My team has experience – they don't need more training!

Over the years we have seen many financial institutions fall into the trap of viewing sales training or skill development as an event rather than a process. Once someone has attended sales training they are good to go right? They should know what to do and performance will increase month after month as they get more experience right? Well in a perfect world maybe…

The fact is that there are forces working on undermining their success everyday.  We call this the "un-training cycle" and it goes something like this: A salesperson sees 3 or more clients each day and so by the end of a month has heard at least 20 or 30 times "I'm not buying today, I'm just thinking about it, or what's your best rate". They get "un-trained" and begin to believe that rate is the only consideration and nobody is buying.  They start to pre-judge clients and reduce effort until the only ones buying are those natural buyers who would have bought no matter what the salesperson did! That's called "order-taking" and it is exactly the type of behavior financial institutions are trying to get away from when they head down the path of sales training.

The un-training cycle doesn't stop there. The salesperson complains to their manager that everybody's difficult or that they're only interested in the best rate. The manager is un-trained by negative comments from the salespeople and then "un-trains" the senior management. "The market is really tough out there boss, we need to get some better rates, increase the ad budget and get some more traffic in the branch".  Rate specials are put on and advertising is increased bringing in more people to be mishandled by salespeople who give up at the first "we're just looking" stall – and around the un-training cycle we go!

Once a financial institution recognizes that there are forces unwinding the team's sales skills every day then the solution becomes obvious.  We need to be training and coaching our people regularly to maintain and increase their performance. Every week we need a skill development meeting with the team – working on a particular skill or situation – brainstorming, reviewing, practicing, and role-playing.  Every shift should start with sales managers holding brief one-on-ones (no more than 10 minutes) with each salesperson. Reviewing deals in progress, activity numbers, daily work plan, and coaching individual skills.  The time invested in a structured one-on-one actually saves sales management time as it reduces the constant interruptions from salespeople throughout the day.

Does coaching and skill development pay? What if you could increase the number of appointments you get from telephone rate inquiries by 20%? Considering that many branches get 5-10 rate inquiries every day and do not even try to get appointments the opportunity is enormous! What would it mean to your revenue targets to have 1 or 2 extra appointments in your branch every day that your team was closing because they had the right attitude and sales technique? What is the average dollar value for a deposit or loan? How many branches do you have? A small increase in daily activity can have a tremendous impact on the targets of a financial institution. They key is consistency of effort. It's not the big campaigns that will save your year, it is doing the small things well and doing them consistently.

Make a commitment to combat the "un-training cycle" to increase volume and profitability. Recognize that:

• Salespeople are un-trained every day by clients.
• Skill development, training and coaching are continuous processes not events.
• Management must conduct weekly in-branch training sessions otherwise skills and closing abilities decline.
• Daily one-on-one coaching is the highest and best use of a manager's time. High performance teams thrive on it.
• If a manager doesn't know how to be a good trainer and coach – you need to get them some training!
• If a manager can't fit training and coaching into their busy day then figure out what can be taken off their plate. Sales management is all about getting multiple sales through other people. If they are not spending time with their team helping them increase sales then what are they managing?

"The only thing worse than training your people and having them leave, is NOT training them and having them stay"

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Copyright © 2008 by Fusion Performance Group Inc.
Copyright © 2012 by Fusion Performance Group Inc. If you share this, print it out, or reproduce it in any way, please retain this copyright statement.