Improving the commercial loan portfolio means bringing in high-quality business customers who are in growth mode or who have some other financing needs—while minding the good loans that you already have. It’s just that simple. But, unfortunately, many banks (perhaps yours) are dead wrong with their strategy for bringing in commercial loans.

Have you ever had a day where you left exhausted, but felt like you didn’t do any of the things “on your list”? Unfortunately, some people have entire careers like that.

The problem is they don’t understand “behavioral economics.”

The point is if you are wasting time working with 50 different prospects…

15 you can’t work with because they are not creditworthy, 25 who aren’t ready to decide and can’t be moved to decide, 8 who will only move ahead IF you match rates…that leaves only 2 who are really worth spending any time on.

Instead of having your commercial lenders playing out that scenario every month, what if you had them spending 90 percent of their prospecting time on those 2 to 5 deals every month?

Instead of tripling your workforce, you work with fewer and see them accomplishing more.

In order to get there, some things have to shift.

Here are the five golden keys to unlocking a profit-rich commercial loan strategy:

FIRST, learn to identify the psychographics of your next most profitable and safest A-plus credits, pinpoint who they are, and create a relationship whereby they see you as a source of wisdom and service beyond the ordinary. That reputational equity needs to be established before the first call, or you put yourself into the position of “vendor.”

SECOND, help your people learn how to quickly disqualify prospects that are not credit-worthy, unwilling to pay premium pricing, or are difficult to work with. That disqualification has to happen as close to “hello” as possible. Also imperative is learning to disqualify in a way that doesn’t decrease your reputational equity as a brand.

THIRD, lenders need to make sure they have a sales and marketing skillset whereby they know how to get clients to see the financial impact of switching—and they can build the client’s desire to take advantage of that impact quickly.

FOURTH, they have to learn how to spend every moment with the right people…prospects who are extreme quality and who are willing to pay premium pricing. There’s no time in a high performer’s day to be spending with prospects who can’t or won’t do business with you on your terms.

FIFTH, you need a commercial team with the emotional-intelligence scores of hunters. These are lenders who can balance the needs of the client and the needs of your bank—thus creating a premium-priced relationship where the client understands the economic value far beyond the premium paid.

Producing these five results requires an ironclad system that is research-based and followed with impeccability.

No doubt about it—this is work. HARD work. But it’s much easier work than cleaning up your portfolio years from now after realizing that you could have avoided today’s problem loans that weren’t A-plus credits in the first place—IF you had spent your time training your people to follow this system.

In your service,

Roxanne Emmerich
President and CEO