In other words, they lacked critical thinking skills and strategic thinking. They could follow instructions, but they didn’t know when or how to change course, assimilate incoming information, and make good decisions on the fly. Developing our people’s thinking style has never been more important. 

Yes, AI can handle many tasks, but it cannot perform strategic thinking. In the future, many jobs that existed in the past will simply disappear. However, those who possess critical thinking skills, can anticipate problems, and create proactive plans will be the executives of the future. And here’s the issue: 

We can’t spend 30 years developing these skills. We need to start teaching people as they join our organizations how to apply critical thinking to their decisions. I created a formula called the SIR formula that requires them to bring solutions whenever they encounter a problem. This approach forces them to use critical thinking skills from the start. In a top-performing organization, there is no room for those who only complain about problems. 

We have plenty of room for those who bring a SIR with an actionable plan to immediately address issues. The real benefit of the SIR process is that it teaches them to apply critical thinking skills quickly. These individuals are your future executives because they demonstrate the ability to foresee challenges, consider all possibilities, and make sound decisions. This is crucial for advancing your team members in the world of AI. 

To your continued success, 

Roxanne Emmerich 

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board. 

The post Can Strategic Thinking Be Taught or Nurtured? [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

What if you could get your team excited about having your clients acquire all the products and services that would help them. A cross sales ratio is just a measure of trust. If a client trusts you and sees value, they bring everything to you and continue to add more as they need it. It’s not sales. It’s a measure that they see you as a trusted adviser.

Now if you’re the kind of leader who begs pleads and bribes your team with incentive pay to increase their cross sales, maybe for decades to no avail, and you just can’t seem to move that needle, even though the average person has at least 16 pricing services at various financial institutions, you’ll greatly benefit from this video where you will learn how to finally get out of this endless loop of effort without a breakthrough.

Or if you’re the leader who has people who already have cross-sales of six or seven on average, but you know, that’s nowhere near the 16 products and services that customers actually have. In other words, you’re still not their banker. This is the place for you.  

Or maybe you have employees who ran from the big banks and their pushy, manipulative sales systems, and ended up convincing the rest of your team to believe that sales is bad. So now nobody is helping your customers buy what they need.  

In whatever case, you’re going to love finding out how to take back your ability to get your people to believe that sales is simply helping people buy what they need. It is one of the most honorable things that they can be doing.

Order taking has been an industry dilemma for over 30 years, and it seems that cross sales needles haven’t moved one bit in three decades, despite millions of dollars wasted on bank sales training. Perhaps that’s not so surprising considering the challenges that you must overcome to make it happen.

For example, many people perceive sales as slick—presentations and pushy. We have a special approach, and they don’t want anything to do with it. Even though they won’t always say it, it does show in their results, doesn’t it?  

Or perhaps you struggle like most banks that have sales attempt battle fatigue. Millions of dollars have been spent on attempts and improving sales cultures in banks, and less than a few 100 really accomplish the desired results.

Still, others do what they’ve been doing for so long that they’re insulted that you suggest it’s not enough. They think and act as if they care about the customers. But it isn’t obvious as their clients still run around town to competitors to meet their banking needs.  

Let’s cover three steps that will help you move the cross sales needle in just a few weeks.   

Step one, you have to forget what you believe regarding cross sales, or what folks are telling you is true. With zero evidence it seems like every bank CEO does the same thing when they want cross sales. There are three components, hire a sales training company, set goals, and create an incentive program. If that ever worked, it would be worth a try. But I have a mountain of evidence that a doesn’t.

Hundreds of if not thousands of CEOs have told me that they have tried that before coming to me, surprised and disheartened that it didn’t work. Before you sign that contract with the sales trainer, ask them to show you what percentage of their clients last year doubled their cross sales on new accounts within four to five months. How many of them picked up at least 40 basis points of NIM minimum over the year of their training? How many of them are increasing net interest-bearing deposits as a percentage of total deposits?

In God We Trust, for all others, show me the data, right? If it’s not over 70 to 90% know that you risk losing good employees and customers. Once the inevitable failure of the sales frame networking happens, you also risk losing credibility to fix the problem going forward. Which you of course, still need to fix.

Step two, in contrast to what sales training firms tell you to do, which sells their program but doesn’t deliver the results you need, you will be best served by starting your sales culture transformation with something outside of sales. Do you know why we Mystery Shop, every bank that attends our events prior to them attending? Those who tell us that they have great service that doesn’t need to be improved, get a thorough report of their mystery shops, and their teams mostly average in the 3.2 to 4.2 range.  

Step number one of a breakthrough or performance is dealing with the facts. Almost without exception, the banks that say we have great people, and we have great service score in that range. Start by moving that needle up to over nine and do it fast. It needs to happen in six weeks, and you can’t miss getting it right the first time or the second attempt is at least three times more difficult.  

When and only when your people are feeling confident that they’re being of extreme service to customers will they be open and ready for sales.  Because now they’ve realized that sales is really just the next level of taking care of people. It is what good service entails. And it sure shouldn’t feel like sales.

After we do our proprietary kick butt kickoff process, we show bank executives the few things they need to do. In 30 years, we haven’t had one bank that hasn’t doubled their mystery shopping scores, and over 90% have tripled. In fact, all of them move to well above eight; an epic improvement from the 3.2 average start. Without a foundation of knowing that every point person can do the basics and the phones as they help people buy, sales training would be an expensive train wreck for you, combined with disgruntled employees and customers who feel sold to. In other words, you need sales readiness to be mastered before you start sales training.

Step three, once they move that mystery shopping needle fast, really fast, they build confidence. In our seminars, we show you how to pop that needle past nine almost without exception within six weeks. Now and only now when the birdies mouth is opened as a mother bird brings the first worm by getting extraordinary results through being open to helping people buy, as demonstrated by a good mystery shopping process, one that shows that they care about customers, you can now embark on the sales process. One with the right type of blended learning and progressive stage appropriate accountability, visibility, follow up, and motivational components weaved in at the right times, and must be a proven system woven together or you’re setting yourself up for another disaster.

Again, these three steps:

One, do a lobotomy for your executive team on everything they have heard and believed to be true about the sales training, incentive pay, and goals plan that has never worked.
Two, move the client experience needle fast, really fast so that clients are amazed at the experience, and your people are loving the experience of what real service looks like.
Three, then start the transformation and interweave blended learning as you increase your accountability process.

It’s not easy, but you will get a predictable result if you follow a predictable process.

Watch the next video to discover how to choose the right people for your sales slots.

To your continued success, 

Roxanne Emmerich 

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board. 

The post Getting Excited About Why Cross-Sales Matter [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

With AI we now have the tools to find your next best customers, but if you don’t bring wisdom to the tools, you have more junk.   

There’s a world of difference between information and communication.   

There’s a world of difference of being able to use AI to find customers and being able to use AI to find customers with the right parameters in the right way.   

There’s an old saying garbage in garbage out. That’s not true, it’s garbage in garbage stays. If we choose the wrong people to go after, and your people are working on them and it’s not working, you can be masters at your process of bringing them in. But if we choose incorrectly and we don’t have the right people, that can be a problem.

In the future, we’re going to have AI as it’s going nowhere. It will be one of the tools that we’ll be able to use in marketing (and by the way, everybody in banking is a marketer, when they really understand what marketing is).  When we use the tools correctly, and then we find the processes to get in front of them, that’s when the magic happens.   

Now more than ever critical thinking skills, expertise, and mastery need to drive AI because, again, garbage in garbage stays.

Can we afford, when we’re on our path to being a Top Five Percenter, to not have properly identified our next best customers and the best tools to communicate with them to break the relationship with their current financial institution so they can come to you with the entire relationship and make a quick decision? And make sure that you’re giving premium pricing on top of all that? That is what mastery looks like.

To your continued success, 

Roxanne Emmerich 

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board. 

The post How Technology Can Help Scale Personal Relationships with Customers [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

But the real question is how do we find another 100 just like these?

Well, they have the same psychographics, and firmographics, and so we must study very carefully the psychographics and demographics of our current customers, and then find people who have things in common with them and know how to quickly disqualify.

By putting them in the right top 100 list and creating a warming situation so we build reputational equity with them, they start to fall in love with us and it’s then and only then that they’ll be open to taking the call from you to set up an appointment, once reputational equity has been created.

But you better know what you’re doing because you’ve got one chance when you’re working with the affluent. If you don’t add massive value, they will kick you to the curb and they’re not letting anybody from your organization back in again, for another 10 or 15 years. Why? Because they just saw somebody waste their time. And yet, we have organizations who have officer call programs, and they have people who don’t know how to add value, who have briefcases, who go up and down the street calling on businesses, kind of like they are out of control. Every time they walk in, you may as well put a sign across their forehead that says “vendor”, because they haven’t selected the right person. And they don’t know how to embark on that conversation. And here’s the thing, it’s not their fault.    

When I first started as a lender, I was an agricultural lender and then a commercial one. That’s what I did. Why? Because that’s what all the guys did before me. I was the first female to do what I was doing, so I did what the guys did.  They had a briefcase, I got a briefcase. They got in the car and drove out to the businesses, I got in the car and drove out to the businesses.  I had the same conversations that always brought it back to rate. Having those conversations that bring it back to rate is kind of like putting your face in front of their foot and saying don’t kick me. Of course, they’re going to bring up rate, why because I’m a vendor, and I came in here in a position of weakness.   

So we have to identify the right people, but then we have to position ourselves as bringing so much value that they’re pushing the button to their assistant saying, “Cancel my afternoon, I need to have this conversation because it’s time to switch our banking relationship.”

Do your people know how to have them at hello? That’s the game. And so first of all, we need to identify them. And then we need to build a process that has them at hello. That’s the game of those who perform in the top 5%. And those who are committed to getting there need to get in the right game, because it’s hard to be a top 5% performer when you’re not playing by the right playbook.

To your continued success, 

Roxanne Emmerich 

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board. 

The post Finding Top 100 Customers [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

Research shows that for banks up to 2 billion in asset size, that their top 100 most profitable customers account for between 50 to 120% of their profit. 

In this episode, I’m going to show you how to find another 100 just like them so that you can double profits without adding more people or expense, and build a plan to get all the most profitable customers out there, by making them feel like you exist JUST for them.

If you’re the kind of leader who:

• Who finds that banking just feels too hard lately with all the competitors making desperate moves on top of the regulations and hoops to jump through, you’re going to love our strategies for making banking easier and more fun.
• Who has a team that just keeps doing what they did 10, 20, even 30 years ago to get customers…you’re going to love our system for getting them on a new track to attract the best quality prospects who are ready to pay premium prices.
• Who is already attracting great customers at premium pricing, you’re going to love our strategy to create even more traction in that area, so you could have an over-the-moon profit impact.

Here’s the problem:

Most banks still measure how many new accounts they opened each month as if it matters. 

Consider that 87% of those accounts lose money from day one going forward. Your people don’t know what they should be measuring instead that DOES drive profit. 

Most people who are strategic planning “experts” lack the marketing abilities to define the psychographics and firmographics of the most profitable customers. 

They certainly can’t help you find the list or create a strategic system that works to attract them. Instead they tell you the numbers you should hit without any real strategies to take that beyond a pipe dream, which misses the point of effective strategic planning.

Or perhaps your people have a “busy” problem. Busy is a four letter word, in my book. 

They work hard. But very few understand that opening 100 random new accounts doesn’t matter when alternatively they MUST open the two that will bring a lifetime of substantial profit to the bank. 

EVERY bank CEO is complaining about how they can’t seem to break their team out of these “busy over profit” ruts that keeps everyone exhausted while losing huge opportunities.

Four Steps to Change All of That—Within a Few Short Weeks

Step 1: Find your next Top 100

UNLIKE so many strategic plans that do the SWOT, mission, vision, and values but never create tangible and real strategies to lift the organization to a new level of performance… you need a plan where everything and everybody is aligned to how EXACTLY you will get the next 100 best and most profitable customers fast while never having them bring up price.

Step 2: Clear strategy, not hazy ideas

Throw out the fuzzy goals in most plans that sound something like: “do sales training,” “rebrand the bank,” or “buy a sales CRM.” Those are projects—not strategies—and they don’t belong on a strategic plan. 

Instead, you need your strategies to align with HOW will you be the undeniable best option for the elite few who will pay all of your bills—those few who bring the privilege of affordable banking to the masses by being part of the 100 top customers who create your profit.

Step 3: Change your team’s mindset

Create an understanding among your people that they need to put the oxygen mask on themselves first. By this, I mean the best way to help the poor is not to become one of them. Your income will match the abundance or scarcity of the markets you target. 

Step 4: Change your team’s behaviors

This is the biggie. Get your team to concentrate on doing the few things that matter, and doing them so well that you can see the needle move every week on how many of the top 100 most desirable prospects you have secured…AND at premium price. 

THAT is the new game of banking. Those who don’t understand will fall at the feet of those who master it. 

Let’s make sure we’re all clear on what to do now:

1) Focus your plan on the top 100. 

2) Create specific, actionable strategies to GET all the top 100 from the key target markets.

3) Change the mindset of your people to focus effective strategies on the few that create profit.

4) Change the behaviors of your people to get those top 100 – ALL of them—at premium pricing.

By following these steps, YOU get peace of mind from a predictable success machine instead of feeling like a yo-yo being yanked around by the economy or competition. 

Make sure to catch next week’s session on intentional congruence. It’s about getting all of the pieces of your strategic plan fully aligned so that you can move the right needles fast with the least amount of resources…and that makes your life a whole lot easier.

To your continued success,
Roxanne Emmerich

P.S. Want to discover more about how to play the NEW game of banking? Download my newly updated special report. It’s completely complementary and will show you how to not just play the new game, but win.

P.P.S. This is part 3 of a 5-part series on strategic planning. Missed part 1 or part 2?

The post 4-Step System to Attract Top-Quality Prospects Who Pay Premium Prices appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

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You’re in luck…

At conference, after conference, after conference, when I speak to audiences of bank executives the talk lately has been “culture, culture, culture.”

Much ado about culture…why?

There’s good reason. Culture is proven to be the leading predictor of YOUR future growth and profitability.

Read that again…

CULTURE is PROVEN to be the LEADING PREDICTOR of future growth and PROFITABILITY.

Take that in for a moment.

That’s a scary statement for most bankers, heck for most business leaders anywhere. Most think culture is this touchy-feely, ping-pong-table-in-the-break-room thing.

Not even close.

Culture is all about accountability for results. You don’t want a “happy culture”…you want a “happy culture where everyone’s accountable for delivering bottom-line results.”

Both describe a culture.

One’s more profitable.

In today’s video you’ll discover the 5 biggest myths of “culture” that destroy results…watch the video and avoid them…

Click here to download the Team Selling Checklist

The post STOP! Motivating Bank Employees is a Waste of Time appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

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