Leading Your Banking Sales Team: 5 Keys to Success
T
he working theory at many banks is that a successful lender or relationship manager can be promoted and successfully transition to managing and coaching others to do the same. However, there are very different skills required of sales managers than salespeople, with the most important of them being the driving desire to develop and achieve success through others. Both roles do include relationship building and the ability to quickly and effectively find and develop a bond with others, however, the core skills of a sales manager must be transitioned from doing to teaching and coaching. Here is a framework of five activities that provide a new or tenured sales leader with specific activities they need to put in place to help them lead their team to greater success.
Critical Success Factor:
12 Months from Now
Extraordinary Excellent Good Poor Failing
• 20 •
• July-August 2022
1
Guiding the team to set extraordinary goals One of the biggest complaints of many relationship managers is that their goals are set by the company and are not realistic. But interestingly enough, if a sales leader effectively takes their salespeople through a process of establishing their own goals, salespeople will typically set them higher than the company might. We recommend a process to help managers with this problem that includes helping their team establish
Extraordinary Goals. Utilizing a matrix like the below, a sales manager begins with asking the salesperson what a Good goal for their year is and fills that in. Then they decide on Poor and Failing levels. Once those are established, they have a conversation about what an Excellent year would look like, and then what an Extraordinary year would be. Numbers are essential along with a discussion of what would be needed to achieve these levels. Once all those numbers are established, the sales leader asks the lender or RM to which level they want to be managed and coached. Most high-performing RMs will choose the top level. What is key however, is that the sales leader ask the salesperson if they will allow them to be coached to that level and gains the understanding that it will be hard, and challenging. Utilizing this process, the salesperson has established their own goal and will be more committed to doing what it takes to achieve it.
