Next Year Is Now

Late every July, many major league baseball teams look to improve for the long haul. They have no hope of winning now since most are below .500 and looking up from the bottom of their division. The playoffs are in their rear view mirror this year. These teams (it used to be the Cubs before Theo Epstein got to town) dump veterans, all stars, even MVPs to add these new prospects to their roster. They come to the ballpark every day to compete in the current season. They realize, though, that even in July, next year is here. 

What we don’t realize, however, is that by resting – even for a week – we slow the pipeline and funnel process down for one or maybe even two going forward quarters.

This should go on more in our industry. The fourth quarter in commercial banking is frenetic. We’re closing things at a rapid rate, shoving things onto the balance sheet as fast as possible. We burn lots of midnight oil and on December 31, we collapse. We are tired and for a while we collectively exhale. What we don’t realize, however, is that by resting – even for a week – we slow the pipeline and funnel process down for one or maybe even two going forward quarters. That means every year we get behind plan and we get behinder and behinder.

At one Midwest community bank this madness has stopped. Executive Management recently decided to play for next year, this year by experiencing Logo Day.

It Started In September

Forty three bankers were involved in the process. They hailed from the branches, commercial banking, treasury management, wealth management and mortgage. They were given instructions to select nine prospects they would be proud to add to their portfolios in 2018. Using their own criteria as to company size, industry type and where the prospect banked now, they thought carefully and strategically about these opportunities. 

Bankers reviewed LinkedIn, they drove around their communities, they took photos of truck doors (when they were at stop lights) and looked at previous prospects they had previously contacted but had not yet earned their way in the door. 

After selecting nine prospects they visited the website of the company or went to Goggle Images and copied the logo of each firm onto a plain piece of paper. These were saved, printed in color and brought to Logo Day on October 9. 

Logo Day Trade Show

Did I mention the CEO and the heads of the aforementioned divisions participated too?

The day began with some initial exercises to put the focus on sales and to get their minds around prospecting. This included questions about current prospect approaches, how they found their leads and why these firms were added to the list. Phones were put away and everyone was focused. Did I mention the CEO and the heads of the aforementioned divisions participated too? Think that made a difference? 

After these initial discussions, bankers hung their logo sheets on the wall. For 30 minutes, they participated in a Logo Trade Show. Colleagues went from sheet to sheet looking for duplicates to their list or for a company that perhaps they had forgotten about but might have an easier way in the door. They wrote “dup” for ones they shared with someone else and “mine” if they wanted to steal (in a friendly way) someone else’s prospect. 

Getting Their Six

The goal of this bank’s Logo Day was to have each banker walk out with targeted prospects along with a touchpoint strategy. In this case, management wanted them to focus on six. To accomplish this, bankers were asked one by one if they had duplicates with another associate. If so (and it happened with about 50% of the bankers) each associate stood to defend their position. Here’s what one dialogue sounded like.

Banker One – Commercial Banker

“I selected XYZ because I know two people from the company that attend chamber meetings. One is in marketing and one in HR. I sit at their tables often and we are each connected on LinkedIn.” 

Banker Two – Branch Manager

“My sister has worked at the firm for five years. She is the assistant to the CFO.”

Each banker was given the opportunity to relinquish the prospect. In this case, the commercial banker gave it up with the caveat that when the branch manager started her prospecting journey, to keep him in mind for future joint calls. This process lasted for nearly two hours. Bankers had great and honest conversations with each other and even the CEO lost a couple of his opportunities. If needed bankers would look to an objective third party (that would be me) to determine who kept their prospect. That occurred a few times. 

One great unintended consequence to this event is that for one rare moment each of the 43 bankers is talking sales, prospecting strategies and creative in the door ideas with colleagues. They are sharing best practices and even discussing specifics of leaving effective initial voice mails and collaborating with gatekeepers. 

Some bankers lost two prospects. Others lost none. At the end of this exercise each bank did two things:

• Eliminate prospects to get their list to six opportunities
• Prioritize those opportunities based on their own criteria 

Now What?

Bankers were given a very short job aid to complete. They completed the name of the company and the name and title of the individual to contact. They inserted a brief Prospecting Strategy describing what benefit the CEO of the firm would achieve from seeing someone from the bank. This approach caused associates to focus on the prospect, not products. 

The final box on the sheet focused on a high level initial contact strategy. That might be as simple as connecting on LinkedIn and requesting a meeting, an initial letter strategy (the bank works with a program called PowerProspecting), seeing the individual at a networking meeting or obtaining a referral from someone. Cold calling is not an option. The bank does not allow it. 

And Now for Something Completely Different – Coaching

With six completed prospecting strategies in hand, each banker found their manager in the room and scheduled a meeting within one week. The goal here is for the associate to discuss the prospect, their strategy and to even practice their phone conversation with the boss. 

This Action Planning and coaching approach has a good history of success. Managers will discuss successes and progress during weekly Check-ins. They plan to listen to some appointment telephone calls. They will interweave Logo Day wins and learns into pipeline meetings. Shining a light on this and other key activities helps the bankers with new ideas and holds them accountable to execute. They could quickly see that Logo Day was not a motivational speech or a “training event.”

Last year one bank had 20 business bankers participate in Logo Day. They each selected 12 prospects and 50% ultimately became clients. The bank earned 120 new clients and 40% of them borrowed money. With an average deal size of $900,000, the bank generated more than $43million in new loans with millions more in new deposits and fees. 

Buying endless lists and having bankers burn through them makes no sense in today’s uber competitive financial services landscape. Bankerpreneurs own their territory. They select who they would be proud to have as a client. They create the opportunities and engage them in a trust-based manner. Logo Day helps facilitate that process and gets everyone at the bank excited. It helps them play for next year, now.

Jack Hubbard is Chief Experience Officer of St. Meyer & Hubbard, Inc. Jack has trained and coached more than 69,000 bankers, and is one of the industry’s most sought after classroom facilitators. Want Jack to lead your Logo Day? Hcan be reached (and you can listen to his voice mails) at 847-717-4328. You can reach out via email (his out of office message won’t be on) at [email protected]. Jack tweets @saleshubbs. He is obsessed with LinkedIn where you can connect and converse with him any time and you can join The Business Banking Network and Social Selling for Bankers, St. Meyer & Hubbard’s LinkedIn Groups.