When developing a salesperson’s advanced selling skills, it's important to focus on not only what the prospect says but also what the prospect doesn’t say.

As many of you know, I am a music aficionado…and as such, I would be remiss if I did not note the passing a few weeks ago of the singer Meat Loaf at 74 years of age. Born with the name Marvin Lee Aday, Meat Loaf sold more than 65 million albums worldwide.

He also has something to teach us in terms of mastering advanced sales techniques around the topic of having clarity with the prospects in our pipeline. Go ahead and sing along with me:

And all I can do is keep on telling you
I want you
I need you
There ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you
Now don't be sad
Cause two out of three ain't bad

Now while the name of that song is “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad”, we can also refer to this as “The Dance of the Prospect.” Maybe it brings to mind a recent deal you chased. You know, the one you were sure you were going to win right up until the moment that you lost. I doubt you will disagree with me when I say that prospects can be quite elusive and quite vague when you meet with them.

When we are working to develop a salesperson’s advanced selling skills, we focus on not only what the prospect says but also what the prospect doesn’t say. Here is what they often say and all of this is enticing bait for salespeople:

• We have heard good things about your company
• We are open to new ideas
• We think you might be able to help us
• We would love to see in writing what you could do for us

That is your prospect saying, “and all I can do is keep on telling you…I want you…I need you”. But what you might need to consider is what they are not telling you, which is “there ain’t no way I’m ever gonna love you.”

But hey – for all you salespeople…don’t be sad. After all, two out of three ain’t bad.

We talk to hundreds of community banks a month about their growth plans and how they are doing against their target production goals. Typically, they fall into one of two cultural categories: Service or Selling. We know right away if a bank CEO is OK with the concept of their people selling. They expect their managers to lead sales, they have sales metrics in place and they are comfortable with the idea of developing the sales skills of their frontline people. They are in the community selling the bank themselves every day. They recognize that their relationship managers or lenders or business development people’s primary responsibility is selling. Sometimes that selling is by developing additional relationships with a current client but it also includes bringing in new client names and companies. It always involves putting the client’s needs, goals and preferences first. These bank CEOs must grow their banks and they know that a banking sales training approach will help them by putting a structure in place for all to follow.

Here are 5 things to consider if your bank is thinking about a more effective banking sales training approach:

1. Do some soul searching. Does your bank really need to know the answers to questions like; What are our current sales capabilities? How motivated are our salespeople and how are they motivated? Can we generate more business? Can we be better at reaching actual decision-makers? Can we shorten our sales cycle? Can we sell more consultatively? If so, time to look for a better banking sales training approach. Check out these 19 questions to help.
2. It is hard to fix something you cannot see. In order to have a more effective banking sales training approach, you will need to take a peek beneath the hood, meaning that you must evaluate your sales team, managers, and salespeople. We utilize the #1 sales assessment in the world with our clients which provides them with information about the Will to Sell (and Manage), Sales DNA, and Sales Competencies of their people. You must have an X-ray to develop the treatment plan. Your evaluation should provide a clear picture of who to train, strengths and weaknesses, what priority areas of selling and sales management.
3. Start your banking sales training development plan with your Management team and put consistent sales management practices, sales systems, and processes in place. We recommend a 4-pillar Sales Managed Environment® program that will make your managers better at setting standards, motivating their sales team, coaching, and upgrading/recruiting. Get your sales leaders a few steps ahead of the sales team and then implement a consistent sales process for all your team to follow. This should complement and align with your CRM so that everyone is evaluated on a consistent approach and your deals can follow a stage-based process. We know from working with thousands of salespeople that “elite” salespeople always have a consistent selling approach.
4. People learn in different ways so make sure that your banking sales training program offers an integrated learning path with in-person, online modules, live virtual, video, online resources, and even phone coaching to talk about actual deals in the pipeline.
5. Keep an eye on progress because as the saying goes, you must inspect what you expect. We also call this the shadow of the leader. The banks that are successfully implementing a banking sales training approach are led by CEOs and sales execs who have a passion for growing and inspect sales behaviors and metrics regularly and celebrate the wins. No one can hide from the expectation that they must help grow the bank.