Welcome to the Top 5 Percenter™ Blog

More Loans from the Best Customers at Better Pricing

by | Profitability and Growth

 

I believe it’s FUN to win.

In this session, I’m going to share with you a way to help your lenders win more and better deals.

If you’re the kind of leader:

  • Whose team is already bringing in nice deals and you’re fairly happy, you’re going to love this because I’m going to show you that there is a lot more where that came from. They can, with that base, bring in so much more AND at better pricing.
  • Or, if you are a leader who is frustrated that you have a few lenders who are doing all the deals and the others don’t seem to catch on and replicate results, you’re going to love this because you can find a way to get your average performers playing in the big league.
  • Alternatively, if you find yourself in a situation that’s just not working at all the way you want it to, watch all of this because I’m going to show you a system that we’ve used in hundreds of banks to crack the concrete barrier of mediocre or suboptimal performance to create epic results fast.

When you embark on a sales breakthrough in lending, there are usually three big ugly challenges that seem to show up:

  • Unlike so many sales training “attempts” where everyone pretends like they’re interested and that they’ll do the work, you need immediate behavioral changes. Let’s face it. Heads are nodding. Nobody is disagreeing, but you’re not seeing them create immediate results, which SHOULD happen if they’re ACTUALLY doing the behaviors that would create results. This passive-aggressive behavior is getting normalized as part of your culture. UGH.
  • Second, a few of your lenders catch on and start to get some traction. But because so many others don’t, there is not a shift in culture—you just have a few outliers and, therefore, nothing sustainable or profound happens.
  • Third, your senior lender tries to keep the party going. But he meets so much resistance—game playing, people “forgetting to get their sales funnel right,” and people who get “too busy” to do their calls—that eventually he gets “schooled” about how things are going to be and loses enthusiasm to be great. NOT HIS FAULT. It’s a system problem.

EVERY bank has hit one or all three of these barriers to a real breakthrough that sustains through time.

I’m now going to give you three steps that will help you help your teams start to win attractive deals at premium pricing quickly in just a few weeks so that they can feel the joy of profound success.

Step 1: UNLIKE so many sales approaches where it is a “numbers game,” lenders need to know exactly who to call on. Those are the targeted few who have exactly the right firmographics and psychographics, so you get home runs with the right people who are likely to fall in love with you AND bring in all their business.

Step 2: In contrast to typical sales training, it’s not time to cold call. Their prospect has not yet seen evidence of them obsessing about that businesses’ success for some time. Without built up “reputational equity” to lead with, your lenders get treated like vendors—rejected at worst or treated as a commodity vendor at best. Your chance of doing a deal is still low, and there is no way that lenders can get 100 basis points more than competitors if they do get the deal.

Step 3: Unlike so many “shoot from the hip” approaches, create an exacting plan of how to warm up prospects, how to initiate conversation and then, how to demonstrate your Level 4 USP—that “differentiating value” that makes you worth the switch AND at premium pricing. Of course, you need a sales “system” that all your lenders follow—one that is proven to get A+ credits at significant premium pricing.

Just three steps to normalize big wins for your lenders:

  • Target the few who you REALLY want and will likely want you.
  • Create a system that gets the prospect winking back and starting to dance before you ask them out.
  • Make sure EVERY lender, without exception, follows the same proven sales system that is designed specifically to get premium pricing on the very best credits AND attracts all their business.

By doing these things, your lenders will get hooked on how fun it is to win and win and win. Knocking down every one of your topmost desirable prospects at premium pricing is SO much more fun than potentially closing those who were the most recent inquirers with all the “rate matching games.” Once they know what it feels like to win, they’re hooked!

In the next session, I’m going to cover how you can put team selling in place to help you achieve an over 90% close rate on your Top 100 most desirable prospects while you get all their business.

More From The Blog

Master the Four Levels of USPs [VIDEO]

What if you can use extreme differentiation to get 150 basis points or more on the loan side and improve your deposit pricing at the same time?   If you're the kind of...

Stop Matching the Competition [VIDEO]

You deserve to get paid more. Rate matching is the most destructive force in community banking today. And because of it, as a community bank, you are underpaid for the...

How to tie everyone to PROFIT [VIDEO]

Does every team member on your team know how they tie to profit? I mean really know? When a study published in Businessweek revealed they had asked 6,000 employees, "Do...

Who Made Up THAT Rule? [VIDEO]

Everyone has patterns of disbelief. Some people believe that in politics, there is one side or the other, and they're unwilling to look at the alternative. Still others...