Or if you can’t seem to find enough deposits and have resorted to funding through alternative sources or paying up for CDs, this may be coming in just in time.  

Or perhaps you’re the leader who stands on your head screaming from the mountain to your team to go find deposits. It’s just not happening yet.

If so, it’s your lucky day.

As expected, there are some roadblocks that you have to overcome to get more low-cost deposits.

The people and organizations that have the low-cost deposits rarely fall into your lobby, like the accounts that rob your profits. This causes an endless cycle of low volume, high-cost deposits, and it’s never enough.  

Also, most bank team members love the cush of their chairs and don’t really want to step out of the bank to call on the right people because people are scary. They figured out a long time ago that the best way to avoid getting rejected is to not play. Or maybe if they are calling in folks, their approach is a scattered or down the street approach. Like fishing for tuna in the local pond. You can work pretty hard at it, but it’s never going to yield meaningful results.

Every bank has the same problems, but you can overcome counterproductive attitudes and ineffective approaches. With these four steps you can inspire change within weeks in your team and get them to have the knowledge that they need to close deals consistently.

Step one: When it comes to getting out there, you need to know exactly where to start. A diagnosis of your next best customers by getting clear on their psychographics and
firmographics.

Step two: In contrast to the mindless and time-wasting cold calling process, you first need to build reputational equity so that prospects are in love with you before you start talking with them.

Step three: Understand that nobody wants change. So doing an analysis of how to save money for the prospect is out. But if you save them money, then you are probably losing money for your bank. You can’t make that one up in volume as they say. Instead, you must bring your level four USPs to the table in a way that makes pricing irrelevant in the very first minute of the conversation customized to that target market and specifically that prospect. It will keep you from positioning yourself as a vendor with all the disrespectful attitudes and behaviors that come with that.

Step four: Stop talking about your stuff. Through skillful questioning get the customer to tell you how much in dollars your USP will mean to them. The price you charge is irrelevant because they’ll see at least a 10:1 return minimum for your additional fees and pricing.

There you go four simple steps for landing the customers that you want for your bank.

First, target the people who have the large balance deposits. 
Two, create a process that builds reputational equity, so they can’t wait to talk to you.
Three, properly use your targeted level four USP as the hook. 
Four, use your USP question in a way that gets the prospect to tell you how much more they’ll make when they switch all their deposits and other accounts to you.

When you take yourself out of the vendor role and take on the expert status that delivers far more value than the extra that you charge, you will not only win all the business but also position yourself as the trusted resource that you are so that you get paid more for what you’re worth.  

To your continued success, 

Roxanne Emmerich 

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