In today’s world of selling, it is increasingly difficult to get the attention of a prospective buyer after only a few outreach attempts.

We know prospects are busy, but let’s face it, we’re all busy. The real question is this: how do you stay consistent and persistent in your outreach while remaining sensitive to your prospect’s time, priorities, and daily distractions?

Sales prospecting has always been a difficult task for salespeople, especially when it comes to reaching the prospects they call and email each day. They call, they email, they follow up, and they wonder if anybody will ever do one of two things:

• Answer the phone.
• Return a voicemail or reply to an email.

While this is certainly not a new challenge in selling, engaging with prospects has become dramatically more difficult. If we go back to 2009, it took around 8-10 outreaches on average to engage with a prospect. Today, that number has risen to 16-18 attempts. Keep in mind that these are averages. Sometimes, it takes even more attempts across multiple channels before a prospect pays attention.

Recently, I was leading a sales training workshop in Dallas, and a high-ranking bank executive asked me why I thought the number of outreaches required has increased so dramatically in the world of sales prospecting. In my judgment, there are three main reasons.

1. Distraction

Prospects are busier than ever before and are constantly battling the distractions that come their way. Their mobile device buzzes, and they have to look. The email notification on their computer sounds, and they can’t resist. Some have estimated that the typical person picks up and puts down their mobile device between 200-300 times each day.

2. Competition

There is more competition than ever before, and it is fiercer than ever before. Online resources, AI options, and apps on every device all contribute to a chaotic, competitive world where prospects have more choices and more noise surrounding them.

3. Commodity

Unfortunately, in some industries, the prospect believes that the vendor calling them and the vendor they currently use are essentially the same. The prospect does not see any meaningful difference.

To them, a bank is a bank. An insurance broker is an insurance broker. A technology provider is a technology provider.

Of these three reasons, the third is the most concerning, or it should be. If you do not differentiate yourself from your competition by providing value, your prospect will do the differentiating for you. But they will not use a measuring stick of value. More often than not, they will use a measuring stick of price.

So, what can you do to improve your sales prospecting success?

Add value.

Giving Instead of Selling

Value does not begin when you present a solution. It begins with how you show up in the sales prospecting process.

The most crucial principle of a value-based selling approach is focused on giving to your clients, not taking or selling. Read the book Go-Givers Sell More. Unlike other methodologies, value-based selling is not about what products and services you offer. It is about what the client wants and how you can help them achieve their goals.

You’ve heard the saying, “It’s about the journey, not the destination.” Value-based selling, especially in financial services, is a relationship-building process. Part of your value is the process you take prospects through as you provide advice, ask questions, and help them think differently about their challenges.

Give a Listening Ear

You may have had this experience before: someone asks you a question, and before you finish answering, they are off to the races with their own stories and thoughts, interrupting you along the way.

That is not a good feeling when it happens, right?

You want others to hear you when you speak. Unfortunately, financial services salespeople are often guilty of doing the same thing. A salesperson might ask, “What do you plan to use these funds for?” and then immediately jump to a product solution without asking any further questions.

Using a value-based sales approach requires you to go deeper in discovery. You must become better at asking good questions and listening first. Skilled salespeople know they can learn almost everything they need through the process of asking and listening, and that is what builds trust.

See how many questions you can ask before proposing a solution. It will become easier with practice.

Spend Time Getting to Know Your Client

In the world of financial services sales, every client is different. The early stages of the sales process should be used to learn as much about them as possible.

Identifying the different relationships with your clients, thinking about what has worked for other similar clients, and sharing relevant examples can help you develop credibility with new relationships.

What do you bring to the table for your prospect that no one else does?

Surely your product can be found elsewhere, so your value must come from more than the product itself. Your experience uncovering issues, asking better questions, and solving similar business challenges is what spotlights your value.

Follow Through Using a Process

Value selling in financial services is not easy. Becoming masterful takes consistent focus, work, and insight.

We know through thousands of evaluations that elite salespeople utilize a consistent sales approach process because it works. Strong value-based salespeople care deeply about the benefits the customer receives, and they are disciplined enough to follow a process that helps uncover the right solution.

That same discipline matters in sales prospecting. If most salespeople give up too soon, then consistency itself becomes a competitive advantage.

Here is another sobering statistic about the world of modern-day sales prospecting. While the average number of attempts has increased to 16-18, most salespeople quit after fewer than 5 attempts.

Maybe they think the prospect is being rude by not replying. Maybe they think that, “in the good old days,” people used to return calls. Regardless, the world has changed.

Prospects are a hard fish to catch. You might need to be out there fishing just a bit longer than in the past, with something much more enticing on your hook.

We all know that selling can be an emotional activity both for you and your prospect. For your prospect, it’s because they need to put their faith and trust in you to help them grow their business or make a significant investment. If they make the wrong choice, bad things could happen to their company. For you, the salesperson, it’s your livelihood.

With all those things coming together, understanding how to qualify prospects using a scorecard can help take some of the emotion out of the process.

Why Learning How to Qualify Prospects Matters

Let’s take a look at both sides of a selling situation. We know this: people buy emotionally and justify logically. The only time emotion is usually not involved is when someone is buying a pack of gum or a gallon of gas.

Other than that, there’s an emotional side for a prospect, and our job is to find out what really matters to them personally and professionally. We do that by asking the right questions that trigger their interest and create what we call the “journey to self-discovery.” That journey can lead them to choosing you because you are the best option.

Learning how to qualify prospects using strategic questions like these is key:

• Suppose this situation doesn’t get addressed. I’m wondering how that will impact your growth in the upcoming year?
• What if this continues to go on and you can’t find a solution for this problem you’re trying to address? What’s the impact going to be on you personally?

You must ask about and learn the impact of the current situation because if there’s no impact, there’s no problem. If there’s no problem, there’s no opportunity.

That’s our job as salespeople: to find the emotional trigger that will lead a prospect to self-discover that they cannot continue living with the impact and should consider further discussion around your solution options.

How Salespeople Can Better Qualify Prospects

Now let’s talk about the salesperson in this role. We have to keep our emotions in check because most salespeople get excited as soon as they hear a “buying sign.” For example, when a prospect says; “That does sound interesting that you have helped others with this problem.” Oftentimes, a salesperson will start running to solutions and deliver their pitch at the first sign of interest instead of deepening the conversation and overcoming their initial emotional reaction. If you don’t temper that, you will start running with things that seem like a good opportunity, but really never had a chance to come to fruition. Sometimes, our prospects are trying to utilize us and our information as leverage to get a better opportunity somewhere else or with their current provider.

So, let’s take a look at how we can tamp down that emotional part of this sales process for the salesperson. We recommend using a tool called the Prospect Scorecard to teach your sales team how to qualify prospects more effectively: (free PDF download below!)

How to Qualify Prospects With a Prospect Scorecard

The Prospect Scorecard helps remove some of the subjectivity from selling and gives salespeople a more objective view of an opportunity. The scorecard identifies what you know about an opportunity and what you still need to discover.

Think about your top five opportunities and rate yourself on the information you know about each prospect:

• Give yourself a 10 if you have the answer
• Give yourself a 5 if you have partial information
• Give yourself a 0 if you have not uncovered the information yet

If you end up with a really low score, ask yourself why you are trying to win this business when the probability of winning is minimal. Or maybe you are simply missing too much critical information to determine if they are truly a qualified prospect.

Then go uncover the answers.

Understanding these key areas is an important part of learning how to qualify prospects effectively.

One of the Most Important Factors in Prospect Qualification

We have learned over our 30 years of sales training that the source of the opportunity is one of the most important indicators. If you are introduced, you will have a higher probability of winning that business. Makes you think you should go out immediately and ask your current advocates to introduce you, doesn’t it?

Look at this Prospect Scorecard as a living document and a continual monitor of how to qualify prospects. Today you may give yourself a four or a lower number on a prospect, but as you’re progressing through the sales process, that number should go up or they should come out of the pipeline. We’ve had some companies we work with that will not release a term sheet or a quote until this probability score is 65 or higher.

Why a Prospect Scorecard Improves Sales Opportunities

Once you have a scoring mechanism like this, you can look at opportunities more factually.

• What do you know?

• What do you still need to know?

This process helps salespeople take emotion out of the opportunity and evaluate the situation more objectively. When you use this tool, you may find that some opportunities disappear from the pipeline. While the quantity of opportunities may go down, the quality of those opportunities can improve significantly.

As a result, salespeople often improve their close ratios by focusing on more highly qualified prospects!

In a recent national broadcast, Mark Trinkle, Chief Growth Officer at Anthony Cole Training Group, sat down with Kevin Brewer, Chief Sales Officer at Citizens National Bank, to talk about a challenge many banks face today: how to give lenders the courage to succeed in a competitive environment.

As Community Banking Month highlights the vital role community banks play in their local economies, conversations like this one reinforce what drives that impact: strong lenders who know how to build trust, create value, and consistently perform.

Mark opened the conversation by setting the stage. Top lenders, he explained, can drive nearly 10 times as much revenue as lower-performing lenders. They’re also four times more likely to exceed expectations. But despite that impact, they’re rare — making up only about 16% of lenders.

Kevin agreed. “They are rare to find,” he said, “and to get one on your team is a blessing.”

Every one of these situations requires some “selling”, and in every situation, you had to make a case for why the outcome you desired was a good outcome.  That, my friend, is the essence of selling.  So, why do sales get stuck?

What Makes Top Performers Different

What separates those top performers from everyone else? Kevin didn’t hesitate. “They have a passion, but they also have ownership and commitment to do whatever it takes,” he explained. “If it goes well, they’ve worked hard and had help along the way. If it doesn’t go well, they’re asking themselves, ‘What could I have done differently?’ They don’t blame other things. They own it.”

That idea of ownership became a central theme throughout the conversation. Mark reinforced it: “Accountability comes down to owning the outcomes you’ve created.” Because in banking, it’s easy to fall into the habit of blaming external factors — the economy, competition, rates, or even the prospect. But the best lenders don’t do that. They take responsibility for their results.

Banking sales strategy tip: evaluate new lenders for ownership and passion.

The “Will to Sell” Problem in Banking

From there, Mark introduced what Anthony Cole Training Group calls the “Will to Sell,” which includes desire, commitment, outlook, responsibility, and motivation.

Kevin’s perspective on motivation was clear. “The top performers have something internally,” he said. “I don’t know if they want to win more or just hate losing, but they have something that makes them wake up every day and go get after it.”

But when Mark asked whether that motivation can be taught, Kevin was honest: “It’s hard to give somebody motivation. You can encourage them, but some people just want it more than others.” Mark agreed and took it a step further. “You can’t teach someone to care.”

That’s what makes desire and commitment so critical — and so difficult. Leaders can coach skills, but they can’t manufacture drive.

Banking sales strategy tip: evaluate your team for desire, commitment, outlook, responsibility and motivation.

The Reality of “Accidental Salespeople”

One of the more relatable moments came when Mark talked about how many lenders end up in sales. Most didn’t choose it. “I don’t think many people grow up saying, ‘I want to be a banker,’” he said. “We have accidental bankers — and most of them found themselves in sales by accident too.”

Kevin agreed. That reality helps explain why many lenders struggle with selling. They don’t see themselves as salespeople, and as a result, they often take a more reactive approach.

“They’ll come to us,” is a common mindset. But Kevin made it clear why that’s risky. “There are good bankers out there hustling,” he said. “They’re going to be calling on your customers. People don’t just walk into banks anymore.”

Why Asking Tough Questions Matters

As the conversation shifted to consultative selling, Mark emphasized the importance of asking questions — not just surface-level ones, but tough questions.

Kevin explained why that matters. “When we ask tough questions, it helps us understand if it’s really a fit,” he said. “If it’s going to be a no, I want to know early.” But many lenders hesitate to go there. Kevin pointed out that sometimes it’s simply easier not to. “If we don’t ask the tough questions, people are less likely to tell us no,” he said. “And then we have something to talk about in our sales meetings.”

Mark added another layer. “Salespeople work hard to get the meeting. The last thing they want to do is ask a question that might end it.” But avoiding those questions often leads to stalled deals and missed opportunities.

Banking sales strategy tip: sales leaders must do regular pre-call and post-call reviews with lenders to help them develop a consultative questioning approach

“Nice to Have” vs. “Must Have”

This hesitation often keeps conversations stuck in the “nice to have” category. Kevin shared how that plays out from his perspective. “I’ll have vendors call me, and I’ll think, ‘That might be nice to have,’” he said. “But in the back of my mind, I know it’s not going to happen this year.” The issue isn’t whether something is appealing — it’s whether it’s compelling enough to create action.

Mark explained it this way: “You can’t win by being a little bit better. You have to be miles better.” To do that, lenders need to uncover real problems and determine whether the current relationship is breakable. Without that, even a strong offering won’t move the deal forward.

The Importance of a Sales Process

Another major theme was the role of a structured sales process. Mark made a bold claim: implementing a strong, milestone-based sales process can increase sales by 20% on its own.

Kevin backed that up from experience. “It’s really hard to lead a group if you don’t know where they’re at,” he said. “A process helps us stay disciplined. It helps us ask the right questions and understand where we are in the deal.”

Without it, everything becomes inconsistent. “It feels like everyone is doing their own thing,” Kevin added. “And it’s hard to measure or improve.”

Banking sales strategy tip: implement a proven and effective selling system and track all prospects in your pipeline within these sales system stages

Selling Value vs. Competing on Price

As the discussion continued, Mark introduced another key distinction — selling value versus selling on price. Some lenders can only win when they have the lowest rate. Others can win even when they’re not the cheapest. The difference comes down to how they sell.

Kevin explained why timing matters. “It’s hard at the end to explain your value if you didn’t show it at the beginning,” he said. “You have to ask questions in a way that demonstrates value early.”

Mark reinforced that idea. “Why would they pay more for something they never saw?” If the conversation starts with pricing, it usually ends there.

Banking sales strategy tip: value begins with the development of a unique sales approach. Take time to practice this with lenders and develop actions to differentiate from others

Strengths — and Gaps — in Banking

Despite the challenges, the conversation highlighted some strengths.

Bankers tend to be strong relationship builders and are often good at getting in front of decision-makers. But even there, gaps remain. Kevin pointed out that while lenders can get to a “yes,” they often struggle with urgency after that point.

“We’re good from the beginning to a decision,” he said. “But from that decision to closing, we struggle with urgency.” Mark summed it up simply: “The most urgent person usually wins.”

Final Takeaways

As the session wrapped up, Mark recapped what separates top-performing lenders:

They have a strong will to sell.
They ask better questions.
They uncover real problems.
They follow a process.
They sell value.
And they create urgency.

The encouraging part is that many of these skills can be developed. But as both Mark and Kevin made clear, it all starts with something that can’t be taught: The desire and commitment to succeed.

If your bank is looking to strengthen these sales strategies and drive more consistent performance, we can help.
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