KQ Article

Banks and credit unions spend a great deal of time fretting over how to sell new products and services to their existing client base. But few make the transition necessary to do so. More than any other time in history, it is now essential for every financial institution to go deeper into existing customer and member accounts, in order to successfully sell additional services that are of equal benefit to both the consumers and the financial institution.

 

Huge amounts of time, energy and money have been dedicated to customer relationship management (CRM) tools, referral tracking, profitability analytics, activity management systems, information support systems and direct mail campaigns. Despite all of this fancy technology, many banks and credit unions have failed to cross-sell in a consistent manner.

 

Is this because traditional sales approaches no longer suffice? Is it due to the fact that the individuals discussing products and services are not properly motivated?

 

 From personal experience, I can tell you that most financial institutions do not attempt the cross-sale in a way that ensures the best chance of positive results. For example, I have relationships with at least ten national and regional banks to support my businesses in Orlando, Houston, San Diego, Tucson and Los Angeles.

 

Each of these banks has access to my personal and business deposits, but not a single one of these institutions has ever attempted to cross-sell me on any of their other products and services. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Don’t be surprised if your employees, even your managers and executives, are not fully capitalizing on these opportunities to increase your profits — and most importantly, to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.

 

What is the best way to address this endemic shortcoming in the sales process? The first step is to reorganize how your staff thinks about selling. Specifically, each interaction must be motivated by a greater focus on enhancing service, and less of a focus on accomplishing a sale.

 

As stated elsewhere in this publication, most banking professionals cringe at using “sales” to describe, well, their selling processes. To address this distaste for the term, financial institutions call their sales representatives tellers, clerks, bankers, specialists, advisors, vice presidents — everything but the salespeople they are. Culture at large doesn’t hold selling in much higher regard.

 

It is my belief that many banks and credit unions fall short or their cross-selling potential for a simple reason: they’re focusing on selling mechanics when they should be paying attention to how other products and services you offer might benefit the customer or member, based on what they’re telling you.

 

Because the sales process comes with so many negative associations, every action taken risks being interpreted in a way other than what was intended. The best way to remove such chances for misinterpretation rests in changing our attitudes toward every cross-selling opportunity that arises. You must see it as a chance to help the customer even more, not merely sell more stuff.

 

 In my book Sell to Survive, I spent a majority of the pages citing example after example of why selling is critical to the survival of all individuals and all businesses. “Selling is not a job for some, but as vital to your survival as food, water or oxygen,” I write.

 

This was not a ‘how to sell’ book, but rather a ‘why to sell’ book.

 

If you don’t get the intentions of your people straightened out, all programs, initiatives and investments to sell more products and services will fall short of your expectations.

 

Follow these steps to promote more effective cross-selling at your bank or credit union:

 

1. Survey what selling means to your organization. Does your culture treat sales purely as a self-centered pursuit, or one that also will benefit your customers and members equally?

 

2. Shift your thinking from selling to service. Don’t ask, “What can I possibly sell this person?” Rather, ask “How can what we offer benefit this person even more?”

 

3. Sell your staff on the merits of your products and services. Before they can authentically communicate the benefits of your products and services, your salespeople must clearly understand — and believe in — those benefits themselves.

 

4. Adopt metrics to validate the effectiveness of service-based selling. The numbers don’t lie, so you should implement processes and programs to measure the positive results of your cultural selling change. These positive metrics have a snowball effect that encourages other salespeople to change their approach accordingly.

 

By embracing this service-based approach to cross-selling at your bank or credit union, you’ll likely find more of your staff willing to do what it takes to spur sales – and bottom-line growth.