Sales Boot Camp Training Boost
August 05, 2008
Forum Credit Union Sends Frontline Personnel to Boot Camp
By Sarah Boehle
Forum Credit Union launched "Cross-Selling Boot Camp" in February 2007 to take frontline employee sales skills to the next level.
"We found that 'selling' had a bit of a negative connotation among frontline staff, so we wanted to change the conversation a bit," says Assistant VP of Training and Quality Service Andy Janning. "The goal was to put all frontline branch selling staff in a room together and go back to basics by showing those who might be resistant to sales or who were unsure of which products to cross-sell how to analyze member styles, understand member needs and connect with members more effectively."
Training recently spoke with Janning about the program, its impact and his tips for success.
Training: What does Cross-Selling Boot Camp entail, specifically?
Janning: It starts with a self-assessment to determine each participant's "selling personality," which is symbolized by a color. The "direct" (green) type asks for the business outright and doesn't take "no" for an answer. The "spirited" (red) type is talkative, focuses on building relationships, and asks for the business assertively. "Systematic" (yellow) sellers explain in detail and like to use numbers and percentages when selling. Finally, a "conservative" (blue) builds relationships and gets to know the member on a personal basis.
We then compare each employee's type to the type of members he or she will serve and show the employee how to analyze our members' individual buying styles. From there, we complete a variety of exercises to develop each employee's skills in building rapport and closing the sale with each member type—not just the type to whom an employee is most similar. Then, we show participants how to develop and execute a realistic sales plan.
Finally, to ensure transfer back to the job, we ask attendees to share what they learned in Boot Camp back at their branch. They also receive laminated handouts and accordion folders to organize pamphlets, applications, and rate sheets for easy distribution to our members.
Training: What results has the program delivered thus far?
Janning: The need to cross-sell is something that our branch managers could have talked about until they were blue in the face, but once we brought a trainer on board with extensive sales expertise in the financial services industry, the credibility of the program was established. Based on real-world experience, she was able to show participants what really works, and share best practices and proven techniques. The effect was transformational. Many people walked out of class saying that it was a completely different way of doing sales. They saw that it really wasn’t about selling. It was about making connections with our members, building relationships, and helping to make our members' financial dreams come true.
We also have very strong numeric results tied to the program. On average, we typically see a 35 to 50 percent increase in cross-sales among our Boot Camp participants during the first six to eight weeks post-training. One participant's cross-sells increased by 158 percent in a single month. And one participant's branch was recognized as the "Most Valuable Branch" for the quarter, with an increase in deposit dollars of over $300,000 and an increase of 60 percent in sales goal attainment when compared to peers.
Training: What tips and best practices can you share with others who are interested in implementing something similar?
Janning:
• Establish the right culture. We set a fairly high bar in terms of relationship building and selling with our frontline staff. We stress that banking is no longer a deposit/withdrawal industry, and that it is imperative that we transition away from transaction-based work to looking for ways to serve every need at every point of contact with our members. We are upfront about these facts during our interview process, and we set sales goals that all frontline employees are expected to meet.
• Follow up. It's easy enough to train people, let them go and hope that the training sticks. We take the opposite approach. When participants leave Boot Camp, we let them know what their goals are and how they will be measured. Then, we consistently follow up with them to ensure they are reaching their goals, and to offer additional help if they need it. We will even travel to our branches and coach individual employees on a one-on-one basis.
• Make sure you can measure. We can easily measure how our people are performing against sales goals because we have tracking built into our intranet that is broken down by individual, branch, all branches, and product and service type. As a result, we don’t have to "research the results." When frontline personnel attend Boot Camp, we can readily see whose performance change is the highest.
• Find meaningful rewards. When someone goes through Boot Camp and hits his or her objectives, we make a point to reward and recognize that individual in a meaningful way. Sometimes it's a free gas card. Other times, we'll send a note to the employee’s manager telling her what an awesome job she is doing developing her people. Sometimes, we even send a note to the employee's house telling her spouse that we appreciate all of the support that he gives her at home, and what a great job his wife is doing at work. We also provide those who are consistently successful on the frontlines with an opportunity to train other people in the organization by becoming a subject matter expert (SME). We currently have 51 SMEs, each of whom helps us to create training content, share best practices and reinforce others' learning on the job.
FORUM Credit Union is a financial services organization based in Indianapolis. In 2008, it placed 106th on Training magazine's Top 125 list, an annual ranking of organizations that excel at human capital development.
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