In this video, I’m going to show you how to eliminate the limiting beliefs that keep your team matching rates instead of going after substantial premium pricing on better quality clients.

They’ll start getting bigger and better-quality customers within weeks.

If you’re the kind of leader…

Who feels like a broken record and is about ready to pull out your last hair begging and pleading for your team to change their ineffective sales approach—you’re going to love this.

Or if perhaps you’re one who already has a few sales superstars, but there are still “resistors”—you’re going to love this video.

Or maybe you have a team that is committed to doing things their way, so you don’t have a sales system, you have dozens (and none of them working well)—and perhaps your team is absolutely adamant that your approach is wrong…then you’re going to love this.

Here are the problems you’re likely facing…

Some banking schools actually TEACH, in the simulations, that the way to get premium pricing is to take on bad credits so nobody is questioning that the earth is flat.

Or maybe your veteran salespeople take the “young’uns” under their wing and tell them you have to match rates.

Or (based on the fact that you’ve matched pricing on hundreds of deals) there is seemingly a mountain of evidence that it can’t be done.

You’re not alone. Seems like EVERY bank is facing these issues.

Now, I want to give you three steps that can break down that impenetrable wall of a belief system that you must engage in rate matching.

Let’s get your team excited about premium pricing – and show them how to get it.

Step 1: Forget rah-rah sales hype training.  Your people need a solid and proven sales system designed specifically for community banking that works the very first time and every time.

Step 2: Replace “trust me” with “tangible evidence” that your approach to sales works. Get your people to see others like them who didn’t believe and, now that they do, are crushing it over and over again. This will convert the “resistors” faster.

Step 3: The commonly accepted three-prong system talked about at banking conferences for years of goals, sales training, and incentive pay has never worked…even once…for anybody. You must recognize that a true integrated marketing/sales system is necessary. It should include how you choose the next customers, how you create differentiating value, and how to manage the specifically planned, optimized steps to create a predictable result. That result being closing over 90% of deals without having to match pricing. If that metric is not managed and hit, there is something very wrong with your sales system or else it is not being followed.

With a proven integrated marketing/sales process in place—and clear evidence that it works—you will quickly be able to get enthusiastic buy-in from your team—even from those who have been reluctant to follow your lead in the past.

You can finally stop sounding like a raging lunatic begging for them to change. They will enjoy the pride and accomplishment of winning quality deals at premium pricing. Winning is fun.

– Roxanne Emmerich

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board.

The post Boost Your Bank’s Bottom Line with One Change [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

In this video, I’m going to show you how to eliminate the limiting beliefs that keep your team matching rates instead of going after substantial premium pricing on better quality clients.

They’ll start getting bigger and better-quality customers within weeks.

If you’re the kind of leader…

Who feels like a broken record and is about ready to pull out your last hair begging and pleading for your team to change their ineffective sales approach—you’re going to love this.

Or if perhaps you’re one who already has a few sales superstars, but there are still “resistors”—you’re going to love this video.

Or maybe you have a team that is committed to doing things their way, so you don’t have a sales system, you have dozens (and none of them working well)—and perhaps your team is absolutely adamant that your approach is wrong…then you’re going to love this.

Here are the problems you’re likely facing…

Some banking schools actually TEACH, in the simulations, that the way to get premium pricing is to take on bad credits so nobody is questioning that the earth is flat.

Or maybe your veteran salespeople take the “young’uns” under their wing and tell them you have to match rates.

Or (based on the fact that you’ve matched pricing on hundreds of deals) there is seemingly a mountain of evidence that it can’t be done.

You’re not alone. Seems like EVERY bank is facing these issues.

Now, I want to give you three steps that can break down that impenetrable wall of a belief system that you must engage in rate matching. Let’s get your team excited about premium pricing – and show them how to get it.

Step 1: Forget rah-rah sales hype training.  Your people need a solid and proven sales system designed specifically for community banking that works the very first time and every time.

Step 2: Replace “trust me” with “tangible evidence” that your approach to sales works. Get your people to see others like them who didn’t believe and, now that they do, are crushing it over and over again. This will convert the “resistors” faster.

Step 3: The commonly accepted three-prong system talked about at banking conferences for years of goals, sales training, and incentive pay has never worked…even once…for anybody. You must recognize that a true integrated marketing/sales system is necessary. It should include how you choose the next customers, how you create differentiating value, and how to manage the specifically planned, optimized steps to create a predictable result. That result being closing over 90% of deals without having to match pricing. If that metric is not managed and hit, there is something very wrong with your sales system or else it is not being followed.

With a proven integrated marketing/sales process in place—and clear evidence that it works—you will quickly be able to get enthusiastic buy-in from your team—even from those who have been reluctant to follow your lead in the past.

You can finally stop sounding like a raging lunatic begging for them to change. They will enjoy the pride and accomplishment of winning quality deals at premium pricing. Winning is fun.

– Roxanne Emmerich

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board.

The post Boost Your Bank’s Bottom Line with One Change [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

In this session, I’m going to share with you a system that has consistently and predictably doubled cross-sales in 4–5 months.

Now, if you’re the kind of leader:

Who has had a few false attempts at fixing the “order taking” pain point at your bank, you’ll love what I’m going to share. You don’t need to give up OR take it on the chin again with another false attempt where a sales trainer tells you they can rope the moon but forgets to mention that they don’t own a rope.

Or maybe you’re the leader who has already moved the cross-sales needle up to well over six, but you worry about how to keep it all going. You know you can’t go through that expense and time investment all over again, so you’ll love knowing there is a way to keep that needle moving up consistently that works every time in every bank that implements it.

Or maybe you’re the kind of leader who hasn’t yet tried to improve cross-sales and hasn’t embarked on any sales training yet. Consider yourself lucky because you have a clean slate to do it right the first time without the heavy weight of the “this too shall pass” mantra.

There are some unique challenges that banks face to keep their cross-sales numbers up after they’ve done the heavy lifting.

First, each new hire brings in the potential to sabotage your good results. Sometimes they don’t believe they can “sell” so they knowingly try to convert others to their religion. They do it unknowingly because they don’t have a complete understanding of how to sell, so they don’t get results. Others see that there haven’t been consequences for lack of results, so they lower their standards to the lowest common denominator.

Next, without a clear understanding of organization behavior and industrial psychology, systems are thrown together that don’t work, or worse yet, sabotage the results and create a mess.

Lastly, without the right amount and the right things at the right time, many banks are playing with dynamite while hoping for a good result. They don’t know that they can do things that cause a mass exodus of good people because they could enter the wrong element of accountability at the wrong time, and make things go boom in the night.

Most banks have experienced at least one of these, so let’s deal with all of them now.

Here are three proven steps that have helped banks move their cross-sales needles fast but, more importantly, keep them stable AND continue to sustainably advance them above seven and beyond.

Step 1:

In contrast to the traditional “set goals, do some sales training, and then put incentive pay in place” followed by the “hope, wish and see what happens” approach that has been tried by thousands of banks only to fail 100% of the time, you’ll want to be sure that the process creates a predictable and sustainable transformation of results specifically in community banks. If the trainer can’t prove that the numbers go up and stay up for hundreds of banks, you’re better to do nothing.

Step 2: 

UNLIKE so many rah-rah, happy-happy sales training systems, you need more meat on the bones. You have to realize that successful businesses do have some complex systems. One of the most important things you can build is an ongoing success system integrating education, accountability, recognition, coaching, celebration and practice.

This goes beyond the head of retail. It’s an executive team’s responsibility to build these accountability processes so that everyone knows how they tie in to profit every day, and to make sure that the accountability is welcome and embraced because the appropriate psychology is managed, and steps are properly timed.

They have mastered how to do that and the systems that keep them from throwing the ball in the gutter and losing momentum. A few trips to the gym only creates results for short period of time. You need to keep going to truly build muscle and stamina. Why would this be any different?

Step 3:

Instead of the having your leadership team attend more conferences about why it is important do to this, or implement research sales software thinking that it might actually help (which it doesn’t), instead show them HOW to do this.

When I show executives at my conferences how they can apply a proprietary implementation formula that does things in the right order and weaves together all the components for a holistic and predictable success machine, people rush to me at the breaks. They say things like, “Whoa, who’d have known? We were working so hard trying to fix this and I can see we couldn’t get results because we weren’t understanding the organizational psychology.”

It’s not their fault. Nobody has been teaching bankers organizational psychology. It’s like they were using a hammer on screw bolts. They needed the right system so that they could get a chance for their hard work to actually pay off.

A lot to digest there. But it’s just three steps:

1) Find out what is really working in community banking to move cross-sales needles.

2) Move from rah-rah, happy-happy to a proven system of accountability that builds confidence instead of scaring team members away.

3) Invest in your executive team so they can master a basic understanding of organizational development. Task them with building a sustainable and ever-advancing system with extraordinary yet predictable results. The outcome will be your peace of mind, knowing that you will be successful during good times and bad

To your continued success,

Roxanne Emmerich

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board. 

P. S. Looking for an unmatched opportunity to ascend into a new sphere of excellence with the most distinguished bank CEOs, executives and directors, determined to propel their success to unprecedented heights? Join us at the 8th Annual Best Banks in America Super Conference in September. Click here to discover more.

The post How to Double Cross-Sales at Your Bank in 5 Months [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

In this video, I’m going to show you how to eliminate the limiting beliefs that keep your team matching rates instead of going after substantial premium pricing on better quality clients.

They’ll start getting bigger and better-quality customers within weeks.

If you’re the kind of leader…

• Who feels like a broken record and is about ready to pull out your last hair begging and pleading for your team to change their ineffective sales approach—you’re going to love this.
• Or if perhaps you’re one who already has a few sales superstars, but there are still “resistors”—you’re going to love this video.
• Or maybe you have a team that is committed to doing things their way, so you don’t have a sales system, you have dozens (and none of them working well)—and perhaps your team is absolutely adamant that your approach is wrong…then you’re going to love this.

Here are the problems you’re likely facing…

• Some banking schools actually TEACH, in the simulations, that the way to get premium pricing is to take on bad credits so nobody is questioning that the earth is flat.
• Or maybe your veteran salespeople take the “young’uns” under their wing and tell them you have to match rates.
• Or (based on the fact that you’ve matched pricing on hundreds of deals) there is seemingly a mountain of evidence that it can’t be done.

You’re not alone. Seems like EVERY bank is facing these issues.

Now, I want to give you three steps that can break down that impenetrable wall of a belief system that you must engage in rate matching. Let’s get your team excited about premium pricing – and show them how to get it.

Step 1: Forget rah-rah sales hype training.  Your people need a solid and proven sales system designed specifically for community banking that works the very first time and every time.

Step 2: Replace “trust me” with “tangible evidence” that your approach to sales works. Get your people to see others like them who didn’t believe and, now that they do, are crushing it over and over again. This will convert the “resistors” faster.

Step 3: The commonly accepted three-prong system talked about at banking conferences for years of goals, sales training, and incentive pay has never worked…even once…for anybody. You must recognize that a true integrated marketing/sales system is necessary. It should include how you choose the next customers, how you create differentiating value, and how to manage the specifically planned, optimized steps to create a predictable result. That result being closing over 90% of deals without having to match pricing. If that metric is not managed and hit, there is something very wrong with your sales system or else it is not being followed.

With a proven integrated marketing/sales process in place—and clear evidence that it works—you will quickly be able to get enthusiastic buy-in from your team—even from those who have been reluctant to follow your lead in the past.

You can finally stop sounding like a raging lunatic begging for them to change. They will enjoy the pride and accomplishment of winning quality deals at premium pricing. Winning is fun.

– Roxanne Emmerich

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board.

The post Boost Your Bank’s Bottom Line with One Change [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

In this video, I’m going to show you how to not only recover from the damage that was done to the industry, but also deal with the potential skepticism that customers will have about who’s best interest it’s in when a banker is recommending a product.

There are a few challenges to keep in mind…

• Your employees may take the media impact and use it as an excuse to never have to sell. They think they are taking the high road when, in fact, your customers REALLY need to buy certain products for their financial well-being. That means you must help your employees to get over their misguided belief.
• Also, when a banker makes a recommendation, your customers will forever wonder if it is really a good recommendation for them or an attempt to gain a cross-sales number.
• And, the real problem is that although the number one reason a customer leaves a bank is indifference after the sale, the second and third are tied and seem to be at odds: “I didn’t know my bank HAD that item” or “I felt sold to.”

EVERY bank is going to be facing these three issues going forward.

But you can account for these challenges with a three-step plan that will give you immediate results.

Step 1:

Contrary to most sales training that CAN get you in trouble because it WILL trigger feelings of “Can I trust this person?” within the prospect, you need to have a much more elegant sales process that NEVER feels like sales. Nobody wants to feel manipulated—especially by their bank, for goodness sakes.

Step 2: 

Unlike most banks that want to bury what happened regarding inappropriate cross-sales processes at a mega bank (hoping that by not talking about it, it will go away), you need to go into the eye of the needle. Tell your team that what happened regarding cross-sales at the mega bank was not okay and you don’t endorse it.

Then, tell them that it doesn’t change the fact that the average customer has the need for 16 products and services and that if you have only four, you’re not really their banker. Let them know it is not an “either/or” issue but a “both/and” issue. You can help people buy all they need to optimize their finances AND never have it feel like sales.

I’ll never forget an adorable personal banker who answered the phone one time when I called for the CEO and she asked if she could have a few minutes of my time. She said, “When you taught us how to do sales at your event, I thought, ‘Oh gosh, I don’t know if I can sell.’ But now that we’re doing it, we all feel so good about ourselves…we feel like we’re helping people.”

Bam! THAT’S the ticket! She got that it’s a “both/and.”

Step 3:

Follow the steps of how people buy correctly so it never feels like someone is selling them. Proper education is necessary. Notice I didn’t say training. Training is what to do; education is how to be. They have to learn how to “BE” with a customer so that the customer feels the LOVE and the concern for their situation combined with the wisdom and commitment to help.

Just three steps:

1) Implement a “no-sales” sales approach.

2) Address with your team and state that just because the big bank did something bad does NOT mean that you don’t have an ethical obligation to help customers buy everything they need, and that cross-sales isn’t a measure of trust.

3) Educate them about how to be with the customer—to be able to elegantly ask and listen such that the prospect or client never assumes nefarious intent of someone trying to get a commission. Instead they are blown away by the help they received.

By addressing the banking industry “elephant in the room” and focusing on connecting customers with products they’ll benefit from, you’ll feel pride in yourself and your team members. Never forget that what we do in community banking is profoundly needed in the world.

To your continued success,

Roxanne Emmerich

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board. 

P. S. Challenging times are proven as the moment to pull ahead. It’s your time to snap up low-cost deposits and seize your competitor’s best customers—but not if you have “order takers” in front of your customers and prospects. My Breakthrough Banking™ Blueprint Conference is designed especially to explore what smart banks do during tumultuous times. Register today.

The post The “No-Sales Approach” to Grow Sales [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

 
In this session, I’m going to share with you a system that has consistently and predictably doubled cross-sales in
4–5 months.

Now, if you’re the kind of leader:

• Who has had a few false attempts at fixing the “order taking” pain point at your bank, you’ll love what I’m going to share. You don’t need to give up OR take it on the chin again with another false attempt where a sales trainer tells you they can rope the moon but forgets to mention that they don’t own a rope.
• Or maybe you’re the leader who has already moved the cross-sales needle up to well over six, but you worry about how to keep it all going. You know you can’t go through that expense and time investment all over again, so you’ll love knowing there is a way to keep that needle moving up consistently that works every time in every bank that implements it.
• Or maybe you’re the kind of leader who hasn’t yet tried to improve cross-sales and hasn’t embarked on any sales training yet. Consider yourself lucky because you have a clean slate to do it right the first time without the heavy weight of the “this too shall pass” mantra.

There are some unique challenges that banks face to keep their cross-sales numbers up after they’ve done the heavy lifting.

• First, each new hire brings in the potential to sabotage your good results. Sometimes they don’t believe they can “sell” so they knowingly try to convert others to their religion. They do it unknowingly because they don’t have a complete understanding of how to sell, so they don’t get results. Others see that there haven’t been consequences for lack of results, so they lower their standards to the lowest common denominator.
• Next, without a clear understanding of organization behavior and industrial psychology, systems are thrown together that don’t work, or worse yet, sabotage the results and create a mess.
• Lastly, without the right amount and the right things at the right time, many banks are playing with dynamite while hoping for a good result. They don’t know that they can do things that cause a mass exodus of good people because they could enter the wrong element of accountability at the wrong time, and make things go boom in the night.

Most banks have experienced at least one of these, so let’s deal with all of them now.

Here are three proven steps that have helped banks move their cross-sales needles fast but, more importantly, keep them stable AND continue to sustainably advance them above seven and beyond.

Step 1:

In contrast to the traditional “set goals, do some sales training, and then put incentive pay in place” followed by the “hope, wish and see what happens” approach that has been tried by thousands of banks only to fail 100% of the time, you’ll want to be sure that the process creates a predictable and sustainable transformation of results specifically in community banks. If the trainer can’t prove that the numbers go up and stay up for hundreds of banks, you’re better to do nothing.

Step 2: 

UNLIKE so many rah-rah, happy-happy sales training systems, you need more meat on the bones. You have to realize that successful businesses do have some complex systems. One of the most important things you can build is an ongoing success system integrating education, accountability, recognition, coaching, celebration and practice.

This goes beyond the head of retail. It’s an executive team’s responsibility to build these accountability processes so that everyone knows how they tie in to profit every day, and to make sure that the accountability is welcome and embraced because the appropriate psychology is managed, and steps are properly timed.

They have mastered how to do that and the systems that keep them from throwing the ball in the gutter and losing momentum. A few trips to the gym only creates results for short period of time. You need to keep going to truly build muscle and stamina. Why would this be any different?

Step 3:

Instead of the having your leadership team attend more conferences about why it is important do to this, or implement research sales software thinking that it might actually help (which it doesn’t), instead show them HOW to do this.

When I show executives at my conferences how they can apply a proprietary implementation formula that does things in the right order and weaves together all the components for a holistic and predictable success machine, people rush to me at the breaks. They say things like, “Whoa, who’d have known? We were working so hard trying to fix this and I can see we couldn’t get results because we weren’t understanding the organizational psychology.”

It’s not their fault. Nobody has been teaching bankers organizational psychology. It’s like they were using a hammer on screw bolts. They needed the right system so that they could get a chance for their hard work to actually pay off.

A lot to digest there. But it’s just three steps:

1) Find out what is really working in community banking to move cross-sales needles.

2) Move from rah-rah, happy-happy to a proven system of accountability that builds confidence instead of scaring team members away.

3) Invest in your executive team so they can master a basic understanding of organizational development. Task them with building a sustainable and ever-advancing system with extraordinary yet predictable results. The outcome will be your peace of mind, knowing that you will be successful during good times and bad.

Make sure you tune into the next video. It’s all about the “big bank sales practices” that have raised an outcry among the general public. I’ll show you how to best address the concerns about these issues for both your customers and employees.

To your continued success,

Roxanne Emmerich

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board. 

P. S. Challenging times are proven as the moment to pull ahead. It’s your time to snap up low-cost deposits and seize your competitor’s best customers—but not if you have “order takers” in front of your customers and prospects. My Breakthrough Banking™ Blueprint Conference is designed especially to explore what smart banks do during tumultuous times. Register today.

The post How to Double Cross-Sales at Your Bank in 5 Months [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

In this episode, I’ll show you how to win all the business of your prospects without them ever asking about rate or fees. REALLY. I know it sounds crazy. But in our seminars, people tell me all the time that they’re now averaging 7–8 cross-sales when they never had more than two in their lives. If they can do it, your people can too.

Now, if you’re the kind of leader:

• Who knows you have some great unique selling points, but you’re frustrated that they don’t seem to be getting sold and you’re not seeing that you’re getting paid more for them, then you’re in the right place at the right time. I’ll make your day by showing you how to get that result consistently.
• If instead you are the type of leader whose people are already averaging 5–6 cross-sales on new accounts, but you think there might be more available, AND you think you can still get more pricing out of the equation, then stay tuned for some clear solutions.
• If, however, you are the person whose team is mostly still order-takers despite your attempts to fix this recurring problem, you’re going exhale when we finish because I’m going to offer you some fast help.

There are a few challenges to getting paid more for your unique selling propositions—those things that make you worth more:

• Some banks still struggle to nail down at least 40 USPs. Maybe they paid a branding firm hundreds of thousands and got one fairly weak Level 1 USP after all that expense and time. Usually, it’s the “we close loans up to blank size in 48 hours.” Alright, that’s one solid Level 1 USP—but really, they charged you how much for that? Because this has seemed so elusive to get good help with USPs, most banks don’t even know that it can be done.
• Even if you have some good USPs, your people are telling prospects about them. Telling ALWAYS feels sales-y, which is NOT what you want. The problem is that your people don’t know how to introduce your USPs without sounding sales-y.
• You have great sales managers—good people who “get it.” But you don’t have the proper support for them. By that I mean an ongoing, holistic education and “don’t run them out the door but grow them” accountability program to help them create the breakthrough results they can’t possibly manage otherwise.

Seems that almost every bank complains about these same three issues.

Here are four steps to help you get your USPs across to prospects the most effective way so you can improve your cross-sales and get paid more within 30 days.

Step 1:

Stop blaming your head of retail. It’s not their fault. Without the right support and tools, you’ve set them up to fail. If you fire and replace, you’ll just have a “Groundhog Day” situation where you just keep setting up the next person to fail.

Step 2: 

START by first nailing the unique selling propositions—you want a whole bunch, and they must be good. Selling a trip to the Caribbean is easy if you’re the only provider who has down comforters on cushy beds and your competition has tents with mats, right?

Don’t even start sales training until you have at least 20–30 great basic USPs. If you haven’t started on these, get a bunch of your executives to one of my seminars and you’ll walk away with plenty. If you have done them but they aren’t working, bring them along with that same team so we can polish that stone to make sure you have USPs that work.

Please don’t spend hundreds of thousands on branding and make that expensive error that ends up giving you the one USP I listed already. Instead, bring your team for two days to our seminars and you’ll get this solved once and for all. I LOVE helping banks get this part nailed because it is so important to feel the pride of knowing you are always the best choice.

Step 3:

Once you have your USPs in hand, know that people buy very scientifically, and you must follow the right steps in the right order in the sales system. Now, unlike most sales training involving “rote questions,” your people need to learn how to use good reasoning skills to ask the exact right positioning questions at the right time.

The positioning questions come right before the recommendations start because they give the prospect the chance to sell you on why they need you, instead of you selling them. Ah, you’re back in the “professional expert” status instead of the vendor status. You can feel the pride of knowing you are adding great value.

Step 4:

The refinement process begins. Teaching your team members to be elegant about knowing which positioning questions to use takes repetition of learning. Use blended learning comprised of virtual learning, drills, effective seminars with a process proven to double and triple cross-sales within a year, and on-site training, mixed with increasing accountability. Making sure the exact right steps happen at the right time is the answer.

Although I’ve had personal bankers who never had more than two cross-sales who then attended our seminars and had 13 the very next day at work, that isn’t the norm. Most need a tremendous amount of ongoing repetition of learning to move from 2–5 cross-sales, then to seven and then beyond.

Once you reach those heights, you want those numbers to stay up, so education must happen from now to the day your people retire to ensure that cross-sales numbers stays over 6–7. Repetition is the law of learning.

Here’s a quick rundown to reinforce these concepts:

• Stop blaming your head of retail when you haven’t set him or her up to win.
• Get your special positioning concepts in place with at least 20–30 USPs.
• Put the positioning questions in the right stage of the sales process and build a system to make sure your people don’t deviate from what works scientifically.
• Build the ongoing advancement and refinement process.

By doing these steps, you can command such respect in your market that your people will never have to match a rate again. They should easily cross-sell more products and services consistently, averaging 6–7 within a year or two.

Along the way they’ll build faith in themselves that they are masterful at what they do. They deserve the confidence gained from doing meaningful work and truly earning the trust of their customers.

In the next episode, I’ll show you how to build a system with the right order and the right interconnectedness of visibility, accountability and motivation to keep cross-sales metrics moving up consistently. Stay tuned.

To your continued success,

Roxanne Emmerich

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board. 

P. S. Challenging times are proven as the moment to pull ahead. It’s your time to snap up low-cost deposits and seize your competitor’s best customers—but not if you have “order takers” in front of your customers and prospects. My Breakthrough Banking™ Blueprint Conference is designed especially to explore what smart banks do during tumultuous times. Register today.

The post Get a 250% Boost in Wallet Share [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

In this episode, I’m going to share with you a process to get your people to stop rate matching for good. It will be ingrained to never again give a rate when someone calls in asking for one.

Now, if you’re the kind of leader:

• Who has been on the bandwagon for years about not having to match rate, but you still have team members who think you don’t “get it”—that they HAVE to match rate or lose the business—you’re going to love this episode.
• Or maybe you’re someone who didn’t know it was possible to not match rate and thrive, and that there are many banks that have broken through this rate matching debacle. In fact, some are enjoying increases in their NIM of 100–150 basis points in just a few short years. If that sound like you, you’re going to love this.
• Or, if you already have a team that, for the most part, is mastering the “no rate matching” philosophy, and your NIM is well over five already, you’re going to love this.  Just a few tweaks could take your NIM even higher and you could have even more prestige in your market as an elite bank that is worth so much more.

Let’s talk about what gets in the way.

• Many bank executives tell me that their people grab the rate sheet the second they’re asked for the rate. As a result, they don’t even get an attempt at doing business on that piece of business—much less the 6–7 cross-sales that should have happened on that rate inquiry.
• Others tell me they feel defeated because their people absolutely believe to their core that if they don’t have the best rate, the prospect should keep looking, because the customer should get that best rate.
• Some banks, however, feel they’re making some good progress. Most of their people know how to convert a rate shopper into someone who would pay more. But they have a few who are lagging and don’t “get it” yet.

Here’s the dilemma: They know that the next inquiry from what COULD be your next most profitable customer could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions in lifetime value, if you don’t have EVERY single one of your people following a system that converts without rate matching 100% of the time.

EVERY bank seems be facing these same struggles. You’re not alone and it’s not your fault.

Here are three steps that will make your results dramatically different in a few short, and very happy weeks.

Step 1:

UNLIKE so many programs that follow traditional “sales training” approaches, you need one that is specialized for community banking. The sales program should NEVER feel like sales AND it should get the inquirer to stop thinking about rates and start thinking about all your business.

Traditional sales training feels icky—people hate it. It always warms my heart when I get emails from our member bank’s team members that say, “It doesn’t feel like sales. We all feel so good about ourselves. We feel like we’re helping people.”

Step 2: 

When they’re asked for their rate, educate your people to ask a “Break Preoccupation with Rate” question 100% of the time. These precede situational questions, such as, “How long will you live in the house?” or “What are your goals for this money?” The next six steps of the sales process to obtain the entire relationship (without price being brought up) can only follow IF the first step of Breaking Preoccupation with Rate is done right.

Until your people, in just one question, get the customer to realize that rate is only a small part of the buying decision and that you need to look at them holistically, they’re not going to get hardly ANY value from the other sales questions—they’re still thinking rate.

Step 3:

You need to make sure that the Break Preoccupation with Rate questions are asked consistently. Include mystery shopping, drills and practice to make sure they know how to adapt that question based on the specific product line. It needs to be an ongoing, never-ending process.

Three steps are necessary to engage the customer to get them off their obsession with rate so that it doesn’t matter, but their relationship and bringing in all of their business does. Here’s the roundup:

1) Don’t do anything that looks like traditional sales. It’s icky and doesn’t belong in community banks where we need to elevate to a more elite and helpful approach.

2) Create mastery of the Break Preoccupation with Rate™ Question part of the process.

3) Make sure the entire break preoccupation with rate system continues to elevate your result. You should monitor that by making sure the NIM and cross-sales needles continue to increase every month and mystery shop to make sure that your people NEVER miss that critical first step.

By following this three-step formula, you get back all the self-respect you and your people deserve. You earn the esteem that comes with knowing that you are the best of the best, and deserve to be paid more since you are the diamond status advisor—not just another banker.

Make sure you tune in to the next video where I’ll show you when and how to use the Positioning Questions step from the “No More Order Taking” 7-Step Sales Process.

To your continued success,

Roxanne Emmerich

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board. 

P. S. Challenging times are proven as the moment to pull ahead. It’s your time to snap up low-cost deposits and seize your competitor’s best customers—but not if you have “order takers” in front of your customers and prospects. My Breakthrough Banking™ Blueprint Conference is designed especially to explore what smart banks do during tumultuous times. Register today.

The post Ask the Magic Question and You Never Have to Talk Rate [VIDEO] appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

When your customers and prospects view you as no different than the bank down the street, you create a situation where retaining customers and attracting new ones is beyond difficult.

The first reaction is to blame the customers. You’ve heard it at banking conventions before. Someone will complain, “Customers don’t care about relationships anymore. It’s all about rates and fees.”

That’s backward thinking.

Yes, it is all about rates and fees if you don’t give the customer any other good reason to use in making their decision.

Notice the change…

It’s up to you to provide them with a good reason to choose you.

I know you’re thinking, “But we do give them reasons to do business with us. When you come to our bank, we have a friendly, service-focused staff.”

That’s great, but it’s not any different than what every other bank is saying. If you want different pricing — premium pricing, you have to be delivering premium value far beyond what your competition does.

Never let the words, “We have good people” or “We have good service” be uttered by your people again as a reason for your premium pricing. You must be able to prove you are worth at least 150 basis points more on the loan side and at least 25 on the deposit side.

And that is the new game of banking.

The post The Antidote to Commodity Hell appeared first on The Emmerich Group.

The cause is much more profound.

It’s inside each of your lenders, and it may be inside of you. Frankly, it’s not your fault (or theirs). It’s unconscious and has been a limiting belief in the banking industry for at least 100 years (probably longer).

And don’t worry, if you’re frustrated with your margin, but feel you have to fight any way you can to keep the customers you have and get new ones, you’re not alone. In fact, you’re in the majority.

Look at what the majority of people are doing, and do the exact opposite, and you’ll probably never go wrong for as long as you live.” — Earl Nightengale

I’d like for you to reflect on that quote for a moment. Look around you. The majority of people are not wealthy. The majority of people are sub-par in terms of health. The majority of companies fail in the first five years. And, the majority of bankers are screaming about compressed margins.

Do What the Majority Does and Get What the Majority Gets.

Are you doing what the majority of banks are doing right now? Or are you doing the things that the most successful banks are doing? The top 5% of banks?

I’ve invested the last 25 years of my life working with Top 5% and getting them there within just a few years.

The Top 5% performing banks operate very differently than the bottom 95%. And the difference starts with what I’m about to share with you.

Frankly, I’m concerned that if I do share it, you won’t believe it. It may seem too simple. It may seem like something that’s difficult to change (although it’s not). You may think, sure, I can do it, but how will I ever get my lenders and the rest of my team to do it… I’ll show you how.

The Real Reason You Match Rates

The root of the problem causing an industry-wide crushing of net margins isn’t the competition. It isn’t the economy. It isn’t the Fed. It isn’t even the meetings in Basel.

No, the root of the problem is in the limiting beliefs in the minds of bankers in banks across the country.

You see, if you don’t believe you’re worth a premium rate, you won’t get a premium rate. If you don’t believe you’re worth a premium rate, your customer won’t believe it either.

It all starts with fixing the beliefs about you, your bank, what you’re selling, and why it’s valuable to people.

People will never create results that exceed their “world view.”

Yes, there are some new skills that you’ll need to get out of the net interest margin crunch, but none of those skills will help if you and your people don’t first change your limiting beliefs… and begin believing that you’re worth premium prices.

You’re probably thinking right now, “No, I want premium prices, but my loan is essentially the same as the next bank’s. Why would anyone pay more for the same thing?

You’re right. They shouldn’t have to pay more.

The trick is this… don’t offer them the same thing as the next bank. Offer them more value that far exceeds the substantial additional pricing you charge.

The post How to Attack the Root Cause of Net Interest Margin Compression appeared first on The Emmerich Group.