Most bankers approach cross-sales backward.
They focus on products, scripts, and sales goals. The best-performing banks focus on something entirely different: becoming indispensable to their customers.
In this week’s video, Roxanne Emmerich shares a powerful story from her banking career that reveals why customers stop shopping rates, deepen relationships, and view their banker as a trusted advisor rather than a vendor.
In this video, you’ll discover:
The banks winning today aren’t pushing products. They’re solving problems, creating value, and building relationships that competitors can’t easily replace.
Watch now.
I attended my very first bank CEO conference quite a few decades ago. And you know what the theme was when people were talking about cross-sales? They said these words: “My people are still order takers.”
Fast forward a few more decades, and I can tell you now, when I talk to CEOs, the first thing they say to me is, “My people are still order takers.”
How could we not have made progress within decades on such an important piece?
Because cross-sales is a measure of trust.
When you are the only bank they’ll ever need or want, they bring the entire relationship to you, and that’s called cross-sales.
So cross-sales isn’t about sales and slugging things. Cross-sales is about being such an expert at what you do, crafting each question so beautifully as a trusted advisor, and seeing the opportunities so that at the end of this questioning process, you can say, “Based upon what you’re telling me, I think I can help you.”
“I’m going to recommend this because you told me that you had a challenge with that.”
“I’m also going to recommend this because this will fix the challenge that you mentioned about whatever.”
“I’m also going to recommend this because you had whatever.”
And then you take them through that and say, “Do you have any questions, or would you like to get started?”
That’s essentially the process.
But the key here is: Do your team members know how to ask the right questions, and do they know how to be in the listening?
Are they listening soul to soul, or are they in their head?
Are they connecting with that person in a way that makes that person feel like, “Man, I feel heard, and this feels good”?
I’ll never forget. I had a woman who came to me when I was in banking, and she had a PhD in a very challenging topic. She and her husband had two children. She far out-earned her husband, and she was a saver while he was a spender, and they were this close to divorce.
So they came in, they shared all of this with me, and they said, “How can you help us work through our money issues?”
And I took them through a process that I now teach our Trusted Advisors as I certify them. I basically teach them how to have the kind of conversation with people whereby you can make a meaningful difference in their lives.
When I left full-time banking to start this firm, she came to me and said, “I’ll never find another banker who can do what you did. You saved my marriage. You saved my savings.”
“I’m never going to find another one.”
I said, “Oh yes, you will. I’m off to teach hundreds of thousands of people how to do this.”
And now we have lots of Certified Trusted Advisors who actually bring expertise and value to their customers such that they will say, “You’re the only banker we’ll ever need.”
One Trusted Advisor said to me the other day, “Roxanne, ever since I discovered this process, none of my clients bring up rate anymore.”
Yeah. That was the point we were talking about all along.
It’s never supposed to be about rate.
If they’re talking about rate, you are a vendor, and they have proclaimed you as such.
You are never to be a vendor.
You are to be their partner and trusted advisor well beyond lip service.
That’s the game.
Cross-sales is just a number that lets us know we’re getting that job done.
Can you give them what they need to succeed? Not unless you’ve created a franchisable system to help them duplicate your success.
Here are the seven crucial elements of building a franchisable system in your own bank:
The coming bank consolidation isn’t a surprise. It’s been predicted for years. In fact, the next 18 months are destined to be a major “shake out” period when weak banks will be acquired or closed—and banks that are in a position to capture the best customers in town will become stronger and more profitable.
Culture asks, “Will your people leap over tall buildings in a single bound to make sure your client is successful in their business or personal financial goals?” “Will you go beyond bank “product” to create Unique Selling Propositions that rock their world and cause hundreds of thousands of dollars of impact for them? And will your people have fun doing it so that your system is sustainable?
Ready to stop wasting your marketing dollars and grow your profits and safety with a predictable model of organic growth of top and bottom lines?
Thousands of bank executives are waking up to 2013 saying, “SALES training! Of course! It’s SALES training we need.”
Yeah, well sometimes the first thing that pops into our heads isn’t a keeper. Sales training is fine, but it’s NOT what you need to solve your problem and create a sustainable solution.
So you’ve decided to acquire another bank. For nearly 25 years, I’ve been giving the same advice about acquisitions: DON’T DO IT. I’ve had good reason to give that...
Growing a bank isn’t some mysterious process that involves tea leaves and oracles. It’s more like building a house or tuning up a car’s engine, with a power tool for every step and a hand tool for every part you need to work on. Effective builders have a “franchise system”—the proven best way to do things that minimizes mistakes and maximizes results per hour spent.
The process begins with one crucial step: Find out what matters to your best customers, then build hundreds of Unique Selling Propositions (USPs) around those components and list them explicitly in your marketing materials.
Most banks focus on what they should do. That’s a good thing. But too few seriously evaluate what they are currently doing that has to stop. Awareness of the common characteristics of low-performing banks can keep you from falling victim to any of these practices before you join the group.
Let’s start with the first four:
Let’s face facts. You know it is true. Banks stink at sales culture.
Most say they’re working on it…but most have been “working on it” for three decades now