How to Get Real Results by Optimizing Your Sales Management Process

I believe that sales managers have one of the most difficult jobs. In this episode, I’m going to share how a sales manager can get more results with fewer headaches.

If you’re a sales manager or leader of sales managers and have everything all buttoned-down, and you feel your sales management is optimized, you’ll love discovering in this episode how you can use that powerful platform to get even more results.

If you feel like your sales management is mediocre at best, well, you’re going to love this because it is your time for a breakthrough.

If you have some elements optimized and others just aren’t creating the miracle you were hoping for, I think I can give you back your hope for a really bright future.

There are some common obstacles to creating miraculous quality sales growth, however.

First, you are dealing with a lot of egos. Many “good” lenders who say, “Hey, it’s working,” so they make it clear that they don’t want you to change a thing. They keep you stuck where you are.

You also have the sales managers who will tell you they can get it done. But if they can’t within 30 days, and it’s a $1 million per month opportunity to get the growth you want at premium pricing, how many months do you give them to fix the problem?

Most banks have lenders who have come from other banks, each with its own sales system. So you aren’t managing a sales system, you are instead observing at least a dozen, which gives you no hope of actually managing anything.

And of course, you have the fact that many of your lenders have been lending for thirty years, so they are quite sure there is no better way, thank you very much. It’s not their fault—they just don’t know there are better ways because they haven’t seen them yet.

I’ve heard each of these over 500 times from CEOs over the last three years, so let’s just say there is a predictable pattern here. I’m going to give you four steps to transform your sales results so you can celebrate some successful movement in a few short weeks.

• Step 1: Forget the sales funnel taught by so many sales training companies—it’s worthless. You need a weighted sales funnel with rules clearly defined. For example, nobody stays in the weighted sales funnel if you don’t complete a new sales stage within 14 business days.
• Step 2: As opposed to the “get credit for what walks in” approach, you need to have a system that measures results on the Top 1000 type prospects. Lenders have a way of filling their funnels with what walked in recently, which are often riskier and more rate-sensitive prospects than the optimal prospects. The latter are the ones who, when taken through an optimized sales process, pay far more due to your USPs.
• Step 3: Instead of a “throw it against the wall, and hope it sticks” approach, integrate the sales process with the marketing process. Marketing should know the Top 100 and Top 1000 prospects and exactly what to do to build reputational equity and get hand raises, so the prospect is in love even before they meet you.
• Step 4: Never, ever stop. Once you get results popping, refine, refine, refine until you close 50% of your most desirable prospects each year without rate even being brought up. The less tenured lenders should be closing 50% of the Top 1000 list prospects they were assigned. Help them understand that everything else is noise.

Again, forget about a sales funnel and have a weighted sales funnel with rules that are non-negotiable, so you have a predictable funnel where you know you will close 90% of what’s in it.

Then, give them credit for focusing on the sacred few, and nearly no credit for what walks in the door.

Next, integrate with marketing and marry sales with marketing to make sure they know there is only one game in town—closing Top 100 prospects at premium pricing. Get them focused on that.

Finally, refine the system but never let go—if you let go, results will drop like a rock, and the next attempt will be like pushing a boulder up a mountain with your nose. Salespeople like to “train” their sales managers into thinking that they really can’t be managed, and if you give them the proverbial inch, well, you know what they’ll take.

By managing these systems, you can create the miracle you dreamed about when you took your role and all the satisfaction of a job exceedingly well done. Don’t miss the next session. I promise you; it is going to be one that will transform your bank!