If you want to improve the performance of your bank, you’re probably going to need to improve your cross-sales. When your people are meeting with your customers and they’re accomplishing six, seven, eight, maybe nine, or sometimes ten cross-sales on average versus the 2.2 which is typical in the industry, you don’t need nearly as many people and you can pay everyone that you have a whole lot more. Plus it leaves a lot more profit for you.

The Challenge of Cross-Sales

Getting cross-sales right is something that’s been very hard for banks for 30 years. For some reason, it seems to be a mystery. They try sales training––no bananas. They try incentive program––no bananas. Again, the same old rituals over and over again, always without an improvement in result. 

We need to figure this out in this industry. There are banks that are consistently doubling and tripling their cross-sales within a year or two. They know how. And it’s about time that you learn how as well. Let’s get started on the process about what’s important to create a cross sales transformation in your bank to drive better performance. It’s most important to help people understand that they can’t be using traditional sales training and a traditional sales training approach. 

Learning the Skills of a Trusted Advisor

Let’s face it: in the banking world, we’re looking to authority for advice. As soon as we get into slimy sales tactics, we’re not moving things ahead. We instead need to make sure that we’re asking the kind of questions that help people to buy what they need, in a way that creates an understanding that they truly are the trusted advisor advising that client. 

And yet, “trusted advisor” is a phrase that’s being used in banks without much substantiation. People don’t have the skill sets to truly be trusted advisors. Understanding how to master the skills of cross-sales means that you have to learn the skills of being a trusted advisor to ask things as questions in the appropriate way. 

Listen to those answers and know how to respond in a way that whoever is meeting with your team member, they are thinking these words: “This is the only banker I ever need”. If you’re not there yet, it’s time to learn how to get there quickly. Because the banks that understand how to own the relationship are the only banks who really will be safe as your desperate competitors come after your best customers. In the next session, we’ll go more deeply into how to get that done.

Need the playbook to win the premium pricing war? Join us at The ALL-NEW Elite Breakthrough Banking: Revenue Revolution 2022: Register here. 

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