  Then I listened to him on the phone with several members, and he had gone back into his old habit of suggesting services they hadn’t even mentioned.  His listening skills had fallen off while his success had increased.  We listened to a couple of the recordings where they member said “no” to his offer.  I asked him what he thought of the transaction?  He said, “I am disappointed that I didn’t close.”  But I suggested you never opened.  He said, “opened?”  I said, “Ya, opened, you have to listen to the member first and then offer them something that interest them from the comments they have made. They gave you an opening, but you went in another direction.” Once he again followed the 8 steps and worked on listening for an opening, he was back to his old self, and getting the results he was accustomed to getting.

 

Listen for the opening, and when you are coaching a sales person, have them record themselves and listen later for how they could have improved. Listening and repetition are the keys to success.

Rory Rowland
14401 Covington Rd.
Independence, MO 64055
816-478-3249
roryrowland@yahoo.com
rrr3@ix.netcom.com

 

What are some of the keys to a successful sales culture?

First, it's leadership, like Al Davis the legendary owner of the Oakland Raiders said "just win baby" well let's take it one step further and say "just leadership baby."  Without leadership you will not succeed in creating a successful sales culture.  There are tons of positive thinking speakers touting their idea that "positive thinking is everything."  Positive thinking is not everything, if it was your credit union could have a successful sales culture with just -- positive thinking. Positive thinking is Baloney, Boulderdash, hogwash when compared to leadership. If someone said to me you can choose either positive thinking or leadership, which would you pick? I would select leadership every day, hands down.  However, we all know that positive thinking alone is not going to work.  Is positive thinking important sure it is, I love to be a positive guy. However, what really works is leadership.  What really drives a process is leadership. You as a leader have got to make the sales culture work, if you don't make it work it won't work. Period, end of discussion, end of sentence.  Leadership makes it happen, and every thing else in the distant third. Yes, you heard me right its third, nothing plays second fiddle to leadership.  You have never seen a world championship team in any sport win without a great coach who unified the team.  You have never seen a national champion without leadership and great coaching.  Success never happens by mistake.  Success leaves clues.  Leadership is one of those major clues.

 

Second, it's buy-in.  If everyone in your organization does not buy in you will not create a successful sales culture.  Trust me on this one.  I have seen one employee blow up the entire sales culture process by moaning, complaining, and whining at the water cooler.  Yes one employee blew up the entire process, yes, they stopped it dead in its tracks.  My question to you is this, are you going to let one employee destroy your plans for success? Yes or No? If you let one negative employee be a better salesperson than you are, then you deserve to lose.  Is that one employee a better salesperson about their negative culture than you are at selling a positive sales culture. Trust me, every employee in your shop sells one of three things, two out of the three are bad.  They can sell the negativity.  They can sell apathy, which is the best friend of negativity.  Or they can be a cheerleader for the sales culture.  And you get to pick which of those three they sell. But everyone in the organization will pick one of those three. Watch very carefully to see who is doing what.

 

Third, it's training and practice.  Once everyone is all in the same hymnal and the same page then train, train, train and train some more.  Employees need to learn these new skills, and practice, practice, practice, practice their new skills.  You can do this in a variety of ways.  You can hire an outside expert.  You can create the sales training internally.  You can have credit union hero’s, stories and demos. You have a credit union hero’s tell their successful sales training stories.  The hero tells their stories of success and this  demonstrates successful practices to the rest of your winning team. Every great coach says they need a leader in the club house, hero’s, stories and demo’s get your leaders to stand up in the club house. I call this hero’s, stories and demos. If you are not doing this practice, get it started. You can also open an hour later one day per week to let your leaders get in front of the group to share their hero stories.  You can use this time to create a sales culture one hour at a time one week at a time.  You do not change behavior with only one meeting and one memo. Please for the love of all things good do not believe you are going to change things with just one memo and one meeting. You change a culture by constancy of purpose and focusing on what you want to accomplish and achieve by repeating it over, and over and over again.

 

Fourth, everything else is just window dressing.  A successful sales culture requires leadership, buy-in, and training.  If you install and use those three things successfully you will begin to see positive things happening in your credit union.  If you do those things consistently and constantly you will in fact be the leader your employees are looking to follow.  Employees know it is a competitive world, and if they don’t take their share of the pie they may go without desert.  They know this, they want you to demonstrate with your actions that you know this too. And if you are a sales leader at your credit union it will become a sales credit union. Remember leadership is everything, and everything else is a distant third.   “Just Leadership Baby!”

 

“If we do not change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.”
Chinese Proverb

The competitive pressures in the financial marketplace are heating up to super red-hot scenarios. In order to compete in the future you have got, let me repeat, you have to create a service sales culture so you can compete in this highly competitive marketplace. If you do not install a service sales culture, your credit union you might be missing one of the most important ingredients that helped credit unions grow in my study of the top 100 credit unions in growth in the upper Midwest.  A service selling culture is essential to your success.  I can not encourage you enough to continue the process of increasing your efforts in creating a service selling culture.