I believe that people operate out of their “worldview” and that they are fairly committed to their “belief systems”—which can serve them well but also keep them stuck.

In this episode, we’re going to talk about how to get the ship to turn so your team BELIEVES that it IS possible to get the best customers and get extreme premium pricing.

Until they have that belief, you’re going to wear yourself out trying to get them out of rate matching. Don’t you get tired just thinking about repeating yourself ad nauseam while they quietly ignore you, because they don’t believe it’s possible?

• If you are the kind of leader who has a team that shouts, “How high, boss?” when you say “Jump!”—folks that want to be led to greatness and are willing to try new things, you’re going to love this.
• If you’re the type of leader who has a team who has a quiet mutter behind the closed doors of lenders while they share “the boss is nuts” conversation—but smile and nod when you ask them to change behavior with NO intention of changing behavior—then hey, you’re in the right place at the right time!
• Or, if you’re the type of leader who has some superstars who take guidance, challenge APPROPRIATELY and then get right at it, but you still have a few who are wandering around with good intentions but not doing the behaviors or getting the results, you’re going to love this.

Before we get to the meat of it, you need to know that there are a few challenges:

First, banking conferences and schools, with the best of intentions, still teach models of “if you want a higher quality loan, you’ll have to charge less.”

While that teaching is fundamentally sound—of course you need to get a whole lot more for risk—you CAN ALSO get paid a tremendous amount more for bringing extreme value to the highest-quality credits. That said, you DID pay for their schooling, so your team is looking at you and wondering why you “don’t get it.”

Second, most banks have some “old timers” and they’re relatively successful. They have the ear of the “easy to influence” younger lenders so when they say, “It can’t be done”—well, it becomes accepted as “truth.”

Third, there are so few elite banks that have figured this out that lending teams see too much evidence that it can’t be done. They’re sure the earth is flat and are committed to proving it. It’s not their fault. There WERE a few people behind the “world is flat” concept for a fair amount of time, weren’t there?  So, you’re not alone in this battle. You have other executives in banks all across the industry facing this same uphill battle.

I’m going to give you a few steps to get some traction right away in converting the hearts and minds of your team to get on the “premium pricing, with ONLY A+ credits” bandwagon.

Step 1: Show them that lots of other bankers are playing above “rate matching”. Drop some case studies on their desks of banks that are winning. Get their heads wrapped around the idea that it’s possible. When you do, be prepared for the, “there’s NO way” conversation. It’s going to happen, but you have to challenge them. “If THAT bank can do it, why can’t we?” Focus on the possibility!

You can get an entire book of case studies at BestBanksinAmerica.com/casestudies.

Step 2: Get your lenders some help, and have them create 20–30 “Level 1” USPs. History has shown that this seems to be REALLY hard for most lenders—almost nobody gets even close on the first attempt so don’t be discouraged. Bring one or two “movers and shakers” with you to one of our events where we always work through developing your USPs on-site, so you fly home with them done.

Step 3: Find your “first followers”. You need a few people who will be open to changing how they do things. Get them into the Profit-Rich Sales® training where they learn how to remove “price” from the conversation. The best way to get your people to “believe” the “new world” of premium price and low risk is to get them around a room full of bankers who are back for the fourth or fifth time and are killing it. It’s hard to argue with peers who have already moved their NIM up by over 100 basis points doing this process.

It’s hard to deny tangible evidence when they are sitting next to people who ALSO used to believe the earth was flat but saw the light.

Just three important steps:

1. Show them case studies to build curiosity but be prepared for the “this must be hype” conversation.
2. Get them started creating Level 1 USPs—they need to start with the easy ones and move their way up to Level 4 (where they’ll begin to earn extreme premium pricing).
3. Get your first followers educated on the process of how to talk to top tier credit so that price never comes up. If it does, the rate-matching death spiral has begun and it’s MUCH harder to turn it around.

Make sure to tune in next week as I cover how to get a referral machine cranking out a predictable amount of A+ credits who come to YOU!